She seemed uncomfortable with that knowledge. “I know.”
I walked out of the room I let her use. “Are you going to make me leave?” I didn’t think I was meant to hear that one.
But I responded anyway from down the hall. “Not a chance.”
Ten
Isabella
"Fading” as Sebastian called it was vastly different from using a portal chip. I was left mesmerized once again the second time I faded with him. While porting seemed to happen within a blink of an eye and you just appeared where you wished to go, fading was different. It was like stepping out of time and coming to a pause in a darkened place. Once we entered that place, it was just us there, and I had just enough time to study the side of his chin, the bone structure and the slight stubble that wasn’t there yesterday. Staring at him made my stomach dip to my toes, and a fire burned at my core that his good looks had no business lighting. It was seconds was all, but it felt like I was looking up at him forever when the light finally came, and we reached his destination.
Sebastian slowly removed his arm where it was wrapped around my waist, my shirt safely separating our skin. He gazed down at me, wondrous and enthralled—an expression I’d never seen anyone else give me before, and he always seemed to be looking at me that way. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded, taking another step back. I looked around. “Are we in the human world?”
He smiled and with what distance I made between us; he stole back by grabbing my gloved hand and pulling me forward as he walked through someone’s door like a ghost. I quickly cast a spell over myself so that I could slip through it too. “We all have a quota of deaths we have to each take care of within a day.Thankfully, my dad has a lot of Reapers or our job would be a lot more difficult.”
I frowned, taking in the woman lying on the hospital bed in the living room. There was silence between her family as they waited. “This is... I don’t see how…” I couldn’t find the right words.
“Sad?” he offered, and I nodded. “It is,” he agreed, stepping away from me. “But it’s also a reminder that things like love still exist in this world today.” He saw my confusion and elaborated. “Look at her family, is that not love?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I saw tears. All kinds of tears. And sadness amongst them. It made me uncomfortable.
“They’re crying because they don’t want to say goodbye.”
The only thing this reminded me of was the things I’d never had.
And just like that, Sebastian took me places across the world and was the guide between life and death, Heaven and Hell. I witnessed him open the passage to Satan’s flames and my skin was still tingling an hour later when he faded us to a small diner. I didn’t know the name of the town, but he seemed to be familiar with this place. We ordered and waited for our food. I took in the retro feel of the diner and decided this place was a reminder of the past in a chaotic present. I liked it because of that.
“You’re quiet.” He leaned back in the booth and observed me. He wore a dark pair of jeans and a black shirt that hugged the bulging muscles rippling underneath. I wondered if maybe we looked like a couple to those around us or some sort of gang because of the dark clothes. At least he had gotten rid of the cloak he wore before coming into the diner. That would have been awkward… Halloween wasn’t in June.
“It’s been a strange day.” I sighed. “It’s not every day someone forces you to rethink the way you see life and death. Sothanks for depressing the shit out of me. I thought I was used to death after working at the hospital for the last year but…”
“That’s actually the tame part, wait ’til you see how we deal with the demons that get too sick for their own good.”
“I doubt that will faze me,” I whispered just as the young waitress placed our food in front of us. She blushed as she eyed Sebastian. He didn’t seem to notice, but it had me slightly annoyed. He was too handsome for his own good. Women were subject to feel things they shouldn’t feel for someone they just met, myself included.
Sebastian’s phone dinged just as our waitress walked away. He checked his text before slipping it back in his pocket. “That’s good because we might have found our witch. If not her, at least another one of her hideouts.” He looked determined if not pissed. “How quick can you eat? We’ve got kids to save.”
I picked up my spoon and scarfed some mashed potatoes in my mouth. “I’m accustomed to being on the run. I can do anything quickly, no problem.”
His eyes lifted from his plate. “You ever leave any broken hearts behind?”
Shaking my head while eating, I replied. “I don’t date.” Where were my manners again? My voice was so muffled I could barely understand myself.
“Or fuck?”
I choked on my food and had to take a drink of my Sprite. He watched me with hooded eyes.
Not in the last year,I thought to myself.
“Those are serious problems. I think we should fix those, but later.” He took one more bite of his burger before standing up and pulling me out of my seat. “We have to go.”
I bent down and took one more bite of my steak before letting him lead me outside. “Careful not to touch my skin,” I warned him as we walked behind the diner and stopped next to a stinky dumpster. I covered my nose just as he faded us to a new destination.
We were in the Underworld now. There was no sun here and a moon that rarely showed itself and wasn’t even real. I eyed the darkened sky then the spooky mansion in front of us. “Is that where we’re going?” I asked.
He pulled me forward. “Bring out the witchy business. The zapping shit you do,” he said as we walked the chipped concrete steps. “I can’t go saving you. We gotta get these kids out of here. You can go back to top priority afterwards, okay? Try not to get too jealous.”
