C. Adams - Version 2.0

“Just listen, okay?” her gaze shifted back and forth between his eyes and the barrel of the gun. “No one was after you, until you ran.”

“Liar!” his hands shook around the gun and he compensated by tightening his grip.

“I’m not lying. Just put down the gun so we can talk, Artie.”

“I don’t wanna talk. I want you to go away and let me live my life!” he spat as he shouted.

“The kind of life you’re living isn’t allowed. Not here. Please, just put down the g—” but Birdie’s sentence was cut off by the sudden sound of gunfire, and a burning, white-hot pain in her chest. Her eyes widened, keeping fixed on Artie’s, who looked shocked standing there with his mouth hanging open.

“Oh god…” Artie whimpered, eyes filling with tears at what he’d just done. “I… I’m sorry. I’m…” his eyes were fixed somewhere on her chest, and Birdie looked down at herself. There was blood now pouring from the small hole beside the name tag on her jacket.

Suddenly lightheaded, she dropped to her knees. Her head picked back up to look at Artie, who held that gaze for just a moment before he took off running again. She watched him for a few moments, knowing she couldn’t catch him and didn’t have time to pull out her own weapon. It was getting harder to breathe, and she laid back on the concrete sidewalk, placing a hand over the wound. The rain quickly picked up, spotting her uniform.

It occurred to her to fish her cell phone out of her pocket and call for back-up. Though in reality, the only thing she needed right now was an ambulance. All she told the dispatch, however, was that the suspect was running North on Pier Drive, and that he was armed. She didn’t end the call but let the phone, covered in her own blood, drop down beside her in what was now a pool of satiny red.

She looked up at the sky, but didn’t see it. She only felt, and thought to herself, “So this is what it feels like to be dying.” She thought of her brother; about how he was in this position on his back when he stopped breathing, as well. And as her eyes grew heavy and the world around her grew fuzzy, she thought, “This isn’t so bad…”

The sky was suddenly dark and blurry. But it was unnatural. It was more of a deep red-burgundy color. Birdie had never seen anything of the sort.

The ground beneath her seemed softer; the air, stiffer. Everything was out of focus, and there was a strange, yet not altogether unappealing smell attacking her senses. She blinked a few times before remembering, “Oh yeah. I’m dead.”

If she’d been saved, she thought, she’d have awoken to white walls and the smell of antiseptic. Of course, who knew that Heaven or Hell, wherever she had ended up, would smell a bit like jasmine and honey?

“Are you finally waking up?” a feminine voice sounded from somewhere beside her.

Birdie squinted and turned her head toward the voice, blinking a few more times until the face came into focus. The woman looked young; perhaps a few years younger than Birdie. She had the most golden-blonde hair she’d ever seen, which seemed surreal against her dark, glowing skin. Though it could be said that Birdie’s eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the atmosphere of… wherever she was.

“Are you… an angel?” Birdie asked, her voice a bit raspy and dry.

The woman began to laugh. The laugh itself was a bit absurd, and quite contradictory to the beautiful features of the woman who possessed it. “That never stops being funny!” she said.

“Please,” a male voice sounded before he walked into view, meeting Birdie’s eyes. “Don’t encourage that awful sound,” he raised his brows and gave a small smile. The man looked more like he was in his forties. He was tall and lanky with very light skin, as if he didn’t frequent the outdoors much. His eyes were an unreal shade of blue.

“You ain’t in Heaven, doll-face,” the woman told her.

“So I’m in Hell… Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, hotter?”

“You’re not dead, sweetheart,” the man told her. “Well you were , technically, for a while. But now you’re not,” he stated, with a matter-of-fact tone. “My name is Emmett. The angel ,” he made quotations with his fingers, “To my left, is Teresa.”

“Call me Reesy,” she elaborated.

“I’m Birdie,” she introduced hesitantly, as she propped up on her elbow to take the bottle of water Emmett was handing to her.

“We know, honey,” Emmett replied. “Amber ‘Birdie’ Farran. Born October 31, nineteen and seventy-nine. Died March 12, two-thousand and thirteen. Reborn March 14, of the same year,” he smiled and turned to walk toward the counter, his hands floating about in the air beside his shoulders as he did so. Birdie felt the corner of her mouth turn up fondly, as she looked after him.

“Oh, don’t waste your time,” Reesy shook her head playfully, as she wrapped what looked like a blood-pressure cuff of some sort around Birdie’s arm. “He bats for his own team,” she winked.

“As if it wasn’t obvious,” Emmett said over his shoulder, then turned his head to meet Birdie’s eyes, momentarily. “But thanks for the flattery.”

“I wasn’t…” Birdie let out a small laugh at the thought that they’d assumed she’d been checking him out. “This… this is insane,” she pushed herself up to sit, swinging her legs over the side of the table. “Where am I?” A sudden wave of dizziness washed over her, and she felt the world begin to tilt.

“Whoa there, princess,” Reesy stood and grabbed onto Birdie’s shoulders to steady her.

“Not a princess,” Birdie replied, a bit out of breath. “What’s wrong with me?” she tried to steady herself so that she could shake her off.

“You died, genius,” Reesy replied. “You think it’s easy to come back to life and start running a marathon?” Birdie looked at her, incredulously. “Well, it ain’t,” she answered for her.

“Not the first time, anyway,” Emmett added as he came back to the table with a syringe in his hand.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Birdie inched away from him at the sight of the needle. “What is that? What is this?” she became anxious. “What are you people? Mad scientists or something? Am I some kind of freaky science project?”

“Sweety,” Emmett tilted his head to the side, “Do I look mad?”

“Madness comes in all shapes and sizes,” Birdie retorted nervously, but not without lack of wit.

“But does it ever look this fabulous?” he turned a bit to the side, waving a hand down the length of his ensemble. Birdie noted the tailor-fitted pants and shirt beneath the white lab coat.

“We can all see that you’re quite beautiful, Em,” Reesy rolled her eyes a bit. “Can we get back to explaining what’s going on, for the frightened little bunny rabbit?”

“I’m not frightened,” Birdie defended. “And I’m certainly not a little bunny.”

“Honestly, Reesy,” Emmett glanced over, “She’s already got an animal nickname.”

“Can we please just get to where the hell it is that I am?” Birdie sternly insisted.

Emmett and Reesy looked at her, brows raised and silent for a moment, before Emmett opened his mouth to reply, “First of all, this ,” he indicated to the syringe, “Is a vitamin cocktail. You haven’t eaten, and you’re body went through a lot of trouble to repair itself. You need these until you’re completely up and running.” He injected her in the arm right below her shoulder, and she only flinched because of its suddenness. But part of her questioned herself for trusting their words. “As for where you are, honey, you may not be in Kansas, anymore—”

“Delaware,” Reesy corrected.