Mia Darien - Good Things

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Magic and mayhem. Vampires and gods. Cops and werewolves. The binding thread of mysticism in the modern world and acts of kindness, small and large, random and focused. Join these ten authors as we travel through their worlds.

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“Never seeing you again.”

I lock my knees to keep from falling.

“I get the distinct feeling that if you walk through that door tonight, I’ll never see you again.”

“Maybe you won’t,” I say. You shake your head at me.

“I’m not okay with that, lass.”

Another spike of heat to my gut. I shake my head slightly to try in vain to clear it.

“Maybe you should be,” I say.

You shrug.

“What can I say? I love danger. How do you feel about adventure?”

Before I can answer, someone grabs your shoulder, pulling your attention away from me and breaking me from your spell. Cursing my stupidity, I run for the door, rudely shoving my way through the crowd. I’m gone, down the alley before you even realize I’m gone.

FIFTH LETTER

With every step, I stab the wet pavement with the heel of my boots.

“Selfish,” I mutter, cursing myself for being so stupid. I shake my head, forcing back the tears that threaten my cool composure. What was I doing? You’d see me, know me, and then what? I put you through the hell of watching me die all over again? And for what? All for the chance of seeing you again? Selfish. I was risking too much for my own interests. It’s a mistake I wouldn’t make again. I will not be going back to the club. I shove aside the wrenching scream that tears at my insides. I have to deal. Maybe I’ll move to some remote plateau or curl up in my forest and die in a place where I can’t hurt you ever again.

You call my name, and I stumble over my feet. Cold runs down my legs.

My name.

I never told you my name since your deal with Death. You would have no way of knowing, unless…

I gaze over my shoulder and into your eyes. In that moment, you own me. I’m yours, and again, as before, your words are the commands I’m eager to follow. My mouth is agape. It’s as if I’ve stepped into one of my dreams. I see sadness in your eyes…the moon, the sun, the world all hang in your eyes. You look at me as if you know me. I want to ask, but fear takes me. What I want I can’t begin to have, but if I don’t start walking now, I never will.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say. I don’t know where I find the strength to speak. “Please…” I say. “Leave me be.” I turn to leave.

You call my name and it pulls at my heart, but I keep walking.

“I remember!”

I stop and look back, my eyes wide with disbelief. Everything about you has changed. Your games are over. For a moment, I think you’re angry with me. I can’t name the look in your eye.

“What did you say?” I gasp, unable to breathe.

“I remember,” you say again. “I remember everything.”

I brace for Death’s cold hand. I wait for the earth to open up and take me away from you. But none of that happens. I’m afraid to move. Perhaps with my first step, Death will see us and she’ll know. I’m too afraid to move. The earth begins to shift.

“The forest. The hunters. The gun shot,” you say.

That day comes back to me as you walk me through it—all of it. It’s as if the last year never happened at all. This can’t be real. The street is spinning, but you keep talking.

“The blood…and Mara.”

Mara. Death’s name leaves a vile sick in my throat.

“My deal with Death,” you say. “All of it.”

I hunt your eyes for truth and truth glares back at me. My blood turns to ice as my legs buckle. As if waiting for me to fall, you’re on me, catching me just as my legs give out. I fall to my knees and I cry.

You take my face in your hands and you pull me into you. And just like that, my love, the world comes rushing back, and, for the first time since that night, I can breathe. I gasp between my sobs. I curl my fingers into you, too afraid to wrap my arms around you, should you be a wonderful dream I’ll soon wake up from. Too afraid to let go should you be real. You hush me as you rock. But I feel you shaking. You’re just as scared to lose me. If you let go…perhaps I’m not really here at all.

“How?” I ask.

“I never forgot, lass,” you say.

“But the letter…” I gasp. I can smell you and your scent clouds my head. “Why…Why did you write…?”

“I wrote what she allowed…”

My heart is pounding as if beating the life back into me.

“I didn’t lose my memory, lass. You did. That’s why I wrote you the letter…because you didn’t remember.”

The world is spinning and I am teetering on panic.

“You didn’t lose…” I gasp. “You didn’t lose… I…?”

All the letters. All the dreams. All the nights spent clawing at my skin, wishing for death. I force my brain to focus. You were still holding me there. You next to me. Telling me I couldn’t kiss you. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think.

“What,” I whisper. My head is spinning.

“I never lost my memory, lass,” you say. “That was part of the deal.”

I’m hyperventilating as I battle against the air to breathe. “Why are you telling me this?” I gasp. “For a year… A whole year… You knew? What I lived through? The hell I lived through?”

“I lived it too,” you say gently.

“Why?” Tears streak my face, and you wipe them away with your thumbs. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“You were at the club. You were there every night. I thought it would be easier if you thought I couldn’t remember… If you stayed away—”

I’m shaking my head, desperate to clear it…to think.

“I saw how you looked at me,” you say. “It was killing you.”

“Of course it’s killing me… You’re…”

I can’t bring myself to say it.

“Why?” I whisper.

I think about it for a moment. I see you holding me right now, rocking me…

“If I saw you, knowing what you know now… Could you then see me and not have me? Could you let me go?”

I thought about the months that had followed that day. Of nights spent screaming. I hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept. I lay in bed for months, writhing in pain. When I did finally moved, it was because I had moved to find the club where you played. I lived to see you, to know you, to hear you. Aching to speak to you, and touch you. And this now. You, so close, right there, sharing now in the hell and the agony, knowing what we both want but can’t have. If we do…if we do… I don’t know any more.

“Was this just a game to you?” I ask. “Is that what this is? Something you could play with, handle, have, toy with then just throw away?

The question upsets you and at once I regret asking it.

“Not throw away,” you say.

“What am I to you?” I ask. “Is this just a game? Was any of it real? What really happened that day?”

“I believed…if you thought I couldn’t remember, it would be easier.”

And it had. It did. I had to admit.

“Until I saw you,” you say. “Not knowing, suffering this alone…it was clearly taking its toll on you. I knew you when you first came into the club. I watched you fall apart. This was eating you up inside. And you carried it all alone.”

“So what now?” I ask. “We’re to go back to what we were? Me hanging back, watching you from another life? Pretending none of this ever happened? That I don’t love you? That we didn’t—”

But you don’t let me finish. Your mouth is on mine so fast, so hard, I suddenly don’t care about any of it. You silence me with your kisses, and I rise up and respond.

I don’t know how long we sat in the street, kissing under the lamplight. I don’t know when or how we came to be in the manor in the wood where you live. I do remember thinking just as I fell asleep with you beside me how many questions I had with too few answers. I do remember having no care or concern for the death witch who we had just betrayed or the price we would soon pay.

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