Tara Fuller: Blurred

Finally, she tossed my cell phone to me and I dropped the book to catch it with both hands. I had to let the words roam around in my mouth for a minute before I could get them out.

“Do I know you?”

“Sort of.” She shrugged. “I know you.”

I squinted at the pretty, unfamiliar girl in front of me. Long brown braids tumbled over her shoulders, and her skin looked like honey against the bright-white straps of her dress. The laces of her gold sandals wrapped around her calves. Though I wasn’t sure if you could call her sandals gold. Not next to those eyes. Those eyes were a color all their own. They didn’t even look real. Neither did the faint glow that bathed her from head to toe.

A warm sensation swept over me and a shiver exploded across my skin. I looked around, but there weren’t any shadows. Hadn’t been for a while.

My heart stuttered in my chest before seeming to stop all together. It was…her. Her eyes. Those were the same eyes I’d seen at the fire. And that same warmth that settled over me like a blanket of safety any time she came around. It had to be her. Normal girls didn’t look like that.

“It’s you.” It was stupid, but I didn’t really know what else to say. Seriously, how often do you meet a dead girl?

“‘You’ works,” she said. “But you could also call me Anaya if you want to.” She sat down against the stack, motioning for me to do the same, and wrapped her arms around her legs. She rested her chin on her knees and looked me over.

“Anaya?” The memory came flooding back. Finn had mentioned an Anaya. Hesitantly, I crossed over to where my bag sat on the floor and sank down across from her.

“What…what are you?” I stopped and inhaled as big a breath as my lungs could hold. They ached and protested before forcing me to cough it all back up.

She cocked her head to the side, studying me, as if she were trying to decide what to say. “I’m a reaper,” she finally admitted. “You should be familiar with that term by now.”

I swallowed, pressing back until the shelf dug into my back. “Like Finn.”

She simply nodded, so eerily calm, it made my skin crawl. How could she be so calm? I felt like my brain was about to explode, questions filling up my head so fast they pressed against my skull. “Are you here to take me?”

Anaya stood up, but she wouldn’t look at me. Instead she focused those amazing starlit eyes on the floor. “No. Not yet.”

“Yet? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She said it like there would be a later.

“I’m here to watch over you, Cash,” she said, exasperated. “No need to look at me like I’m some kind of villain. I think we both know there are things much worse than me out there to fear.”

“You mean them.” I pushed myself up to stand, nodding to the book. “The shadow demons?”

Anaya raised a brow and walked a circle around the books I’d discarded on the floor. “Maybe those books had some answers after all.”

“I had to look somewhere. It’s not like anybody else will give me answers.” I tried to concentrate on breathing. It was hard not to feel dizzy in the presence of her warmth. It made part of me long for her to come closer. The other, more sane, part of me screamed for her to stay the hell away. “Why are these things following me? What do they want?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but I imagine it has something to do with the fact that you’re in an expired body,” she said.

“Expired?”

“You’re not dead, but you’re not exactly alive right now, either. You’re balancing on this tightrope between life and death, a side effect of putting you back in your body at the fire. These shadows are attracted to the scent of death and the emotions that accompany it. The closer you get to death, the more appealing you seem. It’s the only reason I can come up with. I’ve never seen them go after one of the living this way.”

Thoughts spun around in my head fast enough to make me dizzy, or maybe that was just the fact that

I was breathing too fast. I grabbed the shelf beside me for support and felt my brows pull together.

“Wait a second…what do you mean the closer I get to death ?”

At that moment the pain in my chest spread and burned through me. I pushed against the spot with my fingers. No. That was from the fire. Right? I just needed my inhaler.

A sad look passed over Anaya’s face as she watched me collapse on the inside. “You’re dying, Cash.

Can’t you feel it?”

My fingers hovered over my heart, feeling it pound against my ribs with fear. She was lying. She had to be. I mean, yeah, I knew I was fucked up, but dying ? I wasn’t even eighteen yet. I hadn’t even graduated. I couldn’t be dying. I retreated until my back slammed into the stacks, knocking a few books onto the floor.

“You’re lying,” I whispered, wishing it were true.

“I’m not.” She took a step closer. “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

I forced my gaze to meet hers and swallowed. God, she was pretty. I should have realized that somebody that pretty was dangerous. She was like a freaking walking Venus flytrap. “Why? Why am I dying now? They released me from the hospital. I could go back—”

“It won’t matter.” She cut me off. “You were meant to die in that fire,” she admitted. “You were on my list. I was supposed to take you and I didn’t. I let you stay.”

“What do you mean you let me stay?” I asked. “Like you saved me?”

Anaya laughed, bitterly, and pushed herself away from the book stack. “Saving you would have been taking you to Heaven where you belonged. No, Cash. I didn’t save you. I think we both know that.”

I barked out a laugh. “Heaven? Me? Now I know you’re full of shit.”

Anaya tossed a tired expression my way and stepped into a dusty stripe of sunlight. If it was possible, she looked even more beautiful. Wait…beautiful? I shook my head, hoping the thought would bounce right out of my ears. She was Death. A walking nightmare. No way did that word belong anywhere near this girl.

“The second I pushed you back into that body, it began to expire,” she said. “It won’t last. It will deteriorate. This is just a waiting game now.”

Deteriorating? As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew it was true, because it’s exactly how I felt inside. I was dying. Fuck. I didn’t want to die. Not yet. I wanted to go to art school. I wanted to get away from my dad and prove him wrong. And Em… Damn it, I couldn’t leave Em.

Her molten eyes slipped over me, filled with something dark. Guilt, maybe? Pity? Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. She finally straightened her back and looked away. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” I balked. “You tell me I’m dying and that’s all you can say?”

“Look, I know this isn’t fair to you,” she said. “And I’m not cruel. I’m just doing my job, following orders. If I’d had any idea that this would happen…” She shut her eyes and shook her head, causing a few silky braids to tumble over her shoulder. “I’m going to try to make this whole thing as easy as possible on you. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. You deserve that much.”

At a loss, I just stared at her. Words. I still knew how to form words, right? It was like this chick sucked every ounce of sense right out of my brain.

“Why didn’t you just take me at the fire?” I whispered, knowing that if I could have this one question answered, maybe I could deal with the rest. But the not knowing was killing me. “Why put me through this?”

Anaya’s light dimmed and she frowned. “It wasn’t my choice.”

“Then whose choice was it?”

“Someone much more powerful than you and I combined.”