Page 14 of In Death’s Hands (The Threads of Fate #1)

Liv

“How do you know they exist if you’ve never seen them?” I ask, not sure what’s got Nathan so thoughtful.

“Just like you know your heart is beating. The thudding is faint, but it’s there.

” That’s all the explanation I’m going to get, it seems, as he finally turns back to face us.

Face me. “Trust me when I say this pains me as much as it does you, but we must go and search for them nonetheless. Together. The Fates are the only ones who will be able to explain why these accidents keep happening to you, and how we might fix it.”

There is so much to focus on in his sentence, and yet I find myself slightly hurt by his statement that it would pain him to be with me.

To go on that trip—journey, quest ? I wonder, almost snorting out loud—with me.

I guess it would make sense for him to be tired of rescuing me, I know I am.

“Do you really think they can help?” I ask instead, ignoring my pathetic train of thought.

He nods. “I do.”

“Can’t you go search for them alone?” asks Turan, wariness making her features tight and tense. “She should stay here, under guard.”

“You know as well as I do that there is no safer place for her than at my side,” he says, his body shaking with barely leashed violence.

Turan’s eyes widen for a second before she relents, nodding once. “Yes. I am realising that, brother.”

“Then it’s settled, we leave tomorrow morning.”

“Wait a minute,” I interject, jumping to my feet. “ Nothing is settled. I may accept all too willingly your stories as truths, but I can’t just pick up and leave. And go where exactly?”

“Would you rather stay and wait for the next car to crash into you?” Nathan asks me, his voice surprisingly harsh. “Or maybe for the next time you stumble into an alley to be quickly murdered by a member of the Novensiles?”

I ignore the hair jumping up all over my skin at the temperature drop. As if his ire made my flesh react instinctively. “I would rather understand what the fuck is going on!”

“Then come with me,” he growls, his breathing ragged, his eyes wild.

“Nathan!” thunders Turan, and it seems enough to allow the tension suffocating the room to lessen.

“Come with me,” he says, his tone almost pleading now, “and help me figure out what happened to you. What keeps happening to you.”

“Why do you even care?” I wonder, my voice barely above a whisper.

It’s like watching a room magically clean itself—the crumpled clothes picking themselves up and folding themselves neatly before willingly going into the waiting arms of the open wardrobe—as his face neatly clears itself up of all emotion.

Any clue that could have told me what he was feeling suddenly disappears, leaving me cold and alone standing before Death’s assistant.

“We need to know how you escaped Death.”

Escape? I didn’t escape anything. I was freed from it. A present I did not— do not—deserve. “So you can prevent others from escaping it too?”

He looks at me deeply but does not answer.

I wonder what he thinks of me. If he believes I escaped Death, does he believe I cheated his boss?

Does he see me as a wrong that needs to be righted?

As a broken cog that needs to be removed to ensure the machine works as expected?

No. He saved me, I remind myself. He did, but that seemed like instinct.

Maybe once he has his answers, he’ll need to rectify what clearly went off the rails twenty years ago.

I wonder if I’ll feel something then. Mostly, I’m excited by the prospect of meeting Death again, even if it is for my final journey.

I am back at work. No one is more surprised than I am, although I shouldn’t be since it’s my life and I should get to make my own decisions.

But leaving Nathan was tough. Not only because he made it hard by explaining how it wouldn’t be safe and how there were far more urgent things that needed to be figured out, but because it aches to be without him.

And that is not a word I ever thought I would use, for anyone. Ever.

But here I am. With worried messages from my guitar teacher on my phone, of all things, and co-workers that are far too concerned with my well-being.

“I am fine .” Isaiah is off today, and Leela is the one taking orders while Joana harasses me with questions.

Leela only started a week ago, replacing Ibrahim since he graduated from his MBA and was quickly poached by a fancy company, and is clearly in need of guidance as she fails to explain to a customer that he can’t ask for a refund on a half-eaten pastry.

The nineteen-year-old art student throws me a pleading look and I quickly sidestep my overbearing colleague.

What’s up with everyone lately? If Death’s assistant couldn’t keep me contained, Joana certainly won’t be the one to succeed.

After I’ve successfully handled the client and reassured Leela that she did just fine, Jo is back on me like a piece of hair stuck on my lip gloss on a windy day. “You’re fine, but you need to leave for a while.” Not a question, so I don’t answer.

I get that it’s a hard pill to swallow. It is for me too. But even I have to admit Nathan isn’t completely off-base saying I’m not safe. So, after many back-and-forths, to Turan’s exasperation, we compromised.

I agreed to figure things out with him as long as I could settle things in my life first. I don’t know how long this shitstorm will last for, if I’m even going to survive it—Nathan did not appreciate my saying that—but I won’t disappear without a trace.

I need to have a life to come back to when all this is done, after all.

Sure, it feels more like a placeholder than an actual life, but I’m sure I’ll figure things out for myself soon.

“And you need to leave with him ?” asks Jo, pointing rather violently towards the larger-than-life man sitting in the corner and glaring at anything and anyone in a three-metre radius of me.

Right. That was part of the compromise. I could come to work as long as he was there to protect me.

It was either him or Turan, but the one that would not be by my side would be the one going back to my place to settle things with my landlord and pack my stuff, and letting him rifle through my underwear drawer was not an option.

I would do it myself, but the thought of going back there makes me want to puke, so I graciously relented to their plan. After putting up a fight, of course; I wouldn’t want them thinking they can uproot my life and make decisions for me all willy-nilly.

I have no idea how Turan will handle my flat and escape the notice I’m supposed to give, but there’s only so much I can worry about. What’s claiming the very first spot on that overwhelming list right now is a tiny woman currently walking through the door of the café turning my palms clammy.

“He’s only here to give me a ride,” I hiss, lying through my teeth at Joana, who’s still looking at Nathan like she would enjoy burying him in her back garden.

I let him have the pleasure of handling her and the interrogation I’m sure is coming his way as she marches to his table like a war general ready to take down the enemy. I have more pressing issues, like the very elegant, very intimidating, wrinkled woman walking my way. I gulp. “Hi, Mia.”

“Liv,” she says, her grey eyes roaming all over me and frowning at what she finds. “You said this was urgent.”

“Yes. Thank you for coming on such short notice.” I don’t remember the last time I was so nervous.

This woman trusted me, believed in me. Letting her down now really doesn’t sit well with me.

But what choice do I have? As far as I know, the people after me could very well come in here and decide that witness-free dark alleys are not that important so long as they take me out.

I can’t put everyone here in danger. I gesture to a free table close by. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No,” she answers simply, never one to bother with the unnecessary. She gently settles on the wooden chair like it’s a throne and allows her eyes to take in every nook and cranny of the space around her. “I see you are taking good care of the place; there is no need for me to test it out further.”

Her words would once have sent me flying high enough to touch the clouds; now, they only birth a pang of guilt in my belly, hot enough to scar. She gave me a chance and kept trusting me and challenging me over the years. And now I’m abandoning her.

“Out with it, girl.”

I jump slightly and exhale the words weighing on my heart in a rush. “I need to take a leave of absence.”

Her eyes widen slightly, and her surprise is just another nail in my guilt-ridden coffin. “Is the handsome young man behind me the reason for this sudden request?”

It’s my turn to be surprised. When did she notice him?

How could she know he has anything to do with anything?

I also wouldn’t call Nathan young. Actually, I wouldn’t know how to describe him, although “handsome” seems like too weak an adjective for his sharp features and piercing eyes.

He could be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties.

It’s hard to say. But I guess for her, anyone below the age of sixty is young.

At a reigning seventy-three, Mia is a business shark that isn’t remotely interested in swapping her tailored suit for a floured apron.

Those cunning eyes of hers hold a glint as she scoffs, “Oh, please. He hasn’t stopped looking at you except to scowl at anyone who comes close. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

I don’t know why her words make me blush.

I know why he’s looking at me, and it definitely has nothing to do with the hot romance she has in mind.

But I don’t correct her. Maybe it’s easier for her to think me a fool in love rather than know I’m running for my life.

That thought sends a jolt of panic through my system.

I am running for my life. It only strengthens my resolve to solve this thing fast. “I have an opportunity to travel, and maybe find some answers for myself. Answers regarding…” Who wants to kill me.

Why I survived in the first place. “Potential family I didn’t know I had. ”

I feel dirty. Mia knows I grew up under state care, and although she’s a highly successful businesswoman, her family means everything to her.

I saw that once when we were in a meeting and her daughter went into labour.

She dropped everything immediately and yelled at her driver to start the car and drive her to the hospital to support her child.

So it’s not a surprise to see her entire face soften at my outrageous lie.

I want to sink to my knees and beg forgiveness for giving her hope.

Hope for myself and my happiness. I won’t even think about what that lie is doing to my own heart, how the fact that it could never be true sinks its jagged teeth deep into the soft tissue that bleeds and bleeds without any hope of ever healing.

I am alone. A wound I’ve been stapling for twenty years now, trying to keep myself together.

The rest of the meeting is a blur. She immediately understands, and although I can see her desire to know more, she doesn’t pry.

I do explain quickly that Nathan is a private investigator who will help me look for that elusive extended family.

Each word makes me fall deeper into a spiral of shame, but I don’t want him to get in trouble should anything happen to me.

My contract demands I give two weeks’ notice, but I pull Mia’s heart strings enough that she waives them graciously.

I explain everything she needs to know about the state of the business, and the orders and agreements in process with various retailers.

I also recommend Isaiah as a temporary replacement, should he accept.

Joana would loathe the extra work and doesn’t have the time to care for this place, and the other baristas are too recent to be considered.

Isaiah, with his steadiness and patience as well as the care he pours into everything he does, is the obvious choice.

By the time she hugs me goodbye—a first that leaves me teary-eyed—and I sit down in front of Nathan, my heart hurts.

It pains me to leave them all behind. I may not have wanted to spend my life here, but it still doesn’t feel right to steal away into the night without so much as a proper explanation. Or rather, without the truth.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he explains in a gentle voice that only makes me sink deeper. I don’t deserve his kindness. I keep wrecking people’s lives, and the one thing I was good at, I’ve just abandoned it like a bad piece of meat on the pavement.

I don’t answer, unable to find the words, and go back behind the counter to finish my shift and help the people I consider friends, despite what they may think about me, for what I hope isn’t the last time.