Page 8 of Not Her Day to Die (Star-Crossed #2)
A fter a few more minutes of silence, Grayson finally pulls away from me. “It’s time we tell you. Tell you as much as we possibly can. At this point ignorance will only get you in trouble.”
Axel inclines his head, his messy hair falling forward. “Finally, we agree on something.”
My mind races. When Grayson first revealed to me the loops I didn’t believe him, but then he reminded me of all the happenstances and the near deaths. And I remember the déjà vu. The feeling in my gut, the tugs in directions I didn’t necessarily want to go.
When I left to chase after Julia, it was almost as if I were having an out-of-body experience, as if I weren’t making those choices at all, but they were made for me.
Looking back…there are a lot of instances that feel that same way.
The memorial.
The party at Maxwell’s.
The river.
The space center.
Julia.
“Julia.” Tears form, but I blink them away. “Did she always die? Was there nothing I could do to stop it?”
Grayson opens his mouth to speak but pauses .
Axel takes over. “We don’t know. All I can say is I never saw her alive at the end. She’s been in the Thorne’s clutches since before Tripp and Auggie were killed. We tried to find her, for your sake, for our own, to see if it would change anything, but it never did.”
“What about the agent’s daughter? The girl with the yin and yang tattoo?”
Grayson shakes his head. “We can’t be sure if you ever found her, but we weren’t there when you did. There were some lifetimes that we weren’t together for, that we tried to let you live on your own, but it didn’t matter, the universe still found a way to strike you down.”
“But why?” Why had this happened to us?
Why was I granted so many chances when so many others, weren’t ?
Axel snorts. “A fucking wish on a goddamn star. You made one and so did we. That’s the only thing that makes any sense, even if it makes none at all. Some sort of cosmic flaw, we made one to keep you safe. And you made one to reunite with those you love. ”
My face burns in shame. “I told you?” But even as I ask, I know that I have. Just as I know with certainty everything they say is true. Maybe the memories aren’t currently reachable, but I can almost feel as the fragments slice through my brain. “But why do you all remember?”
“Because we aren’t the ones that die. Every time you died, we would be tugged to your body.
Forced to find you. And as soon as we did.
It would all restart. Over and over again.
” Axel snaps. “You are the stupid girl that kept running headfirst into danger. Do you know how it felt? To go through that so many times? For us to watch you die over and over again without being able to stop you? You drove us half mad, and we had to be. We had to be insane to carry on the same pathway so many times.”
“It isn’t her fault,” Grayson admonishes .
Axel pushes a hand up through his shaggy hair.
“Fuck!” He heaves a shuddering sigh. “It’s not your fault, Sunday.
None of this is your fault. We realized early on, the ‘choices’ you made were strands of fate tugging you towards your demise.
All we could do was try to be there to stop it.
And we also realized that parts of you remembered the past. Remembered what had happened. ”
“The barrels.” I don’t know why I say that but as soon as I do, a fuzzy memory forms in my mind.
Darkness. Dizzy. Rolling.
“Yes,” Grayson agrees. “You died there, I didn’t expect your reaction to it, but some part of you must have recalled it.”
My mouth opens and more questions burst free. Of how long they have lived through these endless cycles. Of all the ideas they tried. Of why they never gave up. Of who kept killing me.
And for their part, they take turns answering me, being patient and accepting that I finally deserve to know everything. I understand why they hadn’t told me before because it’s a lot.
Nearly too much.
But the more they divulge, the more I feel myself connecting to my past selves, understanding that we are all the same person, but we are just made up of different facets.
“Do you get it now?” Axel asks. He’s sitting on my bed, his chin resting in his palm as he watches me. “Why we treated you the way we did? Even when we told you in past lives you still died. It was like playing a game of tag, but as soon as we reached you, you would fall down into a pit and die.”
I laugh at that. “That’s not how tag works.”
Grayson smiles wistfully. “It is for Axel. He used to set traps for us.” Grayson finally relaxes, settling on the bed with us. “Maybe, now that everything has played out, that you’ve made it past your death day, you can safely leave this town. We can help you escape, and you will be unharmed.”
A weight drops down my throat, heavy and acidic, I gulp around it.
“Darius.” So caught up in my racing mind and my endless questions, I had nearly blocked my worry away, but now that it is back, it attempts to envelope me.
“What can we do? How can we get him away from his dad? The agent said there are reporters? Can we talk to them?” They had explained how evil the Thornes are.
Their link to the hidden underbelly of this town.
“Talking to the reporters will only paint a larger target on you,” Grayson warns. “There is no we , Sunday. You need to go somewhere safe, and then Axel and I will rescue Darius.”
This time, I can’t blink back the tears and they fall freely. Landing in big drops on my lap.
“You idiot!” Axel swings back before landing a heavy punch on Grayson’s shoulder.
Rejection slithers against my skin. It leaves a trail of anxiety in its wake.
Were they really going through all of this, all of these years of insanity just to keep me safe? Do they even actually care for me or is this all out of obligation, to fulfill some celestial prophecy? To complete this timeline? And what of me now?
Maybe they would be better off without me ruining what’s left of their lives.
Without me giving them another lifetime of death, destruction, and tragedy.
Without me .
I’m alone. Just like before, but now I know what it feels like to not be.
How will I survive it ?
I need Darius. He would make this all better. He always knows what to say.
But…but what if he doesn’t want me either?
After all, isn’t he in danger now because of me? Stuck with his evil father.
The tears turn to loud sobs. They block out the altercation between Axel and Grayson.
“Sunday, hush, he didn’t mean it. My brother is an idiot. We all care about you, we aren’t going anywhere.” I feel the scratchy leather as Axel gathers me up. “We’re not going anywhere, I promise. Please .” He’s begging now.
But I don’t know what for.
My sobs intensify.
I am crying for myself.
For my previous selves.
For Julia. For Darius. For Tripp. For Auggie.
For this god-forsaken town.
For Jane and her daughter.
For the countless victims that came before them. For the many more that will follow.
For nothing. For everything.
I am a blubbering mess and I don’t know how to stop. It’s as if now that I am letting my emotions out, I can’t pull them back, can’t wrap them into a neat bow and leave them be. They are strings, frayed at the edges.
What if they went through all of that and I still die? Or even worse, their brother dies? What if to keep me alive someone has to trade places with me? Isn’t that how it always works?
I am hyperventilating now, I can’t stop it. My body is weak, damaged, and I’m in so much fucking pain. Emotionally, physically, spiritually.
Sunday your soul is marred .
The words aren’t my own, but they pop up into my mind as I continue devolving. I no longer feel Axel’s arms, hear his heart. I no longer see Grayson or smell the chemically sterile hospital room.
My vision twists to a bathtub, I want to fall into it, to calm myself down, but then I see it’s already occupied.
With my own body.
Pale and gaunt. Terrifying.
Lifeless. Bloated.
I scream. And scream. And scream. Until I’m breathless, until I can’t anymore.
And then I’m coughing and wheezing and scratching at my throat.
Arms grab me now, but they aren’t familiar.
I attempt to fight them, to shake them off, but then my body stops cooperating.
My motor skills devolve into a numbing chill.
And then I am drowning.