Death and the Girl Next Door

“This.” He lifted his hands to indicate himself, then winced. “Me. Do you know how many times I’ve bled on this plane? I don’t bleed. I don’t bruise.” He turned on Cameron. “And I certainly don’t get knocked out by a boy with a stick.”

Cameron grinned from ear to ear in triumph as Brooklyn asked, “Then why?”

“I don’t know,” he said, working his jaw as though angry with himself. “I broke the law.”

After taking a steadying breath, I stood and asked softly, “What law?”

He stared into the darkness, whispered what must be the laws of his … profession—profession being the only word I could come up with. “We cannot change history. We cannot change human will. We cannot redeem the sins of the father.”

Brooklyn frowned in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“It means I broke the law. I changed history. You were supposed to die. I was just supposed to tweak the timing a little.”

Glitch exhaled loudly and asked the obvious. “Okay, besides the fact that all this is freaking me out, I have to ask, doesn’t that in itself change history?” He bent his head in thought. “I mean, either way, you would have stopped Lorelei’s grandparents from dying, right? That’s a change.”

“Yes, that’s a change. But only humans can change history. I would not have changed history. Amanda Parks would have.”

We all looked at him even more bewildered than before.

Again, Glitch asked the obvious question. “Who’s Amanda Parks?”

A grin softened Jared’s battered face. “A five-year-old from Portales, New Mexico, who prayed that her father—the guy your grandparents would have killed in the accident—would arrive home safely from his business trip.” His smile widened as though he was picturing her in his mind. “A child’s faith. There is nothing stronger on earth, I promise you.” He looked at me, seemed to want me to understand. “Because of her request, I was sent to change the circumstances of her father’s death. Thus, by association, those of your grandparents. They were directly involved in Amanda’s request. That is how their fates would have been altered. Amanda Parks would have changed history, Lorelei. Not me.”

Though I still felt like I was trying to catch a minnow in the water only to have it slip between my fingers each time, a glimmer of understanding did seem to be taking root. There were laws, even for supernatural beings.

“But you did,” I said with gentle resolve. “You changed history.”

“I did.” A sudden sadness came over him. “Lorelei, you don’t know what I’ve done to you. I’m so sorry.”

“You’ve changed history for me.”

“No, you’re wrong.” He bowed his head as though ashamed, then said in a soft, husky voice, “I’ve changed history for me.”

MESSENGER

I could not hide my puzzlement. Jared had changed history, had broken one of his laws, for himself? “You act like you’ve done something bad.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, the full outline of his mouth thinning in disappointment, “you couldn’t possibly. It’s wonderful, the place you would have gone. You cannot imagine how wonderful. And I took that away from you. I have risked everything.” He peeked at me. “I have risked your very soul.”

Though I could hardly agree, I had to ask, “Then why?”

“Because if you had died, I would never have seen you again. You would have gone to Heaven, a place I have not been for a very long time.”

My heart stilled in my chest. I couldn’t believe what he’d just said. A supernatural being changed history just to see me. Me.

Wait, he’d been to Heaven?

The tense hostility held barely in check by Cameron broke free. He picked up his rifle. “I’d say that’s reason enough to send you back.”

Prepared for such a reaction, Brooklyn struggled to pull a pistol from her coat pocket. Finally wresting it free, she aimed it at him. “We anticipated something idiotic like this from you.”

Cameron turned to her in surprise—a surprise that, unfortunately, didn’t last long.

I knew she’d brought the gun. My best friend had guts. No one could argue with that.

She scowled at Cameron. “First you wanted to kill him because he was going to take her. Now you want to kill him because he didn’t. Bipolar much?”

When he stepped closer, Glitch and I flanked her on either side, a warning glare in our eyes. Probably looking more comical than intimidating, I curled my hands into fists. On our best day, the three of us together might actually be able to bruise him, but what choice did we have? We had to stop him. Or get horribly maimed trying.

Cameron raised his brows at Glitch. “I’m impressed,” he said, taunting him with a smirk, “considering what you know about me.”

I knew it. Something did happen between Cameron and Glitch. Neither of them had been the same when they came back from that camping trip our second-grade year. Curiosity burned inside me, but it would have to wait. We had bigger fish to fry, as my grandmother would say.

Glitch lifted a shoulder. “That was a long time ago.”

“Yeah, I hear you have problems sleeping at night.”

“No more than you.”

“And that whole bed-wetting thing? Tragic.”

I had no idea Cameron could be so cruel, but Glitch didn’t waver. He stood unbending in the face of someone who could cause serious damage on his worst day.