Natalie's Legacy [sequel to Natalie's Diary]

[12] Parting

[12] PARTING

Jane

From a distance, I watched Bia gaze into a showcase full of knives so new and sharp, they'd have no problem slicing into a muscle as tender as the heart.

Pushing around hangers of cargo pants that would never fit me was just a distraction from the promises of betrayal and triple-heart-stabbing. What I had learned about Tarot cards was that their meanings were nebulous and hard to interpret, but I could divine a lot from the way people reacted to them. 

Betrayal didn't surprise Bia and somehow that was worse than if it had. 

A shadow fell over me and I looked up into a familiar pool of attention. 

"You look at home in here, Miss Combat Boots," Rhys said, leaning against the rack, tall enough to look right over top of it.

I did, a little. I was the trendy version of army surplus in my military jacket and heavy boots. Ready to kick down doors, but stylishly.

"Are you trying to pick me up?" I swallowed back all the lurking fears. There was something about looking up at him, the clothing rack between us. He almost looked like himself, taking on the easy lean and steady gaze.

"What if I was?"

"I already have a boyfriend." I said, almost breaking character as I let myself fall into the trap of looking into his eyes. So much gold and green.

"Lucky him." Rhys flashed a tired smirk, a world weary thing that still caught me off guard.

The longer I looked into his eyes, the more I remembered every little moment, every dangerous smile and intense gaze. The only person in the world who went through what I did. The only person in the world who knew Natalie like I did.

"Lucky me," I said, wanting to pull him in, to cling and never let go.

But that would look a little odd in public, in the middle of aisles and aisles of camouflage.

His expression shifted, a thought flickering behind his eyes somewhere I couldn't read it. 

"I don't know why we're here," Rhys admitted. It was a gift, an opening. For all his secrets, he acknowledged to me that he didn't understand the workings of Natalie's curse. 

"I think you're so close you can't see the broad strokes," I said, "you're trying to guess the big picture from pixels of it." Natalie had years of practice and Rhys couldn't compete on a few months of experience. He didn't deserve to have to. 

Being at the right place at the right time wasn't enough. Natalie gave us direction, but our choices had been our own. Kate chose to see her father. Rhys chose to dig up Hunter Kohler. Dean chose to burn down the museum. Those were not things that Natalie told them to do and they happened anyway. 

"I'm not you, I don't know what else to do otherwise," Rhys said, "I'm in a race against something I don't want to happen and all I have are checkpoints." 

"Rhys, the future isn't something you can catch. You can't outrun it chasing after clues," 

Maybe I shouldn't have given him advice. Wanting Bia to live and wanting Rhys to fail felt like they should have been conjoined ideals, but it couldn't be that simple. 

"Why do you keep the card if you're not going to use it as a reminder that you can't wait for decisions to be made for you?" I asked. 

It proved once that he could, the card in his pocket. That was how it had temporarily ended up in my possession. He could take action when I was at stake.