Fate's Return (Twisted Fate, Book 2)

Chapter Fifty-One

Closing the bedroom door so that I wouldn't have to remain quiet, I hurried into the bathroom and changed. Then I ran downstairs, grabbing my keys and phone on my way out the front door. I didn't have an iPod anymore. As I stretched on the front lawn, I decided to waste the money for a replacement.

Five minutes passed, the time slowed by silence.

I finished stretching my muscles, which were already sore after the fight at my party and exhaustion, and I stood. In two nights, I couldn't have slept more than five hours. The hours I did manage to get were filled with dreams of David, so I might as well have been awake.

Knowing Suzie was waiting to talk meant knowing tonight would be adding to the sleeplessness I'd already suffered.

I ran in place for a minute, staring at my home, but had no desire to return. Turning, I shot off, my feet eating the pavement of the sidewalk as I worked harder than ever before to put distance between me and it. Without my mother, it felt foreign, like everything was props that didn't belong. No life, no warmth, even my father and I... We didn't deserve to be there.

At least I didn't.

Tina. Mr. Tinsley. David.

Everything from my past ate at my thoughts, the memories vivid and all-consuming. My choices had ruined lives, which is exactly what I expected Suzie to tell me. I was cursed and everyone I cared about became infected. It was like the domino effect that David had told me about in my dreams when he'd explained what had happened with Lucifer. Was that real? If I was so 'pure', how was it I was the cause of the bad things happening to the people in my life?

Mr. Tinsley had deserved it, I knew, but Tina? My mother? Even David, who had died yet wasn't dead. He had changed for me, so that I could live, and I didn't know how to move on now that I knew that. Thinking he had died for me had been bad enough, but now? Well, how was I supposed to deal with everything that I'd learnt? Everything I'd seen?

David was dead.

Tina was gone, and I didn't even know if she was okay.

Shadows were everywhere.

Slowing my pace, I felt like every breath was torn from my lungs as my calves protested. I rounded the corner and looked up to find that I'd unconsciously worked my way to Tucker's. Stopping to run in place, I glanced all around me and then focused my gaze forward. The building was dark, seemingly unoccupied. I guessed now that I knew who they were Mike, Gabe, and Raffy had no reason to pretend. Did they even own it? Or were they manipulating some poor human in order to create the façade?

Ugh. I need answers.

Sighing, I turned back the way I came. Keeping my pace slow and steady, I ran home, walking the last block so that I wouldn't have to cool down in silence on the front lawn. The sooner I got speaking with Suzie over with, the sooner I would know. Could I handle it? Would everything change?

Lost in thought, I didn't see Suzie sitting on the top step of the porch until I reached the start of the path leading to my front door. Stopping, I held her gaze. I felt the breath blow out of my body, and I held onto the mailbox for support. I can do this. I have to. Looking down, I pulled my foot up behind me to stretch, held, and then continued with my other foot. When I finished, I glanced back up.

Suzie stood as she watched me, strands of her hair sticking out in every direction to shine under the sun, and she crossed her arms.

I started up the path, counting the cracks under my feet until I reached the bottom of the first step, and then looked up. Suzie tilted her head, appraising me, like she could somehow tell how I was feeling with a glance. But I was the one who could read minds and, according to hers, she thought I was crazy. On multiple occasions! Or was that like everything else? A ruse to get a rise from me? Did she think by planting thoughts into my head, I would break down and confide in her?

"So." She shifted, dropping her arms. "How'd you sleep?"

"Chalk full of dreams," I said, tilting my head as I narrowed my eyes. "And you?"

She looked down, kicking the porch with her toes, and said, "I didn't... I think I got a couple hours. After Deryk—" She shook her head, licking her lips, and looked back up to meet my gaze. "It's hard."

"It gets easier." As annoyed as I was, I didn't want to see her hurting. I knew how much it tore you up inside when your boyfriend died. Add the fact that Deryk was an evil cretin from hell, and I didn't know how Suzie was still standing.

"Yeah, well." She shrugged and then forced a smile to her face. "So, we need to talk, huh?"

"You think?" I raised an eyebrow at her, like, "Duh."

"You remember everything now?" She waited a moment, just enough for me to nod, and then asked, "How are you feeling about that?"

I should probably say fine and pretend I wasn't expecting her to confide in me what she knew. I couldn't. It was what I knew I didn't know—what I needed to know—that forced me to say, "Tell me everything you know."

"You want to shower first?"

Looking down, I rolled my eyes. Running under a cloudless sky had left me drenched in sweat, and I wouldn't talk with her if the circumstances were reversed until she was cleaned up. I pushed past her and ran into the bathroom, only taking five minutes, and then exited wearing a robe. But I was clean.

She stood from the couch when I entered the living room and I nodded to the stairs as I said, "Let's go." No way could I chance my father coming home and overhearing.

Following her back to my room, I listened as she started at the beginning of how she became involved and what she could do. Shock rendered me silent. If I wasn't lying in my bed by the time that she reached the end, I surely would have fallen as her tale floored me to the ground.

Within everything I thought I knew, only one truth remained: I didn't know anything.