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chapter twenty-six like the cat i have nine times to die
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There were so many ways to die. About one thousand four hundred and ninety-seven ways to be exact, give or take a few. Trust her, Izzy knew. She'd researched it many times before.
But as Izzy Windsor sprinted down an empty road, the summer air hot in her lungs, with the thought of The Wreck as her final destination, she figured this would be the worst way to die: running toward her friends while trying not to be seen by the police all the while two murderers were on the loose and she was very oddly close to the both of them. Dying like this, before she knew if John B's name had been cleared or if they even made it out of this without getting shot down by Ward or Rafe would have been the worst way to go in Izzy's mind. Because here was the thing: dying was one thing, but dying without knowing the outcome of what they had been trying so hard to fix would make her want to peel over and die a second time.
And as she continued to run, dying was all she could think. She thought of all the times she had come so close to death but survived it. She thought it was odd . . . like the cat she had nine times to die, she supposed, but she knew she wouldn't always be so fortunate as she had been in the past. She knew eventually she'd get to her last life without even knowing it and that would be it. Life for Izzy Windsor would be no more, and that scared her more than she would like to admit. Because as she had come to realize in the past few months: Izzy Windsor did not want to fucking die. But still . . . she let herself wonder if she would survive this.
It was a devious disease: wondering what would become of herself, what would become of this body made of flesh and bone, not plastic, in the future. She wondered if fate would even let her step into the future or if it would trap her vessel in the past with all her ghosts.
But, whatever, right? She couldn't think about that right now. She had to get to the others before anyone saw her and she led them right where they wanted the so-called fugitives. So she forced herself to think about only getting back to the others. She forced herself to forget about the feeling of death looming over her, and she just ran. The need to make it to The Wreck became her only thought, her only desire. She just needed to get there and then she'd let herself rest. She'd let her aching bones be soothed, curing the injuries she sustained from being forced to jump out a window of the Cameron estate. Surely, she'd be able to breathe then. But for now, she ignored the pain shooting up her back from her fall, she ignored the burning in her legs, she ignored it all as she pumped her arms faster and continued running down the road.
