Ember X (5 page)

My eyes never waver from him, even as someone passes close by and nearly bumps into me. “I think you’re thinking of someone else because my dad’s not dead.”

“You know, I saw someone messin’ around with your car,” he hollers and I stop, curious even though the guy’s a total creeper. “That Challenger over there—that’s yours, right?” He nods his head at my car.

I nod. warily “Um… yeah…”

He advances toward me, taking lengthy strides that put him near me quickly. “There was some guy that came around here just a few minutes ago. He got in it, messed around, and then left.”

So maybe my keys were stolen, not lost. “Thanks. I’ll make sure nothing’s missing.”

A sinister look masks his face. “I could give you a ride home, just in case.” His hand snaps out and he grasps my elbow, pressing his painted black fingernails into my skin. It sends a revolting sensation through my blood, thick like oil, and I gag on the bitter taste.
Blood stains his hands. He stumbles through the night, to the edge of the rooftop. A dark cape flaps behind him. He smiles and leaps.

He releases my arm, and I shuffle backward as a smirk creeps across his lips. “Tell me, Ember, have you ever danced with death or been paid a visit by the Reaper?”

“Back the hell off.” I reel for my car and hop into the front seat. The guy retreats for the house, whistling a tune as he stuffs his hands into his pockets. My heart settles inside my chest, but his words linger in my mind. Does he know about my curse?

“I’m sorry,” I apologize to the car, giving the steering wheel a gentle pat, and then I grab a screwdriver from under the seat and pry off the panel. I yank out the correct wires, twist them together, pump on the gas pedal, and the engine revs to life. “The Kill” by 30 Seconds to Mars blasts through the speakers as I carefully set the wires back in and slam the car door shut.

My dad and I used to steal cars. When I was young, I’d sit in the backseat while he worked his hotwiring magic. However, when I reached my early teens, he taught me how to do it. I was his protégé. At twelve years old, I couldn’t see the bigger picture; that the situation was messed up and a small sign that my dad would eventually lose his mind.

I crank the steering wheel to the side and ramp onto the grass. The greasy haired guy eyes me from the porch as I cut across the front lawn and peel out down the driveway.

The trees blur by as I zoom down the road that threads between the lake and the mountain. When the tires reach the asphalt, I throttle the gas pedal to the floor, hoping Laden and Raven will remain on the highway and hopefully I can catch up with them.

By accident, I saw Raven’s death once. I’m usually very carefully not to touch people, especially ones that are close to me. I don’t want to know how it ends for them, how I’ll lose them, how I’ll hate myself for not saving them. But when Raven and I were younger, we were playing in Raven’s tree house. Raven had tripped and landed near the edge, almost falling off. By instinct, I reached to grab her. Once my fingers touched her arm, I wanted to erase everything. What I saw. Our friendship. Raven will die young, in a very painful and terrifying way. It will happen by the water, during a rainstorm, just like Laden’s death. Only her life will be stolen.

Clouds blanket the sky, the moon and stars are fading, and the air smells fresh like before a rainstorm. I try not to panic and speed up. I don’t look at how fast I’m going, but I’m not scared. My death will come when it’s time, just like everyone else’s. It will happen on a dark night, a faint light will sparkle, and I’ll be alone. I don’t know when, though. And I’m thankful for that. If anyone knew when they’d die, the fear and obsession to change it would own them and they’d have no life to save.

Headlights reflect in my mirror and a car rides up on my tail. “Back off, asshole,” I mutter, adjusting my mirror.

The car edges closer until it’s only inches away from crashing into mine. A sharp corner approaches, so I tap the brakes, but nothing happens. I stomp on the brake, but the car accelerates faster down the hill. The corner emerges and I try to down shift, but the engine grumbles and then the exhaust backfires. Sucking in a deep breath, I crank the steering wheel to the right. The car spins and the tires screech as the front of my car smashes into the railing. The sound is deafening, like a train roaring up the railroad tracks.

There’s a split second where my car hovers over the edge, like it might not fall, and I hold my breath. Then out of nowhere, a raven dives down and lands on the hood. Seconds later, the tailgater slams into the rear end of my car and my head slams against the windshield. The car flips over nose-first and then rolls down the hill. My seatbelt locks and I’m jerked back to the seat as my body is stabbed, beaten, and broken. Then the car hits the lake and suddenly it becomes clear: I’m going to die today.

Death feels natural, like breathing. The water pierces my skin and floods the cab of the car. I unclip my seatbelt and float to the roof, pressing my head to the ceiling. It’s dark and the water is up to my neck so I allow my legs to float upward, and then I kick the side window with the heel of my boot until my calf muscles ache. I run my fingers along the door and grasp the handle, and then wait for the water to completely immerse the cab.

My dad was big on survival. He taught me things like how to escape a car when it’s submerged in water. If the water’s low enough, the door will open. But once it reaches a certain point, the pressure of the water inside has to equalize with the pressure of the water on the outside. Which means I have to wait for the car to completely fill up the cab, without drowning first.

I remain calm as the water rises and rises, and then I slant my head back and take a deep breath before the water suffocates me completely. Immediately, I flip the handle, but it snaps off. Bubbles escape my mouth as I bang on the door. The black water encases the cab and I swim for the other door, but I slam into the concaved roof, which is forming a wall to the other side. I spin around and bang my fist on the windshield. It’s getting darker and colder as the car plummets further into the lake.

My eyes stay open as bubbles gurgle from my mouth. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. Death is no longer peaceful. The air slips away, my heart dies, and my necklace floats off my neck as the water stills.
Am I dead?
The metal of the car crunches as it buckles beneath the weight of the water.

“Ember,” someone whispers. “Hang on.”

I glance from left to right. Darkness and I’m alone, just like my death omen. A faint light swims through the water to the window, illuminating the inside of the car, and I reach out to touch it.

“Ember,” the voice growls. “Don’t touch it.”

The light flashes, and then shifts into a black mass.

“Emmy,” it whispers and a black cape drapes over me. “Come with me.”

No, not again
. My body ignites with flames. I scream as a tunnel opens up and swallows me.

My first death omen happened when I was four. My grandma Nelly came to live with us, back when things were somewhat normal and hadn’t completely gone to shit yet. Grandma Nelly was old and suffered from dementia. By the time she moved in with us, she was fairly gone—forgetting things, wandering off in the middle of the night. My grandpa had passed away several years before and there was no one to take care of her. Eventually she started to suffer from hallucinations and forgot who everyone was. The night she died, she snuck into my room and sat down on the bed next to me. I’ll never forget that night—it changed my life forever.

She took off her necklace and placed in my hand. “Here, Emmy, this is yours now.”

The oval pendant filled up the palm of my hand. “Grandma, what are you doing?”

“Do you feel that, Ember?” Her eyes lit up with anticipation as she took my hand and placed it over her heart.

Her heart beat rapidly beneath my palm. I sat up, confused. “Feel what, Grandma? Your heart?”

She excitedly shook her head. “No, Emmy, my life. Do you feel it leaving?”

“No,” I answered and glanced at the door. “Are you okay, Grandma? Maybe I should go wake up Mama.”

“No, no,” she whispered. “You need to listen closer, Emmy. You’ll hear it—my life slipping away. You need to take it, okay?”

There was a desperate, almost momentous look in her eyes, so I shut my eyes and listened to the flutter of her heart, the whisper of her breath, the lull of her blood as it danced through her veins. There was warmth, then coldness as a light flickered inside me and for a moment, I felt powerful. When I opened my eyes, she was lying on the bed and her eyes were shut. She looked peaceful so I let her lay there for a while before waking my mother up and telling her Grandma was gone.

My mom asked what happened, so I told her, and she looked at me like it was my fault. And maybe it was. I had felt her life leave her body and my own life grow. After the funeral, my mom sent me to live with my dad, the mechanic/car thief. He did his best raising me until he vanished, then it was back to live with my mom and my brother.

“Open your eyes,” a deep voice demands. “Come on, not yet. Open your eyes, God dammit.” The whisper alters to a desperate plea. “Please, Ember… Please, wake up… You have to be one of them—I know you are.”

Soft lips touch mine and a jolt of life slams my heart, like a defibrillator charged it to life.

“Take it, please…” the voice begs. “You have to take it.”

A soulful and poetic voice whispers in my mind to bring my body back to life, then the life of another links to every part of me and revitalizes my body. My heart expands and sends the blood pumping through my body again, then a hand presses against my heart and my lungs swell. My eyelids open and water rushes up my throat as I hack up dirty water until oxygen flows through my lungs again. I think I spot my body floating up above me in the trees, but everything’s blurry, like an unfocused camera lens. I rub my eyes, sitting up, and the body evaporates into the night sky.

“Are you okay?” my rescuer asks with a cough.

I dry my eyes with my fingertips. “I think so… How did you…”
What the hell was that
?

The moon reflects from behind the hazy clouds and rain sprinkles from the sky as I finally look at my rescuer. The gorgeous guy from the party kneels on the rocky shoreline next to me, his slate eyes all over me, taking me in. His black hair is damp and beads of water drip down his pale skin. The silver skull on his necklace glints in the moonlight and his long, black eyelashes flutter against the rain. His beauty is breathtaking and I instantly get caught up in him again and almost forget where I am.

“Did you… did you jump in and save me?” I cough with my hand over my mouth.

He watches me in a way no one has ever done before, like I’m something valuable. “Yes… I thought I lost you for a second, though.”

I eye the cut forehead and the dark half-circles under his eyes that weren’t there at the party. “Are you okay?”

He nods, his eyes doing a slow sweep of my body, as he rakes his fingers through his wet locks. “I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“What happened?” I smooth my drenched hair out of my face.
Did I just die?

“I’m not sure,” he says, befuddled. “I was driving home from the party and saw the guard rail crushed to pieces. It wasn’t that way when I drove up, so I thought I’d check. I saw your car sinking into the lake, so I ran down and jumped in.”

“That was very brave of you.” My lung and throat feel like their bruised.

“I think we need to call an ambulance and get you checked out.” He stands up and brushes the dirt and pebbles off his jeans. “That was a pretty bad crash and you weren’t breathing when I pulled you out.”

I take in the metal fragments of the Challenger dotting the rocks on the hillside as bits and pieces of what happened rush back to me. “I think the brakes went out and then I think someone ran into me.”

His eyes amplify. “And then they just left you.”

I shrug, wringing out my hair. “They probably thought I was dead.”

He swallows hard and then clears his throat. “You have to report this. It’s basically like a hit and run.”

“No, it’s not. My brakes going out are what caused the crash to begin with.” I touch the side of my throbbing head. “Although, I’m not sure how they went out and I just checked the brake pads and lines.”

Did someone cut them? Like the owner of the car who ran into me? Or the creeper with the
X
tattoo on his eye? But who would want to hurt me? A lot of people, come to think of it.

He aims a perplexed look at me. “You change your own brake pads?”

“My dad was a mechanic,” I explain wryly. “And he liked to teach me while he worked on cars.”

“
Was
a mechanic?”

“He died a few years ago.”

“Sorry, I know how hard that is. I lost my dad too.” He extends his hand to help me to my feet. “My phone’s in my car. Do you think you can walk? Or can I carry you?”

I love the idea of him carrying me, his lean arms wrapped around my body, my face pressed against his chest. But then he would have to touch me, and the last thing I want to see is how this gorgeous guy will die. “I think I’m okay walking...” I tense as he touches my hand, his fingers grazing my knuckles, then slide down the back of my hand, as he threads his fingers through mine.