Predestined (18 page)

Gee
sank down on the headstone behind her, “Oh,
shit
.”

“I don’t want to tell Pagan this
yet. Not if we can fix this without her knowing. The implications
of Wyatt’s death would be too much for her to deal with. She’d
sacrifice herself without question. I won’t allow it. I will stop
this.”

Gee nodded in complete agreement. I
knew I’d be able to count on her. Jaslyn on the other hand was
ready to offer Pagan up on a silver platter. She didn’t understand
but still it made it hard to have her near me. I wanted to take my
anger out on someone and her indifference was placing her in the
way of my wrath.

“Where is Pagan now?” I asked,
jerking my scowl from the cowering Jaslyn back to Gee.

“She’s with Miranda,” she assured
me.

That was good. I needed Gee right
now. We had to find a way to penetrate Vilokan. Hell would have
been so much easier.

Pagan

A day of shopping
wasn’t easy to convince Miranda to agree to but she needed to get
out. After forcing clothes on her body and shoving her into my car,
we’d headed to the mall. Four hours later she was showing signs of
life again. I was extremely grateful.

“I need a coffee,” I announced as
we stepped out of our third shoe store in an hour. I’d managed to
find two pairs of shoes I couldn’t live without. One was a pair of
yellow backless sandals that had a little heel. The other were
beige colored boots that would match perfectly with my beige
leather jacket. Best part was they were on sale. Miranda, however,
hadn’t bought a thing. We were slowly getting there. She’d actually
tried on some shoes in the last store. I’d forced her to but at
least she’d put them on.

“Me too,” Miranda responded,
turning toward the Starbucks instead of going to the next wing of
the mall where Wide Mouth, Wyatt’s favorite coffee shop, was
located. I understood, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I could deal
with going into Wide Mouth right now either.

“What ya want?” I asked reaching
for my wallet.

“I don’t know, just get me whatever
you’re ordering,” she said with a wave of her hand and walked over
to find a table.

I couldn’t order her what I was
getting. I always ordered a caramel latte with whipped cream and so
did Wyatt. I moved out of the way so the people behind me could
order and I studied the menu up on the board behind the counter. It
had been years since I’d had anything other than a caramel latte. I
wasn’t even sure if I knew something else to order.

“I hear the hot chocolate is
incredible,” Leif whispered in my ear. I knew he was actually here
instead of just talking in my ear from the warmth of his chest
behind me. He was also in human form because my arms weren’t
covered in goose bumps.

“I’m a big girl. I prefer coffee,”
I snapped without looking back at him.

He laughed softly, “Yes I know.
Caramel latte with whipped cream.”

Tensing I glanced over to where
Miranda was sitting. She was watching us with an amused yet sad
look in her face. I knew seeing me with Leif reminded her of Wyatt.
Yet another reason to stay the heck away from him. If he’d only
take the hint and leave me alone. I would never agree to give him
my soul. Screw the stupid restitution or whatever it
was.

“Nope,” I replied and stepped up to
the counter to order and put space between the two of
us.

The girl at the counter was ogling
Leif and not paying me one iota of attention. She actually began
twirling a strand of her brown hair around her finger and batting
her eyelashes. If the foolish girl only knew. He wasn’t Mr.
All-American.

I cleared my throat to get her
attention and when that didn’t work I literally had to slap my palm
down on the counter in front of her, “Hello, excuse me, but it’s my
turn.”

She finally tore her intense ‘come
and get me’ stare off Leif and glared at me. Great, now she was
going to spit in my coffee.

“I know that. I was waiting on you
to order,” the girl’s tone was snarly.

“Well, I didn’t realize that. You
seemed preoccupied.”

Her cheeks reddened and I was ready
for her to unleash some snappy retort when Leif coughed loudly. He
sounded suspiciously like he was covering up a laugh.

“I believe we’ve gotten off on the
wrong foot,” Leif’s voice had gone smooth and deep. Just as he’d
intended the girl’s expression went all dreamy. Females really were
weak when it came to attractive males. “We just need to order, I
need a tall hot chocolate and you need a...” he was staring down at
me as if we were here together. I started to open my mouth to
correct this assumption when I decided I’d better go with it if I
didn’t want the girl’s saliva in my latte.

“Oh, um, two tall... uh.... two
tall.... um...” I could feel the impatient annoyed glare from the
girl but I didn’t let that deter me. I was trying to find something
on the menu I knew would be safe for us to order.

“She’d like two tall mocha lattes
with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkled on the top, please,”
Leif informed the girl.

What the heck? I hadn’t given him
permission to order for me. Even if what he ordered sounded really
good. He stepped around me and began paying the girl while flirting
with her; I crossed my arms and waited until he was
done.

When he turned around to smile at
me I snarled.

“What? You couldn’t decide. I
helped you out. You love chocolate. You’ll like the mocha
latte.”

“I don’t recall asking for your
help. I can order for myself just fine,” I hissed.

Leif shrugged and reached for my
arm to pull me over to the side so the people I hadn’t noticed
behind us could order. I went with him then jerked my arm away from
him once we were out of the way.

“Why are you insistent on being so
angry with me all the time?”

He did not just ask me that. I
opened my mouth to tell him exactly how I felt about his claim on
my soul when Miranda stood up and ran toward the door of the coffee
shop out into the mall.

I pushed past Leif and took off
after her.

She had turned left and was headed
for the back entrance we’d come in. I picked up my pace and dodged
people who were all stopping to watch as I chased Miranda. My first
concern was Miranda had flipped her lid with all this trauma. My
second concern was that a cop was going to arrest me for trying to
harm her. And then there was the concern I would accidentally mow
someone down in my pursuit.

Thankfully, she stopped at the
doors leading out into the parking lot where I’d parked. Her
shoulders were heaving as she held onto the handle trying to catch
her breath. Both of my bags she’d been holding were at her
feet.

“Miranda, what’s wrong?” I asked
breathlessly as I finally caught up with her.

Tears were streaming down her
cheeks as she stared outside. Devastation was so deeply etched in
her face I wondered if the pain would ever go away. The girl I’d
known my whole life had changed that day on the football field
while we watched Wyatt’s lifeless body lay there
unresponsively.

“I can’t,” she sobbed shaking her
head, “I just can’t.”

I wrapped my arm around her
shoulders and pulled her against my side. She crumpled beside me
sobbing pitifully. I’d pushed her too far today. She hadn’t been
ready for this. Guilt ate at me. I should have made this a shorter
outing. Started her out a little at a time. Me and my big
ideas.

“Come on, let’s go home,” I urged
opening the door and leading her outside toward the car.

“Can we...” Miranda hiccuped, “can
we just go visit his grave? I need to do that.”

I disagreed. She wasn’t ready for
that just yet. I wasn’t ready for that. But I couldn’t tell her no
either. I opened the passenger side door and Miranda slid
inside.

Maybe, we could go. If that was
what she wanted to do then I’d be tough and go with her. But first,
we were going to stop by her house. She was going to need a little
dose of courage and her mother had an entire cabinet with the
liquid courage she would need.

Chapter
Seventeen

Graveyards at night
are by far creepier than graveyards during the day. I tried
desperately to ignore the souls hovering over graves I assumed were
theirs. But it was really hard not to jump every time we walked
past a grave and a soul floated in front of us. I wanted to grab
Miranda’s arm and stop her so the soul could wander past but that
would only confuse her and alert the soul s that I could see them.
So, instead I closed my eyes tightly and tried to pretend we
weren’t walking through souls. Oh, how I hated Leif’s father for
this stupid curse.

“It’s chilly out here,” Miranda
said breaking the silence. I glanced over at her as she took
another sip of the bottle of wine in her hands. I’d found a dessert
wine that I knew she’d be able to handle. Coming to a graveyard at
night was not my idea of a good time but I sure hadn’t wanted to
get out here and have her completely break down on me or, God
forbid, go running into the night the way she’d run at the mall. I
wasn’t up for an evening jaunt down a soul-thick path.

“Yep,” I agreed, pulling my beige
leather jacket together and buttoning it up.

“You want some? It’ll warm you up,”
Miranda offered me the bottle of wine.

I glanced down at it in her hand.
The pale color and fruity smell was tempting. I could use something
to ease my discomfort. But I was driving so I shook my head, “No,
I’m good.”

Miranda waited one more second
before pulling the wine back to her chest, “Okay, if you’re sure.
But it really does help.”

I wasn’t going to argue with her. I
was sure it was helping her tons. Three weeks ago I couldn’t have
paid her to walk through a graveyard at night. Heck, I couldn’t
have paid her to pull in the parking lot of a graveyard at night.
Having someone she loved buried here changed things.

“There it is,” she whispered,
finally stopping.

My gaze followed hers. Wyatt’s
grave was still fresh and covered in flowers. A few were starting
to wilt but for the most part the flowers were all still as lovely
as they had been at his funeral.

“Let’s go sit on the bench,”
Miranda said almost reverently.

Wyatt’s parents had placed a bench
at the foot of his grave. I’d wondered about that when I’d seen it
the day of the funeral. I thought maybe it would just be there for
the funeral but when we’d left I’d glanced back and it was still
there.

“There’s the one I sent,” Miranda’s
voice broke as we sat down and stared at the flower arrangements in
front of us. The large round basketball that lay on the head of his
grave was made of orange carnations and black angel’s breath.
Miranda had been hysterically insistent that the florist make an
arrangement that looked like a basketball. They’d come through for
her. It was beautiful. Wyatt would have loved it.

“It turned out really good,” I
assured her.

“Yeah, it did. I wish he could see
it.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to
that. I didn’t want her to start talking about his soul hanging
around and seeing it before it passed on. Lying wasn’t my strong
suit and I had a hard time agreeing with her when I knew
better.

“Remember that time we brought
Wyatt’s four-wheeler down here from that path in the woods behind
his house?” Miranda’s voice had taken on an amused
sound.

“Yes.” We’d been chased by the cops
for jumping graves on his four-wheeler. Both Wyatt and I had taken
the blame and left Miranda out of it. Wyatt had always been
protective of her even back then and, in all honesty, she’d begged
us not to do it. We’d listened to her the whole way over here about
how wrong this was and how the ghost of the people’s graves we
jumped would haunt us. I’d, of course, known she was wrong and it
didn’t bother me at all.

“My mom still has no idea that
happened. I didn’t even tell her about you two getting in trouble
because I was afraid she’d refuse to let me hang out with
delinquents.”

I laughed and a small smile touched
Miranda’s mouth. It was so good to see those. They were very few
and far between.

Miranda took another swig of the
wine. Her sips had progressed to swigs. The glassy look in her eye
told me it was having the desired effect. I felt a little guilty
for getting the wine for her but she needed to be relaxed to face
this. She was reminiscing. That was good. It was worth a bottle of
wine and underage drinking.

“Whoa, not who I expected to see
here,” Leif said as he walked up beside us. Miranda let out a
small, then a giggle followed after she realized it was Leif and
not a zombie who’d joined us.

“And drinking?” Leif’s eyes lifted
from Miranda’s bottle of wine to meet my glare.

“She wanted to come here. I figured
she needed some courage to face it.”

Leif nodded and a small frown
puckered his forehead. I wondered if he felt sorry for her loss or
if he even missed Wyatt at all.