Chapter 39 Helena
This always happened. Every single time and without fail.
I should learn not to be surprised. It wasn’t like I was a stranger to being ghosted—pun not intended.
This time, though…
The silence from Grim. Ironically, it threatened to kill me.
Three weeks. For three weeks I hadn’t heard anything from him. No random midnight calls, no drop-ins. Not so much as a text. Though did he text?
Didn’t matter. He knew how to find me.
When Thanksgiving arrived, I went home the Wednesday before, though I didn’t dare fly.
Being a Fated meant that I was, well, fated to die. And I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask Grim—not before he’d vanished from the stratosphere, my stratosphere at least—if that meant I could potentially put others at risk.
So far, my close calls had been solo events. All the same, I couldn’t bring myself to board a plane or bus. Not without knowing for sure.
While I could have rented a car, I took The Judge. Somehow, though I wasn’t sure quite how, I felt safer in it—even though I wasn’t really.
Fate, if it truly was still on its way, would likely not care what space I occupied.
Or whose car…
Surely, Grim wouldn’t have lent it to me in the first place if he was worried about his ride getting taken out with me. And maybe that’s why I felt safer in The Judge.
During my three-day stay with my parents, my possession of the car (along with my more-somber-than-usual demeanor) had spurred a lot of questions, which I’d fielded okay.
My car? It just needed repairs—technically not a lie.
This car? Oh, I’d borrowed The Judge from a friend—no, he wasn’t my boyfriend.
That part was just pretend… wasn’t it?
Yes, the car was fine for a three-and-a-half-hour drive. Yes, both ways.
No, surprisingly it didn’t guzzle as much gas as you’d think.
Yes, I was all right.
Yes, I was sure.
No, I didn’t want more pie.
Of course everything was all right at work.
No, I wasn’t seeing anyone.
No, I couldn’t stay another night—tomorrow was my Saturday to work again.
Yes, I knew I’d be getting home late.
Yes, I’d be careful.
Yes, I promised.
Only when I arrived back in the city did I start missing my family all over again and wishing I’d taken an additional vacation day—or swapped Saturdays.
Because there was no telling when our latest “goodbye” would be our last…
Thankfully, traffic hadn’t been so bad, and it looked like I was going to get home before midnight.
Not that I had anything or anyone waiting for me.
Grim had vanished after that last kiss. Like he’d never existed.
And the fact that there hadn’t been any more balcony falls or elevator failures made me more worried than ever he’d done something rash.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that death, in all aspects and manifestations, had left me entirely alone.
But after that soul-altering night we’d spent together, Grim’s unceremonious—and gutting—exit from my life had to be owed to something.
For instance, Grim could have talked to Sir White after all—or one of the other “higher-ups.” He could have successfully bartered for an extension on my life.
I feared for him, too. If he had asked, he could have gotten fired.
And what if the only reason I was still alive at all was because they were trying to fill Grim’s position?
It was slowly destroying me not knowing where he was, what had become of him. Even more unbearable was the thought that I might never know.
I kept wishing Flora would show up, or even Johann. But no one came. No one called.
And life just… went on. Like none of this had ever happened. Like I hadn’t been irrevocably changed. Like I hadn’t fallen hopelessly—and perhaps pathetically—in love with a supernatural entity who might be, as the saying went, just not that into me.
Even after all those things he’d said.
Because if the world of dating had taught me one thing…
“If he wanted to, he would,” I whispered to myself as I flicked on the turn signal, slowing down to take a left.
That was the social media mantra we’d all been taught to recite, right?
And it had to be true in this situation, too. Unless it wasn’t—and Grim was somewhere horrible.
The longer I had his car, the more I was starting to think that was the truth.
Because if he really didn’t care, wouldn’t I wake up one day just to find The Judge missing?
But then, the idea of Grim being put away somewhere or punished assailed me with far more fear and grief than if he’d just… moved on.
Tears pricked my eyes as I took another turn on the deserted road, my vision going bleary as I checked for traffic even though there wasn’t any.
Everybody else in the world, it seemed, had stayed home regardless of annoying family members and invasive questions to sleep off their food comas. And now, story of my life, it was just me, myself, Helena, and, I supposed, The Judge as we ambled over a set of train tracks.
Except the car stalled out the moment I found myself in the center of said tracks, headlights flickering out before going dark, grumbly engine sputtering and then dying.
“What?” I muttered, toggling the stick shift. Because unlike its owner, The Judge had never given me an ounce of trouble.
After hitting the brakes, I grabbed the key and twisted, but the car only whined, the engine refusing to turn over.
“Overdue fines and porcupines,” I cursed, glancing left and then right before checking the rearview mirror.
A lime-green Mustang pulled up behind me—but it didn’t slow down to idle in wait. Instead, the souped-up pony car veered around me, engine revving, red taillights flashing only once before the thing ripped out of sight, turning a sharp corner, its driver lost behind tinted windows.
“GRNQUEN,” the splashy, lit-up vanity plate read.
Well. So much for being a girls’ girl and helping me out…
Maybe whoever they were would have stopped if I’d put on my hazard lights. But… where was the button for those?
After locating the switch for the hazards on the steering column, I tried the engine again but stopped when a subtle rumble started beneath me, and a distant bright light appeared out of nowhere on my left.
“Oh,” I said, “no,” and twisted the key again.
The Judge just kept wheezing, and while it did, I trained my gaze on that approaching light, praying it didn’t belong to what I feared it did—that I’d just glimpsed a stray high beam.
But they didn’t make headlights that bright. That big.
What was more, typically, headlights came in pairs.
Only one glaring, flickering orb headed toward me now, though as it neared and the rumbling beneath me intensified, the eye-searing sphere evolved into five: one big one in the middle, two at the top of the train face, and two more flashing ones at the bottom.
“Son of a bookworm,” I hissed, hands shaking, because it was happening again.
Abandoning the key, I grabbed the latch on the seat belt just as the warning bells for the crossing kicked on, red lights flashing as the gates lowered.
I whimpered when the button stuck, the latch on the lap belt refusing to give.
“S-seat belt,” I sobbed. To no one.
When I looked up, the light blazed bright enough now to blot my vision—getting closer while the ground thundered beneath me, rattling the dash.
The train’s horn blared, loud as a scream.
I wrenched up the door lock. Then, with one hand still trying to undo the belt, I grabbed the handle and yanked. Nothing budged. Nothing moved.
Nothing except the howling train that, despite the rising screech of its brakes, wasn’t going to be able to stop in the next five seconds. Precious seconds that were bound to be my last.
I cried out, body tense, hands rushing to cover my eyes so that, at the very least, I wouldn’t see my doom coming as the engine came bearing down on me.
In my last seconds, Grim filled my mind. If he was okay and not locked away in some prison cell for wayward wraiths or tied up somewhere being metaphysically waterboarded by the paranormal police, he’d be here any second—if he wasn’t already.
Maybe this wouldn’t hurt. Maybe it would be over quick.
Maybe, from here out, I wouldn’t even know what happened until Grim took me wherever I was going.
“Take your foot off the break!” shouted a voice to my right—a dark and scary one that had become, for me, neither of those things.
As always, I did as it commanded, even if I couldn’t bring myself to lower my hands from my eyes. Not with that blazing light shooting through them, that horn booming in my brain, the car rattling beneath me, shaken by the metal dinosaur that was about to flatten—and steamroll—us both.
All three of us?
We moved, The Judge and I propelled forward in a jolt by a silent force—one strong enough to send me slamming back in my seat.
Wood snapped and cracked.
The train blew again, long, loud, and angry—but now its bellowing came from behind, underscored by the alarm bells and the clattering and shrieking scrape of metal wheels on metal tracks.
That light had vanished, too. Still, my heart hammered in my chest, beating loud and hard enough to drown out my shuddering, gulping breaths.
“Stay there,” said that voice.
Grim was here. Which meant he was okay. Was he okay?
Was I?
Somehow, the car went into park.
Moving on autopilot, I twisted for the door and groped for the handle, which at last gave. The door opened, and fighting nausea, I stumble-spilled out into the world as the train rushed by behind me.
The broken bits of the red-and-white gate lay scattered on the asphalt while, above, red lights continued to flash and flare, the warning bells ringing—banging—on and on.
Wooziness wafted around my temples as, numbly, I scanned my surroundings, trying to swallow against the bile that teased at the back of my throat.
Just then, a skeletal hand fell on my shoulder, and throwing him off, I turned toward him, wavering.
“Really, Grim!” I shouted up at him, into that concealing hood. Then I poked him, right in the sternum. “I can’t believe you!”
He seemed taken aback. Hard to tell since he was drenched once more in a mixture of black, shadows, and black shadows.