Chapter 11
That night, I decided to go for a run. My first in many months.
I didn’t ask for my phone or even tell anyone I was leaving.
I didn’t change into a more modest outfit—an oversized sweatshirt with the hood up, baggy pants so that no one could tell if I was a girl or a boy—or keep to the well-lit sidewalks along the busier streets.
I just stepped out of the RV, stretched my hamstrings, and sprinted through the parking lot and into the dark of the town.
I ran with my back to oncoming traffic, my legs strong and sure beneath me.
I pressed on, cutting past abandoned buildings and the lit plastic tents of homeless encampments and through what I imagined was a rough part of town—small homes with overgrown lawns and broken windows, chained dogs snapping their jaws at me as I passed them by.
But I thought of Chloe. And I didn’t flinch.
I kept running, never once looking over my shoulder to see who might be tailing me.
When the odd man caught my eye—and a few of them did, made a point to—I held their gazes the way Chloe had.
I didn’t sidestep to make room for them on the sidewalk, clipping shoulders with one man that I passed.
He might’ve called me a bitch, but whatever he said, the accusation or empty threat, it meant nothing to me.
It was 2:00 a.m. by the time I returned to the Walmart parking lot.
My eyes were raw and streaming tears, though I felt no sadness, just relief.
I broke, falling to my knees there in the middle of the parking lot, my lungs on fire, laughing breathlessly until I panicked and began to hyperventilate.
But it wasn’t fear that sent me reeling.
It was its absence. The vast expanse of my own new freedom.
It was the first time that I’d ever run without fear. I held the power of Death in my palm, carried with me the promise of my own survival. Nothing could touch or hurt me that I couldn’t hurt worse.
I sat down in one of the folding chairs by the fire to catch my breath, massaged my calves to keep them from cramping. That was when I saw them, way out on the other side of the parking lot.
Shiloh and Death.
They were sitting on the curb, in a cone of light from the streetlamp shining overhead, the burning bulb swarmed with moths and flies.
They sat the same way: half-hunched, arms braced on their knees.
I couldn’t hear them or even read their lips for the distance, but their conversation seemed intense.
Death was talking more than Shiloh, her nodding as she listened, interjecting only once or twice with what seemed like a question… or concern.
They talked for several minutes. Then Death put a heavy hand on Shiloh’s shoulder and stood up, stepping past her and disappearing into the pine forest.
Shiloh sat frozen there on the curb long after he left, her gaze boring down into the asphalt.
When she finally pressed to her feet, I thought she might follow Death into the trees or that maybe she would notice me and come over to talk.
But if she did notice me sitting there by the dying fire, she gave no indication.
I watched as she slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans and started across the parking lot, her back turned to me, walking toward the same seedy neighborhood that I’d just run through.
Her strides were long and purposeful, like she was late for something important.
Another death.
Death must’ve given her a name.
The thought of another dispatch made me sick with guilt. But despite that, I had the strange urge to follow her, to make sure she was okay. Shiloh could handle herself, I knew that. But it didn’t quell the growing urge I had to protect her, as if that was something I was capable of doing.
Instead of acting on that instinct, I leaned back into the folding chair, watched the midges swarm the streetlight overhead.
I closed my eyes, and then, what felt like moments later, I was in the past with Adeline, the two of us racing down our street barefoot, the asphalt chafing our heels.
We were laughing, but the sound was warped and slowed.
Adeline pulled ahead of me—strange, because I was always the faster of the two of us—and when she turned to look at me, her hair wrapped around her face so I couldn’t see anything but her eyes through the curtain of her curls.
I woke hours later to Shiloh looming over me.
She was wearing the same flannel shirt and jeans from last night when I’d spotted her with Death.
But I could see the exhaustion in her eyes, the bags beneath them.
Her sandy hair was dark with grease at the roots, and she’d pulled it back out of her face with a clip.
She looked like she’d been up all night. “Did you sleep well?”
I hadn’t realized I’d been sleeping at all. Had I spent the night alone, outside, in the middle of a Walmart parking lot? I could’ve been kidnapped or killed.
I sat up, stunned I’d slept outside, and so late into the morning. The run the night before must’ve really tired me out.
“Festival’s still an eight-hour drive from here, ten with traffic. We should get on the road as quick as we can. We don’t want to miss your dispatch.”
I nodded. Squinting against the sunlight, I saw what appeared to be a viciously competitive shopping cart drag race across the mostly empty parking lot.
The carts were loaded with groceries and shrieking teenage girls and they drifted across the asphalt, threatening to topple over.
Chloe steered one of them, pushing hard, racing against Riley to make it to the finish line, which appeared to be the stop sign that marked the end of the parking lot.
Shiloh watched them with a grim shake of her head. “I swear I don’t know where they get it from. All that energy.”
“They got it from you,” I said, the sun so bright it made it hard to look up at her. “Death gave them a second chance, and they’re making the most of it.”
Shiloh frowned, fishing her vape from her back pocket, and sheathed the mouthpiece between her lips.
The girls, I’d noticed, were rather reckless with their health, a natural result of their conditional immortality, Death tipping the scales of reality in their favor, protecting them from the consequences of their vices and bad habits.
Shiloh’s vaping was really no different from my jogging alone at night.
It was a risk we could now most certainly afford to take.
But I did wonder what would happen if we were cut loose from our deal with Death.
Would all the years of risky decisions catch up to us all at once?
The moment Death set us free, if he ever set us free, would the girls who smoked immediately be stricken with a racking cough and the promise of lung cancer?
Were we going to be made to pay for this someday?
I almost asked the question, but Shiloh strode toward the girls before I had the chance, putting an end to the shopping cart race with a simple raise of her hand. “Time to head out.”
We piled into our vehicles of choice and made our way west, through the last of Utah, where the mountains gave way to the salt flats of Nevada.
From there, the drive to the festival proper should have been relatively short.
But there was a three-hour-long line of traffic through the salt plains just to get to the campground.
Chloe immediately capitalized on this occasion and began to plan what she called our festival looks.
She enlisted Iona to paint our faces. But there was some debate about theming, none of the girls able to agree on a look that would suit all of us.
“What about fallen angels?” Skye waved her hands by her head, trying to mimic angel wings. “Like biblically accurate ones. We could paint eyeballs all over our faces.”
Chloe wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”
“I like the idea,” said Iona encouragingly. “But it would take twelve hours to do that on all of you. I’ll need something I can paint quicker.”
“We could go for skulls?” Chloe suggested.
“How original.” Riley rolled her eyes. She sat in the driver’s seat, steering the RV through the thick of the traffic, a difficult task given she was also towing the station wagon.
Of all the girls, she’d been the most vehemently opposed to the idea of costumes, refusing to participate in the antics.
“I have an idea. Maybe you should all dress up like clowns. That seems fitting.”
It was meant to be an insult, but the idea stuck.
“That’s brilliant,” said Skye, and she hopped into the passenger seat at the front of the RV, Iona’s makeshift makeup chair. “I wanna go first.”
Instead of the usual circus clown, Iona opted for a more sophisticated harlequin approach.
Faces powdered pale, lips painted downturned at the corners, exaggerated eyebrows flicking upward at the middle, over-blushed cheeks adorned with cartoonishly large teardrops or playing card shapes—diamonds, hearts, spades, and clubs.
When it was my turn to sit in the makeup chair, Iona brushed my hair back from the ends, teasing it large and voluminous so it almost haloed my head. She pressed powder into my face and blushed my cheeks so aggressively I winced a little when I looked in the mirror.
“Trust the process,” she said, sensing my mounting anxieties.
“I’m trying.”
Iona worked black into my eyeline and carefully smudged it away with her pinkie finger. She worked more blush into the apples of my cheeks and the tip of my nose. “Close your eyes.”
I did as I was told, shivering a little as Iona painted over the smudged pencil liner with liquid, tracing crisp black diamonds over my closed eyelids, down to my cheeks.
“Done,” said Iona. “You can open your eyes.”