Chapter 19 Goodbye Simple Life
GOODBYE SIMPLE LIFE
Ididn’t remember deciding to leave the boardroom.
One second, I was standing there asking myself what had just happened.
And then the next I was moving on pure instinct, feet carrying me down the corridor before my brain could catch up.
How long had I remained even after he had left?
My life’s new tormentor and stalker. Was it not enough for him to dominate my thoughts?
Now he had added his presence to my dangerous obsession.
Damn him!
The door clicked shut behind me with a soft, final sound, and that was all it took.
I made it into the bathroom before the breath I’d been holding finally tore loose.
My hands shook as I braced them against the sink, my reflection staring back at me like she was just as stunned by recent events as I was.
My pulse hammered in my ears, too loud and too fast, as I dragged in one breath, then another, trying and failing to steady it.
Okay. Okay. Breathe. Just breathe.
I bent forward, gripping the porcelain harder than necessary as my chest tightened, that horrible light-headed feeling creeping in.
The one that wanted to consume me as everything I’d held together out there threatened to unravel in here.
The meeting. The handshake. The deal. The way Oblivion had looked at me like he already knew the ending to a story I hadn’t even started reading yet.
I was dangerously close to hyperventilating when a familiar voice cut through the spiral.
“Well. This looks healthy.”
I jerked upright with a strangled sound, spinning toward the stalls just in time to see Bo appear, perched casually atop the divider like he hadn’t just scared years off my life.
“Oh, fuck!” I slapped a hand over my mouth, heart ricocheting painfully in my chest.
“Where the hell were you?”
He winced, one clawed hand lifting placatingly.
“In my defense, I wasn’t about to hang around and let Hell’s favorite judge clock me hovering over your shoulder.”
“You disappeared,” I hissed, pacing the small space like a trapped animal, but he just shrugged his little shoulders.
“You knew he was here and you didn’t think to freakin’ warn me?!”
“There wasn’t exactly the time, besides, I didn’t think it would help my hanging around and getting flayed… as that’s kind of a hard pass for me, girly,” he shot back.
Before I could respond, the door handle rattled.
“Hello… why is the door locked?!” a woman’s voice called from the other side. Fresh panic spiked. I stared at Bo, waiting.
The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, until it pressed against my ribs harder than the dread had. Bo’s usual smirk was gone, his sharp little face pulled into something serious enough that my stomach sank.
“Fuck, what should I say?” I whispered.
He sighed and jumped up to the counter, before speaking over his shoulder in what sounded exactly like a female voice.
“This bathroom is out of use due to cleaning.”
After this, we heard an agitated huff, followed by the clicking of heels as whoever it was walked away to use the other restroom on this floor.
“Okay, so that was weird, and I do not want to know how you do that,” I said, referring to the replicated voice.
“Are you sure? I do a great Eliza Shadowmere,” he said with a wink, making me cringe.
I closed my eyes and shook my head a little as I pinched the bridge of my nose slightly, praying to the Goddess for patience.
“I am going to pretend you didn’t say that and move on to our more pressing issue… like where the hell do I get a fake passport from?”
“You’re not thinking straight,” Bo stated with a cross of his arms.
“I’m thinking very straight,” I snapped, the words tumbling over each other. Then I went on to tell him about the meeting and basically everything he had missed.
“I can quit. I can pack a bag. I can disappear. Go somewhere small. Remote. Somewhere off the grid,” I said, already thinking about the price of tents and whether or not I could stick it out as a permanent camper.
Or maybe I could use up my savings and upgrade to a second-hand RV.
I wondered if I needed a different license for that.
“Stop,” he said flatly.
I shook my head, the ideas coming faster now.
“I’ll move. I’ll change my name. I’ll tell my sister I got a job overseas or something. I’ll…”
“He will find you, Eliza.”
The words landed heavy and final, like a door slamming shut. A nervous laugh bubbled out of me, but the smile didn’t last, not when Bo continued,
“There isn’t a place on this planet you could go that he wouldn’t find,” he said quietly.
“Not a city. Not a cave. Not the bottom of the ocean. You walked into his domain, Eliza. You put your blood on his altar. You don’t just… relocate from that, not if he wants you.”
My chest tightened painfully and I slid to the floor, my back hitting the tiled wall as the weight of it finally sank in. My hands curled into the fabric of my skirt, nails digging in like they might anchor me.
“So that’s it,” I said hoarsely.
“That’s my life now. I just… wait for whatever he decides to do with me.”
Bo hesitated, and that pause was everything.
“There might be another option,” he said slowly.
I lifted my head, hope flaring within me, and my expression was enough to get him to continue,
“I know someone,” he said, choosing each word carefully.
“Someone who owes me. Or rather… someone who wants something… something I know how to get.”
My eyes widened in surprise before I asked the all-important question,
“What kind of someone?”
“Another Enforcer,” he said, and before I could protest, he continued,
“One who collects vows like coins. He rules a place called the Vault. It offers protection, as long as your debts are paid of course.”
My pulse skidded as this didn’t exactly sound like a better option, but more like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
“And these debts… what if they aren’t paid?” I dared to ask, and Bo’s mouth thinned.
“Then you pay another way.”
I swallowed hard at this.
“So, what does he want from you?”
“A relic,” he said.
“Something he’s been chasing for longer than I’ve been alive. Something even he can’t just take.”
“And you know where it is,” I assumed, now getting back to my feet, ready to hear the next part of this plan.
“I know where to start looking,” he replied, before adding,
“But it’ll take time. Days, at least.”
My mind raced, hope tangling with dread.
“And until then?”
Bo met my gaze, unapologetic.
“You play along.”
I let out a weak, incredulous laugh.
“That’s your plan. Play along with Hell’s judge who already thinks he owns me.”
“I didn’t say I liked it, but it’s the only move that doesn’t end with you dead or locked somewhere you can’t escape,” he said, and I dragged my hands down my face, exhaustion flooding in now that the adrenaline was burning out.
“And if he decides to throw me in some kind of supernatural prison anyway?” I asked after Bo’s words settled heavily between us. I studied him then, really studied him. The goblin who had crashed into my life like a curse and somehow become my only remaining chance to get out of this.
“A Prison can always be broken out of.” Well, he certainly had a point there.
“And you’re sure… You’re sure he doesn’t want to hurt me?” I asked quietly. But Bo didn’t answer right away, and my nerves were at a knife’s edge by the time he finally did.
“I think if he wanted to cause you harm, he would have done so already. So, whatever he does want from you, I know it isn’t death.”
That should have been comforting.
It wasn’t.
I pressed my palms into my eyes, the pressure barely denting the thudding behind them.
“What am I supposed to do? He showed up at my work. He wants me to work with his people. What if this is just a ploy to get me alone and then…” I broke off, swallowing hard.
“…Then kill me.”
Bo tilted his head, considering.
“Like I said, if he wanted you dead, girly, he would have done it by now, and he certainly wouldn’t be doing it this way.”
“That’s still not comforting,” I remarked dryly.
“Well, it should be, because knowing what I know, then Lord Oblivion wouldn’t waste his time with this ruse, no, he would just turn up in your bedroom one night and slit your throat.”
I shuddered violently.
“Jeez, Bo, could you be any more graphic? Because if I wasn’t already freaked out about the whole ‘playing along’ part of your plan, I’m feeling real damn cozy about it now… fuck!”
“Just keeping it real,” he shrugged.
“But this does mean he wants something from you, the trick is to get our ass’s out of there before we find out what it is, as it isn’t going to be anything good, that’s for sure.”
I let my head rest against the cool tiles, resentment curling tight in my chest. All this attention wasn’t about me, not really.
It was about what he wanted. I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if the flirting had been nothing more than a calculated move on his part.
And what I hated most was my own response to it, the way I’d let myself be pulled in, emotionally as much as physically, only to feel foolish now for ever thinking it could be anything else.
“So,” I said eventually, my voice thin.
“I just… go with it?”
Bo nodded.
“For now.”
“For now,” I echoed, the words tasting bitter.
“I get into his car. I smile. I pretend this is all very normal corporate nonsense and not some elaborate setup where I end up in a dungeon with my organs catalogued.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” Bo said.
“You literally just told me he could find me anywhere on Earth and that we don’t actually know what he wants with me.”
“Fair, but it won’t be your organs,” he conceded, clearly attempting to rein me in as my thoughts went completely off the rails, every horror movie I’d ever watched replaying itself in vivid, unhelpful detail.
“What if he’s just playing his own game… what if he’s just being… strategic? Keeping me calm until he decides what to do with me?”