Blurred by Tara Fuller

fire,” she admitted. “You were on my list. I was supposed to take you and I didn’t. I let you stay.”
    “What do you mean you let me stay?” I asked. “Like you saved me?”
    Anaya laughed, bitterly, and pushed herself away from the book stack. “Saving you would have been taking you to Heaven where you belonged. No, Cash. I didn’t save you. I think we both know that.”
    I barked out a laugh. “Heaven? Me? Now I know you’re full of shit.”
    Anaya tossed a tired expression my way and stepped into a dusty stripe of sunlight. If it was possible, she looked even more beautiful. Wait…beautiful? I shook my head, hoping the thought would bounce right out of my ears. She was Death. A walking nightmare. No way did that word belong anywhere near this girl.
    “The second I pushed you back into that body, it began to expire,” she said. “It won’t last. It will deteriorate. This is just a waiting game now.”
    Deteriorating? As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew it was true, because it’s exactly how I felt inside. I was dying. Fuck. I didn’t want to die. Not yet. I wanted to go to art school. I wanted to get away from my dad and prove him wrong. And Em… Damn it, I couldn’t leave Em.
    Her molten eyes slipped over me, filled with something dark. Guilt, maybe? Pity? Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. She finally straightened her back and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
    “You’re sorry?” I balked. “You tell me I’m dying and that’s all you can say?”
    “Look, I know this isn’t fair to you,” she said. “And I’m not cruel. I’m just doing my job, following orders. If I’d had any idea that this would happen…” She shut her eyes and shook her head, causing a few silky braids to tumble over her shoulder. “I’m going to try to make this whole thing as easy as possible on you. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. You deserve that much.”
    At a loss, I just stared at her. Words. I still knew how to form words, right? It was like this chick sucked every ounce of sense right out of my brain.
    “Why didn’t you just take me at the fire?” I whispered, knowing that if I could have this one question answered, maybe I could deal with the rest. But the not knowing was killing me. “Why put me through this?”
    Anaya’s light dimmed and she frowned. “It wasn’t my choice.”
    “Then whose choice was it?”
    “Someone much more powerful than you and I combined.”
    “Stop being so fucking vague, Anaya,” I growled. “Who? Your boss? God?”
    She flinched at my tone, but I didn’t care. I was so sick and tired of all of this.
    “Not God, but yes. I work for him,” she admitted.
    “And why the hell would he want me to stay like this?”
    “I don’t know. I’d tell you if I did. All I know is there must be something terribly special about your soul for you to attract his attention.”
    She didn’t know? How the hell could she not know? If she didn’t, did anybody? Was I going to live the rest of my short life like this? Stalked. Terrified. Never knowing why. Or was the rug about to ripped out from under me? From now on, I’d wonder every second if the breath passing through my lips would be my last. My fingers started to shake along with the rest of me and I curled them into fists that I ground into the floor. My throat was closing up. I couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe.
    “You need to calm down,” Anaya whispered, her warmth suddenly right there, forcing my throat open to let the air pass through. The prickling pain had flared back to life, but Anaya’s warmth seemed to keep it tolerable. She didn’t touch me, though she was close enough that her words cascaded like honey over my skin. “These shadows are drawn in by emotions that accompany death. Fear, anxiety, even anger. You need to learn some control. I can’t be here all the time to ward them off. Breathe, Cash. Just breathe.”
    I took a couple of deep, calming breaths, and Anaya looked down at my