Death Has a Daughter

Ch 6 First days are always the most challenging

First days are always the most challenging

Okay, so any moment now, she should be walking out into this cool, fall day. Fall was my favorite season of the human realm—the time of year when the wind seems to speak to you, softly whispering while spreading falling leaves over the horizon; the only season that wasn't too hot, wet, or cold. The season was easy to relate to, because it reminded me of what I did for a living. It brought death to living things so that more could be created in the spring.

I'd stayed up all night researching my list. All the research pointed to this first soul being the most difficult one to grasp. My dad said that was the best way to go about my list. "The first step is to always figure out where your souls will rank in difficulty. Make sure you rank them first, so then you can spend most of your day on the hard ones, which leaves the easy ones to take right before you head home. Worked amazing for me." I definitely was going to take his advice.

This soul was the youngest on my list, so she would probably be the most difficult. According to the profile, her DOB indicated she recently turned sixteen. She would surely have a Guardian protecting her, but she was probably really sick, since she was on my first list. I watched as the door to her home finally opened and she stepped out. The profile I had when researching her seemed to be correct. She looked to be about sixteen and was about 5'1" in height. She had long, wavy, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. A small rounded nose sat in the middle of her high cheek bones above her thin, pink lips. She was skinny, but not sickly thin like I'd expected. She had more of an athletic build and I could sense that she was in perfect health. What the hell? Something had to be wrong with her, or why would she already be on my list?

As I checked out the scene, I spotted a Guardian. He sat across the street from her house, by a tree. The thin, gold bands on his wrists let me know he was high-ranking. He appeared to look about the same age as my dad—was I dreaming? Surely they wouldn't put someone on my list that had high-ranked Guardians. Sure, I had been learning how to fight against a Guardian for sixteen years now, but to start with a high-profile one was suicide. Maybe they were testing me. We learned in class that we wouldn't have to face high-profile Guardians until our fourth or fifth list. Maybe looks were deceiving and he was the same level as me. He looked strong though. My stomach twisted at the possibility of him being a higher-level Guardian. All Guardians were lethal due to their strength, speed, and electric current that they had at their fingertips' disposal. The higher-ranked ones were rumored to yield magic, along with their current. I'd need to see what I was really up against.

As the girl walked up the street, I saw her wave to the kids that were down the road at the bus stop. She was too caught up in waving that she hadn't bothered to look both ways. She walked up the street and started to cross, unaware that there was a huge, gray pickup truck coming her way at high-speed. The kids, now noticing this, started to scream, forcing her to look at the truck that would soon make her road-kill, if she didn't run quickly across the street.

She picked up her legs and looked like she was about to run, but in her panic, tripped over her own feet and fell in the middle of the road. Today had to be my lucky day. I crept closer to the scene that was taking place. The Guardian was, just now, running from the bus stop of kids who couldn't see him. If I moved quickly enough, I surely could snatch her soul before the Guardian got there to protect her.

The screaming of the truck's brakes rang in my ear drums, as the truck finally noticed the girl lying in the street. To my fortune, he had noticed too late; there was no stopping the collision. The trucker wailed on his horn to no avail. I concentrated, waiting for the impact. I would have to be fast and accurate with this Guardian coming at full-speed towards her; I would only have one chance.

The Guardian let out an odd whistle, and I froze in my tracks as I saw four more Guardians come out of nowhere and place themselves in front of the girl. A large blonde one was in front, throwing out his arms and bracing the force of the truck as it slammed into all of them. The truck hit the Guardian's long, tight, muscular arms, then stopped dead in its tracks. The man came running out of his truck with wide, worried eyes. He'd probably assumed his truck had stopped from hitting the girl. Humans couldn't see Guardians, unless they revealed themselves to them, so this guy had no idea that four huge Guardians had just stopped his truck. He had no idea that the front of his truck had just been smashed in from the sheer strength of their forearms.

The trucker ran to the girl, who sat dumbfounded a few feet from his truck, and helped her up, apologizing over and over. The blonde Guardian smiled as he congratulated his other brothers and pulled pieces of the truck's grill out of his skin.

My mouth began to water and a shiver went up my spine as I watched him laughing with his colleagues at this brush with death. The Guardians in my textbook never looked like this one; they always looked so dull. Come to think of it, their faces were never really clear. In class, we focused more on what specialties they each could have, not on what they looked like.

Then I noticed my heart thumping in my chest. Is this what attraction felt like? No way...but what the heck...I couldn't possibly be attracted to...no... My heart was probably pounding because I'd just missed out on this opportunity. And if I had moved a second earlier, these Guardians would have probably broke me into a million pieces, like the truck's shattered windshield, and sent me back to the underworld.

Good thing I'd waited. This girl being on my list was definitely a mistake. No way would they put a first-year Reaper on a soul this high-risk. She had five Guardians that came to her aid! If she'd had a bigger threat of death, who knows how many more would have come.

By myself, I would have been a goner. Father had to know about this; he would surely have an explanation. I took one last look at the scene so I could give my dad a full description, and readied myself for my teleport.

My eyes glanced at the girl, who happened to be staring in my direction as the trucker was at her side still saying how sorry he was. She seemed to be staring at something behind me. I looked, but no one was there. Was she just staring off into the distance? I looked back to her and, still, her eyes seemed to be locked on me. Then she smiled and winked before turning to face the trucker.

What the heck? No way could she see me! Must be something I wasn't seeing. I know, for a fact, I hadn't revealed myself. Strange girl.