Courting Death | Book 3

S I X T E E N

S I X T E E N
Reason to Stay

"YOU ARE INSANE." I spat the words out with as much venom as I could. "You honestly think that I would believe that? That you can rewind time? For a young girl, you sure have a rather psychotic mindset."

"Like I said, Andy, the mind is a very powerful place." Before my very eyes, Lola began to shift into a different figure. Her short and petite body grew taller and much more muscular, her facial features that once resembled a little doll shaping itself into one of a handsome man that I was all too familiar with. Standing tall with pride, Dimitri flashed me a grin, the corners of his lips pulled into the same nefarious grin that I had seen on him during the first few days of our acquaintance. This was the very same Dimitri from the boathouse. This was Death. "Why are you so difficult to persuade?"

"You can't fool me, Lola." I gritted my teeth in annoyance, fingers clenched down by my sides as I frowned. All the while, the smirk upon Dimitri's lips never wavered. "I know it's you and my answer stays the same. I will not turn back the time. In fact, you shapeshifting into Dimitri further concreted the fact that I should not give up what I have now for something of the past."

"Oh, Addison," Lola spoke in Dimitri's voice, using the same taunting tone that he had equipped what felt like eons ago. I felt as if I was indeed transported back in time to where the boathouse was no longer in the past but was the painful present. And that was where Death was not kind. "The truth of the matter is that no matter what, time is truly constant. As much as you think that I am unable to turn back time, the second hands of the clock will always be ticking away."

With a wave of a hand, the scene before us transformed back to that of my home. From where I stood, I could see myself seated upon a cozy armchair, curled up with a book in my hands as the hands of the clock ticked irritatingly in the background. Immediately, I recognized it as the day in which I had received the first golden letter that would eventually shape the rest of my life forever; New Year's Eve night.

"You hated that fact and you still do now. What are you going to honestly expect on your final day alive on borrowed time, Addison?"

As the words tumbled out, the scene before us changed once more. This time, we were at a place filled with lush greenery, one in which I had first assumed as a spot in Paradise. It was only when I had noticed huts a little further away from the beautiful floral garden in which I was in had I realized that this was Heaven, the domain of angels. A shiver ran down my spine when I heard a strained cry by my right, causing me to turn towards the direction of the sound. I froze when I realized that there were two people huddled on the ground, a head of ebony dark hair falling over the man's face as he hugged a woman tightly to his chest. It was only upon closer inspection had I deduced that those two people were none other than me and Dimitri.

"No, please Addison. I can't watch you die again. Not again." That version of Dimitri wept with a sorrow in which I had never seen before. It was as if his tears could make up the entirety of the ocean, voice filled with alarming desperation as he continuously combed the golden blonde hair away from the other version of me as if it could wake her up again.

I was so fixated on the current scene that I had not even noticed Lola slipping so closely to my side, her lips barely even inches away from my ears as she whispered things that would make her seem like a voice in the back of my mind. Right now, unfortunately, she was very much more than that.

"Eventually, you will die." I could hear Lola speak, her voice slowly turning back from a deep tone to her own childish one. "Just like anything and anyone else."

The version of myself in Dimitri's arms was a ghastly pale. Her skin was one of a light pasty green that resembled the shade of myself back when I was still in the boathouse. She wasn't moving even the slightest, simply laying limply in Dimitri's arms as he cried, hands cupping her cheek dearly. All I felt was a shot of agony piercing through my heart, causing me to frown.