Death is My BFF Rewritten (Book 1 of the Rewritten Death Chronicles)

Chapter 19: Ace

Antidisestablishmentarianism.
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             My throat was burning with a cold fire by time we finally started to slow down.

            "I have. No idea. Where we are," I panted, clutching my chest as it heaved quickly up and down. Leo. The hooded man had been Leo? And the power I had felt within me...the energy that came out of my body and knocked Leo back. Where had that come from?!

            I shook myself from my thoughts, trying to find landmarks that would tell me what street we were on. I couldn't think about the past right now. I had to think about the future.

             I had to focus on hiding. Thomas had almost died, and I had intervened. That had pissed of Leo--whatever he was. Was he another Grim Reaper? A helper for Death?

            Leo was going to kill Thomas. Maybe even me.

            Protecting us both was what I had to focus on.

            Thomas and I had lost ourselves in a couple of alleyways with drunken homeless people, ending up in a part of Chicago that didn't seem all that friendly. We kept running until I felt like we were safe again. Wherever we were now, the buildings were much nicer and the people looked much more approachable.

            I looked up at Thomas, who looked more frightened and confused than ever. He was breathing just as hard as me,  looking down at his hands as if he had never seen them before. "Do you know where we are?" I asked, urging him to center his attention on me by shaking him by the jacket. "Thomas, snap out of it!"  

            "I touched that man.  He won't follow us now. He can't. Evil. He was going to kill me. I was supposed to die." Thomas blinked a few times, as if fighting some sort of external force. "I didn't sign up for this... I didn't sign up for this..."

            "Didn't sign up for what?" When he didn't answer, I pulled on his jacket to urge him forward. "Thomas, I'll explain everything. Everything is fine. We have to keep moving."

            Thomas' cobalt eyes flickered on people coming in and out of stores, walking around us. He flinched away from them, huddling towards me, gripping my arm."We're surrounded by evil. Don't you see them?"

            He was talking crazy.

            "Enough! We have to hide somewhere!" I yanked on his arm until he finally obliged, letting me lead him down the street.

            He was talking to himself like a mad man. "I see what you are!" he shouted to a pedestrian, gripping him by the shirt. "I see you're rotten evil! You're not fooling anyone!"

            "Ease off, psycho!" The pedestrian pushed away from Thomas, flipping him the bird.

            My heart pounded. Maybe Thomas wasn't talking madness. Had saving his life made him able to see the supernatural? Something I wasn't able to entirely see yet? I had to get Thomas inside. Away from people.

            So I slapped him for the second time that day. "Get a hold of yourself! It's over now. I'm not going to let you die. We just need to get somewhere safe!"

            He blinked a few times, then nodded like a bobble head. "I'm ok now. I'm ok..."

            I held Thomas back from following the pedestrian, hopelessly turning his body around with me and facing the building before us.