The Doomsday Book

Chapter 12

I watched Delta thrust her saber aggressively into the Fate's hand, making her shriek and drop her pen. The Shadow was scowling, cursing far more colorfully than I'd ever heard while she punched and kicked the woman on the floor. To be honest, that was the first time I'd ever been visibly afraid of her. My palms were sweating. Perhaps I would've stepped back nervously had I not been as tired as I was.

"NOTHING MORE TO SAY, SMART ASS MOTHERFUCKER?! I TOLD YOU, NEXT TIME YOU MAKE ME SEE THAT SHIT AGAIN, I'LL FUCK YOU UP!"

I gulped, not in the mood to correct her grammar. "D-Delta... Delta, I... I think— well I mean... I think she's... unconscious already."

She turned with a scornful look in her darkened eyes before her features softened. "Right, okay." The Shadow walked away from the Fate's body.

"Let's just find Future and close the stupid book. I'm tired." I brushed my wet hair aside. "If you were a Fate, where would you be?"

"At this time? Partying because I caused the world to end," Delta answered, retracting the dark blade of her saber but not willing it away. "How about you?"

I chuckled, noticing her humor coming back, though it didn't fully hide the foreign depth in her eyes. It diminished my courage to ask her what she saw that pissed her off so violently. "I guess I'd just sit back and watch it all happen, city by city."

"That's a possibility," she agreed. "Past is an arrogant bitch, Future is a control freak, and Present is... weird."

"That's helpful," I commented sarcastically.

"You have to meet her yourself. I don't think I can accurately describe how she behaves."

"Sounds like a job for the B.A.U."

Delta rose a brow. "Seriously? TV shows?"

I shrugged. "It's not out of my league."

"You have Netflix?"

"I'm not barbaric!"

"That's debatable."

"Hardy-har-har. Says the Shadow that just beat the Fate of the Past into unconsciousness."

"You have series of psychopathy in your Reaper form," she countered.

"I have it under control," I returned lazily.

"Do you? Do you really?"

I nodded. "Albeit, imperfectly."

"Fine. Whatever. Let's just go look for Future. She's probably sitting her ass down on some building's roof, overlooking this whole thing."

It took us at least an hour to find Future. By then, the stinging rain grew heavier with thunder belching in the distance. A furious streak of lightning struck a broken building behind the bench that Future sat calmly on. She didn't have the Book.

"Oh, come on!" Delta cried, throwing her hands up.

"I didn't take you for a Reaper of faith, Maxwell," she said, ignoring my friend.

The corner of my lip twitched irately from her casual use of my real name. "I'm not."

"Well, you prayed, didn't you? At least, you used to." Future crossed her leg over the other, leaning back against the bench.

"I thought you were the Fate of the Future. Why worry what I did when you should worry about what I will do?" I hissed.

"Ah, but you see, everything is intertwined like a string. The past affects the present which will affect the future. If you didn't jump off the cliff, you wouldn't be a Reaper and have met your friend, which means you wouldn't have been here to listen to me. I may be the Future, but that does not forbid me from touching the Past anymore than the Present."