Fate's Demand (Twisted Fate, Book 3)

Chapter One

"Tell me again."

Suzie leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes up to the ceiling as she tapped her nails against the top of my L-shaped mahogany desk placed in the far-left corner of my room. "I've told you everything that I know three times already, Aly. The facts don't change."

Right. The facts. Every time that Suzie went through her so-called explanation, I hoped to understand it better, but it was no use. How do you explain dying, being saved by good angels, and then getting possessed by the Darkness that they couldn't seem to kill? It was like a dream: unbelievable. Nobody experienced that kind of stuff in real life. But I did, right before I tried to save my mom from a psych ward. That didn't work. So now I was doing as David, my dead boyfriend who'd turned out to be an angel, had said to do. I was trying my best to listen to Suzie, though she didn't make it easy.

I looked at Suzie until she focused on me again, and then asked as casually as I could, "So, you get visions?"

Suzie bit her lip and nodded. "Yes."

I stood up and paced the floor of my maroon bedroom, hoping the movement would help me think. After being attacked last night, literally consumed by Darkness, I was scared to close my eyes. What was worse than that was Suzie had known what was happening and didn't tell me. I'd thought I was going crazy! Heck, she'd thought it. I paused to look at her and opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I snapped it shut and began pacing once more.

"Aly, I wanted to tell—"

"So, you had a vision, an-and that's why we stopped being friends? Because of a vision?" I stopped and leaned against the trunk at the end of my bed to glare at my best friend. Or, at least the girl who looked like her, but I wasn't sure. Were we friends? Or was she another piece of the manipulation machine cranking to play out the events in my life like actors following a movie script?

When I had woken from my dream with David, Suzie had been here, sleeping in the chair. Somehow, she was chosen to instruct me on all the weird in my life. It seemed ridiculous. Until the aftermath of what happened at my birthday party, she had been the only one I'd thought had been spared. She was the least connected and the last person who could explain what was happening to me. Right?

"You died in that vision, Aly!" She threw her hands in the air. "What would you have done?"

"Me?" I pointed to myself, scoffing. "I would have warned you."

"Right." She licked her lips and nodded. "Until you died, you wouldn't have believed me."

"I died three times! You didn't think I'd get it after the first round?"

"I know how many times you died, Aly. I saw it."

"So? What about all the times you could have said something since David died? You knew all about the weird crap going on and didn't think, "Hmm, maybe I should tell her?" You know, so I didn't feel like I was crazy?"

Taking a deep breath, I pushed my hands down to my side and closed my eyes. Calm down. One, two... three. Exhaling, I opened my eyes. "Call me delusional, but that's something I thought was ingrained into the Best Friend Code. You see your friend die—three times! —and then begin doing magic or... whatever, and you're supposed to tell them what you know."

Suzie sat in the rolling chair between my desk and bed, silent. I could tell she was upset because she was wearing sweats. Suzie was the head cheerleader, the pretty, popular girl who didn't go grocery shopping without make-up. If the sun was shining? She'd call in sick to school if she didn't have a clean skirt and barely-there top to match. But she was sitting here, the girl who I didn't believe owned comfy clothes, wearing a pair of gray sweats, unflattering black t-shirt, and bulky wide sneakers like some sort of Avril wannabe from that Complicated video.

Don't get me wrong. Even without the make-up, with eyes that were red from crying and loosely piled hair at the top of her head, she was still beautiful. Any guy would want her. They did want her. The problem was that Mike—a freaking angel—had killed the only guy she wanted to have just last night, which also happened to be my birthday. Now, her boyfriend was gone because of me. Because Darkness had taken possession of Deryk in its attempt to get to me, and angels had had to fix the problem.

"I need a drink," I said, leaning down to dig into my purse sitting at the foot of my bed.

"What?" Suzie swiveled in the chair and I help up my keys, swirling them around my finger.

"We're eighteen. It's legal."

"Aly, you—we—can't get hammered."

"Says who?" Lifting my eyebrow, I stood up and watched her without blinking. If what she said was true, and I was so special, consuming alcohol wouldn't change anything. It might help me to forgive her, though. Plus, I didn't want to be the girl drinking alone in the bar.

"I, uh..." She looked up to the ceiling.

"What? You think they're watching us in my bedroom?" I asked, tilting my head to the side for a moment before casting my gaze up. "If so, then let's go get drunk so we're too disgraceful for their holier-than-thou morality." I looked back at Suzie and smiled, batting my eyelashes. "What do you say? You game?"

Suzie picked her chin up from off her chest. "I thought they said you had a pure soul?" She grinned and stood up to follow me out of the room. "I don't think you're supposed to go drinking at eleven-thirty in the morning."

"Yeah? They also said I have magical powers and leadership skills," I said over my shoulder, "but someone recently told me that the beauty of who I am is found in my flaws. Consider this my vice."

She laughed. "If we are called out for this, I'm blaming your leadership skills for their bad influence on me."

"Fine! I'm blaming their bad judgment for making me a leader!"

She wouldn't need to, though. If I'd learned one thing from David's death, it was that you have an excuse for doing stupid things after your boyfriend dies. I didn't want her to be stuck in bed for weeks as I had. This? Our little misadventure? I was just facilitating a speedy recovery while attempting to find a façade of normalcy in what she'd just finished telling me. After our joint birthday party turned into an exorcism and ended with me carried out on a stretcher, it was exactly what we needed. At least I did.

Three people were dead because of me: David, Brenan—who was the real David—and Deryk. My mom was in the psych ward, I'd died, and Suzie had visions. Rather than finding an excuse to drink, I needed someone to give me a reason not to, and Suzie hadn't managed that yet.

A/N: At least Suzie had a reason for being the bad friend in Fate's Exchange! What do you think? Should she have told Aly about her visions when Aly was dying? Or did she do the right thing in keeping quiet? I know I would have been pretty hesitant to reveal an angel's secret!