Pity.
Crossing over, she lifted up one of the sheets. Underneath, a faded green velvet sofa with all kinds of curlicues looked orphaned.
She ripped the covering off. Went on to the wing chair next to it and did the same. Kept going around the parlor, moving faster and more violently, until dust hung thick in the air and a pile of dirty laundry took up most of the middle of the room.
At least she’d gotten to the bottom of something.
Not her issues, though. Not in the slightest.
The angel who’d escorted her here from the hospital had magically transported her across town, but it had been without explanations—he’d told her nothing about herself, her situation, or exactly how he’d pulled off the relocation. He’d also left alone things like how he was tied to Jim, and why he’d come to them, and what his role was.
Just more black holes to add to her collection.
Pacing around, she followed the oval pattern on the carpet because it seemed like the only clear path open to her. That anger that had taken root earlier was rising again, making her feel trapped in spite of the fact that the door she’d come through was not locked, the house had dozens and dozens of rooms, and unlike in her previous life, she had no one she had to answer to—no parents, no teachers, no roommates at Union.
She was free.
So why the hell did she want to scream.
Hard to know what exactly started it, but before she knew what she was doing, she was frantically searching the fireplace’s mantel, going up high on her tiptoes in those borrowed sneakers, patting the cobwebbed shelf around the candelabra and the—
The little box rattled as she brought it down, and yup, there were matches inside.
Moving in a jerky frenzy, she ripped a sheet off the pile, shoved it into the fireplace, and struck up a flame.
Holding the teardrop-shaped glow to eye level, she stared into the yellow heat, and the fury in her expanded even further, flowing through her body, changing the shape of her, growing deep within—sure as if it were cultivating in her soul, finding crevices to root among and take over from.
Dropping to her knees, the cold marble bit into her skin through the sweatpants, but she didn’t care—she brought the tiny fire to the tangled wad and held it there. Smoke rose first, a tendril forming and then quickly thickening into a rolling river.
Proper flames appeared, flaring up, licking at the sheeting, consuming the cotton fibers with increasing greed.
Unable to look away, Sissy reached behind herself, stretching out until she connected with the soft pile she had made. Dragging more forward, she fed the heat, pushing the sheets into the blaze, feeling the burn on her hands, her wrists, her arms, her face.
In her head, a string of curses was like the fire she was creating, flaring to life, consuming—
“What the f**k!”
Sissy ignored whoever it was, utterly focused on her inferno as she wondered what else she could put in it. The drapes. She could rip down the—
Hard hands grabbed onto her shoulders and yanked her back—and that was when she lost it. Just f’in lost it.
As if detonated, she went crazy, screaming, kicking, biting at whatever she could get access to. And as she attacked, her vision whited out, nothing registering except the need to hurt someone, anyone—
With the inner explosion came a freakish strength.
Which was how she ended up twisting around and kneeing her captor right in the balls.
“Fucking hell—fuck!”
For a split second, the hold on her loosened, and she took advantage of the release, bolting out from the smoke-filled parlor and tearing for the front door. Grabbing the handle, she ripped things open and launched herself off the steps, landing in a messy sprawl on the wide sidewalk. Shoving her hair out of her face, she—
Headlights.
Down the lane on the left, coming toward her.
Jumping up to her feet, she ran for the car or truck or SUV, streaking out into the road, facing off, thinking of how Jim had gotten hurt. She wanted to feel the impact, wanted to be solid enough to sustain the strike, to have at least one of the old rules of life apply to her: Don’t play in traffic because you will get hit.
“Sissy! Shit!”
“See me!” she screamed at the approaching lights. “See me!”
“Sissy, goddamn it!”
Her prayers were answered for once. Just when she thought she’d be denied, the car’s horn blared loud enough to get through the fury that was driving her. Then she had a brief impression of the driver looking right at her in terror, some inside light in the sedan illuminating his pale face with eyes stretched wide and a mouth open as if he were yelling—
She was bodily removed from the path, a far greater weight muscling her out of the way as brakes squealed and the world spun.
She landed on the grass strip on the far side of the road, her savior’s body crushing her, pain both clearing her head and scrambling it in a different way. Instantly, she was spun onto her back, her arms pinned over her head, her legs trapped in between two heavy thighs.
Above her, Jim looked as pissed off as she felt—
“Where did she go?”
Dimly, she turned her head. A man was getting out of the BMW that had almost hit her and looking around frantically. “She was right there in the middle of the road.”
A woman emerged from the other side of the sedan. “I saw her, too. She came out of nowhere.”
Just like that cat, Sissy thought numbly as her anger dissipated. The one that had jumped in front of Jim’s truck earlier.
“I’m over here,” she called out weakly. “God … I’m over here…”
The two of them focused in her direction. “Did you hear that?” the man asked.
“Hear what?” the woman said.
The man approached, but it was clear he couldn’t really see her anymore. And as she opened her mouth to yell again, Jim clamped his hand on her mouth, silencing her.
“Don’t you think we have enough problems,” he hissed.
She tried to fight against him, but without her fury, there was no contest: He was way stronger, and stilled her without any real effort. And as expected, shortly thereafter, the couple got back in their luxury car and drove off.
As their red taillights flared, her frustration rekindled.
This was it? After all the good deeds she’d done in her life, after everything she’d unfairly been through down below, her eternity was getting stuck in the halfway-house version of an afterlife? Neither here nor there, Heaven nor Hell—nothing but a shadow that could take shape on rare occasions and maybe make car drivers hit their brakes in passing?