All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 25: Winter in Los Angeles Part 3 ~ Scott Albert

- David’s POV -

Even smothered in a jacket that looked like it could serve double duty as a hot air balloon, Emma made it hard for me to breath. She saw me and came across the room, pushed her way through the crowd and met me at the bar. “Where’s Glen?” She said, honestly confused. Mitch was gone, and in a room packed full of people, so loud I had to shout into her ear to be heard, we were alone.

“You must be lost,” I said. “Because I’ve travelled through fifteen dimensions to find you.”

Her brow crinkled in confusion. “What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that? For ten years you pretend I don’t exist. I got married, David. To Glen.” She looked me in the eyes. I felt something sliding around inside me. “Now they’re going to kill you. They’re going to kill you, David. Unless you go. And I never see you again.” She put her hand on my chest.

Never see me again.

The weight of the envelope in my hand. Somehow, for the first time today, I was ahead of everyone else. Ahead of everyone, that is, except for Glen. I pulled open the envelope and looked inside. My stomach lurched. I looked up at Emma, every sight of her made my world spin.

“Come with me. Now. Tonight. You and me.”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times and then; “David. I can’t. They won’t let me. Glen… what would he…”

I showed her what was in the envelope. What Glen had arranged. Two sets of travel documents. One for me. One of her.

He must have made them a long time ago.

She pushed the envelope down, out of sight in case anyone was watching. And she nodded. She nodded. She was mine.

And then. Behind her. At the door. Coming in. Aspen sweater guys. The two guys with their half-eaten burgers at the diner. B.O.D. Bishop of Defense. They didn’t see us in the sea of people. They didn’t even look around. But one pointed out the back exit to the other. They put their hands into their pockets and threaded through the crowd, the drinkers, the self-harmers, the eighteen piece band and headed to the back door.

The gun heavy in my pocket.

They hadn’t even looked around. They weren’t here looking for me. Or for her. They were here to meet someone else.

Someone who was giving me my freedom. And Emma… this Emma… what she wanted most in the world. He was giving her me.

But not like this.

I pushed back from Emma and followed in the wake of the ski sweater hit men. I could feel the heat from the branding irons as I passed. Smell the whiskey and the sweat and the laughter from the crowd. The sax player blurting out his solo right in my ear as I went past. The gun heavy in my pocket. And then in my hand. Emma clutching at me. Then the crowd wouldn’t part enough for us to stay together. She got held back a second, just long enough to get me out the back door of the place.

The snow hit me in the face. The same snow that’s been falling since I got here. The cruel wind made my nose go instantly numb. Down the dimly lit back alley, I could see the “Hollywoodland” sign on the distant, snowy hill. In the dimly lit alley was Glen’s pick up. Tilted on its axels, meaning his bulk was clearly inside. The two ski sweater guys crowding the side window. Which was rolled down.

The one ski sweater guy pulling a cold, chrome gun from his voluminous snow parka and pointing it into the pick up cab. Mine’s faster. I tugged the trigger.

I’d never fired a gun before. Not counting the guy I shot just a couple of hours ago. I’m probably the worse shot you’ll ever meet, but even I couldn’t miss from this close.

I emptied the gun and the two guys went down. Glen stared at me, stunned, from the pickup. He got out. Slowly. He looked at me. He looked at Emma. Standing behind me. Her face pale and ashen in the night.

Glen spoke first. “You stupid bastard. If they had got me they’d stop looking. It’s the only way!”

I handed him the gun. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let you die so I could have her.” But that wasn’t true. Cause what I knew, what I could see in her eyes is that yes – she’s loved me (This Emma loved me!) but if I let him die for her – for me – she’d never be mine. I held out the travel documents to him. Emma snatched them from my hand.

“What about me?” She said. “What about come with me? When I do I get to choose? When is it me who chooses?”

“You’re not my Emma.” I said. “You never will be.”

Emma’s heart felt the cold. The cold snowy night that never let up. The snow that never stopped in Los Angeles. She looked at Glen, who stood there. Shoulders slumped. His eyes hidden behind his limp, stringy hair. A dead man given a second chance. Her hand trembled while she handed him the travel documents, and by the time they had turned the corner in the pick-up, headed for the border or who knows what I was already out of sight, heading the other way.

“Hey, heretic!”

The street was busy that as I turned I bumped into other people just trying to get home out of the cold. The waitress stood there behind me. The waitress from the diner. She had a gun. Another peace damned gun.

“Peace of the lion, unbeliever.”

She pulled the trigger. I felt it. I went down. Blood flowing free from the hole in my neck. She fired twice more, but both missed by a mile. Someone else, just trying to get home, went down and didn’t move.

I watched as my blood swirled on the sidewalk. Was I dying? Could I die? Here, lost between dimensions?

My blood swirled into gutter. Down into the sewer. Freezing as it pooled. The blood swirled around me. Faster and faster. The whole world spun around me.

The waitress stepped up to me, “A lesson from the keepers of the faith. You don’t deserve Lord Gabriel’s protection.” She said from far away. Far away.

You must be lost.

My blood swirled and the world ran out and the cold flooded in.

And then like I’m upside down and floating and nowhere and everywhere and nothing and everything and…

Emma.

A/N

Sorry for the late post guys...absolutely exhausted...will update more tomorrowwwwww!

Hope you like the end of Scott's world!!