Chapter 267: Book 2 Chapter 174 - Another Ticket

Familiarity wrapped around Zoe like a silk gown. Tension flushed from her body. A succession of pain rather than an accruement of comfort. She nestled back into her chair and tried to hold back tears. She was still surrounded by people, after all, and…

A sob slipped past her unscarred lips. She leaned forward, face covered, as exhaustion brimmed in her eyes. A familiar hand rubbed her back.

“Are you alright?” Bella asked.

Zoe stiffened as her heart hammered in her chest. She sat up, lightheaded, feeling flushed. Bella sat beside her, her expression of genuine concern. There was so much Zoe wanted to say, but nothing stirred her tongue. This wasn’t her Bella.

Zoe’s Bella fell. Vanished. All those memories gone down into the mud and burned away. All so Zoe could have her wish and now…

“Let me guess,” Bella said. “Relationship problems?”

Zoe blinked.

“What?” she said as she wiped away a tear.

“No, probably something to do with your work. Life purpose, maybe?”

Zoe felt a smile tug the corner of her lips at the sound of her friend’s voice.

“What are you doing, Bella?”

“Trying to distract you from your worries…” Bella frowned at her.

“There’s no need to distract me. I’m alright, just overwhelmed, like usual.”

“How do you know my name?”

Zoe smiled as Bella studied her.

“I saw it on your ticket,” Zoe said as she reached for [Our Hearts Toll as One].

No technique. Not even an empty pocket in her mind, as though her Skein were sealed away completely. She couldn’t even feel where it used to be. There was nothing for her but the Earth System. She was aware of it, but only because it was the one part of her old status she recognized.

Flesh of the Rabid Hound

Epiphanie of the Tongue: 98%

But with no technique, and no Skein…

“Oh,” Bella said at last. “Sorry, yeah, that makes sense.”

Zoe felt a twang of guilt for trying to activate her technique. Not all the tension and paranoia from the apocalypse had left her. It might never leave her. She wiped her tears away and glanced over at Bella. The woman was looking out the window. She wasn’t completely facing away, but Zoe couldn’t tell if she should even speak to her. Was it wrong to try and become friends with her again?

“Why are you heading to Australia?” Zoe asked.

“One guess,” Bella replied with a grin.

Zoe smiled and asked another question, but her mind focused on feeling her status. It was still there. Completely reduced, but it existed. It hadn’t all been a dream – no matter how much she’d started to hope it was.

Did the Flesh of the Rabid Hound mean that she could still summon her hounds? Something stirred in her blood and a smile touched her lips.

“Have you tried the bloody mary’s?” Bella asked her.

Zoe blinked back to reality. Bella asked that right before the apocalypse happened. Did that mean it was about to happen?

“They're the worst drinks in the world,” Bella said. “Bloody disgusting Mary’s, I’ll get us one each.”

She reached up and touched the attendant call button while she espoused on the drink’s burning vodka and bitter tomato juice.

A flight attendant approached them, tucking her long brunette hair behind her ear as she leaned over from the aisle.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“Two Bloody Marys, please.”

“It must be fate,” the flight attendant. “I was just off to make one for myself. I’ll be right back.”

She smiled and walked away. Her eyes drifted past Zoe’s, and a crackle passed between them. Zoe knew those eyes.

“She was a bit of alright,” Bella said as she watched the woman walk away.

Zoe got up from her chair.

“Sorry,” she said. “I need to go to the bathroom.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The man to her right climbed out of his seat. His eyes tracked her as she hurried after the flight attendant. If he said anything, she ignored him. Those eyes. Tunnels. Endless. She stumbled through them as the plane rumbled in the air. Her hand caught a headrest to keep her upright. Joel frowned up at her. Cassy lay asleep on his shoulder with the blanket tucked over her waist. Zoe pulled her gaze away and hurried down.

Anton made eye contact with her from his seat further down the aisle. He quickly looked away again, before looking back.

Zoe wanted to speak to them, warn them, hear them, but she pushed past and down the aile. The waitress disappeared behind a curtain, and Zoe paused at the blue pleated barrier. What if she was wrong?

There was no way she was wrong, so… what if she was right?

She took a breath and pushed through.

The waitress leaned against the counter with a smile.

“How do you like your wish? Is it everything you wanted?”

Zoe swallowed.

“Your Fate.”

“Guilty,” Fate said in a sing-song voice. “I wanted to see what you thought.”

Zoe looked around. The tension she thought long gone squeezed at her.

“Is the Crimson Armada still coming?

Fate clicked her heels together with a grin.

“Yes.”

“But I beat the Witch,” she said, feeling a dull horror loom in her mind. Every word that came out of her mouth felt dumber and dumber. “Rue fought the Smith, I burned them all. They’re dead. It’s over.”

Fate stepped closer to Zoe.

“The witch might have been a poor and twisted woman, so riddled with fear that she couldn’t see beyond her desire, no surprise that someone who embodies the crossroads could never advance even in the eons she had to try… but one thing she got right was that all power comes from a choice. You desire something truly potent, a reworking of time and space on a grand scale, so… there is a choice.”

Zoe shook her head. She wouldn’t bargain again. She wouldn’t engage. That’s what started everything last time. The apocalypse was horrifying, but she didn’t need the interest of the gods.

“I’m waiting, Zoe.”

“Do you have to wear that face?”

“It’s a choice,” Fate said with a smirk that didn’t belong on the matronly face.

“Take it off.”

“The biggest disaster of the apocalypse is whatever happened to your sense of humor, but fine…”

He dug his fingers into his temple and ripped. With a twist of his head, his fused crown erupted like antlers shedding velvet. The face hit the ground with a wet slap and wriggled away out of sight.

Zoe only felt numb, ignoring the grotesquerie in her peripheral vision, she studied Fate’s face. The limp hair. The strained, manic lines at the edges of the eyes. The waxy sheen.

“That’s not your real face either, is it?”

“What is real, Zoe? You’ve seen the world I live in. Do you want to stand here tearing off mask after mask to find the one who committed the crime, or do you want to solve your wish?”

Zoe sensed the deflection in that question, and that made her pause. After all this, after everything that happened, what did Fate have to hide?

“Show me,” she said with the firmness of steel.

Fate smiled and dragged his fingers once more upon his face. His clawed, yellowed nails dug through the thin sheen of skin and ripped it away. Dark skin showed beneath pale, and Zoe gasped. She stumbled back. Not believing. Stunned.

Fate wore her face.

She couldn’t breathe. What did this mean? Was this all some horrible loop, or was she some kind of… Fate snickered, and her thoughts derailed.

“Take off my face,” Zoe snapped.

“I can’t,” Fate said. “You’ve finally gotten me to my true self.”

Zoe lurched forward. She grabbed Fate as he cackled with her throat, and she tore away at the skin. Blood welled, and for a moment, she thought he was telling the truth –

But then her face peeled away under her fingertips and she looked down at the golden grin of the Gambler.

“You…” she breathed and staggered back, the sick fear lurching up through her throat and choking her words, strangling her mind.

“Me,” said the Gambler with a shrug.

He snapped his fingers and the clothes and skin of the waitress wriggled off his body like raindrops from glass. Dressed in shining gold and matching snakeskin boots he shook free of the last of his disguise and grinned at Zoe.

“Feels good to be me again.”

“You died… I saw Rue kill you…”

“I’d hoped you understood by now, but you see, you can’t kill me, because you can’t kill Fate. You can’t stop random chance. You can’t stop anything.”

“You’re not the Gambler.”

“But I am, just as I am you, and all the people on this plane, the plane itself, the sky it travels through, and you get the idea. This form died, but it did not disappear, and I think you’ll appreciate me wearing a familiar face as you welcome a familiar defeat.”

Zoe leaned against the wall. Fate’s – the Gambler’s – words washed over her. She refused to let him rile her up. The plane thrummed through the metal. Vibrations of the sky hummed in her teeth and rattled her bones.

“What is this?” Zoe asked. “All these masks, all these games. Why?”

“Because I want to die, and when you become as powerful as I am, and you’ve woven yourself into everything, there’s only one way to die…”

Zoe hated the leading statement.

“What?”

“Why, suicide, of course. And what a glorious suicide it has been, to send someone through gauntlet after gauntlet and sit on the edge of my seat hoping they make the right choices and take the right steps. You’ve surprised me, but ultimately, you satisfied me. That’s why you’re here.”

“That’s not true,” Zoe said. “The only reason I’m here is because…”

“Yes?”

“I… I won. I beat the gods. I made it to the center of the labyrinth. I got my wish.”

“Yes, you received the greatest prize: another ticket for the ride.”

“No… I wished the apocalypse never happened.”

The Gambler looked around, his movements growing more exaggerated as he stepped beyond the curtain and peeked down the aisle.

“I don’t see any apocalypse, do you?”

“It’s meant to just be me and my friends, we get to live our life again and –”

“Is that what you wished for? Because I don’t see any friends out there. I see people you never met before – future friends, perhaps?”

“That isn’t fair.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

She leaped onto the Gambler, her hands wringing his slender neck even as he started cackling.

“Yes! Yes! Kill me!”

Zoe choked him and his eyes rolled back as his grin stretched wider. She leaned down to hiss in his ears.

“Grant my wish,” she commanded.

“No!”

She screamed and heard her frustrations echoed in the passengers beyond the curtain. People were hurrying toward her. The Gambler laughed, tears streaming down his purple face, as she choked him.

Someone shouted from behind her. Clothing rustled against seats as someone stood up. Zoe let a hound slip from her flesh and it stood behind her, growling, keeping the passengers and attendants at bay.

It was all futile.

This was just a joke to the Gambler, and Zoe had no access to the powers that could make him suffer. Any minute now Rue would…

She stepped away as the Gambler wheezed and chuckled.

She shouted.

“Rue! I know you hear me! I know you hate the Crimson Armada! I know you want a champion! I am your champion, now come here and end it with me!”

Her voice rang off the walls of the plane as the Gambler laughed.