I slide backward, wincing as my head nearly slams into the headboard behind me.

“Die?” I repeat.

Ari stares at me, his eyes twinging with confusion as he rises to his knees. “I thought you understood,” he says.

I choke on my words. “I guess not. Die? I don’t want to die.”

“You have to.”

“Says who?”

He stiffens. “Says the deal I made for your soul,” he says.

I shudder with dread as I look around. “But I thought... I’m not dead now, right?”

“You’re not.”

“Then why can’t I just be here like this?” I ask.

“It doesn’t work like that,” he says. “Once you let go of my hand, you’ll go right back. This is only temporary.”

“Then, temporary it is.”

“Tannis—”

“I don’t want to die for you!”

I feel awful the moment the words leave my lips. Ari bites down, making his sharp cheekbones poke out even farther.

“You have no choice,” he finally says.

My mouth sags. “But I do,” I say. “You gave me three dates, remember? Three dates to get you to change my mind or I could go free. That’s what we agreed to.”

“It is.” He nods once. “But I’m owed a great debt. Twenty years for a soul. If not yours, then someone must die in your place.”

I shake my head in disgust. “No.”

“Your father. Your mother.” He makes his suggestions and I cringe. “A stranger on the street.”

“No!”

“The scales must be balanced,” he says. “There are rules in this world, Tannis. Your parents knew that when they shook my hand.”

“Well, I didn’t!” I try to peel my hand from his grasp but he holds on. A tear rolls down my cheek. “If I had known how much of a monster you really were, then I wouldn’t have...”

A sob clenches my throat.

Ari withdraws, noticeably stabbed by the word but his eyes bleed sympathy. “Tannis...” He shifts closer.

I push backward. “Stay away from me!”

“You have to make a choice,” he says, keeping his hold on my hand. “I’ve shown you a fraction of the life I can provide for you and now you’ve seen the alternative.”

I think about those cold, dead faces and instantly regret it.

“But I swear...” His eyes soften even more. “Your soul will be taken care of no matter what you choose.”

I look away, my eyes brimming.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way because I...” His fingers twitch around mine. “Well, if you can’t tell how I feel about you by now, then you never will.”

I close my eyes, swallowing hard.

“I’ll return tonight for your answer.”

Ari lets go of my hand. My gut lurches as if I suddenly found myself in a moving elevator shaft but it ends as quickly as it began.

When I open my eyes again, Ari is gone. I’m back on my front porch, standing exactly where we started. A dizzy spell washes over me. I place a hand on the porch railing to keep myself upright and turn my head down to block the bright sun from my burning eyes.

Dammit. How have I been so naïve?

The front door opens behind me. “Tannis?”

I discreetly wipe my eyes. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Are you okay?” she asks, glancing around. “Where’s Ari?”

“Uh, he...” I clear my throat. “He left.”

She furrows her brow. “After two minutes?”

Two minutes? But we were gone much longer than—

You know what? Nevermind.

It’s not important.

I’m going to die today.

“Yeah,” is all I can say.

“Well, come back inside. It’s getting chilly...”

I don’t move. I’m not sure I can even go back inside. How can I sit down at the breakfast table with my parents and pretend like it’s not the last time I ever will?

I take a step down off the porch. “I’m going to take a walk, actually,” I say, avoiding my mother’s eyes.

“... All right.” I hear the concern in her tone. “We’ll be here.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

I walk off down the street, not really watching or caring where I’m going. My thoughts bounce around my head, each one as cold and bleak as the autumn chill around me.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to leave this world. I want to travel and go to school. Take vacations. Have children, maybe. Honestly never gave it much thought but I always figured that someday I would have the choice. Now, that choice, and every other one, has already been made... except this one.

A survival instinct clenches my gut, churned by fear. I want to live. Every breath I take sudden seems so sacred.

I have to live.

I turn my head up and realize I’ve wandered nearly five blocks into town. People pass around me. Cars drive down the street. Strangers walk in and out of coffee shops and beauty parlors and grocery stores. I don’t know them. I don’t know their names. I know nothing about them.

I could choose one to take my place. Just point at one of them and go home.

A man steps down from a pick-up truck across the street. He looks old, fragile. Probably doesn’t have much time left anyway...

I could just point at him and he’ll take my place.

There. Scales balanced. No more Ari.

Ari. You son of a bitch.

I look away from the old man. He could have kids or grandkids. A spouse. Or a job in public service. People might depend on him.

Even if he’s a bitter, old fool, it’s still not my right to take that life away.

I could never do that.

And I bet Ari knows that.

I turn away from him and find myself standing beneath a familiar neon sign.

Madam Cassandra’s. The tarot reader.

I blink twice as a phantom string tugs at my ribs. A few heavy moments pass before my feet carry me toward the entrance.

“Hello?” I ask as I step inside.

The floor is empty. The air is filled with the scent of candles lit around the shop. Incense tingles my nose once more and I recall how silly all this seemed just a few short nights ago. Doesn’t seem all that strange anymore. Not after what I know now.

“Welcome back.”

Cassandra emerges from behind the curtain with a kind smile. For a moment, I almost don’t recognize her. Her hair sits up high in a messy bun. Her lips, which were a deep shade of purple-black before, now glisten with nothing more than a clear gloss.

She sticks her hands in the front pockets of her overalls and laughs. “All Hallow’s Eve is over,” she says with a wink.

I nod. “I see.”

She shrugs. “The witchy look always brings in a... certain type. Good for business.”

“Makes sense.”

“Not everyone comes back, though.” She looks me up and down. “Especially not so soon.”

“Yeah, I...” I shift on my feet. “I’m not sure why I came in here, exactly...”

Cassandra tilts her head. “Probably not to chat about this mediocre weather we’re having.” She turns and pushes the curtain open with her hand.

She disappears into the shadows. I don’t wait for her to offer. I follow her into the back room. Again, it’s not as dark or cliché as it was on Halloween night. The black curtains are torn down, now revealing bookcases full of trinkets and bottles and other things I don’t recognize.

The table, on the other hands, appears almost the same with the black velvet square and the same tarot deck sitting in the center.

Cassandra takes her seat and I sit across from her. “You seem different,” she says, her eyes knowing far more than she speaks.

I snort. “You’re not wrong.”

She nudges the deck in my direction and I remember what to do. I pick it up, once again admiring the age and wear on the cards, before shuffling them three times.

“Nothing wrong with different,” she says. “It’s good, most of the time.”

I set the deck down, not quite sure if I agree with that or not.

Cassandra smiles. “I didn’t use to think so, either,” she says. I nearly flinch. “But change isn’t always a test. And tests aren’t always something we can prepare for. Change is natural. It’s evolution, lying dormant inside of us all along.”

I raise a brow and she laughs.

“I’m just talking out of my ass,” she says, waving a hand. “Some people get some inspiration out of it. Some don’t.”

I breathe a laugh. “Do you even believe in this stuff?”

“I do,” she says. “But at the end of the day, the cards have no power over me or you. They’re merely a guide, something meant to point us in the right direction like...” Her lips twitch. “Like a kind of escort.”

I hold my breath as she lays three cards face down between us. Her hand hovers over the first card on her left as she looks at me.

“Now, let’s see the state of things...” she muses.

She flips over the card and grins.

The Lovers.

“Well, now!” she says. “That’s a contrast.”

My cheeks burn. “It’s not what you think...”

“Oh, but it is,” she says. “It’s love and devotion. Mutual respect and loyalty. Explosive sex, once you’re ready.” She shakes her head. “This new change in your life might not be the nightmare you fear.”

“I’m not afraid,” I say.

“Your eyes tell me differently.”

I press my lips together as she turns the second card.

The Tower.

“And so does this,” she says with a hard edge in her voice.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

“Destruction,” she answers. “Full, inevitable collapse of something dear; something taken for granted.”

Like the air in my lungs, perhaps?

My shoulders sink.

Cassandra’s eyes wander my face. “But once the tower falls, there’s hope. Like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, something stronger crawls out of the rubble.”

“And where does that lead me?” I ask.

She stares at me as she reveals the third card.

Death.

I exhale hard as a lump forms in my throat. “Right,” I whisper. “Of course.”

There’s no escaping it.

There never was any escape from it.

“You misunderstand your card, Tannis,” Cassandra says. “Death isn’t necessarily literal. Life and death, it’s all cyclical. It’s the end of one thing so that another can begin. This end you fear...” She tilts her head. “Well, would you rather lie in the rubble or will you spread your wings and fly out of it?” Her eyes flick toward The Lovers and she smiles. “I know which one I’d choose.”

I take a deep breath as that warm ribbon grips my heart all over again.