Destiny of a Good Deity

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Smoke had fumed out from the other corridor. The heat and the smell of gas had intensified. Mya cursed. Both Dan and Zach were on her list to protect. But Zach’s profile had never been flagged. If she had known she would have to rescue them both, she would have been better prepared. Mya grabbed at Dan’s arm.

“Do you mean someone wants to kill Zach?”

“They’ve tried before. We got out of it. It’s a long story.”

“Dan!” Zach called again.

Dan limped toward the door. “In here. But don’t come in! We’ll come out.”

“Let me,” Mya slid her arm around’s Dan’s waist to help him walk. The smell of gas was growing stronger by the second. Dan looked back at Riko and tried once more, “Riko, come on.”

They heard the door swing open as Zach broke the handle. Zach stormed in and bolted toward them.

“Professor Portman,” he said, obviously surprised to see her.

“Which part of don’t come in here did you not understand?” Dan exclaimed.

“All of it, but there was no way you were coming out otherwise. What’s wrong with your leg?” Zach asked.

“Zach, there’s a girl sitting outside.” Mya pointed to the ledge above.

Zach looked up and saw Riko. He stared at her. Mya expected him to call out to her, but he merely grimaced. He took a stance as if bracing himself against an invisible attacker and then narrowed his eyes at Riko. Mya wished she could slide into her deity skin to read Zach’s thoughts. But she had to stay human until Dan was safe.

As Zach stared, the girl stopped singing. Her image flickered, and then she disappeared.

Mya wished again she could switch back to deity mode to find out what was going on, but there was no time, and it wasn’t an important matter at the moment.

“Professor Portman,” Zach said again.

“Huh?”

“That wasn’t Riko. It was a hologram. It’s a long story, and I’ll explain later. Can we get out of here now? The place reeks of gas.” Zach grabbed Dan’s arm to help him walk.

As soon as they started moving, Mya saw a movement from the corner of her eye. She looked in that direction and saw a girl of about five years of age. She had wandered in from another wing of the building. Her little face was as pale as a ghost, and she looked like she was too shocked to even be frightened.

“You take Dan out of the building,” Zach said. “I’ll go back for the girl.”

“No, Zach, Dan’s heavier than the kid. I can handle this. You keep going,” Mya told him.

She dashed back toward the girl as hundreds of scenarios flashed through her mind. It was like watching a reel of a bad movie. She had done this so many times—saving the wrong people. She knew Dan’s files. He would live until the end of his natural life and die from natural causes. Anything that ended his life now would be unnatural, and it was her duty to save him from an unnatural death. But she didn’t have the girl’s file. She didn’t have time to check the girl’s natural life span. She had to be in her deity form to pull that information. If the girl was meant to finish this life and move on to the next, Mya’s interference would be a negative mark against her record.

Zach turned back and saw that Mya had stopped running,

“Professor Portman, please take Dan. I’ll go back for the girl.”

She couldn’t let Zach go back. It was too dangerous. His safety was her top priority. He saw her hesitance over saving the girl, but she knew he didn’t understand her situation. He might think she was scared—which would be natural for a human given the occasion but was an insult to Mya. He would judge her, and for some reason unknown even to her, his opinion of her was important. She would have to save the girl, whether dying today was her fate or not. She would have to deal with the consequences of it later.

“Damn it!” she muttered as she made her way down the corridor. She approached the girl quickly, scooped her up, and ran back the other way.

Zach and Dan were outside the building, and Mya was nearly at the door when she heard a swoofff. The pressure from the gas explosion pumped through the corridor and shot Mya and the girl outside like a missile.

They rolled on gravel and cement, Mya trying to cover the girl as much as possible, tasting the saltiness of the blood in her mouth. She knew now what the expression “seeing stars” meant. She felt the cold air biting at her skin through the tears in her clothing, poking heavily at the injuries she hadn’t yet had time to assess. A terrible pain sliced through her mind, and she decided that being human sucked. Then her world went black.

Lucas threw the bottle of beer at the computer screen and roared in frustration. “Who the f**k is Zach Flynn?”

Alice hugged him from behind. They had been together for a long time, and she was always there for him when he needed her. Lucas was aware of that. He hadn’t promised her anything, but when it was time to build a family, she was the one he planned to spend the rest of his life with.

“Shhh, calm down, Lucas. We’ll sort this out.” Her smooth voice always comforted him.

“How?” He turned and looked at her. “I can’t see a way out. I’ve taken the deposit. We promised to kill Dan. I should never have taken this stupid job. Why can’t I just put a bullet in the guy’s head? Why does it have to be under the girl’s watch? Who is she? I can kill her, too, as a bonus!”

She pressed a finger to his lips to silence him. “No, you’ll violate your own rules. That’s no good for business, and it’s unprofessional. Never question a client. Remember? Whatever they want, we’ll do it for money. I do have good news, and I hope it lightens your mood.”

Lucas turned and looked into Alice’s deep brown eyes. “I’d love to hear it.”

“The dealer said the contractor understands the situation and didn’t ask for his money back. On the contrary, he’ll double the payment if we can take Zach out as well.”

Lucas grinned. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Alice smiled. “Gotta let you sweat a bit. Zach Flynn’s interference isn’t our fault. We didn’t have the information.”

Lucas frowned. “I hate working on cases when we don’t have the full picture.”

Alice laughed. “I disagree. Unless we’re paid more, I don’t want to know more than we need to know to do the job.”

“That’s my girl.” Lucas pinched Alice’s cheek lightly, then he kissed her. But the passionate kiss didn’t clear the knot that tangled in his mind about this deal. This wasn’t his first job, but it was the first untidy one. He disliked loose ends because experience had told him they’d come back and bite him in the backside.