Final Wish

First was the gunshot. 

It echoed off the stony walls of the nearby buildings and assaulted Ace’s eardrums. His head ducked and his shoulders shot up to his ears. He stood frozen for a moment, his jaw hanging open on a hinge. 

Second was the realization.

He’d been walking alongside a woman, their fingers intertwined, their shoulders brushing with each step. Now she was strewn across the dirty sidewalk, her stomach trembling with each ragged breath she dared to take. Ace dropped to his knees and pressed his hands against her abdomen, the blood that’d seeped through her shirt hot against his trembling hands.

“Oh God.” His words came out like a guttural groan and he tried to ignore the ache in his stomach, almost as if the bullet had ripped through him and not her. 

Her eyelids drooped like her lashes weighed a ton, the golden brown eyes he’d caught looking all those years ago in a bar unfocused and hazy. Her head lolled to the side and incoherent words tumbled from her lips, shallow gulps of air rattling in her chest. 

“A—” She coughed and a speck of blood landed on her chin, the insides of her lips painted red. “Ace.”

“Kyla!” Ace cupped her cheek in the palm of his hand, his wide eyes traveling over her unusually lax face. Her deep brown skin shone in the summer day’s harsh sun, her thick tufts of curly hair pooling out onto the sidewalk, and he couldn’t help but to think of the first time he’d seen her, really seen her, and the hope that’d rose from his gut to his chest like a hot air balloon. 

“Ace, you have to pro—” 

“Stop wasting your breath,” he said softly, his thumb ghosting over her smooth skin. The hand that was pressed against her wound could feel how rare her breaths were, how slow and light her heartbeat was, and he knew she’d be gone soon. “Just let it pass, baby, and then I can save you. I can bring you—”

“No.” Kyla’s full lips thinned and she squeezed her eyes shut, one of her hands falling to rest over Ace’s. “You have to promise me you won’t.”

“What? I can’t promise you that, Kyla,” he said, his eyebrows pulled together. 

“You have—” A low groan rumbled in the back of her throat, though she didn’t let it pass her mouth. “You have to. Please. It’s not—it’s not right.”

His lips parted and even though he knew it wasn’t the right time, and that what she said was nowhere near funny, he laughed. “Not right? You shacked up with me for two years, let me put a ring on your finger, but what I do is not right?” 

“I love you, Jason.” She forced her eyes open and nuzzled her face against his palm, a painful smile tugging at her lips. “And you are who you are. But it’s not natural.” She sucked in a shallow breath that resulted in a coughing fit. Blood dripped from the corners of her mouth and tears leaked from her eyes before they shut again. 

“Ky.”

“Promise me,” she whispered.

“I can’t. I won’t.” Ace shook his head over and over, his own breathing picking up. “I won’t live without you, Kyla, not when I don’t have to.” 

“I’m not asking you, Ace. This isn’t a favor. This is—this is an—or,” she squeezed Ace’s hand, a whimper tumbling from her lips like a wounded dog, “this is an order.”

He opened his mouth to argue, to tell her she had no idea what she was talking about, but he’d seen enough people dying to recognize the signs, and he knew she only had seconds. And he didn’t want to spend the last moments with the love of his life telling her she couldn’t have what she wanted. His knees ached, his back throbbed, but he didn’t move an inch. 

Her hand went limp over his, the rattling in her chest ceased, and Ace could practically feel the life bleeding out of her body, leaving her nothing but a pile of skin and bones. He pulled his hands away from her, his bottom lip wobbling. 

Sirens wailed in the distance. 

He buried his hands in her hair and nuzzled his face in her neck, hot, wet tears streaming down his face. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. A fist was wrapped around his heart, squeezing tighter with every agonizing pulse. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, his throat sore from the screams that wouldn’t surface. “I can’t give you what you want. I just...I can’t.”

He knew there was a chance she’d hate him. Maybe she’d never even talk to him again. But those were risks he was willing to take. He’d been given a gift, one he’d been taught to use for good, and he refused to put his power on hold. Not even if he was begged to. 

He sat back on his heels and placed his bloody hands on his thighs, palms down, his wet eyes falling shut. It was tricky stuff to navigate, his gift, but he’d learned to fine tune the skill when he was young and first discovered. He sucked in a deep, calming breath and blew it back out, his mind traveling to the space in between. He could hear the voices of those who’d passed recently, could hear their cries of confusion, their calls to their loved ones, and he wished he could stop and save all of them. But he pushed on. 

He could see nothing, could only smell the blood that’d escaped his wife, but he didn’t need any of his senses for this. Other than hearing. He listened for her voice, for the one that sounded like the softest hum on a jazz record. He searched for the sound of his name dipped in honey, the laugh that twinkled like wind chimes in a summer breeze, and when he found it, his heart stilled in his chest before it swelled and pushed up against his ribs. 

“Kyla,” he whispered. He cocked his head to the side and waited, his bottom lip pulled in between his teeth. 

Ace! She sounded happy. Giddy, really, and he could recognize the exact moment her spirit was pulling from. He could picture it in his mind; the stars were high in the sky, the fall breeze licking his face, and he was down on one knee, his view prettier than the New York skyline. 

“Ky, it’s time to come home, okay?”

Ace? What the heck happened? She giggled and he could almost picture the light shining in her eyes, the entrancing curve of her plump lips. He knew this day—they’d just moved in together and he was trying to set up the DVD player, but the power in the apartment went off instead.  

“You got shot,” Ace said softly. He could feel her presence, could feel how close she was, and he just needed to reach out and grab her. “But it’s okay. I just have to put you back.”

Ace, she whined, and he could pinpoint this moment too. What did I tell you?

She didn’t sound particularly happy this time, though she wasn’t necessarily angry. Instead he heard frustration masked with playful curiosity. The memory smacked him across the face and he cleared his throat, the tiniest of frowns tugging at his lips.

“What did I tell you?” she had asked, her threaded eyebrows furrowed, her head inclined to the right. “I love you no matter what, Jason. So go on. What’s the big secret?”

He’d already proposed by now. The wedding was in six months. And she’d wanted to talk about baby names. 

“Ky, trust me. You don’t wanna know,” he’d said, his hands held up in surrender. 

“I wanna know everything about you.” She’d reached out and grabbed his hands with her’s, a strange mask of seriousness on her face. “And you’re telling me you can’t have kids. I wanna know why. Someone kick you too hard on the playground or something?” 

“If I tell you,” he had said, his eyes slipping away from her’s, “will you promise not to leave?” 

“I promise.” 

And so he’d told her. And she’d stayed. But there’d been a frown. For half a second there’d been a frown and he’d thought about it for days afterwards, wondering what the frown meant, what she was hiding behind that beautiful, convincible smile of hers. And he now knew that from the second he’d told her the truth about himself, she’d accepted it, but she’d decided it’d have nothing to do with her. 

Ace. That same whiny tone, though he knew she was calling his name for a different reason. She didn’t want to share secrets this time. What did I tell you? 

“I know,” he said with a nod of his head. It felt heavy on his shoulders and he wanted to let it fall, but he kept it still. “I know, baby, I know what you said. But I—” 

Stop it! she snapped, her voice curt and leaving no room for argument. His mouth clamped shut and he felt his shoulders deflate as he exhaled through his nose. Dammit, Jason, I can’t do this with you. 

Ace swallowed thickly. Her spirit was pulling from their first fight. They’d yelled and yelled at each other, throwing insults back and forth that they didn’t really believe or mean, and it was the first time he realized her pretty smile, her shimmering eyes, her silky smooth voice, and her imaginative mind could be used to hurt him. She’d turned cold and rigid and he’d shied away from her before too long, his tail in between his legs. 

“So I’m just supposed to go on without you?” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat, his hands curling into fists on his thighs. 

He let out a puff of air when he felt something warm surround him. He could imagine her kneeling behind him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her face buried in his shoulder blade. He could almost feel her curls brush against his ear and he shivered, a summer breeze tickling the nape of his neck. Her scent curled around him and he breathed it in, the familiar Green Tea and vanilla overpowering the smell of her blood that boiled under the sun. 

Let me go, she whispered into his ear. She’d never said it to him before, never once had to utter those ugly words to him, but he knew her spirit had to have pulled it from somewhere. Because this wasn’t Kyla, not really. It was a memory of her, a mix of his memories, and it was the only way her spirit could communicate with him through the veil. 

The loud noise of the sirens whisked Kyla’s warmth away as the ambulance pulled up to the curb. He forced his eyes open just as he was pulled to his feet, question after question being shouted into his face, but he didn’t know the answer to any of them. All he knew was there had been a gunshot and that his wife had died, and that he could’ve saved her. And even though it wasn’t what she wanted, he wasn’t sure if he could ever forgive himself for not bringing her back. 

“Hey!” the EMT said as he shook Ace with one hand, the other snapping rhythmically. “I know you! You saved my sister’s son. You’re that Necromancy guy!” 

“I prefer the term Rebirth,” Ace said dazedly and out of habit. He wasn’t really focused on the EMT. His eyes kept sliding back to his dead wife and the uniforms that surrounded her, though they all knew she was gone. 

“Why didn’t you save her?” 

Ace’s vision went blurry as tears started to well in his eyes. He opened his mouth to answer the question but a groan came out instead, and his knees gave out, sending him collapsing into the EMT’s arms. He covered his face with his hands as violent sobs racked his body, an angry fist curled around his stomach, threatening to force the lunch they’d eaten up and onto the sidewalk. 

“I’m sorry,” the EMT said, his voice full of pity. 

Ace just turned his leaking eyes up to the sky and watched the sun burn bright, almost like the golden eyes he’d never see shimmer again.