Brooke took a breath and looked around the world that she knew so well.
She had heard some tall tales before of people who had saw the dead and then come back from it. These people who passed through the gates of death never were the same. She hoped she wouldn't come back crazy or messed up emotionally. She hoped she wasn't affected.
She nodded in confirmation at Conrad as he watched her. His gray eyes were so sad. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know if he could save her. He didn't want to kill her, but he wanted to do what she asked. He didn't want to be selfish when he knew how important this was not only in the source of revenge for them but also in the factor that they were in danger now too.
She was going on a lot of faith. She had the faith that in times before this when she had been hurt he had found that out through their connection. So now she hoped that he would hear her through the connection when she was on the other side of life. She hoped he would hear her and save her life.
There was only one person she needed to talk to now to get the answers she needed. Glory. She was still so new to being dead so she probably hadn't fully crossed over into wherever she needed to go to in order to pass through her life to the next.
Conrad. Poor Conrad. He was watching her as if she were going to never come back to him. Maybe, she should have took him up on his offer. Maybe, they could get away easily by going to another plane of existence.
Maybe, she was only fooling herself.
She placed her hand on his cheek and then rested her head on his shoulder. He needed her as much as she needed him now. They both were in danger.
This was the only way to get what they needed. This was the only way she knew how to get the answers to the questions no one knew the answers to.
She took a few breaths of air and held to his hand tightly.
She was scared. Sure, who wouldn't be?
She was going to Limbo. She had no idea what that would be like. She didn't know how it would be on her being still near life and not being her time or also being dead and there. She had no idea if she would be coming back to him. All she knew was that she had to have some faith in something.
She had to. It didn't mattered that the Elders were against her. They had been from the very start. She was damaged goods to them and they hated her. She was nothing short of a quick death and an easily remedied world to them.
She sure as hell wasn't going to make it that easy on them to get rid of her though.
She wanted him to go with her. She didn't want to face this alone. She had gotten so spoiled and so used to doing everything with him. Now, he couldn't go and she was scared.
She had to do this on her own. Conrad wanted to be with her to make sure she would be okay every time they went into battle or fought before this and now he couldn't come along for the ride.
This was one battle she had to fight on her own though. This was her problem and not his.
She held onto him. He had been in her life since the first moment she had moved here. He had been the only good thing besides Glory about this personal hell she had been reduced to living in.
Now, all she had was him and vice versa. So, she was hell bent on returning to him.
Even if she had to figure out a way to kill Death she would do it.
She breathed in the air around her. She smelled poppies from the garden, the strong odor of chlorine, and his cologne. The frailty of the small white pool lights illuminated them in the darkness of her backyard in stilted silhouettes as they passed through the green water.
They came to a stop in the middle of the shallow end of the pool.
Neither of them had taken any clothes off or had changed into swimming suits. There was no need to waste time on that. It was nearly midnight. The hour of morning on a new day and the last few minutes of the day before. The witching hour she thought wryly as she let her eyes travel over the star belted black hole of a sky.
It was a beautiful day to die.
The cold water chilled her to the bone. Her bare feet felt like they were mounds of ice attached to her body and her clothes were sticking to her like super glue. Conrad looked so funny in front of her in the pool with this clothes on. He was always spontaneous when it came to everything, but here before her he was the most wonderful.
His long dark trench coat floated around him in the water and his black shirt was drenched and glued to him also. His eyes were blurring as he looked at her pleadingly. He didn't accept this as a way out, but he did do it for her because that was what he was there to do.
She smiled at him and kissed him one last kiss that she drained her life into.
"Now, don't wake me unless I tell you it's time." she reminded him.
"You know, most girls would never have asked me to kill them?" he told her. "Buy them stuff, compliment them maybe , or something. Most girls would ask for life." he told her. "Or their own whole superficial version of life that they have."
"Well, lucky for you I am asking you to do your specialty." she told him darkly. "I can be your first willing victim."
She waded into the shallow end more as she let the palms of her hands slide over the water and make small circles on its surface. A whirlpool slowly started underneath her pale fingertips.
The water, as frozen as it felt beneath her chilled fingertips, felt nice as it lolled through her hands. She turned to look back at him and smiled seductively. Then, she placed her chilled hand on his cheek.
"Fine, you win like you always do. Just remember there is always a chance of you not being able to come back. ."he told her slowly. "You have three minutes to do what you need to do, Brooke. Three."
"I thought there wasn't a time period."
"Three minutes or else anymore than that and you would come back to me as a living vegetable."
"Oh, got it." she laughed nervously. She didn't even bother to envision herself as a white body hooked up to a machine.
"If you see any dark blobs get the hell out of there. You get me? Get out they aren't there for your health they are there because you are intruding." he warned her as his fingers bit into her arms painfully.
"Fine." she replied dully.
Second thoughts paraded inside of her mind as she watched his worried face. He had never really warned her about the supernatural guards there. She had heard though that death would be her major problem and not some dark blobby thing.
Dark blobs = bad. Check.
"Are you ready?" he asked her as he brought her closer to him in the swirling water. She looked up at him hesitantly and nodded as her cotton dry throat produced words that wouldn't pass through her lips.
She knew she should say her goodbyes to him. She knew it would be better if she did. She knew she shouldn't be playing in forbidden territories but oh well. She knew she was powerful enough to do it and possibly get away with it so she sure as hell would.
He nodded to her. Traced her lips with this fingertips and then he slowly pushed her down in the water.
She looked up at him the whole time. She came to a sitting position in the water as she watched him take a hesitant breath. Then, his dark gray eyes turned black and he dunked her under the water fully.
Her death had begun.
It was weird looking up at him. The water squirreled around her sight making it foggy and disconnected from reality. The cold water pressed through her body now more then ever like sharp razor blades. Her breath locked in her throat and she felt her lungs expand.
Air. People took it for granted so much. It was clear and had no weight and so precious to life. It was so everyday. Breathing was something people did barely without thought so no wonder it was taken for granted so easily.
She wanted it so much as she stared up at him. Her mind dizzied around. Her body tried to react and resurface. He held her down harder inside the cold water of ice around her body. He was doing what she had asked him to do and that was all that mattered.
Her sight became foggy. On the edges of her sight it was slowly becoming black. It was like having tunnel vision. She was slowly going blind.
She never took her eyes off of him as he drowned her. She pressed her hand to his wrist. It wasn't a demand to be let go it was a command to keep doing it. She was almost there. Soon she would find out who had murdered her friend. Soon, she could figure out a way to save herself and her boyfriend.
Her vision fanned out to a complete black. She could hear weird echoes of the water splashing around his body and tapping against the cement surface of the pool.
It was all surreal now. It all didn't matter now.
Brooke was there. Floating on a tidal wave. It was beautiful. There was no pain just indifference to everything even feeling. A feeling that gave peace within itself.
She saw the things most people took for granted in life. She saw a few of the major things that had happened in her life that had made her feel most alive as she traveled to Limbo.
She was five and was finger painting as she tried to mimic her mother and her mother was right there beside her painting original oil paintings that would make Monet cry....
Her father was twirling her in his arms and then in the air as he showed her how she could fly....
She was at school for the first time and awkward and silent. She saw a boy with fluffy blond curls. She had never gotten the chance to speak to him. He was never close enough to her, but she did see something was different about him....
Wyatt....
He was there and they were kissing... he was in her bed and it was the last time they would ever see each other... he was walking away from her house for the last time as she watched him fade from her view as her father pulled out of the driveway..
She saw herself finding her Glory's body.. She saw the water in front of her eyes as she died and then it all went white..
Not one image or memory had Conrad in it....