I Want to Die, But I Am Immortal Chapter 19

Adam took the bag of clothes and walked away. He disappeared down the alley without a backward glance.

Sophia watched him go. A profound sense of worry blood in her chest. He was a puzzle she couldn’t solve.

A classmate she barely knew was now entwined in her deepest and most private pain.

How did he know what was happening in my life? she wondered. And why does he want to help ? He seed to carry his own darkness a weight far heavier than hers.

Then another thought surfaced. It made her cheeks burn with embarrassnt. And why did I cry like that right in front of him?

The mory of her complete breakdown of clinging to him while she sobbed was mortifying. She felt exposed and weak.

She turned and ran back into her house. She closed the door quietly and slid the lock into place. Her mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner.

She went straight to her room closed the door and leaned against it.

She hoped that by burying herself in the familiar quiet of her own space she could erase the shaful scene from her mind.

But the feeling of his hand on her head and the sound of his low voice promising to handle it lingered. It was a terrifying and strangely comforting mory.

anwhile Adam reached the end of the alley. He slipped into a small vacant lot next to it. It was an empty patch of dirt where construction had stalled.

The area was deserted. It was littered with silent rusting machinery and skeletal fras of unfinished buildings.

He quickly stripped off his gym clothes. He put on the clothes Sophia had given him. A simple long-sleeved white blouse and a dark pleated skirt.

The fabric felt strange against his skin too soft too light.

He was acutely aware of how out of place he was in these garnts. He folded his own clothes neatly and stuffed them into the empty bag. He then took out the final item she had provided a long dark wig.

He put the wig on. He pulled the synthetic hair into place. The long strands fell over his shoulders feeling heavy and unnatural. With no mirror to check his appearance he had to rely on feel.

He ran his fingers through the fake hair trying to make it look less like a costu. He knew it wouldn’t be a perfect disguise. His shoulders were too broad.

He was taller than Sophia. But he trusted that from a distance or to a casual observer in the approaching darkness he would pass as a girl.

The general silhouette was what mattered.

To complete the look he pulled the black cap on over the wig. He tugged the brim down low to shadow his face. He then put on a face mask ensuring that only his eyes were visible.

Between the cap the wig and the mask his features were almost completely obscured. He was a ghost a naless figure.

This plan had ford in his mind while he was comforting Sophia in the park. As he stroked her hair a thought had struck him. He needed a way to approach her bullies without revealing himself.

His own life was a chaotic ss of threats.

The police, the thugs, everyone was hunting for Adam. If he showed his face he would be found.

The bounty on his head would draw them like sharks to blood.

The idea was simple. If they were expecting Sophia he would go as Sophia.

Or at least as a girl who looked enough like her in the dark. It was a desperate plan born from a desperate situation. But it was the only plan he had.

He checked the ti on his simple analog wristwatch.

It was a cheap durable watch. He had smashed his smartphone long ago.

He realized it was a tracking device that his enemies could easily exploit. He was learning to live off the grid to be invisible. He was a shadow in his own life.

"If I walk from here," he muttered to himself his voice a low whisper muffled by the mask. "I should reach the hill behind the school right on ti."

He left the vacant lot after one final preparation. He scanned the construction debris. His eyes moved over piles of rubble and discarded tools. He needed weapons.

He found what he was looking for near a half-finished foundation. Tucked into the waistband of his skirt hidden by the loose blouse were two items.

A heavy-duty hamr with a solid steel head its handle wrapped in worn rubber. A long sharpened piece of rebar that resembled a crude pointed knife. He tested the weight of each. They felt solid real.

He hung the bag containing his own clothes on a lamppost a short distance from Sophia’s house. He hid it in the shadows behind the pole. He would retrieve it later.

Then dressed as a girl he walked past Sophia’s house.

He headed in the opposite direction toward the school.

To anyone passing him on the street he was just a girl walking ho her head down her face obscured by a cap and mask.

He kept his pace steady and his posture slightly stooped trying to mimic a girl’s gait. But beneath the disguise his eyes burned with a cold focused rage.

As he walked his thoughts turned to his targets. Lily Andrew and their friends. You enjoy seeing others in pain don’t you? he thought.

His hand unconsciously touched the handle of the hamr at his waist.

The weight was a solid reassuring presence. It was a tool of creation but tonight it would be a tool of deconstruction. You think because you have power because your father is a policeman you can do whatever you want. You think you can hurt people without consequences.

The thought connected in his mind. Andrew’s father a high-ranking cop. The official report that called his parents’ murder a suicide.

It was all a web of corruption. A system of power that protected its own.

His personal tragedy and Sofia’s tornt were not separate events. They were symptoms of the sa disease.

This realization did not make him afraid.

It made him colder more resolved. His personal vendetta was now sothing bigger.

Let’s see how much you enjoy it when you’re the one who’s hurting he thought again. Let’s see how you react when the pain you dish out so easily is returned to you.

Tonight there would be a lesson. A brutal lesson taught in the dark on a lonely hill. And he would be the teacher.

He was no longer just fighting for his own life.

He was fighting for the mory of his parents and for the girl he left locked in her house.

The weight of it all settled on his shoulders but it did not slow him down. It fueled him. He walked on a disguised avenger heading towards a violent reckoning.