Fighting Fate

  Title Page

  Fighting Fate

  Linda Kage

  Dedication

  To Courtney Wyant and Andrea Reed

  for always being so positive and funny!

  The world needs more people like you two.

  Chapter One

  PAIGE ZUKOWSKI DRESSED in the dark, her fingers fumbling over the buttons on her blouse. She tried a breathing technique to calm her rattled nerves. Inhale. Hold. One, two, three. Exhale. Hold. One, two, three. Inhale…

  The buttons were mismatched. She frowned and started over, forgetting whether she was on inhale or exhale. Only when she was about to pass out because she was still holding her breath did she let a lungful of oxygen rush from her chest.

  Oh, well. Breathing was overrated anyway. She gave up on the entire relaxation attempt and closed her eyes as she worked her way higher. Trace used to tease her relentlessly about fastening things from the bottom up.

  “You just gotta do everything backwards, don’t you, Pay Day? You’re supposed to start at the top and go down. You miss less buttons that way, plus it keeps your gig line in order.”

  She’d raised an eyebrow at that one. “My what line?”

  “It’s a military term.” He had shrugged with his usual nonchalance. “Something to do with making sure your buttons, belt buckle, and fly run a straight column down the front of your body.”

  Paige’s derisive snicker had told him what she’d thought of that. “Are you joining the Army now? Since when do you know military terms?”

  Lying way too comfortably on her bed with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles and his arms resting behind his head, he had merely sent her a cocky smile. “I know everything.”

  And he had. Her brother had been the brightest, most promising member of their family. He was going to go places. Even after his funeral, the college acceptance letters had poured in, inviting him to attend their university with a full ride.

  He’d been anticipating the letter from Granton University the most. And it had come with a complete scholarship included.

  Two weeks too late.

  Her own nostalgic smile dying, Paige tried not to remember his infectious grin, though it was hard, particularly this morning. She left the top two buttons unfastened so she wouldn’t feel as if she was choking through the entire day, and cold metal brushed the back of her hand as she manually tried to straighten her crooked gig line. With a sigh, she wrapped her fingers around the cool amulet draping her neck. A ruby embedded in a Celtic-looking cross. Trace had given it to her on her thirteenth birthday since ruby was her birthstone.

  It was big, and clunky, and kind of gaudy, but in the three years he’d been gone, she’d yet to take it off. She squeezed the shape of the cross into her palm and whispered into the dim dorm room.

  “For you, Bubba. I won’t let you down.”

  A buzz echoed around her. Paige jumped, freaked for a split second that the ghost of her brother was responding…until she realized her cell phone was simply vibrating across the corner of her new desk, announcing an incoming call.

  On the other side of the room, sheets rustled from the shadowed corner, giving her another heart attack. Still not used to sharing her space with anyone else, especially a complete stranger, Paige dashed a worried glance in the direction of her roommate’s bed as she leaped toward her phone to silence it.

  “Hello,” she answered in a harried, hushed voice, trying not to wake Mariah, though honestly, Mariah hadn’t seemed all that worried about not waking her when she’d come stumbling in at two this morning, cursing across the dark room until she’d turned on the light over her bed and jerked Paige from a restless sleep.

  Huddled under her covers, Paige had feigned unconsciousness until Mariah had changed into a camisole and shorty shorts, then passed out face first on top of her covers, the reek of stale alcohol and cigarettes filming the air. Paige had waited five minutes before she’d tiptoed across the floor and killed the lights. It had taken her another hour to fall back to sleep in between counting every time Mariah tossed and turned, making the springs on her mattress screech and moan.

  “Hello?” a quiet voice breathed back. “Why are we whispering?”

  Paige sat on the edge of her bed, relieved to hear her best friend. “Because my roommate’s still asleep.”

  She squinted through the dark, wondering if she actually should wake Mariah. Her new roomie probably wouldn’t like being late on the first day of classes. But if she was the type to habitually come in at two in the morning, then maybe she was smart enough not to schedule an early course.

  Paige wiped at her tired, dry eyes, wondering what had possessed her to sign up for anything before nine herself.

  Rookie freshman error, she decided.

  “Ah. So…how’s it going with the whole roommate thing?” Kayla asked. “She okay or what?”

  Stray beams of morning light filtered into the room, giving Paige a glimpse of her organized desk. She studied the four-by-six framed photo of Trace nestled next to the television.

  “She’s…fine.” Since meeting only the day before, Paige had really only talked to Mariah a few times. The previous night’s conversation had lasted but a couple of minutes before some guy had knocked on their door and whisked her roommate away. But those few moments hadn’t been pleasant. “We’re still getting used to each other.”

  “Hmm. So, are there any available hotties there asking you out yet?”

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Not hardly.”

  “What! No available hotties at all? What kind of college are you at?”

  With a snicker, Paige corrected, “No one’s asked me out.”

  “Oh.” Kayla sighed. “Well, they will.”

  “Kayla, I didn’t come here to date a bunch of—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re there because of Trace. And I’m telling you right now, that’s the worst reason in the world to move so far away from home to attend a school you don’t even like.”

  Paige’s back straightened with indignation. “I never said I didn’t like—”

  “Well, you don’t love it the way he did. Paige…” Kayla sighed again, this time sounding like a wise old parent tired of repeating the same lecture.

  “Look, I can’t talk about this right now.” It was her first day of school. Besides, they’d been over it before. A lot. Nothing had changed her mind so far. Nothing would change it now.

  So what if her best friend in the world thought Paige was crazy for trying to live a dead boy’s life for him? It wasn’t as if she had her own future to look forward to. After Trace’s funeral, her world had collapsed. Her parents had turned away from her, too entrenched in their own misery to help her deal with hers. Her mother had descended so far into depression she’d looked right through Paige. And after her mom was gone, her father had drowned himself in booze. Paige had lost everything.

  The only way she’d been able to dig her way out of the agony had been to focus on Trace’s lost dreams, to decide she’d live them for him and become what he’d always wanted to be.

  “I really need to get to class,” she said, standing up and slipping into the sandals she’d set out last night to wear with her first-day outfit.

  Kayla sighed. A third time. Really, it was too much. “Sweetie, you know I love you. I just want you to be happy. But—”

  “Love you too,” Paige broke in with fake enthusiasm. “Talk later.” Disconnecting the line, she cringed, telling herself she’d call back and apologize after she actually survived her first day of school. Right now, she had other worries.

  She had college to start, a first class to find, a dead boy’s life to fulfill.

  Busy, busy, busy.

  A minute later, Paige pushed her way from her dormitor
y and halted in her tracks. The campus of Granton sprawled before her, teeming with activity. Thousands of students strolled the sidewalks while another thousand sat cross-legged in clusters on the grass as bicyclists darted between the foot traffic and an endless amount of cars filed into the parking lots. Half a dozen digital billboards sat perched in front of buildings, scrolling messages and advertisements across their screens. And a marching band practiced the Party Rock Anthem somewhere in the distance.

  It was so hectic, so crowded. So intimidating. After living in a town of two thousand people her entire life and attending a school of barely three hundred, Paige huddled against the entrance of her dorm building, tempted to scurry back inside and hide under her blankets for the rest of the semester.

  “Trace.” She groaned under her breath, squeezing her fingers around his gaudy amulet. “Why’d you have to pick such a huge school to dream about?”

  If her brother were here now, she’d be tempted to strangle him…right after she hugged him silly and reprimanded him to never die on her again.

  “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” she chanted as she forced her numb legs to move, trudging down a slight decline to the cafeteria. But when she entered Gibson Hall, the smell of bacon and sausages made her stomach churn, and not in a good way.

  “I can’t do this.” At least not food. Not right now.

  She turned around and walked right back out. Okay, so she’d just get to her first class and set up early. Unfolding her map of the campus, she hunted for her eight a.m. course.

  As the first to arrive, she selected a seat in the front row, changing spots a few times until she had herself positioned near the exit yet close enough to the center to provide a decent view of the instructor’s podium. She wanted to be the perfect, exemplary student.

  When a trio of chatty guys entered the lecture hall, she’d already tugged a laptop from her bag and set it on top of the desk. After it booted, the screen lit with its wallpaper. Trace had picked out the M. C. Escher design as the background as soon as he’d bought the laptop, saving all the money he’d made mowing lawns between his junior and senior years of high school.

  His computer had only been six months old when he’d died.

  A year ago, Paige had decided she wouldn’t let his hard-earned mowing money go to waste. She wouldn’t let his dream of Granton die with him. She’d taken over his computer, and now here she sat, ready and willing to take over the rest of his life. In another four years, she planned to graduate with a Bachelors of Business Administration and find a job he would be proud of in the marketing world.

  Logging into the processor, she pre-saved a word document and minimized the screen, prepared for an hour of copious note taking. Nothing was going to distract her from her studies. She had a goal to meet, her brother’s dream to realize, and his future to begin.

  “Good morning!” A loud voice ripped her attention from the two Escher hands drawing each other on her computer. “This is World Regional Geography. If you’re in the wrong room, there’s the door. If you have no respect for professorial authority, feel free to follow the other lost souls out the exit because I will not accept impudence.”

  Paige gulped and glanced surreptitiously behind her, surprised to see hundreds of other students had arrived while she’d been dazing off. They filled nearly every seat.

  When no one stood from the sea of blurred bodies to leave, she slowly swiveled back around to face the professor.

  Dr. Presni—as her class schedule labeled him—was a short, stout man with an irritable disposition, thick eyebrows, and a bad comb-over. Without introducing himself, he announced he would take roll call today, but after that, attendance was entirely up to the student.

  “Marissa Abbott,” he began, starting down his list.

  “Here,” the return call echoed from the back of the room.

  The scratch of a check mark followed as Presni noted her presence. And so it began all the way through the alphabet. With her Z surname, Paige figured she had a while to wait before he called on her. She relaxed, tuning out, and studied the front of the room. A white board and stark, blank walls stared back. Yeesh, maybe she shouldn’t have sat in the front row. She felt self-conscious. Singled out. She eyed the exit just to her left. It looked so welcoming.

  “Rupert Waltrip…Alison Wutke…”

  Paige refocused on the teacher’s droning voice—really dry, droning voice. It was going to be hard to concentrate on his lectures with a voice like his, all arid and—

  “Logan Xander.”

  Logan Xander?

  Paige stopped breathing. Icicles crystalized on her brain, freezing her motionless.

  That name.

  Oh, God. That name.

  Why would the professor say that name? Of all the names in the world, why—

  “Here.” A voice answered, claiming ownership of that horrendous name. He sat too close behind her and a tad to her right.

  She couldn’t help herself. Paige whipped around to look. She had to know.

  There he sat.

  Three rows back. Two seats over.

  Logan Xander.

  It had been three years since she’d last seen him. He fixed his dirty-blond hair shorter these days, shaved to a buzz cut. And his face had aged, the planes and angles sharper and more defined. Matured. But there was no way she’d ever forget what he looked like.

  He must’ve caught her abrupt reaction to his name, because he glanced her way. Their gazes caught and held, and all the air in the room stalled, leaving her suffocated.

  Dying.

  A great, crushing tremble clutched her, wracking a painful shudder up her spine. Immediate tears throbbed behind her eyes. She blinked repeatedly, but her retinas remained scorching dry, giving her no relief from the horror she was beholding.

  A bewildered frown wove through the center of Logan Xander’s brow as he stared back, obviously not recognizing her.

  She clenched her teeth and fisted her hands. She wanted to strike out, physically, verbally, any way possible, to make him remember the way she remembered. How dare he forget her when she would know his face—his name—for the rest of her life!

  At the front of the room, the professor called, “Paige Zukowski?”

  Finally, Xander reacted. His eyes flared wide and his face drained of color as he glanced at the professor, then back to her. His mouth dropped open, forming a great big dreaded O.

  Fear and rage and pain overwhelmed her.

  A whimper sobbed from her throat. Humiliated for letting her distress echo into the room, she spun away, fumbling as she grabbed her things off her desk, snapping her laptop shut as she swung out her arm and swiped it into her bag.

  People were staring, gasps of surprise coming from her left and right, everywhere behind her. She didn’t care. She had to escape.

  Run!

  A pen fell from her bag, but pausing to retrieve it seemed preposterous. It became collateral damage.

  She tripped trying to stand too quickly, her legs tangling in the confining desk/chair combo. The professor lifted his head from his roll call and gaped at her over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses, his bushy brows and mustache twitching with confusion.

  She didn’t bother to explain herself. Couldn’t speak if she’d wanted to.

  Springing toward the door, she shoved it open and wheezed for air when she reached the hall. She didn’t pause or slow down until she was outside and two blocks from the building containing Logan Vance Xander. All the while, she kept glancing over her shoulder, worried he might’ve followed.

  He hadn’t, thank God.

  Of course he hadn’t. Why would he? But, seriously. What was he doing here? How could he step foot onto the grounds of Trace’s dream school?

  How dare he?

  It wasn’t right, shouldn’t be acceptable. He’d destroyed Paige three years ago, annihilated her entire family. He didn’t deserve a second chance—a college degree—when Trace had nothing but a headstone and si
lly epitaph.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks with a hot vengeance. She sprinted all the way back to her dorm room, her book bag repeatedly clouting her in the spine, spurring her onward. Grateful to find her roommate gone when she got inside, she huddled in her bed and wept hard, her body shuddering with the shock of discovering a murderer attended the same university as she.

  And not just any murderer.

  Her brother’s murderer.

  Chapter Two

  LOGAN GAWKED AFTER THE GIRL as she disappeared from the doorway, the breeze from her passing still causing papers on the front row desks to flutter and dance.

  “Lover’s quarrel?” Dr. Presni’s dry voice made him jump.

  Logan jerked his attention to the professor who curiously eyed him of all people over the tops of his glasses. Shifting his gaze around him, Logan found an entire room full of curious eyes watching him.

  Slumping lower in his seat, he shook his head adamantly. “N-no, sir. I don’t…I don’t even know her.”

  Though his words were true, he squirmed inside, feeling as if everyone else saw otherwise, as if they’d suddenly learned every horrible thing about him.

  But in all honesty, he didn’t know the girl with the large dark eyes who’d just stared at him as if he’d ripped out her very soul. If he had three guesses, however, he was fairly certain he wouldn’t need two of them to correctly guess her identity.

  Logan knew Trace Zukowski had had a younger sister. He’d read about her in Zukowski’s obituary, though for the life of him, he couldn’t remember her name. He remembered the girl he’d assumed was the sister when he’d gone to the funeral, though. She’d approached him hesitantly only to spit in his face. Hate and damnation had seared him from a pair of tear-stained eyes that had seemed too large for such a small, pale girl. But she’d darted away before he could seal a concrete image of that face in his brain.

  He doubted he’d forget what she looked like this time around.

  “I’m guessing that was Paige Zukowski,” Presni pressed, still staring expectantly at Logan.