The Amplified : Damnation (Book 2)

Chapter Thirteen - Dead Man's Burger

"Stephanie! Hey, you. What a surprise. What's up?" She started, she wasn't doing well to "Actually, I need to tell you something. I saw Oliver today," My heart stopped, it just wasn't the right time to tell her. Especially with what I needed to do. I begged her, clasping my hands into each other. "and someone spray painted 'murderer' on the back of his tombstone." I sighed hard as "Yup, super dead. Besides that, I'm glad you're going on a mission. Hell, even leaving the island. Tell me about it afterwards okay. I have to get back to doing my thing. Talk soon." She hung up the phone and sat back against her seat.

"Thank you."

"You need to start explaining a lot right now."

So, I did. Everything from my death to crawling out of my grave. She looked at me in disbelief the whole time, I mean I would too if I was just told Heaven and Hell existed and that my ex went to both. "Do you understand now? Why I don't want to let her know I'm alive just yet."

"Deals with the Devil, Heaven and Hell, Eliza Rhodes. This is insane." She combed through her curls. "You're telling me that if you die, you'll go straight to Hell regardless of what you do, even if you kill Eliza Rhodes who is apparently alive."

"It's a lot to take in I know, but I need to get this done in one year and nine months or Lucifer is going to drag me to hell regardless of how close I am."

"So, what's your plan then?" She asked.

"Find and kill Eliza Rhodes."

She placed her face into her hands. "Of course, you don't have a real plan. At least tell me you have a lead."

I thought for a second and remembered what my dad showed me. "I have one actually. You."

"You'll need to clarify."

"While I was in Heaven, I asked my dad about how he died. He has no idea who killed him or much of anything from, but he drew the only thing he could remember from that day and it was that tattoo you have."

"How are your dad and Eliza connected."

"I have no idea, but Lucifer said that my dad gave me my first lead and this was all I could think of."

She reached behind her shoulder touching the place the symbol lay. "Okay, I guess we can work with that." From beside her, she pulled her laptop and placed it on the mess that was on the table. She had put up new decals on the back, a sticker of The Foxhole logo, a postcard-type sticker saying Welcome to Vancouver and a few others. I walked over to her side of the table and sat beside her. "I've tried to search up the tattoo for a few months but all I've found is Janus the Roman God of beginnings and transitions, so I gave up on it."

"Months? How long have I been gone for you?"

She hesitated; her typing stopped for a bit before she continued again. "Nine months and a few days."

One of the glasses in the café fell to the floor and shattered, my mind slowly wrapped around the idea. The more I dwelled on it the heavier a weight grew upon my chest. It was already weird that I had been dead for a few hours but nine months, it hit hard. "How has Stephy taken it?" I asked.

"I'm going to be honest with you Oli because you deserve to know. It's been horrible." She said. "You were the last person she had left and she still holds your death on her shoulders."

"There wasn't anything she could have done."

"That's not what she thinks. She's a healer, stopping people from dying is her thing and not being able to save her brother... it broke her. I didn't know, nobody knew how strong her powers were until you died, Veltrace island had to start a suicide watch because of how unstable her powers had become. There were days when just being around her was so depressive that all you could think about is your own death. Ten people took their own life before she had calmed down, that doesn't mean we stopped feeling that crushing feeling of sadness around her."