I Die to Rise: Resurrection System-Chapter 68: Twenty-Six Hours!
The biker gang leader reached for the car door handle, but before his fingers could touch it, the window rolled down smoothly, revealing the people inside.
Kurt sat in the back, lighting a cigarette. The leader didn’t recognize him. But the other three? His eyes went wide, and the color drained from his face.
"R-R-Rook!" He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet.
His gaze shifted frantically between Zaza and Emma, and Kurt could see it—the exact moment the man realized he was completely fucked.
"Boss? What’s up?" one of his followers called from behind, leaning on his bike with casual confidence.
A hand shot out from the window and slammed into their boss’s face, and the impact sent him flying backward, crashing into his own bike with a metallic crunch. The bike toppled over, pinning him beneath it. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
Rook stepped out of the car and the entire gang froze. When Emma and Zaza followed, stepping into the dim streetlight, the bikers went pale.
"What the fuck is Gravehand Zaza doing with the Raven’s Crow?!" one of them shouted, his voice cracking.
Zaza adjusted her glasses, her expression blank. "I never liked that moniker." She tilted her head slightly. "And I do need a replacement soul to recreate my lightning wraith."
The implication of her words hung in the air like a guillotine blade, and the bikers realized that pleading was the only way out of the mess they made.
As one, the entire gang dropped to their knees, foreheads pressed to the asphalt, voices overlapping in a chorus of frantic apologies. "We’re sorry! We didn’t know! Please, we’re sorry!"
Kurt, meanwhile, had circled around to inspect the car. The front was crumpled, the bumper hanging loose, and all four tires were shredded. He let out a low whistle. "Cassandra’s not gonna love this."
Immediately, one of the bikers shot his hand up like a student desperate to answer a question. "We’ll get it fixed! We’ll leave it at Nuno’s garage! Top priority! Please, take our bikes! Use them to get wherever you need to go!"
Rook walked over to the nearest biker and tapped his shoulder. The man flinched violently, expecting the worst, but Rook’s tone was calm. "Good man."
He plucked the keys from the biker’s trembling hand, grabbed the helmet, and swung onto the bike with ease and tossed another set of keys to Emma.
Emma caught them mid-air, grinning then turned to Kurt. "Hey, Kurt. You remember how to ride one of these?"
Kurt took a slow drag from his cigarette, exhaling smoke into the cool evening air. "It’ll come to me."
He glanced to his side, where Zaza stood quietly, hands folded. "You ride?"
She shook her head. "No. Perhaps I’ll meet you there?" Her shadow began to expand beneath her feet, rippling like liquid.
But before she could sink into it, Kurt grabbed and pulled her toward one of the bikes. "Nonsense. You’ll ride with me."
Zaza blinked, then climbed onto the back of the bike without protest. She wrapped her arms around Kurt’s waist, pressing herself against his back, and Kurt felt the warmth of her through his coat, as opposed to how cold her hand got just when she was about to rip his soul out.
Emma revved her engine, the sound roaring through the street. "Try to keep up, Manchester."
In response, Kurt kicked his bike to life. "Oh, you’re on," he said with a grin as they tore down the street, leaving the biker gang scrambling to pick up the wrecked car.
***
They arrived back at Cassandra’s apartment just as the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. For someone who rode on instinct, he wasn’t half bad, only coming in three minutes after Emma.
"Not my style." Kurt parked the bike, helped Zaza off, and barely made it through the door before he heard it. A shouting match between Emma and Cassandra.
Emma’s voice was sharp and aggressive as usual. "It’s not my fault your car can’t handle a few spikes!"
If voices had temperature, Cassandra’s was definitely ice cold. "You crashed it into a light pole!"
"You wanna go?!" Emma shouted.
"With pleasure," Cassandra said, her tone calm but deadly.
"Of course it’d be with pleasure, you crazy bitch!" Emma shot back.
And in the background stood Rook who tried his best to defuse the situation but failed miserably.
Kurt wisely excused himself, slipping down the hallway before either woman could drag him into it. He needed a moment. Just one moment of peace before the Reaper showed up to—
An arm suddenly shot out from a doorway and yanked him inside.
Kurt stumbled, catching himself against a wine rack, and looked up to find Lizzie grinning at him as she shut the door behind them with a soft click.
"Check it out," Lizzie said, spinning in place. "She’s got a whole room just for wine. A wine room... ya know, beers need equal rights."
She grabbed a bottle off the rack, squinting at the label, and read it aloud in an exaggerated, over-the-top fancy voice. "Château de la Fancy Pants, aged seventy-three years in the tears of pretentious sommeliers—" She set the bottle back down carefully. "Okay, I made that last part up, but you get the idea."
"Yeah, real fancy that." Kurt leaned against the wall, watching her pace. She moved like a wind-up toy that never quite ran out of energy, quick, erratic, always in motion.
"Hey," Lizzie said suddenly, stopping mid-step and turning to face him. "You wanna make out in the wine room?" She tilted her head, grinning. "I mean, it’s classy, right? Very sophisticated. We could knock over a bottle or two for dramatic effect. Maybe break something expensive. Really commit to the bit."
Kurt checked the countdown in his vision.
[REAPER BANISHMENT DURATION REMAINING: 26:14:37]
He exhaled slowly. "I don’t know, love. We’ve got twenty-six hours until the cosmic fuzz, as you so eloquently put it, shows up to help me finish with my living. And the fun part? They’ll just wait over my corpse and keep doing it. Forever. If that’s not bloody torture, I don’t know what is."
Lizzie blinked. "Twenty-six hours? Shit, I thought we had less time." She walked her fingers up Kurt’s arm, slow and deliberate, until they reached his chest. "Amnesia Kurt is boring."
"Oh, I’m plenty of fun, love." Kurt grinned, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her toward the door. "And I’ve got a better idea."
They scurried through the hallway and arrived at Cassandra’s master bedroom. Kurt shut the door behind them, locking it with a satisfying click.
"Cassandra’s busy having a barney with Emma," Kurt said. "So we’ve got the room to ourselves."
Lizzie’s eyes went wide, and she rushed over to the bed, sitting down and bouncing on it experimentally. "Bouncy." She stood up, her grin widening. "Ya know what? I wanna do that thing where you pick me up and throw me onto the bouncy bed."
Kurt started unbuttoning his shirt. "I can do that."
Lizzie pulled off her oversized joggers, those baggy pants she always wore that did its best to conceal her figure, and stood there in just her top and underwear. Kurt’s gaze dropped immediately, and he stared.
Her ass was, quite frankly, ridiculous. The kind of proportions that defied logic, and Kurt found himself unable to look away.
"What?" Lizzie asked, hands on her hips. "Do I have something on my butt, or do you just like staring?"
"The latter," Kurt said honestly. He could never get used to it.
Lizzie leaped at him, and Kurt caught her by the ass, his fingers sinking into the soft curve. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands roaming across his chest.
"Death mark’s a lot more than last time I saw it," she murmured, tracing the scars with her fingertips.
"We should be quick," Lizzie whispered into his ear. "Cassandra’s probably gonna kill us if she finds out."
"Probably?" Kurt grinned. "Bollocks to that. If this is gonna be my last night doing the dirty, I’m gonna make it worth it."
He captured her lips, and Lizzie moaned into his mouth before pulling back slightly. "We’re still gonna do the whole tossing me on the bed thing, right?"
"You bet."
"Okay! Just checking." She kissed him again, deeper this time. "You may continue."
Kurt grinned against her lips and carried her toward the bed.
