YOU ARE NEVER ALONE MIA MERCHANT

She came to the little Main Street bookstore ever y day, at 3:45 pm on the dot. I’d been watching her took her family and she escaped, mar ked by Death forever.

Amanda came here with her third foster family one day. She was cold and empty at the time , wearing her ghosts and memor ies like an invisibility cloak could not deliver her to my father as promised. I told her to come back. She spent ever y after noon at the bookstore for two year s.

My mission was to collect Amanda Sykes, so I tr acked her to this town. My father, ironically, had told me that this mission would be different. You may not under stand this, he said, but this gir l has no place on this Ear th She knows it too, he said I told him that I was fully prepared to deliver him the nobody. I had accepted that she was out of time .

For centur ies, I had been my father’s obedient Angel of Death, always there to do his dir ty wor k He was a lar ger than life hero in my mind, a key- believed that he only took the souls who didn’t have anything left to offer the wor ld.

Ever yone always told me not to get attached to mor tals. They die quickly. They have no mor al gir l with cur ly brown hair and br aces. She was tr uly unremar kable , and that is exactly what made her so special She was simply Amanda, the mor tal teenager who made me realize that my father was taking innocent souls. She was the one who made me realize that no one should ever have to prove that they are wor thy of their existence

The wor ld is full of people just like her— people whose souls I might’ve had to take .

That’s why I cut off all communication with my father I made a life for myself as Mr Weaver’s adoptive daughter, wor king with him in this bookstore That way I could see Amanda ever y day.

On that fateful day, when I came in to r un the register, something was different. My foster father wasn’t

My bir th father hadn’t changed a bit.

“I war ned you about getting attached to Mor tals,” he began, his black eyes bor ing into mine .

“Why can’t you leave her alone?” I replied “The gir l should have died with her family Let me put her soul to rest,” he said like he was some sor t of saint.

“You know she’s innocent.” I accused. I’d been dreading that moment for a long time “I know she can change the wor ld if you give her the time .” father said ominously. His infamous scythe mater ialized in his hand I attempted to dodge the blast of ener gy that came from it, but I was too slow The wor ld faded to black. ***

I woke up in a cold cell with a pounding headache . He put me in the reaper s ’ dungeon, reser ved for the

Time cr awled by, but Father came to the door eventually. He wore a glowing orb around his neck. said, r ubbing salt into my wound.

I wished for Time to r un backwards, so I could tell my Amanda that she was not a nobody, because she was a somebody to me