Reaping Havoc

by AJ Rose

  Nate came to a stop beside him and offered a hand, a wide grin splitting his face. Tate showed equal exuberance, silently applauding him. “You weren’t kidding about having gotten better. Holy shit, Mitch, that was great!”

  “I finally found a teacher who made it possible for me to learn.” Mitch wanted to fling his arms around Nate’s neck and kiss him stupid, but it wasn’t the time or the place. He settled for squeezing Nate’s hand before letting go, then used his poles to detach his boots from the skis.

  Morgan was talking to a couple guys in the class, and Mitch tromped over to him, recognizing when the handshake they shared connected their souls to his brother. They chit-chatted for a few minutes while Nate did a headcount and then began to climb back up. Class consensus was to do the same general run a couple more times before moving farther north for fresh trails.

  The morning was beautiful, as Nate had predicted, and if the reason Mitch and Morgan were here hadn’t been a dire one, it really would have been a perfect day. After two more runs, the class began opening up to each other, talking among themselves as they climbed, cheering each other on at the bottom of the run, and in general learning about each other as companions for the day. Mitch had little trouble connecting to his three remaining souls, and he spent time getting to know them, knowing they’d need to trust him when the time came.

  The more he learned, the sadder he became. Naomi Blankenship was on a celebratory divorce trip, doing something she’d always talked about with her husband but had never been able to do because of his work. He hadn’t wanted to travel all that much, and while she didn’t go into their other problems, she said when the paperwork was finalized, the first thing she wanted to do was go skiing again. Mitch’s chest constricted at the thought that this was the one and only trip she’d take post-divorce.

  “It’s been too long, and I know back country is challenging after not being out here for almost ten years, but our instructor is really good, don’t you think?” she asked as she and Mitch followed the group, moving to a new location.

  “He really is,” Mitch agreed. There was no harm, he thought, in letting on he knew more about Nate than the others. “He’s been skiing for most of his life, so yeah, he knows what he’s doing. He’s the first instructor that put it into terms even I could understand. I’d still be on the bunny hill if not for him.”

  “Oh, are you two friends?”

  Mitch was grateful the chilly air kept his cheeks perpetually pink to hide the flush that rose. “We are.”

  “Oh, that’s cool.”

  They’d reached the summit then, and Naomi got pulled into a conversation with someone else. Mitch had made all of his soul connections, so he did his best to remain calm instead of constantly looking at the sky as the minutes counted down. He tried to enjoy the exertion and the freedom of flying at speeds humans weren’t meant to go, but as morning burned into afternoon, the oppressive future bore down on him. His attention scattered like fractals of light from a broken mirror, and he had to concentrate on breathing and smiling and acting normal to keep from calling attention to his plummeting mood. Morgan seemed fine, if worried about Mitch’s sudden reticence about barreling down the newest slope.

  “You okay?”

  “Just waiting,” Mitch said, fidgeting with his goggles after lowering them for the next run.

  “It’ll happen when it happens.” Morgan tried to sound reassuring but the words didn’t help. They only served to make Mitch twitchier.

  That was why, when the avalanche hit, and he heard Nate yelling behind him to “Go right, go right, go right, Mitch, goddammit!” he didn’t react quickly enough. He was so busy looking for planes, he had stopped paying attention to his surroundings. Looking over his shoulder to see what was going on threw him off course. He was going right, but he was out of control.

  His skis went out from under him, and the angle of the slope sent him careening into a boulder with a sickening crunch. His legs went entirely numb, and gravity bounced him like a ragdoll until his head slammed into a tree and everything went blank.

  Chapter 19

  How to Say Goodbye

  “Miiiiiiiiiitch!” Nate yelled from his spot in the tree line.

  Mitch was eerily still, crumpled at the base of the tree he’d slammed into. He was out of the way of the snow sliding down, but it was clear he was hurt. Nate’s pulse pounded in his ears, fear clawing from the center of his chest and up his neck. He wanted nothing more than to get to Mitch and see he was fine, have him smile up at him like the whole thing was a joke. A sick fucking joke.

  He knew it wasn’t.

  But he couldn’t move yet. The avalanche was still going, though he’d gotten himself and all but one or two of his class out of the way. They’d skied to the side and were watching as the mass, which looked like a giant’s serving of unbuttered popcorn, slid down the hill with the occasional tree or rock tumbling with it.

  Nate was already on the radio to Ski Patrol. “Avalanche on the leeward slope of Caper Mountain in the back country.” He rattled off the coordinates from his GPS unit as he searched one-handed through his backpack for the beacon. He kept talking as he switched the beacon to receive signal instead of send, then extracted his folding probe, knowing he had a student or two to dig out. “We need a medic up here, possible spinal and head injury for at least one of my clients, and I have…” he paused to read his beacon screen. “I have two people buried, and I don’t know their conditions. Stand by, will advise.”

  “Roger that. Dispatching units.”

  The snow slide finally slowed, and Nate didn’t waste time trying to ski over the bumpy morass. He stripped his skis and slung them over his shoulder, then ran as best he could to Mitch’s side. Pulling his glove off with his teeth, he shoved his fingers into Mitch’s neck, digging below his jaw for a pulse. It was there but weak.

  “No, no, no,” he growled at the unresponsive body. When he pulled off Mitch’s goggles, he saw the bloody patch on the side of his ski cap and knew it was bad. He also knew better than to move him for any reason. Hovering just over Mitch’s nose and mouth to listen for breath, Nate was more than relieved when he felt the tiny, warm puff against his skin.

  “You don’t get to do this to me,” he said through gritted teeth. “You don’t get to leave me like my sister did. I love you, Mitch. You cannot do this to me!”

  There was no response.

  As much as he wanted to stay beside Mitch, he had others to worry about. One of the clients who had made it safely to the side of the slide was shoving a probe through the snow, presumably over a spot where a beacon signal was, so Nate concentrated on finding the second student, leaving the digging out of the first to others. As he’d been taught to do from the beginning, he found the signal and plunged the probe stick through the snow. When he hit something solid, he dug with the tip of one of his skis and talked as reassuringly as he could.

  “I’m coming, don’t panic. I’ll get you out,” he kept repeating. His heart wasn’t in the words, but he wouldn’t be able to focus on Mitch until he was sure no one else needed him. Seeing Mitch’s beautiful body break against a rock and then tumble lifeless another fifty yards had nearly broken him, but he had a job to do. People depended on him. Mitch was at least on the surface of the displaced snow and not buried under it.

  After several minutes of digging, others came over to help, and they were able to extract the buried client safely. She was frightened and shaking but holding it together. He listened for the drone of snowmobiles that would announce the arrival of the medics for Mitch, but there was nothing yet.

  His students walked onto the snow field, testing it and chattering excitedly about what had happened and how they were able to ski out of harm’s way. None of them realized one of their number was missing. Then he remembered.

  Morgan’s a paramedic! He scanned the tree line for Mitch’s brother and found him staring up the hill intently, as if glaring at the snow for trying to kill them all.

&n
bsp; “Morgan!” he shouted. Morgan’s head whipped around. “I need you!”

  Morgan unhooked his skis and jabbed them into the snow, then turned to run across the choppy field of white. Apparently Nate’s tone was a dead giveaway, because the rest of the class began to converge.

  The woman they’d dug out gripped his arm hard, and he took his eyes off Morgan as he ran past.

  “You okay?” he asked her. Naomi, he thought her name was. She was looking behind him to where Mitch lay. She’d covered her mouth with a trembling hand, and her eyes filled with horror. He didn’t have time for her to freak out, but she had just been buried. He understood her emotions were raw and at the surface.

  “Is he…?” She let the question fall away.

  He stopped to reassure Naomi before following Morgan. “No, and he won’t. I called for help.”

  And that’s when the rumble came to him. Not the high whine of snowmobiles but the deep groan of—impossibly—another avalanche. Nate looked up to see another, bigger wave of snow barreling down on him and his entire class, except for Mitch, who still lay where he’d fallen at the side of the slope, and Morgan, who was on his knees beside his unconscious brother.

  There was no way they’d get out of the path in time, but he yelled at his class anyway.

  “Run, run, run!”

  Then he was slammed forward, and the world turned white.

  Chapter 20

  Reapings and Revelations

  Even with the overcast sky, the light was too bright as Mitch squinted up at Morgan bent over him.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. I think you scared your boyfriend shitless,” Morgan said, gingerly checking the area near where Mitch had hit his head. It was sore, and he flinched.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Just checking you out, bro.”

  “Stop it. You know I’m fine and if I’m not, I will be.” He sat up and a wave of nausea rippled through him like the rings in a pond after a stone had been thrown into its depths. His injuries healed quickly, most of the time in seconds, though the bigger ones, like when he’d busted his femur skateboarding as a teenager, took many minutes to knit back together, and sometimes it was up to half an hour before he felt no more pain. He figured this was pretty bad if Morgan’s medic instincts had kicked in.

  “How is everyone?”

  “I don’t know. They were all alive after the first avalanche, but the second one buried them.”

  Mitch’s nausea began to subside, and he tested his legs. He’d known the instant he hit that boulder, he’d broken his back and been paralyzed. The dead weight of his legs had scared the hell out of him as he’d tumbled end over end, unable to stop himself from slamming into the tree. He didn’t guess this was what his father meant when he’d said stay upright.

  Then Morgan’s words registered. “All of them?”

  “I think so, yeah. I was kind of focused on you, Mitch,” Morgan said a touch defensively.

  “What do I matter, Morgan?” Mitch practically shouted, punching his brother’s shoulder. “I can heal in minutes!”

  Morgan didn’t rise to the challenge, his eyes sad. “You know they all die. We can’t do a damned thing about it, because it’s their time.”

  “No, but maybe we can help them feel less pain if they’re injured, you asshole. I thought you were a paramedic with a little fucking empathy,” Mitch grumbled, coming to his knees and looking across the slope where only a little while ago, they’d been having the time of their lives. “Where’s Nate?”

  Gaze darting along the tree line, he searched for the telltale red-and-black parka and saw nothing but green-and- white. His heart leapt into his throat. He didn’t see Nate. Where the fuck was Nate?

  Morgan looked around, finally, finally registering more wrong than Katherine’s emails had predicted. “I don’t see him,” he muttered, helping Mitch to his feet.

  Mitch ignored the way the ground rolled beneath his feet as the need to vomit rose again. He didn’t see Nate, and ice froze in his veins, colder than anything he’d ever felt in the coldest wind on the mountain.

  “Nate’s not on the list.” He was beginning to panic, his voice rising. Mitch was supposed to be calm in the face of a disaster, even one on this scale. He was supposed to keep it together, a beacon for the souls connected to him, two of whom he’d just noticed, their tethers holding them not far away, though they were difficult to see against the bright backdrop of snow.

  Souls.

  Instead of searching for black-and-red, Mitch scanned for an irreverent smile, shoulder-length light brown hair, a movement not of the world but of a greater existence. Morgan still gripped his elbow to steady him, so Mitch grabbed his arm when he finally spotted her, floating above a spot in the snow with her ethereal tether buried in its heavy, wet depths.

  “There!” Mitch pointed. “Morgan, that’s Tate. He’s there. Help me.”

  They dashed into the sea of white, an adrenaline dump forcing Mitch’s discomfort aside. Tate gestured to them frantically, pointing down and flailing her hands, silver streaks of tears on her cheeks. Morgan, kind as ever, tried to reassure her.

  “We’ll get him, sweetheart. Don’t panic.”

  Mitch focused on the spot to dig, shoving his arms in to the elbows and moving large chunks of snow out of the way. “Don’t tell me not to fucking panic, Morgan,” he growled, thinking his brother had been speaking to him. “He’s not on the list. We can’t let him die.”

  “We won’t.” Morgan remained calm, and Mitch was grateful for it.

  They dug quickly, and despite neither of them having a makeshift shovel of any kind, they displaced huge amounts of snow. A siren sounded in the distance, which Mitch thought was weird until he realized he was making the noise, a high-pitched keening emitting from his throat that got worse the more he feared what they’d find when they unearthed Nate.

  Did reaper healing fix broken hearts, too?

  We really should talk to Katherine about putting mental health on the reaper insurance plan, he thought, his whine turning into hysterical laughter. They were digging, digging, digging, but nothing. Nothing yet.

  “Jesus, how far down is he?” he asked. All he could think was don’t be dead, don’t be dead. Please don’t let me lose you so soon.

  “Really far,” Morgan answered, practically upside down, bent at the waist over the ledge of the hole they were making.

  “Come on,” Mitch growled, pushing down, down, down… until his hand snagged on something. He dug like a dog, frantic, and unearthed a glove. He grabbed it.

  There was a hand inside.

  “Oh, thank fucking God!” he exclaimed.

  “Katherine might smite you for that one.”

  “I don’t care,” Mitch snapped as they dug following the arm up to Nate’s shoulder so they could get his face free. “She could have fucking warned us about this. I wanted to keep him safe. Goddammit, what kind of reaper am I if I know what’s coming and can’t keep those not on the list safe?” The words were running together now, coming so fast he didn’t know if Morgan understood him, but he didn’t care. He didn’t fucking care.

  Especially when that beautiful mouth came into view.

  Nate wasn’t trying to help them. He wasn’t pushing snow out of the way now that he should have been able to move his limbs. He wasn’t trying to help at all.

  “He’s unconscious,” Morgan said.

  “Thank you, Captain Fucking Obvious,” Mitch snarled, digging harder. It was the longest few moments of his life until they had enough of Nate exposed they could drag him free.

  “We shouldn’t move him,” Morgan said even as they did so. “He could be paralyzed.”

  “Life over limb, shithead,” Mitch said. “Even I know that. What kind of paramedic are you?”

  “The kind that’s going to save your boyfriend’s life, asshole. Move.” He shoved Mitch out of the way and knelt over Nate, moving his goggles so he could pinch his nose and blow air into Nate’s mouth.r />
  Mitch sat on the snow, staring at that still face. So calm, so unmoving. So frozen in perfection. So beautiful.

  “Please, please, please,” he begged under his breath. He’s not on the list, he’s not on the list, became a chant in his head, a mantra he clung to as his brother tried to save his lover’s life.

  Nate sucked in a huge breath and coughed explosively.

  “Nate,” Morgan said, timing his pulse at his wrist. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  Tate wrapped her full ghostly form around Morgan and layered his face with kisses. He shivered and smiled at her reassuringly.

  Mitch was still immobile, staring at Nate, unable to believe how close he’d just come to losing him. It was too soon. They were supposed to have time before Mitch had to worry about saying goodbye. They were supposed to get years.

  Nate’s eyes opened and landed on him, his panting breath a good sign as color began to return to his cheeks.

  Morgan looked up as the sound of motors reached them, but the echo bouncing around the trees made it impossible to pinpoint from what direction it came.

  “Mitch?” Nate rasped, coughing again. “You’re….” He swallowed, trying again. “Okay?”

  It was enough to snap Mitch from his paralysis, and he crawled forward and grabbed Nate’s gloved hand, squeezing hard. “I’m okay.” How much had Nate seen of his collision with the boulder and trees?

  “You were… unconscious. Looked broken.”

  “It was just a bump on the head. I’m good. A little woozy, but I’m more worried about you. Anything hurt?”

  “Too cold to tell.” Nate’s teeth chattered.

  At that moment, Ski Patrol showed up. Four snowmobiles, two of them with sleds affixed to the back for transporting injured people down the hill. Morgan stood to greet them as they ran over, giving a report on Nate’s vitals, such as he could gather without a med kit. One of them knelt to assess Nate’s condition, motioning for a backboard.