by Tara Fuller
“I don’t know anything about you,” he said, breaking the fragile silence between us. “Besides the fact that you’re dead.”
“Do you want to?”
Cash shrugged and tilted his chin down to look at me. “Only seems fair. You know all of my secrets.”
I bit my bottom lip, thinking. I didn’t want to tell him stories about death, but that’s all my existence had consisted of for the past thousand years. For some reason I didn’t want him to see me that way. I wanted him to see something else when he looked at me. Something I didn’t get to be anymore. Alive.
“I lost my father, too,” I said, softly. “Just before I died. At the time I’d been so angry. I thought he’d been taken before his time.”
“And now?”
I shook my head, purposely hiding behind my braids. “Now that I’m on the other side, I see how foolish it is that people try to fight it. Like it’s a choice. Like it hasn’t already been written.”
“Did it ever stop hurting?” he asked.
I thought about the ache that I had carried with me all these years. The one for Tarik, so deep and cutting that the most fleeting memory of him tore it wide open all over again.
“Some wounds never heal,” I admitted. “They simply become a part of us.”
Cash stared down at me, his gaze lingering on my lips. He squeezed my hand and swallowed. “Have you ever wanted something, even knowing you shouldn’t?”
Nervous energy washed through me. I should have walked away. From the way he was looking at me. Touching me. But I didn’t. Instead I nodded, unable to look away, and said, “Yes.”
I wanted him.
The instant I thought it, I wanted to take it back. Needed to take it back. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was wrong. Cash studied my face for a moment and his eyes flashed with a decision. He started walking, tugging me behind him toward the parking lot. Only a few empty cars littered the pavement, the gathering from the funeral already having moved on to the next destination.
“Where are we going?”
He pulled me in by my wrist and backed me against the door of his Bronco. In an instant, he was right there, so close to my lips. “It hurts so fucking bad, Anaya.” His voice shattered in a broken whisper. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we have to live with the hurt forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t numb it. Help me forget. Please. I just want to forget for a little while.”
His brown eyes swept over me like he was committing every inch of me to memory. If I were still full of blood, I imagine that look would have had me warm all over. I couldn’t help but wonder how many girls he’d looked at like that. He wouldn’t have been looking at me like that if he weren’t decimated and begging for escape.
“Cash, I can’t,” I said. Stay calm, Anaya. You don’t care. He’s just a human and you can leave. He has no power over you. I scooted back, trapping myself against the door. Trying to inch away from
Cash’s heat. His smell. The way his eyes were looking right through me. The way the tilt of his lips said he didn’t want me to go even as the anger behind his clenched fists said he didn’t want me to stay.
“Don’t go,” he said.
He took a step closer, effectively erasing the space between us, and pressed his palm against the door behind me to steady himself. His black hair lay in damp spikes against his forehead. His eyes looked dark and tortured. He was so beautiful and sad that it hurt to look at him. God…he deserved so much more than this.
“You don’t want me.”
“You have no idea what I want,” he said.
“You don’t need me,” I whispered. “You need something any other girl in this town could give you.”
His thumb brushed the side of my face and he swallowed. “I don’t want them.”
Something inside my chest began to pound. Or maybe it was just the memory of what my body was supposed to do with a boy this close.
He leaned in closer and I closed my eyes. This is wrong. This is wrong . I kept repeating the thought, but my body wasn’t listening. Instead it was burning up. Leaning into this boy who was drawing me in with every breath. Cash’s cheek grazed mine, solid and warm, and my knees wobbled. Oh my God.
How could he make me feel like this? How could he ignite sensations that had been dead for a thousand years? I couldn’t lose myself to this, no matter how good it felt. Not now. Not ever.
I exhaled, letting go of the corporeality, to step through him, but he stopped me just like he had in the car. Panic flared to life in my chest as my gaze traveled down to his fingers wrapped around my waist. I focused, trying again, but under his fingers, I was solid. Flesh. Every brush of his skin on mine was pushing the death out of me and filling me with artificial life.
“I want you, Anaya.” I tilted my face up and he took it as an invitation. I gasped as his lips grazed mine, asking for something.
“I want your taste in my mouth. I want your heat in my veins.” One of his hands came up to cradle my jaw as he gently kissed my top lip, them my bottom, lingering there the longest. I whimpered into his mouth and every part of him shook with what I could only guess was restraint. He pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “I want it to erase everything that’s inside of me right now. Say it’s okay, Anaya. Tell me you want me, too.”
His thumb traced my bottom lip where his mouth had just been and I swayed into him. Some part of me wanted to give in, but I knew he didn’t really want me. He was too good at this. No matter what he said, he just wanted what every other girl he sought out gave him. Escape. A way to forget. I let the taste of him linger there for an instant, then broke away and gently shoved him back. I couldn’t do this. Tarik. Tarik was so close. I’d waited a thousand years for him! I couldn’t let myself ruin everything now.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Cash pulled back and stared at me, his jaw set into a hard line. He raked his fingers through his hair and backed away.
“Why’d you have to save me? Why couldn’t you have just done your damn job at that fire and taken me!”
“That wasn’t my decision. I just did as I was told.”
It sounded so cheap. So awful on the heels of the intimate moment we’d just shared.
“I hate this, Anaya!” He backed away shaking, pulling at the tie around his neck as if it were choking him, fighting the tears glistening in his eyes. “I want my life back!”
Cash’s eyes searched my face, pleading. The desperate look in them sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
“Take me,” he said.
“What?”
“Take me,” he repeated. “If I need to die first, just tell me what I have to do. Then you can take me to be with my dad and all of this will be over. Right?”
“I…I can’t do that.”
“Why the hell not?” His hands slammed against the door, caging me in.
“Because I care about you,” I said, trying to catch the breath I didn’t need. It wasn’t a lie. I did care about him. But it wasn’t the truth, either, and the words tasted awful coming out of my mouth. I should have told him the truth. I was trading his misery for my redemption. His torture for my chance to get through the gates that had taunted me every day for the last thousand years. I took away his chance at eternal happiness so that I could get back to Tarik. But I couldn’t say that. Not after he’d just kissed me.
“There’s more.” He stood frozen in place, refusing to let me free. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I slipped out from under him and stilled. The dead were calling. So warm and sweet. The scythe in my holster wasn’t as patient. It burned my hip through the leather and the thin white barrier of my dress.
“I have to go,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry if they come back. Really, I am…but I can’t stay here. Just remember what I told you. Keep calm. Keep control.”
Cash sagged against the Bronco, watching me. “This isn’t over, Anaya. Not even close.”
&nbs
p; Chapter 13
Cash
I was done. Huddled in the corner of Emma’s bathroom surrounded by shadows, so thick I felt like I was sitting in a cloud of ink, I’d never been more sure of anything. I pressed my head between my legs, trying to block out the stench and the sound of them. It didn’t work. They were too close, all around me, all over me. A hiss sounded next to my ear and I reached out to bat it away.
“Fuck!” Pain flared across my arm and I jerked it back against my chest. As if it sensed the weakness, another shadow pounced, wrapping around my other forearm, and a matching pain blazed across my skin. The burn was so at odds with the chill running through me that I bolted to my feet.
Two long red burns marred both of my arms, the skin blistered and stinging . Son of a bitch. My gaze traveled down to the puddle of writhing darkness below me and I blew out a pent-up breath.
Anaya said they couldn’t hurt me. She lied to me. Why the hell would she lie to me about this?
“Break it up!” a voice boomed across the bathroom. Shadows scattered and escaped through the cracked window. They slipped and slithered across the cream-colored tile until they found refuge in the dark bathtub drain. Noah grabbed one by the neck as it reared up to take a bite out of his throat.
His eyes were glassed over and cold as he squeezed it until it wiggled and screamed, tore and twisted under his fingers. A black, glittery ooze melted across his wrist and he cursed before dropping it onto the tile, allowing it to scurry away.
Noah watched it spiral down the drain and rubbed his wrist. “Well…that was fun.”
“You’re back,” I said numbly, not really caring. It didn’t matter if he was back. I was done here. So, so done. I pushed away from the bathroom wall and Noah backed up a few feet to give me space as I rummaged through the medicine cabinet.
“I’m a man of my word,” he said, his voice trailing off as I popped open a few pill bottles.
There wasn’t much to choose from, mainly just leftover antidepressants and pain pills from Emma, but it would have to do. I just hoped Anaya was ready, because it was time to fix this black hole of an existence that had become my life, whether she was ready for it or not. If ending it was the only way, so be it. Anything had to be better than this. Who knows, maybe I’d see Dad again. Maybe I’d get a chance to make things right with him.
Noah stepped up beside me and examined one of the pill bottles. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing?”
I shrugged my jacket off and rolled the sleeves of my white shirt up to my elbows. I braced my palms on the counter and stared at my pathetic reflection in the mirror. Black hair that usually stuck up in disorderly spikes lay damp and limp across my forehead. My skin looked ashen against my white shirt and red tie. Dad’s red tie. I didn’t own one, so I’d had to raid his closet. Even now, hours after I’d watched them lower him into the ground, it felt heavy and wrong around my neck. And those eyes, dark and dull, full of pain, who the hell did those belong to? I didn’t know who this kid was staring back at me. I just knew that I didn’t want to be him. Not anymore.
“Sorry, Em,” I whispered, then brought one of the opened bottles of pills to my mouth.
“Whoa!” Noah slapped the bottle out of my hand, only allowing me to get a couple down before he raked the spilled pills and the rest of the bottles off the counter. “What the hell are you doing, man?”
Triggered by anger, I shoved Noah against the bathroom door. I hadn’t been in many fights, but I was ready to knock someone flat on their ass if they tried to stop me. Dead or alive. “This isn’t any of your business. Stay out of it. You don’t want to watch? Then fucking leave.”
Noah’s gray eyes opened wide as they flicked down to my finger jabbed in his chest. He held up his hands in surrender. “And what are you going to do if the shadows come back before she does?”
All that waited for me on the other side with Anaya was a big question mark. Unanswered questions.
At least I knew where I stood with the shadows. I was nothing more than a meal to them. At least I’d be gone. There would be nothing if they got me first. I stepped away from Noah and my arms fell to my sides, the pain a dull throb now.
“Maybe that’s what I’m counting on,” I said. My body didn’t seem to agree with this plan. Fear filled up my chest and my heart started to pump with life behind my ribs, as if it was trying to prove to me that we could still beat this.
“I get it.” Noah stared down at me, looking a little panicked. “I promise I get it. I’ve been there, and
I’m telling you this isn’t the answer. There is another way through this, Cash. A better way.”
I lifted my chin to face him, feeling the lump in my throat swell to an unbearable size as I tried to wrap my mind around what I was doing. The pill bottles scattered across the floor caught my attention. What if Emma had been the one to find me, just a few feet from where she slept? What would that have done to her? A choked sound seeped past the lump and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes.
“You’ve got a better way than this?” Please say yes. Please show me, because I’m ready to do anything.
Noah’s hand rested against my shoulder and it felt as cold as I did. “Better than letting that bastard upstairs and his reapers make a slave out of you? Yeah, man. I’ve got a better way.”
“Show me,” I said.
Noah grinned and his hold tightened around my shoulder. “I thought you’d never ask.”
A tingling sensation started in my veins, buzzing under my skin, and light exploded around us. I felt like I was going to burst out of my skin, leaving tiny pieces of Cash strewn all over Emma’s bathroom, but then…we weren’t in the bathroom. My vision swam in darkness and a dripping sound echoed somewhere behind me. I blinked, searching my surroundings. Brick walls surrounded us and wet pavement settled under my feet. The sound of a car alarm sounded somewhere in the distance. We were in an alley. Cold, damp air ruffled my hair and I shivered, feeling a wave of nausea roll through me. Noah’s hand fell from my shoulder and he took a step away.
“You all right?”
I nodded, bending over to brace my hands on my knees, and stared at the oily puddle I was standing in. “I feel sick.”
He chuckled. “That’s normal. You’ll get used to it.”
I stood up, swallowing excess saliva, and glared at him. “Get used to what? Tell me what the hell is going on or I’m not taking another step. Tell me what you are.”
He nodded and a breeze blew a slash of his blond hair into his face so it covered one eye. “I’m a shadow walker.” He paused and folded his arms across his chest. “And so are you.”
I studied the hard angles of his face, the tense set to his shoulders. He was serious. “Am I supposed to know what that is?”
“You think your reaper girl has power?” He raised a brow. “She is doomed, Cash. Doomed to be a slave for all of eternity. Doomed to walk the Earth and afterlife as nothing more than an echo of the corpse she used to be.”
My chest twisted uncomfortably. I didn’t like him talking about Anaya like that. She might have been dead, but she wasn’t a corpse. She was so much more than that.
“And what makes us different?”
Noah smiled. “We can walk among the living,” he said. “And we can cross over as the dead. We’re hovering somewhere in between. You have more power in one fingertip than a reaper has in their entire body. Enough power to force a soul into flesh. Enough power to scare the shit out of them. Why do you think Balthazar wants you under his thumb so badly?”
I stared at my fingers, flexing them open and closed, feeling the energy buzzing under the surface.
He was telling the truth. I could feel it.
“You’ve got a choice in what and who you use that power for,” he said. “I’m just trying to help you make the right choice.”
I thought about Anaya and her light, the goodness that poured out of her like sunshine. She couldn’t possibly be batting for the wrong team. She was too good
. I watched the darkness pulsing in Noah’s veins, buzzing beneath his pale skin. In answer the blood in my veins pulsed back. Maybe Anaya wasn’t the bad one here. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was Noah.
“They’ll destroy you,” Noah said as if he could read my thoughts. “You are too much of a danger.
They’ll destroy you just like they would destroy me if they ever got their hands on me. They’ll stop at nothing to keep you out of the underworld’s hands, even if that means baiting your human hormones with a girl who looks like Anaya.”
“And who are you using your power for?” I stepped forward, my boots creating a mini tidal wave in the puddle beneath me. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems like you’re in pretty deep with the same things that want to suck the soul right out of my skin.”
Noah frowned, no doubt hearing the distrust in my voice. “You want to know what I use my power for? What I’m asking you to use yours for as well?”
I nodded and Noah spun around, his gray coat flying out behind him. “Follow me.”
Maybe Noah was batting for the dark side, maybe I was walking into a gigantic trap, but I had to know. No way could I walk away from all of this, not knowing what I was, where I was going to end up at the end. I took off at a jog after Noah and we emerged onto a busy city street. Shock stole my breath as I looked up at the high-rises in the distance and the people crowding the sidewalks. Two girls with beads dangling from around their necks walked past us, laughing. The blond one with purple streaks and a leather miniskirt spun around and grinned, giving us a little wave before her friend dragged her off, giggling.
“Wait…they can see us?” I asked. “They can see you?”
Noah grinned at me over his shoulder. “Like I said, you walk with me, you get some perks. Women, food, booze… There is nothing off-limits for us, Cash. Not on my team.”
“Where are we?” I spun a quick circle as I walked. “Why did we leave Lone Pine?”