by Tara Fuller
“Fine. You want a technical term? I’m a reaper. You want the truth? I’m death.” A holster materialized on his hip. He grabbed the curved blade it held and flipped it open. “I rip souls from their flesh, and I don’t take them to a happy place.”
On the other side of the hospital room door, a nurse laughed. A cart rolled past. A sob welled in my chest, refusing to let me breathe.
“I took you,” he whispered, his eyes burning a hole in my floor. “I was supposed to take you again two years ago.”
“I know. A girl in a white dress showed me. She said to tell you that you owe her one.”
“That’s Anaya. She’s one of Heaven’s reapers.” Finn scooted closer to me, staring at the book.
“What else did she show you? Exactly how much do you remember?”
I swallowed, stretching my stitches. “You said you loved me,” I said. “Did you?”
Before he could answer, I turned away to hide the tears rolling down my face. Even through the anger I was feeling, the need to touch him was so intense that my chest ached until I couldn’t breathe.
As if he could read my thoughts, Finn moved. He touched my open palm, and his hand turned to iridescent particles that sifted between my fingers.
“Yes,” he whispered.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just nodded. There was still too much hurt inside. Far too much for three little words to erase it all away.
“You were out of time,” he continued. “I don’t know if you remember what was happening to you, but I was losing you. And I couldn’t let you go like that. Not when it was my fault you were damned in the first place. I knew relationships between souls and reapers were forbidden, but I thought I’d be punished, not you. I wasn’t thinking. I should have known…” Finn stopped and his voice sounded strained. “Despite all of that, despite knowing I’d been unforgivably selfish, I couldn’t let you go. I still can’t.”
I absorbed the missing pieces to the puzzle, bits of what the girl in the white dress had given me coming back. The black veins. The Shadow Land. My mind wandered through the newly familiar memories that still didn’t quite feel at home in my mind, trying to remember feelings that belonged to another girl. My heart fluttered just thinking about the way Finn had looked at me. The way he’d touched me. “I don’t want you to let me go.”
I may have been angry and hurt and confused, but I at least knew that much. I wasn’t ready to let him go, either. Even after all of this.
Finn kissed my wrist, his lips dissolving into a fine mist as they moved slowly down to my palm.
My breath caught in my throat and my fingers curled around the shimmery particles. He pulled away, his skin weaving back together as he sat up. Once he was whole again, he grunted and grabbed the blade at his hip.
“Don’t go.” I sat up, reaching out for him, but he pulled away.
He stood up, regret and want swirling in the green depths of his eyes. “I don’t have a choice. Please don’t hate me.”
“Wait!” By the time the word had passed through my lips he was gone. My gaze drifted down to the places he’d touched that still felt warm and tingly. I could still feel him on my fingers. In my veins.
And none of it was enough.
Chapter 29
Finn I couldn’t tell where the hell I’d landed. Shadows slithered over my vision. Hundreds of them. They screamed, writhed, twisted until I dropped to my knees and slapped my hands over my ears. My knees sank into dirt and ash and God only knows what. This was not the time for me to get dragged away.
Not when I didn’t know where Emma and I stood. I had to make her understand. I couldn’t just leave things this way.
Easton slapped me on the back. “Smells like home.”
I looked around. Flashes of shimmering light punched holes into the dark. Reapers. At least twenty of them. “Why are they here?”
“Too many,” Easton said. “Body count’s going to be over a hundred.”
He pointed over my shoulder. Flames stretched so high into the darkness, they could have touched the stars. A massive hunk of metal burned, bordered by fir trees and flames. Jet fuel fumes ate away at the fresh air. A charred wing jutted up from the wreckage, branded by a blue and red airline logo. A plane. A plane full of burning people. My body heaved. God, I wished I still had the ability to throw up. I took a step back and stumbled right into the heat of a memory.
Heat licked at my neck. Something stung near my elbow. I punched at the controls of the airplane.
Just a little farther…
“Finn?”
Smoke choked me. Something hot scorched the back of my neck, my shoulder. “Son of a bitch!” I slapped at the flames crawling down my sleeve. The plane shuddered just before-“Hey.” Easton knelt beside me, his brows drawn together, as he snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Snap out of it.”
He stood and held a hand out to me. I looked at it like it was a snake ready to strike. Groaning, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me up.
“Look, I know this is hard,” he said. One of Heaven’s reapers, a boy with blinding white hair and alabaster skin, walked past us with his arm around the trembling soul of a woman in a flower print dress. “You can do this. You’ve had to do it before, and as long as these stupid humans keep trying to fly, you’re going to have to do it again. So I need you to take this.”
Easton slowly pulled the scythe from my holster and folded my fingers around it. I felt numb. I couldn’t even feel the blade in my fist. I didn’t want to feel it. I wanted to run away from this.
“Hey.” Easton snapped his fingers again, bringing me back. “Stay with me.”
I nodded and swallowed. “Okay.”
Easton smiled. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” Not even close to okay, but the lie didn’t taste too bad in my mouth. It was better than admitting I was terrified to someone who faced Hell on a daily basis. Easton nodded, looked me over once, and turned away. “Hey, Easton?”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“Are you still pissed at me?” I asked, wanting him to say no.
He rolled his eyes and twirled his scythe between his fingers like a baton. “Nah.” He paused, considering. “But for the record, I do still think you’re a dumbass.”
“Fair enough.” I didn’t think he heard. He was already gone, tearing the soul from some poor bastard’s chest.
I closed my eyes and put one foot in front of the other until the heat consumed me. I opened my eyes. Flames licked out, teased my chest, the toes of my shoes. Someone stepped up beside me.
“I’ve already had to take three kids,” Anaya said. She chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“I try not to think about it.”
“Then that’s what you need to do here.”
I glanced back to the plane. “I know.”
“You’re welcome, by the way,” she said. “Things will be so much easier now with all of the secrets out of the way.”
“You’re welcome?” I glared at her. “Do you understand how pissed off she is at me right now?”
“She’ll get over it. Trust me.” Anaya held out her hand to me. It was so small and slender compared to mine, her skin just a shade darker. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll do this together.”
I stared at the silver shimmer that swirled like smoke where our palms connected, and took a deep breath. I didn’t need it, but I wanted it. If after seventy years I couldn’t forget the feel of my flesh melting from my bones, I didn’t think I’d ever escape those memories. I squeezed Anaya’s hand and stepped into the flames.
Chapter 30
Emma Cash walked into my room holding a mug of hot chocolate. I could smell it from here, sweet and rich, mixing with the cool scent of peppermint.
“How you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said, setting down the book I’d been reading. “You don’t have to keep checking on me, you know. I’m a big girl.”
“H
ey, you’re lucky I don’t set up a cot and move in after what happened the last time I left you alone.” He was trying to joke, but he wasn’t pulling it off. I knew he was serious. That he felt responsible. And I hated myself for making him feel that way.
I cured my fingers around his arm. “It’s not your fault.”
He shook his head. “You were upset. I shouldn’t have just let you run off like that. If I’d come after you sooner, that guy wouldn’t have had the chance…”
My throat closed up. More lies. I’d had to tell him the same thing I’d told the cops. That some guy on drugs had attacked me in that bathroom and gotten out through the window. If I’d told them the truth, that it had been Maeve, I’d be in Brookhaven right now. I was getting so tired of the lies. Tired of Finn’s. Tired of my own.
Cash sighed and set the steaming cup down on my nightstand. “I thought it might feel good on your throat.”
“Thank you. That was really sweet.” I smiled. “You get bonus points for that one.”
He stretched out across my bed while I took a drink. “Bonus points?” He raised a brow. “Can I use them now?”
I slapped his leg with my book. “Gross. The hot chocolate’s not worth that.”
He flashed me a lopsided grin and winked. “Hey, don’t knock it till you try it.” His words didn’t quite match the worry written all over his face. The dark circles under his eyes. The way his hair stuck up in every direction like he’d run his hands through it a hundred times.
“Enough. What’s up? What do you want?”
Cash propped himself up on his elbow and squinted at me, like he was trying to unravel all of my secrets. I hated it when he did that, because he usually could. “Who’s Finn?”
Heart thudding, I asked, “Who?”
“Don’t give me that crap. You said his name right before…” A guilty look flashed across his face as he messed with one of my pillows. He cleared his throat. “Right before you passed out at the theater.”
“He’s…no one,” I said, my hot chocolate suddenly leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Cash sat up, brows pulled together. “Seriously? I tell you everything. I tell you shit you probably don’t even want to know about, and you’re going to hold out on me now? Come on, Em. Are you dating the guy? If you are, I want to meet him. Does he go to our school?”
“You can’t. He’s…” I paused searching for the right thing to say. “He’s out of reach. He’s always out of reach.”
“So does that translate into it’s a long-distance thing?”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. An extremely long-distance thing.” He was dead. I was alive.
Long distance was an understatement.
“How did you meet him?”
I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t want to lie to him anymore. And I didn’t want to talk about Finn.
Not yet. There was still too much anger and hurt there. Yes, he’d given me this life. Kept me safe. But at what cost? I didn’t know whether to be grateful or angry. Love him or hate him. I couldn’t balance all of the feelings inside of me and it was making me nuts.
When I didn’t answer, Cash went on, “Please don’t tell me you met him on the Internet. Have you even met the guy in person? They never look like their pictures. He could have a mullet. He could have a third nipple or something—”
“Oh my God! I did not meet him on the Internet.”
Cash laughed and I was grateful for it. “Calm down. I’m just messing with you.” He snagged my hot chocolate cup out of my hand and took a sip. “But if you’re going to continue to be a dirty little secret-keeper, I’m taking this back.”
“If it will get you to leave me alone, take it.” I picked my book back up and peeked at him over the top.
Cash reached across the bed and pulled the book out of my hands. “Hey, why don’t you come over?”
“Seriously? I look like a zombie.” I spread my arms, feeling like something out of a Tim Burton movie. Black and blue and stitched all over. There was no way I was hiking across the yard to his house. “I’m not even supposed to get out of bed. Besides, I really don’t feel like watching you and your skeevy friends get wasted and pretend you know how to play guitar.”
Cash threw my book across the bed and frowned. “I can play.” I raised a brow and he laughed.
“Okay, I can play a little. Come on. It won’t be as fun if you’re not there to laugh at me. I could carry you? You wouldn’t have to walk at all.”
My battered reflection in the vanity mirror caught my eye and I looked away. “Even if I could, I’m not going anywhere looking like this.”
I also wasn’t going anywhere until Finn came back. There were still too many things left unsaid. He still owed me answers. Cash sat up on my bed and nudged my foot.
“You don’t look that bad, Em,” he said. “Believe me. The guys I’m having over will still totally hit on you. I don’t think a few bruises and stitches will deter their inappropriate behavior.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I just…” The humor drained from his voice. “I don’t want to leave you alone, okay?”
The guilt in his voice made my heart hurt. I couldn’t stand him thinking any of this was his fault.
“I’m fine. I swear. Besides, Mom’s home. I won’t be alone.” I grabbed my book from where he’d tossed it onto the pillows. “I just need a quiet night. No drama unless it’s the fictional kind.”
“Fine.” Cash ran his fingers through his messy hair. “Have your nerdfest. But I’ll call you later to check on you.”
“One of your famous 2:00 a.m. drunk calls?” I smiled. “Can’t wait.”
Cash disappeared out the window, shimmying it closed behind him. I listened to the cold November wind pulse against the walls of the house. Just the sound of it made me shiver. I tugged my red cardigan around my chest to hold in the warmth and burrowed into my covers, flipping the pages of the book I was reading.
I’d made it through three more chapters by the time Finn came back, stumbling through the wall like he’d been shoved into the room. He braced himself on the sill, pulling back the parts of himself that had seemed to melt right through the Sheetrock and cursed under his breath.
“You’re not very good at that, are you?” I asked, feeling relieved and upset all at the same time.
He glanced at me over his shoulder, then cast a haunted look back out the window. His eyes flickered with the movement of whatever he was seeing. Snowflakes, probably. Even from my bed I could see the eerie ballet of white dust against the black velvet sky outside.
“Were you…” I hesitated, searching for the right word. “Were you collecting a soul?”
“Where’s Cash? I thought he’d be with you,” Finn said, carefully deflecting my question. He didn’t have to answer, though. I could see it written all over his face. The pain and regret. The mask of horror that death brands into a person’s eyes.
I turned my attention back to my novel, pretending to read so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “He’s drinking with some of his buddies. They’re forming a garage band,” I said. “Not my thing. Besides, you and I never got a chance to finish talking.”
Finn didn’t say anything right away. He didn’t even look at me. But after a few moments of silence, he sat down beside me on the bed. The mattress didn’t give. The blankets didn’t shift. So close and still so far away.
“If you’re waiting for me to tell you I regret it, that’s not going to happen,” he said, his voice sounding tight and uneven. “I don’t. I wouldn’t take it back even if I could. You deserve to be here, and you sure as hell didn’t deserve to be cast off as the scum of the underworld for the rest of eternity because I made a mistake. If that makes me a bad person, if it makes you hate me…then I guess it is what it is.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I was afraid of what would happen if I let the words out. I didn’t hate him. I…loved him. He’d risked everything for me. He wa
s still risking everything for me.
How could I hate him? I was just angry, and no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t go away.
“I am sorry I lied to you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I got in the way of who you were supposed to be. If I had just left you alone that first day…”
“Don’t say that.” I moved closer. “I want to be here, Finn. I want to be alive.”
“You could be in Heaven if it wasn’t for me. Do you realize that? You could still have that if I could just let go.”
“I don’t want Heaven. Not yet anyway,” I said. “I want…this.” I reached out, but Finn jerked away like I’d burned him.
“I can’t…I don’t trust myself with you right now.”
“What’s wrong?”
Finn scrubbed his hands over his face. “Nothing. Okay, not nothing. But I’ll get over it soon.”
I bit my lip and watched him. “If it helps, I don’t hate you.”
“You should.”
The lights flickered above us, the wind outside waging a war with the power lines. Without thinking, I leaned across Finn to grab a candle and a lighter from my nightstand drawer. My arm sank through his shimmer and dissolved through his arm. He inhaled sharply and I froze. My hand glittered like silver dust beneath his.
“I’m sorry,” I said without moving. I could feel his warmth against my cheek as I hovered over him.
“Emma…please,” he said breathlessly. He shut his eyes, like he was trying to get some control over himself. “No. I should go.”
“Please don’t.” The lights flickered again, so I pulled away to light the candle, then set it on the opposite nightstand beside me. “Talk to me.”
He watched me for a moment, his gaze jittery. His hand moved across the mattress between us, but he yanked it back before it got to me. “I don’t…I don’t deal very well with, um…” He swallowed.
“Fire.”
“Is that where you were? A fire?”
He nodded. “A lot of people died. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”
“That’s how you died, isn’t it? A fire made your plane crash?”