“He walked in like he owned the place.”
“How did you get him out of there?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Tell me you did not leave her there with him,” I ground out.
“We didn’t want him to find your body!”
Screw him not having a body. I reached out and punched the air where he floated. Then I stuck my other hand inside of him and shook it, scattering him all around.
“What the hell, man!”
“You deserve so much more than that,” I spat. I didn’t even wait for him to reply or come back into some kind of shape. I took off, racing along the edge of the neighbor’s property, drawing in every last ounce of kinetic energy I could and using it to propel me right out of the fancy neighborhood without being seen once.
I was supposed to be lying low, to not let G.R. know I was out, that I had a body.
Screw that.
He was messing with my girl.
Chapter Forty-Two
“I Love Lucy - an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951 to May 6, 1957.”
Frankie
The Grim Reaper was in my house. He just walked in like this was some episode of I Love Lucy and he was Ricardo telling Lucy he was home and ready for his supper.
But this wasn’t a sitcom. This was real life.
And he was the ultimate life stealer.
All three of us were frozen, staring at the closed bedroom door like it was a bomb about to explode. I clutched my stomach so hard it hurt, but I was afraid if I let go I would hurl all over the floor.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” the Reaper called in a morbid singsong voice.
It was his voice that spurred me into action. “Storm, get that body and get the hell out of here. Do not let him see you.”
“What about you?” he said, sounding unsure.
“I can take care of myself. Charming needs you. Use the fire escape.” I pointed to the window next to the bed.
“Piper, go with him,” I ordered quietly and rushed toward the door.
“You can’t go out there,” Piper insisted. “Come with us.”
If I didn’t go out there, he was going to barge in here and find all three of us sneaking out the window. He’ll see Charming’s body—the one that wasn’t supposed to be here—and he would likely take it and do who knows what with us.
I couldn’t risk them all. I couldn’t risk Charming’s body.
I had to do this.
I mean how bad could the Grim Reaper really be?
I glanced at Piper and shook my head. Her eyes widened, but before she could yell at me and give away the fact I wasn’t in here alone, I opened the door, slipped out, and closed it directly behind me.
An older-looking man who oddly looked a lot like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons was just coming down the hall.
I jumped, putting my hand to my chest like he startled me (okay, maybe he did even though I knew he was there. This guy was just creepy) and said, “Holy crap! Who are you? Why are you in my apartment?”
“We have a mutual acquaintance,” he replied, looking me over.
“We do?”
“Yes, and I think you know exactly who I am. Why are you pretending you don’t?”
I thought about my friends just on the other side of the door. “Could we go talk in the living room? The hallway is kind of close quarters.”
He pursed his lips. “Okay.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when he walked out into the living room. I followed, watching his every move.
“Marilyn Monroe,” he said, staring at the wall of posters of my idol. “She was very full of life.” He turned to look at me. “Until I killed her.”
I gasped. “You didn’t kill her. She died of an overdose.”
“Did she?” he asked, lifting a brow.
“If you killed her, why didn’t you take her body? I hear you have a little problem with hoarding.” In truth, I had no idea how many bodies he did or did not have. Charming and I hadn’t spent our time talking about him. Now I kind of wished I knew more. I felt very unprepared for a confrontation with him.
He laughed. A real laugh. “I don’t usually collect female bodies. But I’m thinking maybe it’s time for a change.”
Oh, that’s great, Frankie. Inspire the body collector to start collecting women, starting with you.
“Why are you here?” I asked, hoping to steer him away from the idea of hanging my body in his closet.
“I seemed to have misplaced something. I was wondering if you had it?”
I almost told him this wasn’t the lost and found, but I bit my tongue. I didn’t think he would appreciate my sarcasm. “What did you lose?”
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t like liars.”
“I’m not lying. I don’t have whatever it is you’re looking for.”
“Then you won’t mind if I take a look around.”
Oh, I minded all right. “No,” I burst out and his eyes narrowed. I took a breath. “I mean, now isn’t really a good time.”
“Really? What were you doing in your bedroom when I got here?”
I put my hands on my hips. “I don’t really think that’s any of your business.”
He smiled, then came across the room, holding out his hands. “Step aside,” he warned. “Wouldn’t want me to accidentally touch you.”
I jumped out of the way like he was a speeding car and I was a squirrel.
He went down the hallway and yanked open the door and went inside. “Well, what do we have here?” he said.
They didn’t get out. I didn’t stall him long enough. Now he was going to take Charming’s body and kill us all.
I ran down the hallway, skidding to a stop just inside the doorway, ready to beg for our lives. But Storm was gone. So was Charming’s body.
Piper, however, was still here. She was standing beside the bed, staring daggers at the Reaper.
“Ahhh, the one that got away,” he said, looking at her. “How are you enjoying life knowing I will never be able to come for you?”
“Why are you here?” Piper asked, her voice completely calm.
He ignored her question, going over to my closet and going through all the hangers and clothes.
“Did you want to borrow an outfit?” I quipped. “I don’t think I’m your size.”
Piper gave me a shut up look.
“They aren’t here,” he murmured.
“What’s not?” I said, still playing dumb.
“My bodies!” he yelled. Piper and I both flinched. “Where are they!”
“I don’t know,” I replied, backing up as he stalked toward me. “I really don’t know.”
“Hey! Get away from her,” Piper called, moving across the room toward us.
“I wonder,” the Reaper mused, “if Charming would be a little more forthcoming if I brought him your dead body.”
Oh, this wasn’t going well. Not at all. “I don’t really think that would help.”
“I think it might be worth a try.” He yanked his hand out of his pocket and reached for me, all five of his fingers waving about like they were snakes trying to slither away.
I shuddered and backed up some more, coming up against the wall.
I was trapped.
He came closer, his hand just inches from my face. I squeezed my eyes closed.
“I said Leave. Her. Alone.” Piper cried, her voice so close that I opened my eyes to tell her to run.
But it was too late.
Piper grabbed the Reaper by his wrist, yanking his deadly touch away from me.
“Piper, no!” I yelled, my chest seizing up so hard that I fell backward against the wall. If it hadn’t been there for support, I would have crumpled to the floor. “No!” I cried again, staring at where her slender fingers wrapped around his wrist. She was dead. She wa
s going to die. She went and wasted a perfectly good death pardon from the Grim Reaper by touching him.
I waited for her body to fall to the floor.
I waited for her to die.
Nothing happened.
I blinked, trying to clear my eyes of the tears that filled my vision, thinking I was just seeing things.
I wasn’t.
She was still breathing. Moving. Living.
And her hand was still wrapped around his wrist.
She was staring down at where they touched, frozen in shock.
I looked at the Reaper, thinking maybe he knew what was happening, that he wouldn’t be surprised. But he looked just as shocked as the rest of us.
“You’re touching me,” he said in awe.
Piper snapped back to reality and snatched her hand away. She backed up, pulling the ends of her sweater down over her hands.
“You didn’t die,” he said, looking at her with a creepy sort of reverence.
“Still breathing,” Piper said, like she still couldn’t believe it herself.
“Wait. You didn’t know that was going to happen?” I burst out. “What the hell were you thinking!”
“That I didn’t want you to die,” she said quietly.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” I rushed over to her side, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. “That was officially the stupidest thing anyone has ever done.”
“You’re welcome?” she said, a hysterical laugh bubbling out of her throat. I pulled her against me and crushed her in a hug.
“If you had died I would have been so pissed.” I pulled back and looked at the Reaper. “Why didn’t she die?”
He shook his head, still staring at Piper.
“He lost his claim to me when Dex broke that stone. You heard him just now. He can never come for me.”
“I guess I just thought that meant he would never kill you, not that he couldn’t.”
“I kind of thought that too,” she whispered.
We both looked at the man who should have all the answers. He looked rattled. Like he couldn’t even form a sentence. “I… I didn’t know,” he muttered to himself and I had to strain to hear.
“Are you saying you didn’t know that was going to happen?” I asked.
He looked up at me. His eyes were still a little glassy and vacant. Beside me, Piper shifted and his eyes fastened on her once again.
“No.”
It was a simple word, a single response. But the weight behind it was immense.
“I have to go,” he said, shaking himself and walking back through the apartment and toward the front door.
We rushed after him, watching to see what he would do. On his way past the coffee table, he stopped and looked down at the vase of white carnations I put there just before I went away with Charming.
Without saying a word, he reached out and fingered the snowy petals of one of the flowers. It died instantly, turning an ugly shade of brown as the petals dried out and curled in on themselves. He looked down at his hand and then back at Piper again before walking quietly out the door.
We stood there for a long time. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the nearby wall. Finally, I snapped out of it and rushed forward to throw the lock on the front door, turning around and collapsing against it.
Piper sat down on the couch, staring at the single dead flower in a vase full of living ones.
“I touched the Grim Reaper,” she said.
“You saved my life.”
“I didn’t die.”
I pushed away from the door and joined her on the couch. “You’re badass.”
She looked at me and grinned. “Yeah, I guess I am badass.”
I nodded. “But never do it again.”
“Definitely not. I hope I never see him again.”
I hoped that, too. Still, I couldn’t help but think that he was trying to kill me. The Grim Reaper wanted me dead. He wanted to use me to get to Charming. I was lucky and got a reprieve from death because my BFF seemed to be the Reaper Whisperer.
I just wondered how long my reprieve was going to last.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Freedom - liberty of the person from slavery, detention, or oppression.”
Charming
I ran for about a mile after leaving G.R.’s upscale neighborhood. I knew I could keep on running to Frankie’s apartment, that I would likely be able to keep pulling in energy, but it still would have taken me longer than I wanted. I wanted to be there with her now. I couldn’t even call because I was afraid he might still be there and I didn’t want him to even think I might have figured out I wasn’t as trapped as he wanted me to think.
So I stole a car.
A plain four-door sedan that I wouldn’t have normally driven to save my own life. Yet it appeared I was willing to do just about anything to save Frankie. I was just about to pull out of the back of the parking lot when Storm appeared in the backseat.
“Man, you would have lost it and I never would have gotten you out of the house if I had told you that shit before you got into your body.”
“I’m still going to deck you if you ever get a body.”
“Don’t hate the playa. Hate the game.”
I glanced in the review mirror as I drove. “Did you seriously just say that?”
“Just keepin’ it real.”
I focused back on driving and trying not to speed too noticeably. Now would not be a good time to get pulled over by the cops. The drive seemed to take forever and with every passing minute, I grew more worried I would be too late.
About a block from her apartment, I pulled the hotwired car over and parked it in a parking garage. I hurried to use a napkin that was in the glove compartment to wipe down all the surfaces I touched. I knew my fingerprints weren’t in the criminal system, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I had a feeling if I managed to get out from under the G.R., this was the body I’d be keeping.
The thought drew me up short and I stood outside the car, staring down, doing nothing but thinking.
Get out from under the Reaper? Where did that thought come from? The way I thought it just now seemed like it was something that had already been decided—like my head knew something it didn’t inform the rest of me about.
Was it even possible?
Could I somehow manage to get completely free of him?
I didn’t mean I could pull of this job, kill the Target, and use those bodies to get myself out of being Recalled. Because even if I managed to do that, G.R. would just keep assigning me impossible jobs until I failed. I would spend the rest of my existence scrambling around trying to do his bidding.
I didn’t want that.
I wanted a life. A real life. One that meant I didn’t have to kill anymore. One where I didn’t have to switch bodies and identities, one where I was the only person in charge of what I did.
It wasn’t possible. Was it?
Could I somehow trade everything I had of his for true freedom?
Frankie wouldn’t have to make peace with me killing because I wouldn’t have to kill. We could live without looking over our shoulders. I could love her the way she deserved to be loved.
I’d never had such thoughts before—such hope.
“Dude, how long you gonna stand next to the car you stole?”
I jerked up, reality crashing back in. My feet started moving; I jogged away from the car and toward Frankie’s apartment.
“Okay, yeah,” Storm called from behind. “I’ll just meet you there.”
I finally figured out what I wanted and I was going to get it. I just had to figure out how to get there. But before I did any of that, I had to see her. I had to make sure she was okay.
When her apartment building came into sight, I wanted to rush down the sidewalk and barge right in. But I couldn’t. G.R. might be watching the building. I ducked into an empty stairwell across the street and watched for signs that someone else might be out here watching or waiting.
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Charmed (Death Escorts) Page 27