Early to Death, Early to Rise ma-2

by Kim Harrison

  He closed his mouth, looking embarrassed and pleased all at once. “I’ll try,” he finally said, then frowned as he looked at Ace through the glass. “It’s not going to be easy.”

  I laughed as I started to walk backward to Ace’s truck, each step feeling bigger than it really was. “If being good were easy, everyone would do it.”

  Shoe nodded. Waving awkwardly, he turned and began walking down the dark sidewalk, his pace slow but gaining confidence with every step until his head was high. Slowly the darkness took him until even the sound of his shoes echoing back to me faded and there was nothing.

  I saw him once more in a spot of light, and then…he was gone.

  Satisfaction filled me as I yanked open Ace’s truck and got my phone and wallet. The soft leather was still warm from the ride over here, and it made an uncomfortable bump when I shoved it in a back pocket. The door squeaked as I slammed it shut. In the distance, I heard a faint, “Bye, Madison!”

  Happy, I leaned against the truck and stared at the plain white stars while I waited for Nakita and Barnabas to finish threatening Ace. Sure, Barnabas might be mad at me, but he’d get me home, grumbling all the way. If he didn’t, Nakita would. Even better, he’d be on my roof tomorrow to tell me what I could have done better. No one had died tonight. No one would die tomorrow—at least, not before their allotted time was up. Shoe was going to catch hell at school, but he’d known that before he trashed the school’s computers. Nakita was starting to understand—I think—even if by all accounts she had failed in her attempt to save Ace’s soul by taking it early. Ace was still an ass, but maybe he’d learned something. Paul was thinking. And I was…pleasantly tired.

  Maybe it was a good night after all.

  Epilogue

  “Madison!”

  It was a panicked shout, and my eyes flew open at the strong shake of my shoulder.

  “What!” I shouted back, seeing my dad standing over me, fear on his face. I was in my bed; the sun was shining in. I had been…sleeping? I hadn’t slept in almost three months.

  Relief cascaded over my dad’s face to make his few wrinkles appear deeper. “I thought you were—” he started, then visibly changed his mind as he let go of my shoulder and straightened. “You’re late,” he said instead, sounding embarrassed. “For school,” he added, and I smiled. I hadn’t thought he meant the dead kind of late, but then again, I’d probably looked dead, lying there. Not breathing. No wonder he’d shaken me.

  “How late?” I asked as I sat up, blinking. I couldn’t believe I’d actually slept. Maybe the flash forward had triggered it. It had taken a lot out of me.

  Exhaling, my dad looked over my room. “Breakfast is ready,” he said instead of answering me.

  Too bad I wasn’t hungry.

  I started to get up, then froze when he picked up the lab coat I’d draped over my desk chair. The Jane Doe toe tag was peeping out of the pocket, and I panicked. How was I going to explain a clearly professional lab coat with the name Marty on it was beyond me.

  “Tell me this is ketchup,” he said softly, fingering the stained fabric, and I smiled.

  “It’s ketchup. I had some fries after school,” I explained, and he sighed. “I’m sorry! I got hungry!”

  He winced, draping it over my desk chair, right next to my torn tights.

  “Madison!” he said, snatching them up. “What did you do to your nylons?”

  “I cut them. Everyone is wearing them like that!” Oh, man. I was not getting out of this.

  “These were brand-new!” my dad complained loudly, shaking them.

  “Jeez, Dad…” I complained, proud of myself that I hadn’t panicked. Much. “Didn’t you ever wear cutoff jeans?”

  Shoulders slumping, he looked at my fingernails, seeing the black nails that I’d been wearing to help Nakita blend in, his gaze lingering on the two red nails I’d half painted. “Torn tights and a lab coat? Wearing shoes without laces? I’ll never understand your fashion sense.”

  I leaned over to look at my yellow sneakers. It isn’t fashion sense; it’s fallout, I thought dryly.

  “But at least I know you’re eating,” he added, his attention going back to the ketchup-splattered lab coat. “How about skipping the after-school snacks for a while and eating at home?”

  “Okay.” I stretched, hoping he wouldn’t look into my bathroom, where my torn shirt lay on the floor. That would be very hard to explain. I felt pretty good, but food was the last thing on my mind. Especially when my dad sat on the edge of the bed beside me and pointedly set my phone on the nightstand.

  Crap. I’d forgotten to call Mom.

  “Anything you want to tell me?” he asked, looking at it.

  “Sorry. I forgot to call Mom,” I said immediately, but his frown deepened, telling me that wasn’t it. Clueless, I fiddled with my comforter, glad I’d changed into my nightgown last night after Barnabas had dropped me off, even if it had put my torn tights and Marty’s lab coat on my dad’s radar. “Is something wrong?” I asked hesitantly.

  Is something wrong? I actually asked, “Is something wrong”? Can I sound any guiltier?

  My dad waited until I looked at him. “I got a strange call this morning. Some guy named Sneaker.”

  “Shoe!” I blurted before I remembered to shut my mouth. For crying out loud. And I’d told Shoe to be good when I couldn’t go five minutes without lying to my dad?

  “Shoe?” my dad echoed, touching the phone to make it exactly square with the corner of the nightstand. “You know him?”

  “Uh, yes.” I shrugged, trying to look like I didn’t care. “But I never gave him the house number.” Barnabas? I thought. Had he gone to see Shoe last night and tried to change his memories? Son of a dead puppy.

  “Pen pal?” I tried, working to keep the question from my voice, but it sneaked in there somehow.

  My dad made an unconvincing sound. “He wanted me to tell you he’s suspended and that he is, and I quote, ‘being good.’” His eyebrows high, he waited for an explanation.

  “Really?” What else could I say? I couldn’t look at him, and I fidgeted in the silence.

  “Madison…” he started, and I threw the covers back to get out of bed on the other side.

  “Dad, I gotta go,” I blurted, reaching for my robe just inside my bathroom. The sight of my torn shirt met me, and I yanked the door shut. “I’m late for school and I have to take a shower. I don’t know why Shoe said that weird stuff. He’s just a guy I met a while ago.”

  Like last night, a while ago, but it was a while ago.

  Exhaling slowly and long, my dad stood. “I’ll see you downstairs,” he said, sounding disappointed. “What do you want for dinner tonight?”

  I hesitated, thinking what I could hide in my pockets the easiest. “Soup and fries,” I said, imagining that I could down soup easily enough. And I had really enjoyed the fries last night. If I could save Ace’s life, I could eat a couple.

  My dad’s expression screwed up. “Soup and fries?” he echoed, then sighed. “If that’s what you want. Breakfast is ready. Don’t be long.”

  “I won’t,” I said, thinking that if I waited until the last moment to come down, I could run out the door with a piece of toast to give to Sandy. Smiling, I waved to my dad when he stood in the hall, and I shut the door. I mentally kicked myself as I listened to his steps clump down the stairs. I’d waved to him? I was so stupid!

  I hadn’t been lying about wanting to take a shower, and, still worried, I went into my bathroom to get the water started as I wiggled out of my pj’s. A soft tap on my bathroom door made me snatch a towel, and I called through the door, “I’ll be right down, Dad!”

  But it wasn’t my dad who said, “Uh, Madison?”

  I froze. Worried, I cracked the door open.

  “You!” I shouted, flinging the door wide when I saw Paul standing in the middle of my room, my window shoved all the way open and the screen propped up against the wall. “What are you doing here?” I almost hiss
ed as I stormed out, slowing down when I remembered I was in a towel. “You can’t just pop in like this! My dad’s downstairs. If he saw you up here, he’d have kittens!”

  Paul turned red, and he fidgeted with his button-down shirt tucked into a pair of black slacks. His clothes were still kind of straitlaced, but at least he wasn’t dressed like an actor in a space opera anymore. “Sorry,” he said, not looking at me, seemingly fascinated with my carpet. “I wanted to ask you something, and Ron doesn’t let me off the leash much.”

  “What?” I snapped, feeling very naked under my big fluffy towel.

  Paul glanced at me, then up to the ceiling. “You believe in choice?”

  I hesitated, my anger sputtering out. “Yes,” I said softly. He had helped me. I owed him a few answers.

  “But you’re the dark timekeeper,” Paul stated, sounding confused.

  “Apparently,” I said dryly, then added, “It doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way it is. As soon as I find my body, I’m out of here. Unless…I can change things.”

  Paul’s shiny shoes shifted on my carpet. “You don’t want to be a timekeeper?”

  My thoughts returned to the awful feeling of helplessness when I had flashed forward, and then my elation when Shoe had walked away, his entire life ahead of him. “I don’t know anymore.”

  “Maybe you just got my job,” Paul said, surprising me.

  Surprised, I leaned against the doorframe, then pushed myself up. No matter how much I tried, I’d never look confident dressed in a towel. “You believe in fate?” I asked.

  Paul made a face, backing up to sit on the open window’s sill. “I don’t know what I believe. But Ron left when Ace got his guardian angel, and you stuck around to try to save people’s lives.”

  I tightened my grip on my towel, not knowing what to say.

  “I gotta go,” Paul said as he stood. “I’m supposed to be practicing my jumps, but if I’m not back when he thinks I should be, he tracks me down.”

  “Must be nice having a teacher,” I said, more than a little jealous and not wanting him to leave yet. “You didn’t come all the way over here to ask me if I believed in choice.”

  Paul lifted a shoulder and let it fall in a half shrug. “No. I thought you might like to know that Ron did a far-seeing search on both of them and found that neither Ace nor Shoe is fated to drop any more viruses. In fact, Shoe eventually goes to work for the CIA and tracks down other hackers. He’s probably the one who prevents a cyber terrorist attack at the turn of the decade. Right now Ace is in a padded room because he’s talking about reapers and timekeepers, but he eventually learns to keep his mouth shut, gets out of rehab, starts a band called Melting Crows, and dies of a drug overdose in his thirties.”

  “Oh, man. That’s awful,” I whispered, wondering if it had been worth it.

  Paul was unperturbed. “Everyone dies eventually. His music will touch people,” he said. “Get them to think. If you ask me, his guardian angel is probably screaming in his ear right now, trying to get him to hear her. Ace never becomes a saint, but his life will have meaning. At least, I think so.”

  “I suppose,” I said, still not comfortable with it. Maybe I should have let Nakita kill him. End it cleanly. Were unfinished souls given a second chance? Another go-round? Was that why light reapers took them early? “Were you the one who gave Shoe my home phone number?” I asked suddenly.

  Paul put a hand on my window frame as if to leave. “He wanted to tell you he was okay. I didn’t think you’d mind, and since I don’t have your cell phone number, I looked up your home number. I didn’t mess with him, if that’s what you’re worried about. Ron is pissed.” Paul smirked, his gaze leaving mine as he remembered. “The guardian angel I gave Ace won’t let anyone tamper with his or Shoe’s memories. That’s why he did the far search on them.”

  Another worry was put to rest, and when Paul went to step out, I blurted, “Thank you for stopping Ace.”

  Head cocked, he smiled to show his teeth. “You’re welcome.”

  From downstairs, my dad shouted for me, and I shifted from foot to foot. “I gotta go,” I said, tossing my head to the shower steaming behind me.

  “Me too,” he said, stepping over my windowsill and onto the roof.

  “Do you like Ron?” I asked suddenly, and he hesitated, searching the corners of my room with his gaze.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. “He teaches me stuff, but it’s like he’s fanatic about you.”

  His eyes found mine, and I nodded. “He lied to me. A lot. I made him look bad in front of a seraph. You going to keep believing everything he says?”

  Paul didn’t answer, ducking his head and smiling. “See you later,” he said, and then the shadows from the tree branches shifting on him seemed to erase him bit by bit until he was gone.

  I stood for a moment to be sure he had left. “I have got to learn how to do that,” I whispered, then went to take my shower.

  Ace becomes a musician, eh? I thought, smiling as I imagined how it must rankle Ron that I—a dark timekeeper—had shown the lost a new choice, and that that choice had been made because of our efforts, saving not only his soul, but his life.

  Had it all been fate? Or sweet reaper justice?

  About the Author

  New York Times bestselling author KIM HARRISON was born and raised in the upper Midwest but has since fled south to better avoid snow. She spends her time tending orchids, cooking with some guy in a leather jacket, and training her dog. Her current vices include good chocolate and exquisite sushi. Kim is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel ONCE DEAD, TWICE SHY, her young adult debut, as well as the bestselling Hollows series, and she contributed to the paranormal collection PROM NIGHTS FROM HELL. You can visit her online at www.kimharrison.net.

  Also by KIM HARRISON:

  Once Dead, Twice Shy

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