He just stared at me and I realized he was trying to decide if I was just grasping at straws, if I was trying to find out his secrets by saying I already knew them. Because the minute he pressed that button, I would know for sure that he did have a secret stash of bodies and a wayward soul. He would know that I found his weakness.
“You gonna push that button?” I said. “The wall isn’t going to open itself.”
And just like that he knew. Cold seemed to seep into the room around me, the kind of cold that stiffened your limbs, the kind of cold that crept over bodies when they died.
He pressed the button and the section of the bookcase opened, just as silently as it had the first time. He walked past me and into the narrow hallway that led to his closet-sized safe and stopped. “Get in here,” he commanded.
I walked over to the door but didn’t go any farther.
He drew a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door where the bodies wouldn’t be, and opened it wide.
The silence that surrounded us was so thick you couldn’t even cut it with a knife. He pivoted around to stare at me, his eyes glowing an odd shade of violet. Then he turned away again, opening the second door, the door to the secret apartment.
He called out for the soul, not calling her by name, and I wondered if that was on purpose or if she just didn’t have one. I stepped forward, looking toward the entrance, and I knew when he realized she was gone because a chair flew by and hit the wall, smacking whatever was there and shattering some glass.
I prepared myself for his wrath as he faced me.
“How did you manage to pull this off?” His voice was deadly calm.
“You’d be surprised what a man can pull off when he’s aptly motivated.”
“Where is she!” he roared. His anger was so intense that it was palpable energy that flew off him and barreled toward me.
It slammed into me, sending me backward, my feet dragging across the floor as it pulled me. It would have yanked anyone else off their feet. It would have flattened them into the wall and knocked them unconscious.
I wasn’t just anyone. I had a few abilities that I could use to my advantage.
My body absorbed most of the energy he threw, using it to fuel my cells and pump me up for a fight. I might not win against G.R., but I could do some damage.
I dug my feet into the large area rug that covered most of his office, planting them solidly apart. What was left of the energy kept going, pulling at my hair and my clothes until it snapped away, crackling behind me and knocking over everything that sat on his desk.
My body was overfull with energy, so much so that my fingertips crackled with it, so I flung my hands out, sending back some of what he gave me. The energy had a red glow about it, and it moved so fast it looked like the retreating taillights of a car speeding along the highway at night.
The Reaper moved, but not fast enough. Speed was my specialty. It hit him in the shoulder, singeing a hole in his perfectly tailored shirt and knocking him to the side. He didn’t fall down because he caught himself on the edge of a nearby club chair, but watching him stumble was pure pleasure.
His eyes flashed violet again, a color I never thought of as threatening until now. Thinking fast, I picked up one of the chairs that sat in front of his desk, the same chair I used for many of the lectures I was made to endure, and I threw it at him. It moved slower than the energy so he was able to dodge it, but it landed on the edge of his sleek glass coffee table, shattering the entire sheet of glass.
A few of his security guards came rushing into the room. They all had the telltale ring of their souls around them, marking them as Escorts. These must be new ones because I didn’t recognize any of their faces.
“Take. Him. Down,” the Reaper growled, pointing at me.
All three of them rushed me. I sucked in some of their eager energy and cracked my neck, ready to take them on.
The first one lunged and I kicked him in the thigh, crippling his leg and making him go down. I used the surprise of his fall to grab the next one closest to me, and I punched him right in the jaw, snapping the head on his shoulders. He came back for more and I instinctively dropped into a boxing position and began bouncing on my feet. The lighter I was on my feet, the harder I would punch.
The way my stance and body position changed, the Escort knew I wasn’t some inexperienced kid—like him. I saw the doubt in his eyes when he lashed out and I smacked his arm away and nailed him again, right in the eye. Then I put him in a headlock and slammed his body into the other one, who was climbing up from the floor. Both of them went down in a heap.
I turned to the final Escort, the one who’d been silently watching. This one had an orange ring around him, and he decided he was going to use a weapon instead of his fists. He reached over and grabbed a letter opener off the desk, brandishing it like a knife.
I laughed.
“You know,” I said as I kicked, sweeping both his legs out from under him and watching him fall hard onto his back, “most people who try to defend themselves with a weapon end up having it used against them.” And with that I snatched it out of his hand and stabbed him in the upper thigh.
He howled in pain.
I swiped my arm across my forehead, breathing heavily, and looked over at G.R. “You got any more kids you want to send in here?”
His eyes narrowed. “So smug,” he spat. “Do you think the way out of getting Recalled is by trashing my office and taking what’s mine?”
“I think a little extra insurance never hurt anyone.”
“I ought to Recall you right now,” he spat.
“Go ahead. You’ll never see those bodies or that pretty pink soul again.” It was a direct challenge. A skittering of fear actually moved down my back. I didn’t want to be Recalled. Only now it wasn’t for the same reasons as when I took those bodies.
Before, I just wanted to win, to prove I was the best Escort there was. To get the best of G.R.
But now, now it was because of Frankie.
I wanted to be with her. In any way she would have me (hopefully whatever that way was included sex).
He lifted his hand and once again, my soul began to pull out of my body. “We have a deal,” I reminded him. “My job isn’t over. You can’t Recall me unless I fail.”
Like a rubber band, my soul snapped back into my body.
“I don’t go back on my word.”
It was something I’d counted on, something that throughout the years I knew to be true. The Grim Reaper always kept his word. He never went back on a deal. I was beginning to think he was going to prove me wrong this time, but thankfully, it appeared he wasn’t.
“However, I never said I couldn’t make the job impossible. I never said I couldn’t make your life a living hell.”
He lunged across the room and grabbed my arm, his hand wrapping around my arm.
The pain was severe, an instant searing sensation that started where he touched me and worked its way up my arm, like a spreading infection, a growing disease. My veins began to turn black and they showed through my skin, which was now completely white.
I couldn’t say anything. I just stood there, caught between life and death, as the pain spread throughout my entire body. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The pain was so intense that it robbed me completely of sound.
And then my eyesight began to go. Dark spots started swimming in my vision until there were so many everything went completely dark and I could see nothing.
Is this what it was like to be touched by the Grim Reaper? I thought death by him was instantaneous, that it was swift and final. Where was this pain coming from? Why did it hurt so incredibly bad?
When my insides were completely obliterated, I slid to the floor, dead. Only I wasn’t dead. Just the body I’d been using for the past twenty years. I was hovering above my body, staring down at what a mess it was. The pain of what happened still vibrated in my soul. It almost looked like I’d been electrocuted to death. Kind of felt that w
ay too.
And just like that, I no longer had a body. Not one that I could actually live in.
“I hope that didn’t hurt too bad,” G.R. said, sounding rather thrilled with himself.
“I thought when you touched someone, they died instantly.”
“Humans, yes. For them it is pain free and blissfully quick. But for Escorts, it’s entirely different. My bodies are different. To truly destroy one of my creations, it’s much harder.”
One of his creations? Did he think he was Frankenstein? The guy collected bodies, bodies he stole from other people. He didn’t create them.
“And what a waste this one was.” He frowned. “It was a good one.” He looked at me. “But you certainly didn’t deserve it.”
“That body was more mine that yours,” I spat.
He looked at me and lifted an eyebrow that seemed to reach halfway up his wide forehead. “That body was never yours. It was on loan to you. I am the one who collected it. I am the one who prepared it for a soul that was not its own, and I am the one who made it possible it didn’t rot like a body is supposed to. The reason that body served you so well is because I was the one who made it possible.”
You know, it kind of pissed me off that he was standing there trying to take away my claim to the body I wore for twenty years.
It also occurred to me that since my body was completely unlivable, I was now in a very tough position with the Target. Basically, I was going to have to start over.
Score for the Reaper.
“Tell me, do souls need air to breathe?”
“No.”
“Oh well, that’s good, because I forgot to poke holes in the lid of the jar I stuffed your soul in.”
“You did what?”
“I know,” I said. “I was surprised she wasn’t willing to go with me either. I mean you would think any woman would choose me over you. When she refused to come along, I had to take matters into my own hands.”
“Do you think I won’t find her? Find the bodies?”
“That’s another thing… What was my body doing in your secret stash? You haven’t been using it, have you?”
“You don’t have a body. Not anymore.”
“Well, if you want your thirty million dollars, you’re going to have to give me one.”
“I thought we already determined that I never really cared about the money.” There was a gleam in his eye that I wasn’t liking.
“So?”
“So, I think I have better things to do than spend my day arguing with you.”
He raised his hand and pushed me backward toward the opening in the wall. I tried to steer away, to wiggle from the control he seemed to have over my soul.
He laughed—a happy and joyous sound. “Fight all you want, but I am the Grim Reaper. I own your soul. I control it.”
I was pushed through the tiny hallway, past the closet where the bodies once hung, and right into the small secret apartment. He appeared in the doorway, blocking the only exit.
“Let me tell you how this is going to go,” he said smoothly, happily. He actually kind of reminded me of the Grinch after the green guy stole all the gifts from the town and he was so jolly and thrilled.
“On my word, I cannot Recall you until you fail to kill the Target. So you will remain here, in this makeshift prison, without a body, without contact to the outside world. When the six-month time limit I gave you is up, I will let you out. And then I will Recall you.”
“And what about the bodies I took. The soul I stuffed into a jar? Do they mean nothing to you?”
“On the contrary. But while you whittle away your last few months on Earth here, alone, no doubt replaying everything you did that brought you to this unfortunate end over and over again…”
Was it just me or was he a bit dramatic?
“I will be searching. And you should know by now, I always get what I want. So when I at long last open that door to send you off into the void for your final exile, you will not only see me, but the possessions that you dared to steal.”
“I’ll be looking forward to that day.” I quipped.
“You joke. You’re funny.”
The joke was on him if he thought I was just going to sit in here and wait for my punishment.
He began to pull the door closed behind him. I rushed forward, thinking I could at least try to slip by except my soul didn’t move the way I wanted it to. Instead, it moved sideways.
“Oh, and might I suggest while you are in here that you think about your weaknesses. The things you’re leaving behind.”
“You already played that card. You can’t use my sister against me anymore.”
“Actually, I can,” he corrected. “However, I have discovered that your sister is not your only weakness.”
Everything in me stilled.
He smiled.
“I was always partial to blondes, too.”
“Don’t you go near her,” I growled.
“Perhaps it’s time I started adding some of the female variety to my collection,” he said, his voice turning thoughtful and mean.
I tried to rush him again. This time I flew backward, hitting the wall with a poof.
He laughed and shut the door.
I didn’t think it was funny.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Doorbell - a bell, chime, or buzzer outside a door that is rung to announce the presence of a visitor or caller.”
Frankie
What does one do when they find a body hanging in their closet? Scream? Run? Try it on?
I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I walked out of the bedroom and directly into the living room where I grabbed a Cherry Coke, popped the top, and took a huge drink. Piper watched me with an amused expression on her face.
Finally, I pulled the can away from my lips. “There’s a body hanging in my closet.”
Her mouth opened and closed. I walked back into my room and she followed and we both stood there just staring at it. It was on a hanger, like a dress or a nice shirt. It was a guy who had shaggy blond hair that fell well over his forehead. He was dressed in a pair khakis, a white button-down shirt, and an ass-ugly sweater vest. His chin lay against his chest and his eyes were closed. The body itself was flat and lifeless.
It didn’t move.
It didn’t jump out and yell, “Boo!”
It might have been less creepy if it had.
“Where did it come from?” Piper asked.
“Is there a body store in Alaska I didn’t know about?” I quipped.
She took the can out of my hand and gulped a long drink. “It isn’t a coincidence that your boyfriend works for the Grim Reaper and now you have a body in your closet.”
“Charming isn’t my boyfriend,” I argued. Though she was right about one thing. This was not a coincidence. But after what happened, I couldn’t exactly call him up and say, “Did you happen to leave something at my house?” Charming slept with me and then disappeared. He left me. I wasn’t going to call him for help the first minute a body turned up.
“Why is it here?” Piper asked.
I shrugged. Then I leaned forward and poked it. The hanger swung back and forth on the rod. Piper smacked me in the arm. “Don’t poke it!”
I couldn’t stop staring at it. But not because it was morbid. Because there was something familiar about it. I’d never seen this person (or whatever you wanted to call it), but there was still something about it that felt recognizable. “He’s actually not bad looking.”
Piper gasped. “First you poke it and now you’re hitting on it!”
“I am not hitting on it,” I grumbled. “Give me my soda.” I snatched the can back and drained it. “It seems to me that we should be much more traumatized about finding a body in my closet.”
“Well, we already decided we needed therapy.”
“What should we do with it?”
“Guess we can’t call the cops.”
“Not without looking like we put it there.”
“You could call—”
“No.” I interjected. “I am not calling him. He made his choice.”
“So it’s over between you two?” She seemed a little sad at the thought.
The pain that sliced through me was swift and strong. But I didn’t flinch; I might as well get used to it. “Yeah, it’s over.”
And then the doorbell rang.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Message - a usually short communication transmitted by words, signals, or other means from one person, station, or group to another.”
Charming
I wished the Reaper’s last words didn’t bother me. But they did.
I wasn’t used to worrying about someone. I wasn’t used to caring. But I did.
All I could think about was Frankie. What if he wasn’t just making idle threats? What if he really did go after her? What if he touched her? My God, would she feel the pain that I felt when my body was killed while I was in it? Would that searing pain seize her veins and bloom outward until it stopped the beating of her heart?
The questions were relentless. The worry was indescribable. And what made it worse was that I had no body to expel the extra energy. I couldn’t do pushups or punch a wall; I literally just had to hang there and do nothing but hope she was safe.
I wasn’t good at doing nothing. I needed a plan, a way out of here. If I had to kill that Target without a body, then I was going to figure out a way to do it.
I hadn’t lost yet. I was still in the game.
A game that now involved Frankie.
I wanted her safe more than I wanted anything, including not being Recalled. A memory flashed over me from the day Dex lost it in G.R.’s office and threw a couple well-placed punches to my face. I’d taunted him about Piper, about trying to save her, about being weak and caring about someone else over himself.
Is this how he felt that day? Desperate and willing to do anything to save the woman he loved? I couldn’t understand it then, but now… now I understood all too well. I was wrong to think of him as weak because it seemed to me that putting someone else above myself was the strongest thing I could do.
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