“He already knows I’m out. I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
“Well done!” G.R. said, looking at Frankie. I hoped she realized she was going to be taking the credit for this. She was the one that had the deal to fulfill.
“Don’t congratulate me on her death like it’s some sort of sport. You make me sick,” Frankie said.
It appeared that whatever kind of shock she was in from all of this was now gone.
“I like you,” the Reaper said, smiling. “Such spunk. You would make a wonderful Escort.”
I stiffened and stepped a little closer to her.
“Tell me, though…” he began. “I’m surprised you were able to snap her neck like that. Is it something you’ve done before?”
“No,” Frankie replied.
His eyes speared me. “You, on the other hand, know how to snap a neck quite well.”
“Can’t take the credit for this kill,” I said, shrugging.
“We had a deal,” Frankie reminded him.
“Did you think I was stupid!?” he spat. “Charming is the one who made the kill, not you! We had a deal. A deal that you would finish the job in exchange for his freedom! The deal has been broken!”
“No, it was me!” she exclaimed, rushing forward, but I yanked her back, angling myself in front of her.
I could have told her to run, but really, what good would it have done? You can’t outrun Death.
“You can’t protect her, Charming. Not anymore.”
He started coming closer, wiggling his fingers in anticipation for his touch. I began to build up energy in the palm of my hand, knowing it would only slow him down but wanting to do everything I possibly could to help her.
Just then Storm began to rise up out of the Target. He was making a weird sound like he was struggling to get out. All three of us turned to look at the black smoke that trailed out the Target’s ears and nose as he groaned as if he were in pain.
The mist seemed to surround the body, filling up the space around her, until he came together, creating more of a shape.
“Damn. I didn’t know being in a body when it died was going to be like that,” he said. Then he realized the Reaper was standing there watching him. “Uhhhh…”
“How did you get in that body?” the Reaper hissed.
“It’s something I know how to do.”
“You mean to tell me that one of my Ghost Escorts knows how to take over a body and use it as their own?” He seemed more intrigued than angry.
This could be good… I nudged Frankie toward the exit.
“Yeah, but sometimes it hurts.”
“But you can do it. And what about the soul already in the body?”
“It’s still in there. I just take over.”
“What else have you been doing without me realizing?” he said shrewdly.
“I was just bored. I was gonna tell you,” Storm said. I could hear the nerves in his voice.
“Of course you were,” he replied. “What else can you do?”
“Well… I’ve sorta been becoming more solid.”
“But you can still get into another person’s body?”
What was his obsession with getting into another person’s body?
And then I knew.
The soul in a jar. She said she needed a body.
“That soul, the one I took? She said she needed a body, that she couldn’t get into any of the ones you tried.”
“That’s none of your business,” he snapped.
“No. But it seems to me that Storm might be able to teach her how to borrow a body. You know, one that isn’t empty. Maybe that’s the kind of body she needs.”
I saw it in his face, the intrigue, the desire. And here was where his weakness lay.
“The Target is dead,” I told him. “That’s what you wanted. Does it really matter who killed her?”
G.R. looked at me.
“Let me out. Completely out, free of being an Escort and free of being Recalled. I’ll give you back the soul I took.” I looked up at Storm.
“And I’ll teach her how to borrow a body,” he added.
It was then that Piper rushed into the house, calling out for Frankie. She dashed around the corner and stopped, staring at us all standing there over a dead body. “You were gone a long time. I was worried.”
“I’m fine,” Frankie told her. “Go back out to the car.”
“Wait,” the reaper called, stopping her.
He was looking at Piper like she was some sort of miracle or something, like he was enthralled with her.
“I’ll agree to this. If she lets me touch her again.”
“No!” Frankie shouted immediately. “Kill us all now because that isn’t going to happen.”
The Reaper shrugged. “Fine.” He stepped toward Frankie.
“Wait!” Piper cried, rushing over. “If I let you touch me, you won’t kill them? Any of them?”
He stared at her, taking in all of her face, scrutinizing every detail about her as if he were committing it to memory. “I will not kill or Recall any of them.”
He lifted his fingers, looking at her again.
“Piper, no,” Frankie insisted.
“He’s already touched me once, Frankie.”
“But what if it was just a fluke?”
Piper bit her lip. “Guess we’ll find out.”
The Reaper chuckled eagerly. “Can I touch you now?”
“Wait,” I said and he looked at me, annoyed. “I want your word that Frankie and I will be completely free of you.”
“You have my word,” he said, looking back at Piper.
“She can’t do this,” Frankie argued. “I won’t let her.”
Piper looked at me. “Hold her.” I wrapped my arms around Frankie, locking them into place, and she struggled against me, begging Piper not to do this and telling me she would never forgive me if I let her best friend die.
It was a risk I was willing to take. This was it. We were down to no other options. If this didn’t work, we would all be dead in minutes.
“Do it,” Piper said, looking directly at the Grim Reaper.
While Frankie continued to struggle, G.R. reached out tentatively, extending his hand like he was touching something so delicate it might shatter with the merest hint of a touch. He drew closer and Frankie began to cry.
Piper just stood there, stock still, waiting, and then the tips of his fingers brushed her cheek.
She blinked.
She drew in a deep breath and smiled, looking over at Frankie, who practically collapsed in my arms.
“It’s been so long,” he murmured, becoming braver and cupping the side of her face with his palm.
Piper stiffened at his caress and lifted her foot like she wanted to step away, but she didn’t. She glanced at me instead.
“You got what you wanted,” I told him.
It’s like he didn’t even hear me speak at all. He was so entranced by her that it was like he saw nothing else. He began stroking the side of her cheek like she was a treasure he had searched out for hundreds of years. “You’re soft. And warm. I forgot how warm live skin could be.”
Okay, he was just being creepy now.
“We had a deal.” I reminded him, my voice hard.
He drew away from her slowly, like he didn’t want to let go. Maybe he didn’t. I would think that never being able to touch anyone ever would make a man feel a certain hunger—the kind of hunger that never really went away. It was the kind of hunger that not even Death would be able to get away from.
When he stepped away, Piper let out a huge sigh of relief and stepped back.
The Reaper looked at me. “Charming, I release you from the employ of myself, the Grim Reaper. From here on out, you will no longer possess immortality. You will no longer have the abilities that were bestowed upon you during your work. You will live and die like any other human who walks this earth. You have my word that I will not come for you or the girl.”
I was fr
ee.
Free from death. Free to live. Free to love.
It was something I never once thought was even possible and now it was mine.
Frankie wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. Her laughter made me smile and then my smile turned into a laugh.
I am free.
“Now I want what’s mine,” G.R. said, cutting into my happiness.
I nodded. “We can go right now.” I pulled away from Frankie. “Go wait in the car. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
She bit her lip and glanced over at the Reaper. I couldn’t really blame her.
“I do not go back on my word,” G.R. said. Then he looked at Piper. “Perhaps we will meet again.”
That got Frankie moving. She grabbed Piper’s hand and towed her toward the door. G.R. watched Piper until she was out of sight. Once they were gone, he turned abruptly, pinning Storm with a hard stare. “You’ve been very busy.”
Storm didn’t say anything, but his cloudlike body shifted.
“You’re going to make it up to me.”
“Yes, I’ll show your soul how to borrow a body.”
G.R. smiled and gazed back to the door Piper and Frankie just went through. “Yes, how to borrow indeed.”
I glanced at Storm. It was one of the times I really wished he had a face so I could read his expression. Because what G.R. said just now… it sounded kind of ominous.
Before anyone could ask him what he meant, he was ushering us off through his insta-doors so we could give him back what we stole. It didn’t take long and once he had gotten exactly that, he sent us back to the Target’s house where he said we were responsible for the body. Apparently he wasn’t interested in keeping it or eating it (I certainly didn’t ask him about that).
He didn’t even say good-bye to me.
I didn’t care.
When his doorway closed for the final time, all I felt was relief. I was never going to have to kill again. And maybe, somehow, with the life I had left, I could try to make up for some of the lives I had taken.
But first I had a body to dispose of.
“What the hell are we gonna do with her?” Storm complained. “Why does she have to be the senator’s daughter?”
“It doesn’t really matter who she was,” I said. “Because even if she had been a nobody, someone would have loved her and that someone’s entire world would be over.”
“If I had a face, I would be crying right now,” Storm said.
I laughed. “Smartass.”
He made a heavy groaning sound and I rolled my eyes.
“What I said wasn’t that bad,” I replied.
“That was not me.”
Someone groaned again. I looked down at the Target. It was her.
“Dude, I thought she was dead,” Storm said.
“She was. Wasn’t she?”
“I-I don’t know. When you snapped her neck, everything went black. It was like I was unconscious. The next thing I remembered was trying to get out. I was so disoriented though, it was hard.”
She moaned again. This time her head moved back and forth.
“Can someone survive getting their neck snapped?” Storm asked.
“No.” But she wasn’t dead. Clearly.
“Maybe you didn’t do it right?”
She groaned again; this time her hands moved.
“Is it possible that somehow having your soul inside her protected her from dying?” It was a crazy thought. Wasn’t it?
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in someone’s body when they died before.”
“Olly?” Frankie whispered, stepping in from the other room. I jumped a little, surprised at her appearance. Then I realized she hadn’t just appeared; she walked into the room like any normal human would do. Except this time I couldn’t hear or feel her coming.
I was completely human now.
I smiled.
“Is she alive?” Frankie said, completely ignoring the fact that I was having a moment. It was likely the first of many private moments I would be having due to my newfound freedom.
“I think so,” I answered.
She gave a great shout of joy and pulled out her phone. “I’m going to call for help.”
“What will G.R. say if he hears about this?” Storm worried. Frankie lowered her phone and frowned.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s already made the deal. He can’t go back now.”
Frankie grinned.
“You guys get out of here. I’ll wait and tell the ambulance I found her like this when I showed up for lunch.”
“I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
She caught my hand and smiled. “I’ll be fine. See you at home.”
Home.
I liked the sound of that.
Chapter Fifty-Two
“Marilyn Monroe - (June 1, 1926 - August 5, 1962) was an American actress, singer, and model.”
Frankie
3 days later…
We had one perfect day. One perfect day of freedom and happiness.
Then I started worrying.
When I woke up and reached for him, he wasn’t there. I sat up, pushing the hair out of my eyes, and called out his name. I thought he was in the kitchen, making coffee, or would come bounding in from the bathroom.
He didn’t.
I wandered through the apartment, noting he wasn’t there.
The familiar ache from the day in Scotland tried to make an appearance. I shut it down. I wasn’t going to go there. I knew he wouldn’t leave me. Not after everything. Not even the parts of him that made up Charming could ever make him leave.
Still, something was off.
He was gone already today and yesterday… yesterday he’d been gone most of the day as well. When he returned home (looking mighty lickable in those jeans he wore so well), he acted like everything was fine. He grabbed me up and kissed me senseless, almost making me forget to ask where he’d been.
But I didn’t forget.
I asked.
He was shady.
And now he was gone again.
I really thought the honeymoon period of my happily ever after would last a little longer.
I decided to give him hell when he got home. But in order to properly give a man hell, a lady had to make sure she looked hot. Hot as in you better watch it because if you don’t treat me right someone else will kind of hot. My heart would never belong to another man, not even if Olly never came back today, but he didn’t need to know all my secrets.
I rushed into the bathroom and took a hot shower. I shaved, I exfoliated, and I did things to my body a man would never even dream of doing to his. Then I lotioned and potioned and styled until I stepped out of the bathroom in a way that if I walked down the street, every man would turn his head. Some would probably even follow.
And then I waited.
I heard the key in the door not too much later, and I smiled, sitting sideways in the armchair with my legs flung over the side and an open magazine in front of my face.
When he walked in, I flipped down one corner and looked at him. “Oh, hey,” I said casually.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “That’s quite the dress.”
“This old thing?” I scoffed and stood, tossing the magazine onto the coffee table. I gestured toward the red body-hugging dress I wore. “I found it in the back of my closet.”
“I’m surprised you found your way out of your closet.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“I’m guessing all this is because I’m in trouble,” he said, waving his finger at me.
Damn. “All what?”
He smirked. “Before you give me a lecture—I hate lectures, by the way—why don’t you open your present?”
“Present?” I perked up. Oh, he was good. He got me a present before he got in trouble.
He handed me a white envelope. “What’s this?” I stared down at it.
“The million dollars I owe you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Olly, that was a jok
e. I hated that job anyway, which you well knew.”
He rolled his eyes. “Just open it.”
I ripped open the seal and slid out a stack of papers. I read the first document, looked up, and reread it again. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. “Are you— Is this for real?”
He grinned. “Yep. You now are the new owner of the Iced Princess.”
“Holy pink cupcakes!” I exclaimed and threw myself into his arms. I couldn’t believe he bought my favorite place ever. My job was now literally playing with sugar all day long. “Is this why you’ve been acting all shady the past couple days?” I said, bouncing around in his arms. I was just too excited to stand still.
“I was not acting shady. I was acting secretive.”
I pulled back. “But my cupcakes aren’t as good as the ones at the Iced Princess.”
He kissed my cheek. “Yours are better.”
I squealed and hugged him again. “I love you.”
“I know.”
He pulled me back. “Now about that lecture…”
“What lecture?” I batted my eyes.
He scowled. “You thought I was already changing my mind, didn’t you?”
“No. I know you want to be here with me, but I thought maybe you were having second thoughts… maybe a couple regrets. Losing all your abilities and your immortality can be a lot on a guy.”
“A friend once told me something I didn’t really understand until I met you. ‘We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets.’”
“Marilyn Monroe said that.”
He smiled. “She was right. You don’t have to worry about me having second thoughts. I’m not going backward. I’m only going forward. With you.”
I kissed him.
But then I pulled back once more. “You know you really need to tell me what happened with Marilyn Monroe. I want the truth.”
“I can’t tell you all my secrets at once,” he said slyly.
“Well, then it’s a good thing we have an entire lifetime. I have a feeling you’re going to keep me very well entertained.”
This time he kissed me.
Epilogue
Dangerous Lovers Page 109