Before I Wake

to expose the straight, pinkish line of raised tissue on my stomach. His fingers traced it slowly and chills gathered just below my navel. Then he lowered his head and followed that line again with a series of soft kisses. I closed my eyes and gripped handfuls of my comforter, and those chills at my center became a fire that burned deep inside me.

Suddenly that scar was my very favorite part of my body.

“No fair,” I moaned. “Only you could make me love the wound that killed me.”

“Never underestimate the therapeutic power of a few well-placed kisses,” he mumbled against my skin.

I laughed and pulled him up until our mouths met. “Mmm… If I’d known the afterlife could be this yummy, I might have tried to expedite the process.”

Tod pulled away, frowning. “That’s not funny.”

“What, you can make death jokes, but I can’t?” His morbid sense of humor used to worry me, but now I understood it. Eternity is hard to face when you can’t find anything to laugh about. Yet jokes couldn’t hide the truth. I was conscious, and warm, and…preserved. But I wasn’t alive, and I never would be again. Faking it was the best I could do. He and I had that in common.

“I would have done anything to keep you from dying.” Tod slid one hand slowly down my arm, leaving a trail of chills in its wake. “This would have been just as amazing while you were alive.”

“That was never part of the plan,” I said. “We just didn’t know it.” Not until he’d seen my name on the list of souls scheduled to be reaped. And because I’d already had my one allowed death-date exchange, there was nothing Tod, or my dad, or anyone else, could do to save me. “Besides, there are advantages to the afterlife. For instance, if I were to do this—” I pushed him gently but firmly onto his back, then I straddled him “—no one could see us unless we wanted them to.” And we did not.

“A valid point…” He reached for my hips, and I hated both layers of clothing between us almost as much as I loved the look in his eyes, part surprise, part heat, and no hint of an objection.

“And if I were to do this—” I leaned forward and kissed the edge of his jaw, and Tod groaned as my shift in position created a delicious friction between us “—and you were to make that sound you just made, no one could hear you unless you wanted to be heard.”

His hands tightened on my hips, pressing me tighter into him as my lips trailed down his jaw toward his neck, over the pale, late-night stubble he’d died with. “What happened to the good little girl who blushed and covered her face at the thought of what you’re doing right now?”

“She died,” I whispered into his ear.

That girl had felt alive with every breath she’d taken, even knowing she’d soon breathe her last. This one— the restored me—only felt alive when she experienced very strong emotions, which Madeline had assured me was perfectly normal. And so far the only strong emotions I actually enjoyed were the ones I felt when I was with Tod.

“Why? You like the good girl better?” I asked.

“I know her better.” Tod’s hand slid up my back beneath my shirt. “But this one’s certainly making me wish I’d shown up for invisi-lunch.” He’d texted me halfway through lunch to say he couldn’t make it.

I laughed, then rolled off of him and onto my side, watching his profile from inches away. “What could possibly compete with the lure of cafeteria food, adolescent conversation, and hostile company?”

“I spent two hours trying to question reapers without sounding like I was questioning them. What do you think it says about us as a group, that every reaper I know is either irritable, egotistical, voyeuristic, or some combination of the three?”

“That you fit in well?”

“Ha, ha.”

“So, had any of them seen Thane?”

“Not that they told me. But I can’t be sure, because I couldn’t come right out and ask. It was probably a waste of time that would have been better spent with you. What did I miss at lunch?”

I shrugged with the shoulder not pressed into my mattress. “Nash is still mad. Sabine is still blunt. And I met Madeline’s necromancer. His name’s Luca.”

“A death detector?” Tod made a face. “That’s creepy.”

“Says the living dead boy.”

“I’m serious.”

I pretended to study his expression. “So that’s what that looks like… .”

“You know you can’t hide from him, right? He’ll see you, whether you’re corporeal or not, and he’ll hear you if he’s close enough. Tell me that’s not creepy.”

“It’s a little creepy, but he’s the one who found Thane this morning. I’m thinking a necromancer on our side is infinitely less creepy than one working for the bad guys.”

“I guess…”

“It gets weirder. He’s dating Sophie.”

“On purpose?” Tod looked horrified. It takes a lot to scare a reaper.

“Looks like it. She knows what he is and doesn’t seem to care. Oh, and we ate with Em’s new boyfriend, too.”

“These are the days of our lives…” Tod announced in a false baritone, and I smacked his shoulder. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s Em’s boyfriend like?”

“His name’s Jayson. He’s human. Normal and nice. He’s probably perfect for her.”

“But…?”

“But nothing.” I shrugged. “She’s safer with him than with any of us. She deserves a nice, normal relationship, but—”

“I knew there was a ‘but.’”

“—but I don’t know how to be around her when she’s with him. There’s too much I can’t say. Too much he doesn’t know.”

Tod ran his hand down my arm until he found my hand, and his fingers folded around mine. “Are we still talking about Jayson? ’Cause it kind of sounds like you’re talking about Emma now.”

I sighed. “Maybe.” Em knew a lot about my world—not to mention the Netherworld—but she was still in the dark about a lot of it, too. She didn’t know much about Thane, or that Avari was willing to kill her to get to me. She didn’t know that Mr. Beck—the incubus math teacher who’d murdered me—had planned to kill her, too, but not until after he’d fed from her. She didn’t know that her sister was pregnant with Beck’s incubus fetus, or that Harmony was busy collecting and combining a blend of Netherworld herbs that could end the brand-new pregnancy and save her sister’s life. Though I’d have to tell her most of that very soon, because I was not looking forward to explaining the truth to Traci, who could discover her own pregnancy any day.

But mostly, Emma didn’t know how hard it was for me to sit through class after class today, knowing that none of it mattered anymore. I wasn’t going to grow up and go off to college with her. I wasn’t ever going to use the past-perfect conjugation of French verbs, and after finals, I’d probably never again be required to write out a mathematical proof.

The only things still certain in my future were the reclamation of stolen souls and Tod. That’s it. Those were the only things that mattered anymore, and the harder I clung to the plans that were important to the once-living Kaylee, the more I felt like a fraud walking around in her skin.

“I keep forgetting to be, Tod,” I whispered, my voice muted by the enormity of what I was admitting.

“Forgetting to be what?”

“To be. To be here. To exist. If I don’t concentrate, I slip right out of the physical plane, and I don’t even notice it until I realize people can’t see or hear me.” That had happened with my dad over and over since I’d died, and if it ever happened at school, I was screwed.

“That’s normal.”

“That’s not normal!” I insisted. “Forgetting to exist is textbook-weird!”

His hand tightened around mine, and his blue irises swirled in sympathy. “It takes a while to get into the routine of taking physical form. I didn’t make a habit of it until I met you.”

“It’s like I don’t exist anymore. Like I’m nowhere.” I rolled onto my back, and he leaned over me, staring down at me from inches away.