Before I Wake

people who didn’t need sleep, that was a lot of moments, even with his jobs and my training standing in the way.

“Oh, fine. Enjoy your pancakes and homework.”

“Thanks. Enjoy your sick people. Will I see you at lunch?”

The blues in his irises swirled like cobalt flames, and something deep inside me smoldered. “You’ll be the only one who sees me. You don’t need to eat, anyway, right?”

“Oh, now I don’t need to eat… .”

He pulled me close again, and that kiss was longer, deeper. Hotter. Touching Tod made me feel more alive than anything else had since the moment my heart stopped beating.

“Kaylee, please come eat something!” my dad yelled, and Tod groaned in frustration. He held me tighter for just a second, then stepped back and let his hand trail down my arm slowly. Then he was gone, and for a moment, I felt empty.

That was a scary moment, but one I couldn’t quite shake. I’d thought that being dead-but-still-there would feel a lot like being alive, but I was wrong. I felt like I was out of sync with the world. Like the planet had kept spinning while I was gone, and now that I was back, I couldn’t catch up.

I grabbed my latte and headed for the kitchen, where I dropped into my chair at the card table we’d been meaning to replace with a real one since my dad had moved back to town seven months ago. The plate in front of me held four pancakes and—I swear—half a pound of bacon. Fried, not microwaved, as evidenced by the grease splattered all over the stove and adjacent countertop. My dad was serious about this traditional home-life thing.

It was kinda cute.

My father pulled out his own chair and started to hand me one of the coffee mugs he held, but then he noticed the latte, and his smile slipped a little. “Tod?”

“Yeah, but he’s gone. He was just trying to help.”

He set both mugs in front of his own plate and picked up his fork. “I’m going to assume the steaming cup of Starbucks means he wasn’t here all night?”

Translation: Your undead boyfriend is supposed to be gone by eleven so you can pretend to sleep.

“He works nights, Dad.” But we both knew that didn’t mean anything, when the commute was instantaneous.

For the first couple of days after my death, my father had tried to stay up all night to make sure there were no unauthorized visits, and I didn’t bother to point out how futile his efforts were. If Tod and I didn’t want to be seen or heard, we wouldn’t be. Both reapers and extractors—my official new title with the reclamation department—had selective visibility, audibility, and corporeality. Basically, we could choose who saw and heard us, and whether or not we existed physically on the human plane.

Sounds cool, I know, but it comes with a hell of a price.

My dad set his fork down and I caught a rare glimpse of the concern swirling in his eyes. “I’m worried about you, Kaylee.”

“Don’t be. Nothing’s changed.” But that wasn’t true, and even if it had been, it wouldn’t have set him at ease. My life wasn’t exactly normal before I died, and death had done nothing to improve that.

“You don’t eat. You hardly ever talk anymore, and I haven’t seen you watch TV or pick up a book in days. I walk into your room, and half the time you’re not there, even when you’re there.”

“I’m working on that,” I mumbled, swirling a bite of pancake in a puddle of syrup. “Corporeality is harder than it looks. It takes practice.” And concentration.

“Are you sure you’re ready for school? We could give it another week.” But he seemed to regret the words as soon as he’d said them. Another week off would mean another week of me sitting around the house doing nothing when I wasn’t training as an extractor, and that’s what was worrying him in the first place.

“I need to go. They all know today’s the day.”

“They” were my teachers, classmates, and the local television stations. I was big news—the girl who’d survived being stabbed by her own math teacher. My father had stopped answering the home phone, and we’d had to change my cell number when someone leaked it to the press. They all wanted to know what it was like to nearly die. To kill the man who’d tried to kill me. They wanted to know how I’d survived.

None of them could ever know the truth—that I hadn’t survived. That was part of the deal—allowing me to live my afterlife like my murder had never happened. Protecting my secret meant keeping up with schoolwork and work-work, in addition to my new duties extracting souls from those who shouldn’t have them.

“If anything goes wrong, I want you to call me,” my father said, and I nodded. I wasn’t going to tell him that if anything went wrong, I could blink out of school and into my own room before he could even get to his car in the parking lot at work. He knew that. He was just trying to help and to stay involved, and I loved him for it. For that, and for the pancakes, even if I had no real desire to eat them.

We both sipped our coffee, and I noticed that his appetite seemed to have disappeared, too. Then he set his mug down and picked up a strip of bacon. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this Friday… .” He left the sentence hanging while he took a bite.

“What’s this Friday?” I asked, and my father frowned.

“Your birthday, Kaylee.”

For a moment, I could only blink at him, mentally denying the possibility, while I counted the days in my head. Time had lost all meaning over the past month. Tod said that was normal—something about absent circadian rhythms—but it didn’t seem possible that I could have forgotten my own birthday.

“I’m turning seventeen…” I whispered.

Except that I wasn’t. The anniversary of my birth would come and go, but I’d still be sixteen and eleven- twelfths. I’d be sixteen and eleven-twelfths forever—at least physically. I would always look too young to vote. Too young to drink. Too young to drive a rental car, should that urge ever strike. And none of those limitations had ever seemed more pointless. What did it matter?

What did any of it matter, anymore?

“So, who do you want to invite to the party?” My dad picked up his mug and sipped, waiting for my answer.

I frowned. “I don’t want a party.” Very few people knew I hadn’t really lived, and of those, Nash and Sabine —my ex and his ex—currently hated me for framing Nash for my murder. I’d had no choice, and I’d accepted the duties of my afterlife mostly to unframe Nash—if I wasn’t dead, he couldn’t have killed me. But I couldn’t blame him for hating me.

Still, even if Nash and Sabine both came, there wouldn’t be enough of my real friends to constitute a party, and I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone else.

“So, what do you usually do on your birthday?” He didn’t know the answer to his own question because he’d left me with my aunt and uncle—his brother—after my mother died. I’d only had him back for seven months.

He regretted leaving me—I knew that for a fact—and that regret was infinitely heavier for him, now that I was dead.

“Em and I usually rent movies and binge on junk food.” But that wouldn’t work this year. I’d never had a boyfriend on my birthday before, and I’d never had a father on my birthday before. And I’d certainly never been dead on my birthday before.

My dad looked so disappointed I wanted to hug him. So I did the next best thing. “Fine. A party. But a small one. Friends and family only.”

He gave me half a smile. “Decorations?”

“No. But you can get a cake. Chocolate, with cream cheese frosting. And I get a corner slice.” If my appetite ever came back, I planned to eat whatever the hell I wanted, for the rest of my afterlife. Calories mean nothing to the dead. “And I wouldn’t turn down a couple of presents.”

“Done.” He gave me a real smile that time, and I was relieved to see it. “I’m sorry I missed all the other birthdays, Kay.”

I shrugged. “You didn’t miss much.”

My dad opened his mouth to protest, but before he could speak, a tall woman in a brown suit skirt appeared in the kitchen in sensible low heels, her short brown hair perfectly arranged. “Jeez, Madeline.” My dad half choked,