looked me over.
“Anaya?” The memory came flooding back. Finn had mentioned an Anaya. Hesitantly, I crossed over to where my bag sat on the floor and sank down across from her.
“What…what are you?” I stopped and inhaled as big a breath as my lungs could hold. They ached and protested before forcing me to cough it all back up.
She cocked her head to the side, studying me, as if she were trying to decide what to say. “I’m a reaper,” she finally admitted. “You should be familiar with that term by now.”
I swallowed, pressing back until the shelf dug into my back. “Like Finn.”
She simply nodded, so eerily calm, it made my skin crawl. How could she be so calm? I felt like my brain was about to explode, questions filling up my head so fast they pressed against my skull. “Are you here to take me?”
Anaya stood up, but she wouldn’t look at me. Instead she focused those amazing starlit eyes on the floor. “No. Not yet.”
“Yet? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She said it like there would be a later.
“I’m here to watch over you, Cash,” she said, exasperated. “No need to look at me like I’m some kind of villain. I think we both know there are things much worse than me out there to fear.”
“You mean them.” I pushed myself up to stand, nodding to the book. “The shadow demons?”
Anaya raised a brow and walked a circle around the books I’d discarded on the floor. “Maybe those books had some answers after all.”
“I had to look somewhere. It’s not like anybody else will give me answers.” I tried to concentrate on breathing. It was hard not to feel dizzy in the presence of her warmth. It made part of me long for her to come closer. The other, more sane, part of me screamed for her to stay the hell away. “Why are these things following me? What do they want?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but I imagine it has something to do with the fact that you’re in an expired body,” she said.
“Expired?”
“You’re not dead, but you’re not exactly alive right now, either. You’re balancing on this tightrope between life and death, a side effect of putting you back in your body at the fire. These shadows are attracted to the scent of death and the emotions that accompany it. The closer you get to death, the more appealing you seem. It’s the only reason I can come up with. I’ve never seen them go after one of the living this way.”
Thoughts spun around in my head fast enough to make me dizzy, or maybe that was just the fact that
I was breathing too fast. I grabbed the shelf beside me for support and felt my brows pull together.
“Wait a second…what do you mean
At that moment the pain in my chest spread and burned through me. I pushed against the spot with my fingers. No. That was from the fire. Right? I just needed my inhaler.
A sad look passed over Anaya’s face as she watched me collapse on the inside. “You’re dying, Cash.
Can’t you feel it?”
My fingers hovered over my heart, feeling it pound against my ribs with fear. She was lying. She had to be. I mean, yeah, I knew I was fucked up, but
“You’re lying,” I whispered, wishing it were true.
“I’m not.” She took a step closer. “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”
I forced my gaze to meet hers and swallowed. God, she was pretty. I should have realized that somebody that pretty was dangerous. She was like a freaking walking Venus flytrap. “Why? Why am I dying now? They released me from the hospital. I could go back—”
“It won’t matter.” She cut me off. “You were meant to die in that fire,” she admitted. “You were on my list. I was supposed to take you and I didn’t. I let you stay.”
“What do you mean you let me stay?” I asked. “Like you saved me?”
Anaya laughed, bitterly, and pushed herself away from the book stack. “Saving you would have been taking you to Heaven where you belonged. No, Cash. I didn’t save you. I think we both know that.”
I barked out a laugh. “Heaven? Me? Now I know you’re full of shit.”
Anaya tossed a tired expression my way and stepped into a dusty stripe of sunlight. If it was possible, she looked even more beautiful. Wait…beautiful? I shook my head, hoping the thought would bounce right out of my ears. She was Death. A walking nightmare. No way did that word belong anywhere near this girl.
“The second I pushed you back into that body, it began to expire,” she said. “It won’t last. It
Deteriorating? As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew it was true, because it’s exactly how I felt inside. I was dying. Fuck. I didn’t want to die. Not yet. I wanted to go to art school. I wanted to get away from my dad and prove him wrong. And Em… Damn it, I couldn’t leave Em.
Her molten eyes slipped over me, filled with something dark. Guilt, maybe? Pity? Whatever it was, I didn’t like it. She finally straightened her back and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” I balked. “You tell me I’m dying and that’s all you can say?”
“Look, I know this isn’t fair to you,” she said. “And I’m not cruel. I’m just doing my job, following orders. If I’d had any idea that this would happen…” She shut her eyes and shook her head, causing a few silky braids to tumble over her shoulder. “I’m going to try to make this whole thing as easy as possible on you. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. You deserve that much.”
At a loss, I just stared at her. Words. I still knew how to form words, right? It was like this chick sucked every ounce of sense right out of my brain.
“Why didn’t you just take me at the fire?” I whispered, knowing that if I could have this one question answered, maybe I could deal with the rest. But the not knowing was killing me. “Why put me through this?”
Anaya’s light dimmed and she frowned. “It wasn’t my choice.”
“Then whose choice was it?”
“Someone much more powerful than you and I combined.”
“Stop being so fucking vague, Anaya,” I growled. “Who? Your boss? God?”
She flinched at my tone, but I didn’t care. I was so sick and tired of all of this.
“Not God, but yes. I work for him,” she admitted.
“And why the hell would he want me to stay like this?”
“I don’t know. I’d tell you if I did. All I know is there must be something terribly special about your soul for you to attract his attention.”
She didn’t know? How the hell could she not know? If she didn’t, did anybody? Was I going to live the rest of my short life like this? Stalked. Terrified. Never knowing why. Or was the rug about to ripped out from under me? From now on, I’d wonder every second if the breath passing through my lips would be my last. My fingers started to shake along with the rest of me and I curled them into fists that I ground into the floor. My throat was closing up. I couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe.
“You need to calm down,” Anaya whispered, her warmth suddenly right there, forcing my throat open to let the air pass through. The prickling pain had flared back to life, but Anaya’s warmth seemed to keep it tolerable. She didn’t touch me, though she was close enough that her words cascaded like honey over my skin. “These shadows are drawn in by emotions that accompany death. Fear, anxiety, even anger. You need to learn some control. I can’t be here all the time to ward them off. Breathe, Cash. Just breathe.”
I took a couple of deep, calming breaths, and Anaya looked down at my trembling hands.
She gave me a sad smile and her fingers brushed my arm. “Much better.”
I shook off the overwhelming urge to touch her back. To close the space between us. No way should
I want that. What the hell was wrong with me? I glanced over her shoulder at a lone shadow demon weaving its way in and out of the books, its cold battling with her warmth. “You said the closer I get the more appealing I seem,” I said, brokenly. “Why? What do they want?”
She ran a fingertip along one of the books and left a trail of gold sparks in its wake. “They feed off of souls. Usually ones fresh from the body. If they think you’re close…”
I stared at her incredulously, tying to comprehend what she was telling me. They wanted to eat my soul?
