Triggered by anger, I shoved Noah against the bathroom door. I hadn’t been in many fights, but I was ready to knock someone flat on their ass if they tried to stop me. Dead or alive. “This isn’t any of your business. Stay out of it. You don’t want to watch? Then fucking leave.”
Noah’s gray eyes opened wide as they flicked down to my finger jabbed in his chest. He held up his hands in surrender. “And what are you going to do if the shadows come back before she does?”
All that waited for me on the other side with Anaya was a big question mark. Unanswered questions.
At least I knew where I stood with the shadows. I was nothing more than a meal to them. At least I’d be gone. There would be nothing if they got me first. I stepped away from Noah and my arms fell to my sides, the pain a dull throb now.
“Maybe that’s what I’m counting on,” I said. My body didn’t seem to agree with this plan. Fear filled up my chest and my heart started to pump with life behind my ribs, as if it was trying to prove to me that we could still beat this.
“I get it.” Noah stared down at me, looking a little panicked. “I promise I get it. I’ve been there, and
I’m telling you this isn’t the answer. There is another way through this, Cash. A better way.”
I lifted my chin to face him, feeling the lump in my throat swell to an unbearable size as I tried to wrap my mind around what I was doing. The pill bottles scattered across the floor caught my attention. What if Emma had been the one to find me, just a few feet from where she slept? What would that have done to her? A choked sound seeped past the lump and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes.
“You’ve got a better way than this?”
Noah’s hand rested against my shoulder and it felt as cold as I did. “Better than letting that bastard upstairs and his reapers make a slave out of you? Yeah, man. I’ve got a better way.”
“Show me,” I said.
Noah grinned and his hold tightened around my shoulder. “I thought you’d never ask.”
A tingling sensation started in my veins, buzzing under my skin, and light exploded around us. I felt like I was going to burst out of my skin, leaving tiny pieces of Cash strewn all over Emma’s bathroom, but then…we weren’t in the bathroom. My vision swam in darkness and a dripping sound echoed somewhere behind me. I blinked, searching my surroundings. Brick walls surrounded us and wet pavement settled under my feet. The sound of a car alarm sounded somewhere in the distance. We were in an alley. Cold, damp air ruffled my hair and I shivered, feeling a wave of nausea roll through me. Noah’s hand fell from my shoulder and he took a step away.
“You all right?”
I nodded, bending over to brace my hands on my knees, and stared at the oily puddle I was standing in. “I feel sick.”
He chuckled. “That’s normal. You’ll get used to it.”
I stood up, swallowing excess saliva, and glared at him. “Get used to what? Tell me what the hell is going on or I’m not taking another step. Tell me what you are.”
He nodded and a breeze blew a slash of his blond hair into his face so it covered one eye. “I’m a shadow walker.” He paused and folded his arms across his chest. “And so are you.”
I studied the hard angles of his face, the tense set to his shoulders. He was serious. “Am I supposed to know what that is?”
“You think your reaper girl has power?” He raised a brow. “She is doomed, Cash. Doomed to be a slave for all of eternity. Doomed to walk the Earth and afterlife as nothing more than an echo of the corpse she used to be.”
My chest twisted uncomfortably. I didn’t like him talking about Anaya like that. She might have been dead, but she wasn’t a corpse. She was so much more than that.
“And what makes us different?”
Noah smiled. “We can walk among the living,” he said. “And we can cross over as the dead. We’re hovering somewhere in between. You have more power in one fingertip than a reaper has in their entire body. Enough power to force a soul into flesh. Enough power to scare the shit out of them. Why do you think Balthazar wants you under his thumb so badly?”
I stared at my fingers, flexing them open and closed, feeling the energy buzzing under the surface.
He was telling the truth. I could feel it.
“You’ve got a choice in what and who you use that power for,” he said. “I’m just trying to help you make the right choice.”
I thought about Anaya and her light, the goodness that poured out of her like sunshine. She couldn’t possibly be batting for the wrong team. She was too good. I watched the darkness pulsing in Noah’s veins, buzzing beneath his pale skin. In answer the blood in my veins pulsed back. Maybe Anaya wasn’t the bad one here. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was Noah.
“They’ll destroy you,” Noah said as if he could read my thoughts. “You are too much of a danger.
They’ll destroy you just like they would destroy me if they ever got their hands on me. They’ll stop at nothing to keep you out of the underworld’s hands, even if that means baiting your human hormones with a girl who looks like Anaya.”
“And who are you using your power for?” I stepped forward, my boots creating a mini tidal wave in the puddle beneath me. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems like you’re in pretty deep with the same things that want to suck the soul right out of my skin.”
Noah frowned, no doubt hearing the distrust in my voice. “You want to know what I use my power for? What I’m asking you to use yours for as well?”
I nodded and Noah spun around, his gray coat flying out behind him. “Follow me.”
Maybe Noah was batting for the dark side, maybe I was walking into a gigantic trap, but I had to know. No way could I walk away from all of this, not knowing what I was, where I was going to end up at the end. I took off at a jog after Noah and we emerged onto a busy city street. Shock stole my breath as I looked up at the high-rises in the distance and the people crowding the sidewalks. Two girls with beads dangling from around their necks walked past us, laughing. The blond one with purple streaks and a leather miniskirt spun around and grinned, giving us a little wave before her friend dragged her off, giggling.
“Wait…they can see us?” I asked. “They can see
Noah grinned at me over his shoulder. “Like I said, you walk with me, you get some perks. Women, food, booze… There is nothing off-limits for us, Cash. Not on my team.”
“Where are we?” I spun a quick circle as I walked. “Why did we leave Lone Pine?”
“First rule. Avoid small towns,” he said. “I do my best to avoid your reaper friends, and trust me when I say there are a whole hell of a lot of them out there. It’s easier to find souls that slip through the cracks in the bigger cities. Stick around Podunk towns like yours, and you’re asking for trouble.”
“And why are we trying to find souls?”
He grinned at me over his shoulder. “You’re about to find out.”
We walked a few more blocks, the city air so humid I felt like I was suffocating. Despite my skin feeling like ice, sweat caused my dress shirt to stick to my frame. Noah stopped in front of an old abandoned warehouse. Windows were shattered and spiderwebs clung to the dusty brick.
“What are we doing here?”
Noah turned to face me, the look on his face deadly serious. “Do you know what happens to the souls that reapers take?”
I shrugged. From what Anaya had explained, there were several ways a soul could go.
“Some go to Heaven. Some go to Hell.” He glanced back at the rotting building behind him and pressed his lips together. “But these kinds of souls. The escaped. The banished. They don’t even get those options.”
“Wait…” A streak of blue light zipped past one of the broken windows. “There are souls in there?”
Noah nodded solemnly. “Yes. And do you know what happens to them after the decay sets in? After they have wandered this place long enough for the darkness to take hold?”
A hiss drew our attention to the crumbling brick wall at the top of the steps. A shadow, dark as oil, slithered into a corner where it was met with three more just like it.
“Them,” Noah said, motioning to the shadow. “That’s what they turn into. I can save them from that. Take
