Blurred

I buried my face in my hands and groaned at how ridiculous and impossible all this shit sounded.

“You know how you pointed out I must have lived lots of lives to get to where I am now?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, apparently one of those lives was Tarik,” I said. “As in Anaya’s fiance.”

Shock showed on every inch of Finn’s face. He rubbed his chin and stared at the carpet. “Maybe she’s wrong.”

“She showed me, Finn.” I rubbed my palms together and pain throbbed under the tender red skin. “I saw her through his eyes. I felt her. He loved her. And now I don’t even know what to think. Am I him? I don’t feel like I am. I still feel like Cash, with all of my own fucked-up feelings tearing me up inside.”

Finn pinned me with his tired gaze. “Do you love her?”

“How am I supposed to answer that when I don’t even know who she’s really seeing when she looks at me now?”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it.” He laughed. “You either love her or you don’t.”

“ I…I don’t know how I feel.” I swallowed the lie easily enough. The fact was, I knew exactly how I felt about Anaya. I knew because I’d never felt that way about anyone before. And it scared the hell out me. It scared me because there wasn’t anywhere for this to go. She was dead. I was dying. The whole thing was so screwed up it made my head hurt. I wondered if this was how Emma felt when she started to fall for Finn.

Finn laughed softly. “Yeah. Whatever you say.”

When I looked up, his eyelids looked heavy. He shook his head to keep himself awake.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I asked.

Finn sat up and rubbed his face with his palms, then pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’m entertaining you, remember?”

“You’re weren’t sleeping when I showed up.” I nodded to the bedroom light on. “Don’t blame it on me.”

Finn shook his head and sighed. “I…I have dreams. Nightmares.”

“About what?”

“You can’t unsee the things I’ve seen,” he said. “You touch enough death and it’s bound to come back to haunt you.”

He sounded far away in that moment, even though he was sitting right next to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He looked surprised. “For what?”

“For being a dick.” I leaned back into the lumpy couch cushion. “You didn’t deserve that. If I’m being honest, I’m grateful Emma has you. You changed her back into a girl I’ve missed for a long time.”

Finn nodded and closed his eyes.

“If you want, we can sit here and avoid sleep together,” he finally said.

I laughed. “What, are we deciding to be friends now?”

Finn’s mouth tipped into a lopsided grin. “Hell, no.”

“You know…” I hesitated knowing this was going to come back to bite me in the ass, but in the end it felt right. There was too much shit between Finn and I that needed to be put to rest. And I was tired of being alone all of the time. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and sighed. “I’ve got two spare rooms at the house. If you don’t like this place, I could use a roommate. If you can get past the shadow demons and yappy dog across the street, it’s not a bad set up.”

Finn chuckled and nodded. “Yeah…maybe.”

I smiled and closed my eyes to the let darkness take hold of my vision. Finn might not be a reaper anymore, but maybe if I was lucky, those little bastards were still scared of him. It didn’t last long. I sat up, shaking when a flash of cold consumed the room. My breath looked like fog clinging to my lips.

“Who the hell is this?” someone growled from the other side of the living room.

Finn sighed. “Scout, give it a rest.”

Scout? My eyes opened wide when the air in front of the coffee table swirled into a smoky figure that little by little took the shape of guy. A guy who didn’t look much older than me or Finn. He jerked his head to toss a few blond curls out of his eyes.

“Wait a minute…is this the kid from the fire?”

Finn nodded.

“Well, I don’t care who he is—I want him out,” he said. “Do you have any idea how many shadow demons are lurking outside this place right now?”

Finn laughed. “I’ll tell you what. You can start kicking out guests when you start helping me with the steep- ass rent your drunk of an uncle is charging me.”

Scout rolled his eyes and kicked over a half-full Coke can on the table. Sticky liquid expanded across the table before spilling over the edge onto the carpet.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You don’t care when I have Emma over here.” Finn stood up and stomped into the kitchen. He came back with a towel and started blotting up the spilled Coke.

Scout waited until he came back and laughed. “Yeah, well, I get to see Emma in a bra when I time my entrances right. She’s better entertainment.”

Finn dropped the towel and his jaw clenched. “You son of a—”

“Wait a minute!” I stood up and stared at the two of them, trying to form words. There weren’t any.

This was…this was fucking crazy. “What the hell is going on?”

Scout scowled at me. “Better question—what are you? Because if you were just a human, we wouldn’t have a shadow infestation going on out there.”

Finn held up his hands between us. “Stop. Scout’s a reaper. As for Cash”—he looked at Scout

—“he’s a shadow walker. Anaya was supposed to take him at the fire. For whatever reason, Balthazar had her keep him here.”

“Why would he do that?” Scout folded his arms across his chest, looking me over. “The body is expired. It’s not like he’s going to be walking around for long. Look at him, for Christ’s sake.”

“Hey, fuck you too, Casper,” I snapped. Hearing that I looked like shit was the last thing I needed right now. Especially from some dead, pretty-boy asshole.

Scout snorted and walked around the table to look me over. A shiver rolled over my skin the closer he got. I stepped back until the backs of my knees hit the couch cushion.

Scout raised a brow and laughed. “I’ve seen one of these guys. Blond one a few years back. Stole a soul right out from under me. I’d thought he was another reaper at the time, but after the ass-chewing I got from Balthazar, I figured out he was something else. Although I think he was more pissed that there was one of you guys running for the other team.”

Blond one. Noah. He was talking about Noah. “Maybe he was trying to save the soul from that hellhole of nothingness you were delivering it to.”

Scout raised a brow and looked at Finn. “What hellhole? You must be thinking of Easton, kid. I don’t deliver downstairs. I don’t like to get my hands that dirty. I deal strictly with the Inbetween.”

“No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I’m talking about you. I saw what happens to those souls. You talk about how much you hate the scum lurking outside your door. Why the hell do you help turn them into that, then?”

“Cash?” Finn leaned down to catch my gaze. “They don’t all end up like that. Lots are reborn. And the ones that don’t get that opportunity are there for a reason. There’s something dark they won’t let go of.”

“What about Em?” I countered. “What could she have possibly done to deserve that?”

He seemed surprised that I knew but didn’t dwell on it. Instead, a look of guilt flashed over his face.

“She was doomed because of me. It was against the rules for us to be together, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t let her go.”

“And that’s why you did what you did to save her.”

Finn nodded and Scout spoke up. “Look, we aren’t going to tell you the system isn’t flawed. It is.

But it is what it is. There has to be some kind of order. Some kind of consequence or the world would go to shit.”

I needed to tell him about Noah. I needed to tell Anaya. I was so done with all of the secrets.

Nothing was what it seemed. And, for that matter, nothing was turning out to be the way Noah said it was. What kind of game was this guy playing with me? And if Anaya wasn’t around when my time ran out, what exactly