The porch light flickered on, signaling the approaching darkness. I closed my eyes and remembered the look in Emma’s wide eyes as she stared back at me, seeing me for the first time in two years. The rush of heat, that hopeful desire inside me bursting into flames as I realized the impossible was possible.
Behind us, laughter bounced through Cash’s little studio, and the walls pulsed with music, drowning out the ping of raindrops on the metal roof. He had a girl in there. He usually did.
Maeve stared at the building. “Don’t you miss it? Being alive? Having a body?”
“Go away.”
Maeve paused, examining me like a lion about to devour its prey. After all these years, she was still painfully good at finding my weaknesses. “I do. I miss being touched.” She grinned. “I miss boys.”
My fingers moved down to my waist. My wrist brushed the scythe there.
“Have you seen the kid next door?”
I didn’t answer.
Maeve touched her lips and sighed. “I’ll bet he’s a good kisser. But I’m sure Emma knows all about that, right? Can you imagine it? His mouth on her lips?” She giggled. “If she hasn’t gone there yet, I’d bet money she thinks about it. Hell, she probably
“Please leave,” I said, exhausted. “I can’t do this right now.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.”
“I don’t make deals with…” I gave her a sidelong glance. “With whatever it is you are now.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Finn. You and I are the same, and you know it.”
“No. We’re not. I came here to protect her; you came here to hurt her. Trust me—we’re not even in the vicinity of being the same.”
That seemed to strike a chord. I could feel the heat of her anger scorching me. “It was my turn! That body…” She pointed a shaky finger toward the house. “That
“She didn’t do anything. I did. You want to hurt someone?” I turned to face her. “Hurt me.”
She smoothed out her hair, a ripple of flaming silk under her milk-white fingers. “I intend to. But since you can’t feel physical pain, emotional will have to do.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was like a snake shedding its skin. Her brows furrowed, the dark wheels in her head grinding into motion, and then she darted away so quickly she faded into a blur of green and red. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Maeve’s pale hand reaching out, ready to dissolve through burgundy brick. Emma’s slender silhouette behind the window. Everything went red. Common sense fled my mind. I didn’t even realize I’d moved until I looked down and Maeve’s wide eyes were staring up at me. The only thing separating the blade of my scythe and her pale neck was a thread of fresh air.
She giggled like I’d told a joke. “It won’t do anything to me and you know it.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Well, we could always try it and see what happens.” I moved the blade at her collarbone. Raindrops fell through us both, undeterred.
“Go ahead.” Maeve smiled and inched her neck up closer. “It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? All those empty threats. You really are hilarious, Finn.” She pushed off the wall and swirled through me like vapor.
I holstered my scythe. “You can’t keep this up forever.”
“Sure I can. I’ve got loads of time thanks to you.”
It was a lie and she knew it. It’s why she was so desperate to hurt Emma while she could. The darkness was ready to swallow her whole. She didn’t have long before the shadows took her completely.
I ran my hands through my hair and gripped the back of my head. My fingers twitched, aching to grab my scythe again. “When are you going to get it? I won’t let my guard down. Ever.”
She stared at me for a long moment, no doubt seeing the anger harden my face from the inside out.
“Tell you what, Romeo. You give up now and I won’t make it painful for her. Then you two could float off into the sunset together. What do you think?”
What did I think? I didn’t know what I thought anymore. I knew I’d do anything for her. I knew I’d give anything for this barrier between us to disappear so we could be together again. But giving into Maeve, giving up my position and letting Emma die, then whisking her away before another reaper could take her… It wasn’t going to happen. What kind of afterlife would that be? Sure, we’d be together, but we’d also be lost. Wandering the earth, just waiting for the shadows to descend. I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t do that to us. “I think you’re completely insane if you think I would help you kill my reason for existing.”
“God, I don’t get you! What’s even more annoying is that I don’t get her! She’s wasting it away!
She sits in that hole of a room with her stupid journal, or takes pictures of things she refuses to actually experience. Riveting stuff there.” She stopped to roll her eyes. “I swear it’s the saddest, most boring waste of life I’ve ever seen.” She finished with a sigh, plopping down into the wet grass.
A spike of cold lashed at my hip. A call. Of course I’d get one now. I blinked up at the sky. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I couldn’t leave like this. Not with Maeve a few feet away and a whole night of high school partying on the horizon. “What would you say to a truce? Just for the night.”
She laughed. “Why in God’s name would I do that?”
I spotted Cash jogging across the lawn, his jacket pulled up over his head to protect him from the rain, and the tightness in my chest eased. He stomped onto the lit-up porch and beat on Emma’s door.
At least she wouldn’t be alone. Cold seared my insides and I knew I couldn’t ignore the call any longer.
“You know what?” I smiled at her, and then watched Cash’s disappear into the house. “I think she’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.”
Maeve’s face hardened into a cold expression. “Fine?” She glanced at the house and darkness pulsed beneath her pale skin. “Don’t count on it.”
I opened my mouth but the words didn’t come. The cold inside was too much. Pulling. Clawing. I shut my eyes against the pain and when I opened them again, I was gone.
Chapter 7
Emma I slid my camera strap over my head as I followed Cash up the winding hiking trail toward the party.
The crackling hiss of a bonfire and the tawny glow that suffused the trees led the way. I glanced around at the melting shadows that dripped from the dying hemlocks and sturdy pines. Under the safe blanket of daylight, the mountains here were beautiful. But here in the dark, all I saw was a thousand ways to die.
I needed to get my head checked. Again. I wasn’t the girl who went traipsing through the forest at night without a care in the world. I was the girl who barely escaped falling signs, loose power lines, and bottles of pesticide that just happen to fall into pots of stew. It made my head hurt and my pulse pound just thinking of all the near misses.
A soft rumble of thunder rolled across the sky on the other side of the mountain, blotting out the echoes of music and laughter from the party. I jumped and looked up at the dark smudge of clouds wandering over the moon.
“Are you sure this is safe?” I jogged to catch up. “If it rains, there could be mudslides, or flooding, or—” Cash wrapped his arm around my shoulder and laughed. “Will you stop worrying? Nothing’s going to happen. Besides, I checked the weather before I left the house. It’s all headed west of here. We’re good.”
I nodded, still not feeling safe, and dug through my pocket for my tube of peppermint ChapStick.
Cash led me into the clearing before I had a chance to finish sliding it across my lips, waved at somebody, and nudged me to do the same. I lifted my hand, not really sure who I was supposed to be greeting, but mostly surprised that they’d gotten the bonfire lit in the first place. Everything was still slick and shiny from the rain.
I tucked the ChapStick back into my pocket, brushed off the wet leaves sticking to my jeans, and glanced at Cash. He looked ethereal bathed in the glow of the bonfire. The few piercings he had reflected the flames, his skin bronzed like a fine caramel glaze. Royal-blue paint shimmered from his left cheek when it lifted with a smile. He laughed at something someone shouted at him and grabbed a beer bottle out of the dirty blue-and-white cooler.
