Inbetween

Her gold eyes dimmed. “Sometimes, it’s so easy to forget.”

“Why do you think I always loved her?” I watched Emma’s chest rise and fall beneath the blanket, feeling my chest swell with warmth. “She doesn’t let me forget.”

When Anaya didn’t say anything I nudged her shoulder. “Thank you for not leaving her.”

She smoothed her hands over her dress. “It’s the least I could do. She didn’t deserve to go through something like that.”

Guilt burned in my chest. No. No, she absolutely did not deserve any of this.

“Besides,” she continued, nodding to the soundless television flickering in the corner of the room.

“I got to catch up on modern television.”

“You don’t even have the sound on.”

She laughed. “That’s the only thing that made it bearable.”

I noticed Anaya’s scythe pulsing with light at her side. “I’ve got it from here if you need to go.”

She looked at Emma and a soft smile tugged at her lips. “I know you do. Regardless of what you think, Finn, she’s lucky to have you.”

Her hand settled on my shoulder and a second later she was gone, leaving me alone with the sound of beeping machines and Emma’s ragged breathing.

I sank into a chair next to the bed and rested my elbows on my knees, choosing to look at the heart monitor instead of Emma. She was too black and blue. Too broken to keep my eyes on her for more than a second. It was hard to face something so horrific when I knew I’d been the one to cause it—the one to cause everything. Leaning over the bed, I kissed her on the top of her head. It wasn’t the real kind of kiss, the kind I wanted to give her, but it would have to do.

I pushed myself up and walked over to the window to keep myself from doing something stupid.

The moon glowed between the skeletal treetops, casting a spiderweb of shadows across the sparkling white parking lot. Stars winked. Burned. Taunted me with memories of the Inbetween.

If I couldn’t protect her from this, I was useless to her.

Behind me, the door opened and a nurse crept into the room. She pushed Emma’s hair out of her face then checked her vitals, doing her job quickly and efficiently, the way I had been expected to do mine for the last seven decades. The difference between us? She was in the business of preserving life.

I was in the business of ending it. After she was gone, my gaze drifted over to Emma. She moaned in her sleep and turned her head so that the puffy line of stitches that ran the length of her slender neck were visible. So many things burned through me. Rage. Guilt. Pain. I clenched my fist and listened to the reassuring beep of the heart monitor, letting the rhythm of the life flowing through her veins soothe me.

It didn’t take long for the pull to interrupt my thoughts. The cold crept though my insides, crackled in my skull. My fingers wrapped around my scythe and it pulsed under my palm. Trying to fight it, I braced myself on the wall, not wanting to leave her. Not now. Not after what had just happened.

“Finn?” Emma mumbled, her eyelids cracking open.

Thank God. I started forward, but my scythe stopped me in my tracks before I could get to her.

“I’m here,” I whispered, hoping she could hear. “I’m right here.”

Emma moaned and settled back into sleep. I took one last lingering look at her, at what I had done, and I let go.

Chapter 28

Emma I bolted upright in the bed. My stomach felt empty, sick. I couldn’t escape the feeling of falling. The screaming until I couldn’t breathe. Finn’s lips, his voice in my hair. I gripped the sides of the bed.

Finn. I remembered Finn. I remembered where I’d been, who I was…what he’d done. Oh God, what had he done? I had to write this down. I had to get it out of me before I forgot.

I scrambled for the table next to my bed and jerked open the drawer. Gauze, sanitation wipes… where was it? My journal…my journal. Frantically, I looked around. I was in the hospital, not my bedroom. My journal wasn’t here. My fingers searched for a notepad, aching with the need to preserve this memory before the truth was taken away from me again.

“I need some paper!” I shouted, yanking the drawer off its tracks in my desperation.

“Emma!” Mom rushed into the room and pulled the half-emptied drawer from my hands. “What’s going on?”

I tumbled off the bed and one of the stitches in my leg popped open. I cried out, one hand flying to my leg, the other grabbing onto the nightstand.

“Oh my God!” Mom grabbed me and helped me back onto the bed. “What are you doing?”

I fell limp into the pillows. It was already fading. I couldn’t hold onto it. “I need something to write with. Anything,” I sobbed. “Please, Mom.”

She looked me over, bit her lip, and nodded. I waited while she hurried across the room to her purse and came back with a little notebook and a pen. I plucked the remainders of the dream from my mind, cursed the empty spaces where the memory had already disappeared. There had been something wrong with me, but I couldn’t remember what. I skipped over that part and focused on what I knew. Finn was a reaper, and Maeve wanted me dead because he’d stolen her chance at life and gave it to me. And he lied to me about it. About all of it. My heart felt like it was being disassembled and stitched back together. I’d trusted him. I was falling in love with him. And he just kept it from me like that? My life was a lie. It didn’t even really belong to me. I scribbled so hard the pen ripped through the paper as Mom patiently waited, patting my good leg. I stopped when I felt her tugging at the bandages around my calf.

“These need to be changed,” she said, quietly. The bright red spot of blood had grown while I wrote, soaking through the gauze. “I hope whatever you had to write down was worth it.”

I looked down at the words. Half-broken memories. The truth. “It was.”

She made a face and pushed the call button beside my bed. A nurse in pale pink scrubs rushed in and shook her head as she cleaned my wound, then wrapped it in a fresh bandage. Mom leaned up and touched the one on my neck. “How’s this one?”

I flinched away. “Fine.” It wasn’t, but I didn’t want her poking at it. It hurt bad enough as it was.

Everything hurt at this point.

Mom nodded and picked at a loose thread on the stiff blanket covering my other leg. “Were you dreaming about your Dad?”

“Yes,” I lied, hugging the notebook to my chest.

“That’s good,” she said. “It’s good that you remember.”

Mom was the queen of avoiding the past, I realized. She filled up her days with nonsense meetings and nonsense people until there wasn’t room for anyone or anything real. After everything I’d been through, I didn’t blame her. It had to be easier than facing the pain. In that moment I would have given anything to not have to face the pain that Finn and his lies had caused. “That story you told me about Dad…your kiss. That was nice. You should tell me stuff like that more often.”

“You’re right. We should remember more.”

I thought about how hard most of the memories in my head were to relive. The old ones. The new ones. “Easier said than done, right?”

She cleared her throat, and tucked her wavy blond bob behind her ear as she stood. “You hungry? I could have them bring you some soup. Or Jell-O? They must have something good around here.”

“Sure.” I wasn’t really hungry, but I did want her gone. I needed a minute to myself to soak in the words that were living on the paper against my chest. They were whispering to my heart, screaming against my ribs, begging to be read.

Mom paused in the doorway, watching me. “Honey, I want you to know that Parker is doing everything he can to catch this guy. He won’t give up until they have him.”