“Who could what?” I press.
“Not die,” Crux answers way too nonchalantly for my taste.
“Wait a fucking minute,” I say, holding up my hand. “Are you telling me that you hired me because all of the others in my position died?”
His eyes skate uneasily to the side before settling back on my face. “Yes.”
“Oh fucking hell,” I curse, running a hand down my face.
“See?” Jerif says. “She can’t fucking handle it.”
“I’m handling it!” I snap over my shoulder at him.
He rolls his eyes.
“What if she’s a Gatekeeper?” Crux declares randomly.
“A what?” I ask at the same time Jerif and Echo groan.
Crux shakes his head at them. “Come on! Look at her! She has a fucking scythe! Who do we know that used to carry scythes…? Gatekeepers!”
Echo, Jerif and Iceman look at Crux like they’re not seeing the connections he’s so passionately making. Crux looks at them incredulously and gestures to me.
“Her last name is Gates for crying out loud. We’re just going to pretend like that might not be a clue into what’s going on?”
The other three pause at his words, but then Echo shakes his head. “No way. The Hell Gatekeepers were wiped out. They don’t exist anymore, and she’s not a Reaper.”
Crux opens his mouth to argue, but Iceman cuts him off. “We should test her.”
Jerif rounds on him. “Are you insane? We can’t bring her to Hell!”
“Why not?” Echo butts in.
“Because she didn’t even know she was a fucking demon until ten minutes ago!” Jerif shouts, the cords in his neck straining like he wants to take a swing at someone. Personally, I agree with him, but he’s been kind of a dick, so I’m not going to say it.
“Then let’s not test her,” Crux replies. “She can see us, and she has a scythe. We could just induct her as our fifth and train her. We don’t need to test her. I mean, what else could she possibly be?”
They all stare at me for a minute, making me squirm.
“Could be an angel…” Echo observes.
I’m about to smile at the compliment when his brow crinkles and his eyes turn accusatory. “Who sent you here to spy on us?”
I take a step back “Spy?”
“Yes,” he barks. “An angelic spy. Is that what you are?”
“Hmm… She is almost ethereally beautiful,” Crux states, and I feel a blush creep into my cheeks.
“Awwww, you think I’m angel-level beautiful?” I ask, awed and super-flattered despite the fact that they’re saying it like it’s a bad thing.
“Called it,” Echo declares, raising his hands like he’s won some great victory. “Angels are vain as fuck. She’s totally a Heavenly spy.”
I sputter as all eyes turn to me. Despite things flying out of their mouths that would normally be praise, the looks on their faces make it clear that none of the shit they’re spewing is complimentary. They look downright furious.
I take another step back, but a growl leaks out of Jerif’s mouth, and I freeze. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s nothing Heavenly about me. I couldn’t be further from an angel,” I defend, but they’re clearly not sold. Shit.
“I had sex before marriage,” I blurt out. “That’s a big no-no, right? I’ve had a ton of it. I like sex, and I’m not sorry at all,” I finish, as though the confession solves everything.
Echo scoffs. “You and everyone else. Proves nothing. Angels have sex all the time.”
I stare at him, aghast. Damn, who knew angels were so pro-fornication? “Fine,” I reply, my mind spinning as I try to prove to them that I’m not an angelic spy. “I...uhh...I don’t like doves. Bird of peace? Fuck that, they freak me out.”
Echo just arches an unimpressed brow.
I snap my fingers as another thought comes to me. “I once made a Tinder profile and pretended to be a hot dude to fuck with my old bitchy coworker, Courtney.”
Still nothing.
“Another time, I had a one-night stand, but then I found another one-night stand during my walk of shame, and I wasn’t even embarrassed about it because he was hotter. Oh...” I exclaim, really getting into this now, “I covet shit, like all the time. And I refuse to share dessert with anyone. I would rather stab you with a fork than give you a bite of my food. I also spent many of my bartending shifts wishing I could beat the shit out of people, and I get this black haze of doom that comes into my vision and makes me go a little ragey.”
Echo snorts, but I’m relieved, because he and the others are finally losing the edge of suspicion that was sharpened in their expressions. “My, my, we have quite the evil sinner on our hands,” he states flatly.
I glare at him. “You know what? ‘Thou shalt not murder’ might be crossed off the bucket list real quick if you keep fucking with me.”
Echo blows me a kiss.
“I’m just saying...” Crux speaks up, interrupting the escalating tension, “she could be what we need. She could be the one,” he adds with a sigh, like he’s bored of arguing.
Hold the fuck up. The one? “I’m not the one.”
“I agree with her,” Jerif says, and for some reason, that pisses me off, because how the fuck does he know? Maybe I am the one they need. Yeah, yeah, I’m going from hot to cold here, but fuck it. My waffle is a hot fucking mess right now, and this lava-haired bastard is trying to put mustard on it.
“Like I said, we’d have to test her to make sure,” Iceman says again.
Going into Hell? Yeah, pass.
“How do we even do that?” Jerif asks irritably.
Iceman casts me a cursory look. “We’d have to take her down and then see which Ring Gates she can pass through.”
I interject.
