11:54 a.m.—Six minutes left on my shift. I will not go to the school after work. I will not go to the school after work. I will not go to the school after—
12:22 p.m.—Lunch in the quad. Nash is having pizza. I don’t care if I never see another slice of pizza. Kaylee’s wearing that blue shirt again. That one that matches her eyes. She looks tired. I will not show myself to her at lunch. I will not show myself to her at lunch. I will not show—
12:24 p.m.—Nash’s pizza tastes as bland as it looks. But since I already took a bite, he said I should just take the rest of it. Wonder what would happen if I took a nibble on Kaylee…?
1:48 p.m.—Wonder what would happen if I switch the labels on some of the bottles in the chemistry lab’s storage closet? Ooh! Or I could test the acidity of the toilet-bowl water with these litmus strips. I’m betting it’s acidic… .
2:36 p.m.—Seriously, why do they still teach history in school? If it’s going to repeat itself, anyway, can’t we just catch it the next time around?
3:02 p.m.—School’s out. Only nine more hours to kill until there will be actual people to kill. Er, reap.
4:22 p.m.—Large pepperoni and sausage. There in thirty minutes, or your money back. Minus the fifty-second commute, and the actual delivery leaves me twenty-five minutes to pop over to Mom’s house for a brownie.
4:26 p.m.—Kaylee and Nash are trying to swallow each other whole. I suggested they eat the brownies instead. Nash threw one at me. My appetite is gone.
4:40 p.m.—There’s never anything good on TV. At the hospital, they only play news and cartoons. And not the good cartoons. The ones where animals dance around and some little girl with a big head counts in Spanish. Ayúdame!
4:41 p.m.—If Nash and Kaylee are going to make out instead of watching the movie, they should just hand over the remote.
4:42 p.m.—The remote slid down between them on the couch, and I am not going after it.
4:43 p.m.—I wonder if there’s any reasonable way to reinterpret the phrase “Get the hell out of here, Tod” to mean “Please stay and help us maintain the PG rating on this hormonal train wreck.” Maybe if I rearrange the letters…
5:58 p.m.—Dude. Do NOT answer the door in your underwear. No two-dollar tip is worth that. Now I’m going to have to find something prettier to purge that mental image. Mangled bunny roadkill should do the trick.
7:00 p.m.—Is it time to reap souls yet?
7:01 p.m.—Seriously, has time stopped moving? Is this what eternity feels like?
9:10 p.m.—Kaylee’s practicing conjugating irregular verbs for a French test tomorrow. I said I’d check the verb chart for her, but this stupid language has more sounds than letters, and I’m not sure I even remember how to conjugate English verbs.
9:24 p.m.—I have no idea what she’s saying, but it’s hot.
11:05 p.m.—Sabine suggests we play Guess Whose Life Sucks Worse. I can’t lose this one. I’m not even alive.
11:14 p.m.—New game. Guess Whose Love Life Sucks Worse. It’s a tie. A big, pathetic tie.
1:00 a.m.—An hour into my shift, and no one’s died yet. Is it possible to be bored to death if you’re already dead?
3:42 a.m.—Massive cranial and spinal trauma from head-on collision. A cause of death near and dear to my heart. Now we’re talkin’…
5:19 a.m.—The guy in room 434 looks tired. He looks done. We both know this is the last room he’ll ever see, and he’s ready to end it. He deserves a merciful, peaceful death in his sleep. But he’s not scheduled to go for another four days. Poor guy. Sometimes I wish I was the boss.
7:43 a.m.—Hit-and-run at an elementary school crosswalk. She can’t be more than eight years old. I hate my job.
8:00 a.m.—Parents crying in the waiting room. They don’t know yet. I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t have to see her last moments. I wish I didn’t have to be her last moments. I’m sick of white walls and endings. The only thing that doesn’t end in this place is me. I don’t end. I just go on, and on, swinging that scythe glued to my hand. There’s no rhythm to the strokes. Few see death coming, and even those who do see death don’t see me. Because there is no me. Not anymore. Always the reaper, never the reaped. Soon that won’t bother me. Soon I won’t care. Emotional death follows physical death at a different pace for each reaper. I’ve put it off for more than two years, but it’s inevitable.
It would take a miracle to keep me alive on the inside.
When I was a kid, my mom said that everyone gets one miracle. She said the trick is recognizing your miracle from a distance, so you’re ready when it arrives. I’m watching. I’m waiting.
I’m ready for my miracle.
Keep reading for an excerpt of My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent!
Acknowledgments
Thanks first of all to my husband, who puts up with the mental fog I walk around in midbook.
Thanks to my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, for endless advice and patience.
Thanks to everyone at Harlequin Teen, for everything done behind the scenes to make this book happen. That is truly an enormous list.
Thanks to my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, who made this book possible.
And a special thanks to Karen Shangraw, who brought Kaylee’s guidance counselor to life.
The Netherworld—a terrifying, hidden world full of reapers, hellions and countless other mythical monsters out to possess the body and soul of teenage bean sidhe (banshee) Kaylee Cavanaugh. Find out how it all began with the first titles in Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamers series.
My Soul to Lose (prequel novella)
My Soul to Take
My Soul to Save
My Soul to Keep
My Soul to Steal
Reaper (book 4 prequel novella)
If I Die