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 was going to happen to me? It had been hard enough just to escape my room tonight.
And if I couldn’t trust Noah, either, I didn’t stand a chance. Damn it, I was so screwed. I wasn’t going to escape this no matter how long I hid in Finn’s apartment.
I stepped around the table and paced the room. My throat was closing up. I felt dizzy. God…was this shit ever going to end? I couldn’t take any more.
“I can’t…I can’t…” I pressed my fists into my eyes and tried to catch my breath. I couldn’t breathe.
“Hey.” Finn settled a hand on my shoulder. “Sit down before you pass out.”
I let him lead me over to the couch and fell backward into the cushions.
Scout leaned over to squint at me. “He’s losing it.”
Finn shot him a cold glare. “Leave him alone. He didn’t choose this.”
I couldn’t even form words. My tongue felt dead in my mouth. Pain blossomed in my stomach and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room. No, no, no! I needed to warn him about Noah. Maybe
Noah wasn’t working for the shadow demons. Maybe he’d gone rogue and was some kind of vigilante for the afterlife. Even as the theories spun to life in my head, I knew they didn’t feel right. Something inside Noah was dark. I just prayed that same darkness didn’t live inside me.
Chapter 25
Cash
My eyes were throbbing behind my closed lids. Pulsing in the thin veil of darkness that separated me from the rest of the world. I’d only been asleep for an hour, if that, when I felt it start to creep over my skin. The warmth. Her warmth. It was all I needed to feel for sparks to ignite across the dark, burning me into awareness.
I heard the blur of whispers in the next room. Quiet. Urgent. Clearly not wanting me to hear what they were saying. Screw that. I was over the secrets. I groaned and sat up, raking my fingers through my hair like a comb. It didn’t help. I could see myself in the reflection of Finn’s crappy TV.
Disorderly black spikes stuck up in every direction on top of my head. Like it mattered anyway. I was at death’s doorstep. I don’t think anyone was expecting me to look my best.