I looked down at Cash. My braids created a wall around our faces. My eyes the only light in our little safe haven. He reached up and cupped the side of my face, trying to catch his breath.
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I’m not supposed to see it coming.” His voice cracked. He knew how close he was. He felt it too. “I don’t want to see it coming, Anaya.”
“I know,” I whispered.
His dark eyes searched my face. For what, I wasn’t sure. He rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip, so soft it made me tremble.
“I’ll go,” he finally said. “I’ll do whatever Balthazar wants me to do.”
“Cash—”
“If it means I get to keep you,” he said, pressing his finger to my lips to quiet me. “If it means we can have more of this. Then I’ll do anything.”
I sat up and placed my hands on his chest. He felt like ice under my palms. He felt like he was already dead.
“You have no idea what you’re saying.”
Cash followed me up, so that his face was only an inch from mine.
“For once in my life, I know exactly what I’m saying,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone, Anaya. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this isn’t going to work with me alive and you dead. It isn’t going work if I’m in Heaven and you’re in Hell. There is only one option that gives us a chance.”
Cash’s eyes swept over my face. His hand reached up to tuck a braid behind my ear.
“I feel like I’ve been waiting for you for a thousand years,” he whispered. “I’m taking that option.”
I searched his eyes for some kind of doubt. Something that said he was only saying these words out of fear. Or desire. The only thing I could see was certainty. And love.
“You’re sure?”
He nodded and tugged me down to brush his lips against mine.
“It’s weird,” he whispered against my lips. “Not even you can make me warm anymore. It must not be far off.”
I pushed Cash back down onto the sofa and curled up beside him. Wrapped every part of myself around him, trying to lend him my heat. He wound his arms around me and closed his eyes.
“How is it going to happen?” he asked.
“When your body gives out…I’ll reap your soul.”
“With the blade?” He sounded nervous.
I laughed. “Yeah. But it won’t hurt. It will be a relief. No more pain. And then I’ll take you to
Balthazar.”
I waited for him to ask me what exactly Balthazar would want him to do, but he never did. I had a feeling he didn’t really want to know. I raked my fingers through his damp hair and pressed a kiss to his temple.
“What happens if you don’t get here in time?”
His voice carried the force of an atom bomb in the silence, even though it was only a whisper. I could feel him shaking, so I smoothed my hand over his arm.
“I’ll get here in time,” I said.
“You can’t promise that,” he said quietly. “I need to know what to do if you don’t get here and they do. Noah’s stronger than me. And he’s good at what he does.”
It took me a minute to find the words. I didn’t want to say them, but he was right. It was unrealistic to think that there was no chance of that happening. Especially when the dead kept pulling me away.
“Then you do what they say.” I closed my eyes and squeezed his arm. “You do whatever you have to do to stay safe until I can get to you.”
He didn’t say anything. Just nodded and blew out a shaky breath. A breath that sounded like it held enough fear for the both of us.
“Go to sleep,” I whispered.
“I don’t want to,” he said. “I don’t want to wake up as someone else. I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready for any of it.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said, trying so hard to sound confident. Honestly, I didn’t know how this worked. I’d never met a soul that had lived as many lives as Cash. The only kind of souls that stayed in circulation that long were the ones that continued to search for something. They never felt resolved, so they continued on their path, life after life. Death after death. It was amazing he’d made it this long. And just when his journey was about to end…I kept him from it. I rested my head against his.
“You wouldn’t be happy if I came out the other side of this Tarik?”
I turned his face so that my eyes could see his. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because…he’s not you.”
Cash wound around me a little tighter.
“Tell me what you were like,” he murmured, sleep pulling him under. “When you were alive.”
I thought back, something I didn’t let myself do very often. Usually the pain was too great. But now it wasn’t so bad. The past wasn’t nearly as scary when you had a piece of it in your present. I rested in the groove of his arm and smiled.
“My father was a fisherman,” I said. “He even owned his own boat.”
“Really?” Cash’s cheek rose with his smile. “Did he ever take you with him?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But mainly I helped my mother. Sometimes I would burn the bread just so I’d have something to feed the birds on the beach after Father sailed away. I used to think if I fed them and sent them off with a prayer, that they’d keep watch over him. Keep him safe somehow.”
“Did they?”
I swallowed the bit of pain that rose up my throat like bile. “No. One day he sailed away and never came back. The sea took him away…and it decided to keep him.” I paused, wondering if I should tell him the rest. Cash’s voice echoed in my mind: no more secrets, Anaya.
“It took Tarik, too,” I said.
Cash went still beneath me. He didn’t even breathe.
“We were going to be married,” I went on. “So Father gave him a job on the boat. It was only his second trip out. He kissed me good-bye, promised he’d return, and disappeared on the horizon.”
Cash turned to look up at me. “Then what happened?”
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the good. Focus on the boy that fate had given me all over again.
“He died,” I finally said. “And then so did I.”
Chapter 27
Cash
Sometime before the sun came up, I woke up and Anaya was gone. My arm was draped awkwardly over my chest, like she was still there to support it. I could still smell her on my skin. Like I’d slept in a thunderstorm. Like I was still in a dream. I sat up and scrubbed my palms over my face to rub the sleep from my eyes. To wake myself up enough to realize what I’d done.
I told her I’d go along with everything. Embrace being a shadow walker. Work for Balthazar.
And I’d meant every word. Was being a slave to the man who gave Anaya orders to collect the dead what I wanted to do with my eternity? No. But not having to say good-bye to her…I couldn’t help but believe the sacrifice would be worth it. I’d never loved a girl before. Not really. Not like this. But I loved Anaya. I loved her so much it was hard to breathe when she was around. It was even harder to breathe when she wasn’t. And not just because my lungs were failing. I knew now that Noah wasn’t someone I could trust. No way was I going to end up like him.
I finally managed to drag myself out of my studio and into the house. Every part of me ached. I needed a shower. And coffee. And probably a new heart and set of lungs, but that wasn’t going to happen. With my recent decision, there wasn’t really a point in fighting to get on a transplant list. I searched the house for Finn when I didn’t find him in the guest room, and finally found him in the den sitting on the couch staring at the black screen of the TV. I kicked the leg of the couch to get his attention.