“You’re an even bigger moron than I thought if you think he’s going to buy that.”
A dark gray fog rolled in, erecting walls of darkness around us, sealing us in. Not that we needed the reminder that we weren’t allowed to mix with the souls. My little stunt with Allison had taken care of that.
I sank lower in my chair, hating that the reapers around us looked like they were about to witness an execution. Mine. “What do you want from me, Easton?”
His eyes, two violet slits, crushed me with their stare. “I want you to stop being too ignorant to worry about anything but that stupid human.”
“Don’t call her stupid.”
“Fine,” he hissed, leaning forward so that I couldn’t escape the scent of brimstone and death wafting between us. “You’re stupid. You’re stupid and an asshole.”
“What is your problem?” A few reapers with white jackets and eerily golden eyes raised their brows at us, so I lowered my voice. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me? Who do you think he’ll get to haul you off to Hell when he’s done giving you second chances?”
I could only stare at him. Maybe it was because I was still a half-put-together puzzle without Emma. Maybe I was still high from touching her. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t find the words to make any of this okay between us.
“You’re my friend.” His voice broke, something I’d never witnessed in over seventy years of reaping with Easton. “My best friend, you selfish bastard. And you’re just going to…” He shook his head and pressed his lips together. “If you had any idea what Hell really was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face, and looked through my fingers at Easton’s black combat boots. I tried to imagine what he was telling me. The only Hell I’d ever known was living without Emma for fifteen years, not knowing what kind of life I’d sent her to. Was she happy? Was she safe? Was there someone who loved her as much as I did? I went so long without knowing. I finally spoke into the hollow of my palms, hoping Easton could hear me because I wasn’t ready to look at him. “I’m sorry.”
Easton shifted in his seat, leaned close enough to whisper. “Not as sorry as you’ll be if you end up downstairs. You know your little fear of fire?”
I swallowed.
“They’ll use it against you. You won’t just burn. You’ll melt. Slowly. And when you’re nothing but a bubbling puddle of flesh and ash and blood, they’ll reanimate you so they can do it all over again.”
Easton’s whispers burned me. I scooted an inch away from him. From his heat.
He glanced down at the space between us and shook his head. “Do you even care what it would do to me to have to hand you over to them?” His bitter gaze held me hostage, searching for something. I wasn’t sure what. “Of course you don’t. All you’ll ever care about is making sure your precious human is safe.”
Easton stood up, knocking his chair over, but Scout caught it with the toe of his tennis shoe before it could hit the glass floor. “Are you two having another lovers’ spat?”
He spun the chair around and sank into it backward, grinning up at Easton. For a moment, I thought Easton might grind Scout and his shiny blond curls into dust, but he just grumbled something under his breath and stormed off, leaving me suffocating in the rotting stench of death and decay he’d left in his wake.
“There’s always so much more drama on your side of the border. Maybe I should ask for a transfer,” Scout said as he winked at a pretty reaper from an East Coast territory. “But then, the east has its perks, too.”
Scout looked the same as the day Easton had shown up to reap his soul. The same as the day he’d agreed to become one of us to buy his way out of Hell, forever frozen with the same tall athletic build, curly blond hair, and surfer boy tan skin that had gotten him girls when he was alive. And he was still using those looks to his advantage. Even in death.
We were all handpicked. Every one of us a soul that had crossed a moral line, just far enough to give Balthazar the leverage he needed to reel us in. I’d shot down at least three planes in my final hours. It may have been war, but to them, murder was murder.
I watched him undress the redheaded reaper with his eyes, trying not to feel annoyed. I’d known Scout for twenty years, and even in death he could only think about one thing. Though most of us weren’t far off in age from Scout’s nineteen years, when it came to girls, he seemed especially… enthusiastic. Balthazar told me once that younger souls were easier to transition. Better able to hold onto the power we were granted. I didn’t know. I just knew there was something sad in seeing so many young faces representing the thing people feared the most. Death.
I turned my attention back to Scout, who had gotten the reaper girl’s attention with a wide smile.
“Do you ever think about anything else?”
“Sometimes. Just not today.” He stood up and combed his fingers through his curls. “You mind if we talk about this later?”
I rolled my eyes and waved him off. “Just go.”
I sank back, vaguely aware that Anaya had taken the seat on the other side of me.
“Hey, what happened to you?” She looked over at me. “I got dispatched to one of your reaps. Why didn’t you take it?”
I watched Easton take a place alone on the far wall. Catching my eye, he dissolved into the shadow of a clock tower. “A complication.”
She followed my gaze to where Easton stood. “What’s his problem?”
“He says I’m a selfish bastard.”
Anaya patted my hand and smiled. “Oh, Finn… Honey, that’s because you are.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. At least the girl was honest. “Gee, thanks, Anaya.”
“I didn’t say that was a bad thing.” She stared off into the distance. “That’s what happens when you fall in love.”
I searched for a scrap of sunlight in the heavy clouds overhead. “Have you ever been a selfish bastard?”
Anaya sighed and traced the toe of her sandal along the glass floor. Stars followed her, leaving wispy trails of blue-gold streaks across the dark black sky. Just when I didn’t think she’d answer she said, “Yes. I loved someone once. I loved someone very much.”
The trumpets sounded, preventing me from asking her more, and Balthazar took the lectern at the top of the stairs, overlooking the sea of chairs we sat in. His snow-white robe was snug over his broad shoulders. His blond hair brushed against his neck. Everything about him seemed youthful and new, except his eyes. The corners were creased with age and held too many years to fathom. Before he spoke, his eyes connected with mine, a look of disappointment clouding his gaze. It was so much like the look my pop used to give me that I ached inside.
He finally looked away, surveying the crowd. “It seems some of you don’t remember the rules.” He locked his fingers together behind his back, and all I could hear was the sound of ghostly waves washing up, receding, then starting all over again. No one even went through the motion of breathing.
“It’s not difficult. There is no great secret to your afterlife. You collect the souls that pass for your assigned location.” His silvery eyes flickered over me, then away. “When you are called to reap, you do not ignore that call, nor do you come back empty-handed.”
The shocked whispers swirling around in the crowd grew louder and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
“You go unseen to the living. You do not touch the living. You do not associate with the living.”
Balthazar slapped his palms down onto the gold lectern. The clap rippled through the mist. “Do I make myself clear?”