“Son of a—” Boots scraped along the stone in front of me and stopped. “Can somebody take care of this? This wasn’t the deal. I can’t do anything with him like this.”
After a few more seconds of agony, something started to happen. A tingling sensation started in my toes then blazed through my legs, my fingers. Something swelled in my chest, then raced up my neck until it burst like gold behind my eyelids. And then…nothing. A familiar numbness swept over me. No pain. No nothing.
I cracked an eye open and blinked at the black combat boots a few inches from my face.
“Time to get up,” Easton said. “Humpty Dumpty’s together again.”
He offered his hand to help me up, but I slapped it away and climbed to my knees. “What’s going on?” I swayed. “Is this…is this real?”
“You’re free,” Easton said. “Balthazar made his point.”
“Made his point?” I glared at him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I stood up and the room tilted off-balance, so I closed my eyes again. It was over? God….it was finally over. I patted down my body, making sure everything was as it should be. When I was sure I was still me, I turned and stomped out of the cave. No vines or flames blocked my escape. I shook my head, feeling sick inside.
Easton followed behind me. “Finn…wait.”
“Don’t.” I held up my hand and blindly hiked through the screams. “Just…don’t.”
“I was following orders. Besides, if you’d have stopped being such a dumbass, this wouldn’t have happened. But you’ll go right back up there and do it again, won’t you? And Balthazar will give you another waste of a chance.”
I stopped when we reached the iron gates and clenched my fists, feeling like I was about to snap in half. I couldn’t take anymore right now. I was too raw. “I can still feel the flesh melting off of my goddamned bones, and you’re going to give me crap about Emma right now? After you dragged me here?”
“I didn’t have a choice!” he shouted. “If you want to blame someone for this, look in a goddamned mirror.”
“Screw you.”
I didn’t wait for his reply. Instead I barreled out into the whirlwind of ash outside the gates. I closed my eyes, immersing myself in the fiery wind around me. When I opened them again I was standing in Scout’s uncle’s garage, vibrating with rage. And pain. And things I didn’t want to think about ever again. I knew it was my fault, damn it. I’d known going into it. But I was starting to think too much had built up between Easton and me. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever get back to the way we were before.
And that bothered me more than I wanted it to.
I took a deep breath and shuddered. If Scout wasn’t here, I didn’t know what I was going to do because it would be a cold day in Hell before I went back to that bar, and I needed his help before I could deal with the Emma situation. Clenching and unclenching my fists, I scanned the dusty garage. I still didn’t trust him after finding out what he was doing with the humans at that bar. I was still pissed.
But I wouldn’t be a hypocrite after what I’d done. And I’d have to get over it if I wanted his help.
“Why don’t you just punch the damn wall and get it over with?”
I spun around too quickly and silvery tendrils of vapor went in every direction.
“Hope you didn’t come for a fight. I’ve never been any good at fighting.” Scout fell back onto the dusty sofa, twirling a piece of a truck engine in his hand. “And if I’m being honest there’s no way I’d try to hit you. Not when you’re carrying around that crazy-ass scythe. You’ve had more experience with yours than I’ve had with mine. It wouldn’t be a fair fight and you know it.”
“I didn’t come for a fight.” I glanced from the red F-150 parked on the other side of the room, then nodded to the piece of metal in his hand. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged and a familiar grin caught both sides of his mouth. “But the old man won’t be able to start his truck without it.”
“Why do you still torture him? He is your family, you know.” Remembering all of the stupid stunts Scout had played on his uncle over the years, it was a wonder the old guy hadn’t had a heart attack by now.
“I’ll stop messing with him when he stops messing with me. One trick all those years ago and he still messes with the Ouija boards and crap. Like I’m some ghost of Christmas past that’s going to come back and tell him how to fix his screwed-up excuse for a life. Do you know how much the man spent on phone psychics last year? Enough to buy a freaking new car, that’s how much. The man’s a moron. And until he stops being a moron I’ll continue to screw with him.”
He laughed and it suddenly felt like old times with Scout. When we’d sit in his garage and try to figure out a way to live like humans even though we were anything but. “Besides, it helps to pass the time in between my reaps. We don’t get as much action down here as you guys do up north.” When I didn’t respond, Scout set the engine part on the couch, and rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it held all of life’s answers. “I thought you hated me now,” he said more to the floor than to me.
“I don’t hate you. You just…” I stopped searching for the right thing to say. “You just screwed up, okay? You screwed up, and with Emma, I can’t afford those kinds of screwups.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to say I get it. I’m not even going to say it’s okay, because it’s not. But I’ll get over it.”
“She got hurt, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, she got hurt.”
We both froze when his uncle stumbled into the garage and climbed into his truck, cursing as his foot slipped out from under him twice before he could make it in.
“He still drinking?” I asked.
Scout nodded. “Stupid old drunk. I’m doing the community a favor keeping him off the streets.”
The old man cranked the ignition and when all that resulted was a clicking sound, he erupted. A stream of obscenities bounced off his tongue so fast you could barely keep track. Scout looked tired as he watched his uncle dig under the hood and come out looking white.
“You’re in here, aren’t you?” the old man called, his eyes searching the garage, but only finding a floating brigade of dust particles illuminated by the sunshine spilling in through the one window that wasn’t covered with plastic.
“Oh, I’m here all right,” Scout grumbled and kicked an empty can across the room.
The old man jumped back two feet with a gasp. The can hit the toe of his shoe. “Damn it, Scout!
Stop with these games! I’m getting too old for this crap. I can’t believe your mama hasn’t come to drag your ass back to the afterlife yet.” He continued to mutter to himself as he let himself back into the house then slammed the door, knocking an old can of nails off his workbench and onto the floor.
Scout picked up the engine part and tossed it into a pile of junk in the corner of the room.
“Wouldn’t he just shit a brick if he knew I was the one to drag her ass to the afterlife?”
“You took your own mother?” I said. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“It’s not like I planned it. I was just covering for one of Heaven’s reapers that day and her hourglass ran out of sand.” He shrugged. “At least we got to say a proper good-bye that way. It wasn’t a big deal.”
I pressed my lips together into a hard line, trying not to torture myself with not knowing who had taken Mom and Pop. And Henry. It was too much to think about.
“Why did you stay?” I finally asked. It was the question I’d always wanted to ask him. The one I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer to.