Before I Wake

by Rachel Vincent

  “No! No detail. There won’t be anything to talk about!” I insisted. But she was already asleep. And for just a second, I envied Emma more than anyone else in the world.

  8

  I MET TOD in the lobby of the E.R., where he eyed my button-up pj top and shorts with exaggerated disappointment. “Business first,” I said.

  “What if my business is love? I could be—”

  I put one hand over his mouth. “If you call yourself the love doctor, I’m outta here.”

  He pulled my hand away and held it. “I was going to say ‘Doctor of Love,’ but I guess that’s close enough.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Come on, let’s get this over with before I chicken out.” The last time I was in the morgue, I was the body on the table.

  We blinked into the viewing area downstairs and chill bumps popped up all over my skin before we even stepped into the back rooms. The morgue is a creepy place to be, even for a dead girl. Maybe especially for a dead girl.

  Tod studied a chart on an empty desk in the front office while I hung back, trying not to remember waking up on a cold steel table in the next room, half-covered by only a white sheet. “He’s scheduled to be autopsied tomorrow. Drawer three,” Tod said. “You sure you want to do this? I could just check for you.”

  I shook my head. “How am I supposed to walk up to some horrible Netherworld creature I’ve never faced before and say, ‘Hand over your soul,’ when I can’t even work up the nerve to look at a dead body?”

  “You’ve seen dead people before, Kaylee.”

  “Yeah.” Several of them, including a few who got up and walked around after the fact. “But never here. It seems so much more final here.”

  “Let’s hope that’s true for Scott.”

  There was one employee on duty, so we had to wait for him to take a bathroom break, after I vetoed Tod’s alternate plan. He wanted to scare the crap out of the poor man by opening and closing all the refrigerated drawers until he ran out screaming.

  When we finally had the place to ourselves, Tod pulled open drawer number three, and I closed my eyes, mentally steeling myself for the worst. “Kaylee, look,” he said. So I looked.

  It was Scott. And he was really dead. Peacefully, permanently, truly dead.

  I exhaled slowly and spent a moment staring at him in profound relief. Scott and I had never been close, but I wouldn’t wish what he’d suffered on my worst enemy. Except maybe Avari. And Mr. Beck.

  Okay, there were a couple of enemies I’d wish insanity, possession, and brain damage on, but Scott wasn’t one of them and I was glad his suffering had ended, even if it ended in death.

  But then the confusion set in. “So, if he’s really dead, what did we see in his room at the hospital?”

  “No clue.” Tod slid the drawer closed and leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest, like he was perfectly comfortable in the morgue. “Doppelganger? Clone? Bodysnatcher? Name your horror movie cliché.”

  “You forgot the evil twin.”

  “What was I thinking? Maybe I’m getting a fever. Why is there never a naughty nurse around when you need one?”

  “Naughty nurse? Damn. I brought the wrong costume.”

  “A candy striper will work in a pinch. Did you really bring it?”

  “Yeah.” But I hadn’t yet convinced myself to actually put it on. “Let’s get out of here.” I took his hand and blinked us into the empty fourth-floor room I’d already scouted out and stashed the costume in. We were at the end of the hall and around the corner from the nurses’ station, to minimize our chances of getting caught.

  Tod glanced around the room, his hand warm in mine as his gaze skipped over the armchair, the narrow hospital bed, and Em’s costume hanging on the shower rod, visible through the open bathroom door. “What’s all this?”

  “This is what passes for privacy, in the social disaster that is my afterlife. No parents, no classmates, no E.R. waiting-room patients…”

  “They wouldn’t be able to see us, anyway.”

  “I know, but I’m still having trouble controlling my own corporeality, and even if I weren’t, it feels like people are watching us, even when they can’t possibly be, and I’m not into exhibitionism, so…” I spread my arms to take in the entire unused hospital room. “Privacy.”

  Instead of glancing around the room, Tod looked straight into my eyes. “You’re the best girlfriend ever. Seriously. If I had a trophy, I’d give it to you.”

  “For appropriating a hospital room and borrowing a Halloween costume?”

  He shook his head and pulled me close. “For being here. For saving my afterlife and my sanity. For making me look forward to every single day, instead of dreading eternity. And for the record, I don’t care whether you’re wearing jeans, or the hottest, most workplace-inappropriate candy-striper uniform to ever grace the sterile white halls of this humble public death trap. I’m just glad you’re here.”

  My stomach flip-flopped, and I let his words play over in my head. “So, no costume?”

  Tod shrugged. “Nah. Don’t get me wrong—it’s hot. But it’s hot in an obvious kind of way. It’s not really you.”

  I frowned. “Because I’m not obviously sexy?”

  “Because you are obviously sexy. Some girls may need costumes to make guys want them, but I couldn’t possibly want you more than I do right now, no matter what you were wearing. Or not wearing.”

  I stared up at him. “How is it possible that every time you open your mouth, I—” fall more in love with you “—melt a little more? Seriously. There’s nothing in here but mush.” I waved one hand over my own torso.

  “You don’t feel very mushy to me.” His hands slid over my waist and up my sides slowly, his fingers whispering against the material of my shirt. “In fact, you feel really good.”

  “You, too.” I tried to say more, then realized I couldn’t speak because I didn’t have enough air in my lungs. Because I’d stopped breathing. I inhaled, and suddenly I sounded breathless. Which was exactly how I felt. “How long until you have to go…reap?” I whispered as my arms slid around his neck. Like we were dancing. Only we weren’t moving, and there was no music.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “Won’t you get in trouble if you miss something?”

  Tod leaned down until his lips brushed the corner of my mouth. “See my previous answer.”

  “Mmm…” I said as he walked me backward slowly, arms around me so I couldn’t stumble. “But it’s not a very good time to get on Levi’s bad side.”

  Tod groaned. “Damn your logic and forethought.” He pulled away from me long enough to glance at the time on his phone, and his frown deepened. “I have a dislodged blood clot in eight minutes. Be right back.”

  “You’re going to go kill someone, then come back and kiss me? Is that what forever’s going to be like? Making out between corpses?”

  “Is that too weird?” He looked worried. Like I might actually say yes. A month earlier, I would have, but now…

  “I don’t know. It probably should be, but honestly, right now, I just want to be with you, even if that means waiting through the occasional reaping.” My frown mirrored his. “How morbid is our relationship?”

  “Haven’t you seen Corpse Bride? We’re practically average.” Tod grinned, then took a step back. “Nine minutes. I swear.”

  I nodded, and he disappeared.

  I spent the first three seconds after Tod left staring at the space where he’d been. Then I realized I needed to use the restroom, a relative rarity, now that most of the time, I only remembered to drink water when my throat got dry and my voice started to crack.

  Afterward, as I washed my hands, I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to see what it was that made Tod’s irises swirl when he looked at me, and twist feverishly when he touched me. Whatever it was, I couldn’t see it. Except for the scar on my stomach, I looked exactly the same as I had before I died. The same as I would for all of eternity.

&n
bsp; That thought was still too big for me to hold in my head all at once, but occasionally I got a fleeting understanding of eternity—it was like glimpsing a silhouette in your peripheral vision, but being unable to pull the form into focus. Those moments came when I was alone. When everyone else was sleeping. When it was hardest for me to remember why I’d wanted this afterlife in the first place.

  I shook those thoughts off as I dried my hands, then froze with a thick brown paper towel clenched in one fist when someone knocked on the bathroom door. I threw away the tissue and opened the door, already smiling at Tod. But it wasn’t Tod who looked back at me from inches away.

  It was Thane, one hand propped on the doorframe like he was both lounging and blocking my exit, still wearing the same clothes and sunglasses he’d had on behind the doughnut shop. Only this time he didn’t look scared of me.

  Thane’s brows rose as he studied the surprise surely written on my face. “What, you didn’t think you were rid of me, did you?”

  “Yeah. Kinda.” Which was why I’d decided to ask Luca to find him. And why I couldn’t just blink out of the room, which seemed like the smart thing to do. Fortunately, Tod would be back any minute.

  Being that close to the reaper who’d killed my mother completely creeped me out, but I couldn’t back away from him without looking scared. As a reaper, he could theoretically take my soul and end my afterlife. But the reverse was also true, which made this whole encounter feel a bit like a deadly game of chicken—we were waiting to see who would swerve first.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “The real question is what are you doing here?” Thane glanced over my shoulder at the costume hanging on the shower rod. “Is this trick-or-treat, or show-and-tell?”

  “It’s none of your business. What do you want?” I could see myself reflected in the lenses of his sunglasses, and that unnerved me. I could see my own eyes, but I couldn’t see his.

  “I want the soul you stole from me.”

  “It wasn’t yours.”

  “It wasn’t yours, either,” Thane said, still blocking the doorway, and I nodded. Then I realized I wasn’t stuck in the bathroom. I blinked out, then reappeared in the hospital room behind him, wondering how long it would take for my new afterlife abilities to become second nature.

  “Which is why I didn’t keep it,” I said, and Thane spun to face me, brows furrowed over the rims of those stupid sunglasses. “I turned it in.”

  “Then I’ll take yours instead.” He stalked closer and I backed away, the game of chicken forgotten. “And if you don’t give it up, I’ll take the rest of you, too. The boss will be so pleased.” He reached for me and I struck out. He threw an arm up to block my blow, and my ineffectual fist ricocheted off his wrist to graze his temple. His sunglasses fell off and clattered to the floor.

  I had a second to stare in shock at solid white orbs where his eyes should have been before he lunged for me. I backpedaled, suddenly terrified to realize that if he was touching me when I blinked out, he’d go with me.

  “If I haul you into the Netherworld, your boyfriend will come after you, right?”

  Thane reached for me again and missed my arm, but when I took another step back, I bumped into the bed and had nowhere else to go. He grabbed a handful of my shirt, and when I tried to roll away, I felt several little pops as most of the buttons tore free. But he didn’t let go, so I kept moving, and the underarm seams of my shirt dug into my flesh. He reached for my arm with his empty hand and I shoved him away with a grunt of effort. More threads popped, and suddenly I was wearing half a shirt.

  I backpedaled again, scanning the room for a weapon, and briefly I wondered how long it would be before our noise alerted the nurse on duty.

  Then Tod appeared just behind Thane and to his left. His eyes widened, but it took him less than a second to process the scene, and he swung at the side of Thane’s head before the rogue reaper even realized he was there. Thane stumbled and started to turn, and Tod swung again. His fist crashed into the other reaper’s temple.

  Thane crumpled to the floor, and Tod kicked him in the head for good measure.

  “You okay?” he said, and I nodded, staring at Thane’s unmoving form. Tod stepped around him and lifted a loose flap of material from my torn shirt. “What the hell happened? Why didn’t you just blink out?”

  “Because we need to deal with him. How can I ask Luca to find him, when I just let him go?”

  Tod’s irises swirled unevenly in confusion, and it took me a second to realize that meant he didn’t know whether to be angry or relieved. “Swear you’ll never do that again. Swear to me that next time you’ll run.”

  “No! You broke the rules for me, and I’m not going to let you go down for that just because I’m too scared to face the guy whose existence threatens yours. Besides, I’ll be confronting bigger and badder things than Thane soon. I need to learn how to handle myself, not run.”

  “You need to survive. Your friends and family need you to survive. I need you to survive.”

  “Got it. Survival is the prime directive.” But surviving didn’t always mean running.

  “Now that we’ve established that, would it be completely inappropriate of me to say that you look really hot in half a shirt?”

  “Probably.” I couldn’t resist a smile, and I might have actually been blushing. “But say it, anyway.”

  “You’re beautiful.” He stepped over the unconscious reaper and took a long look at me, and to my complete surprise, I had no urge to cover myself. I wanted him to look, and I wanted to know that he liked what he saw.

  “He could not have picked a worse time to show up,” Tod said, and when his hands found my waist, one landed on bare skin, exposed by the torn material. His mouth found mine, and the sense of urgency in that kiss lit me up on the inside.

  And suddenly eternity with Tod didn’t feel long enough.

  “We should…do something with him,” I said as Tod’s lips trailed down my neck.

  “In a minute.” His hand slid beneath the back of my torn shirt and I sucked in a deep breath, then closed my eyes. “Near-death experiences release a lot of endorphins, resulting in a natural high,” Tod whispered against my collarbone as his mouth trailed lower. “And it’s totally true that one passion feeds another.”

  “You know we’re way past ‘near-death,’ right?”

  “My endorphins aren’t listening to you.”

  I laughed and enjoyed the moment for just a little longer. Then I pushed him back gently, and he groaned. “I’ve never hated anyone else like I hate that bastard right now.”

  “I know. Did you see his eyes? They’re empty.”

  Tod’s brows rose. He knelt next to the unconscious reaper and pulled one of his eyelids up to reveal the clean white orb beneath, absent both iris and pupil. The windows to his soul were empty. Because he didn’t have one. “Well, that explains why he’s working with Avari.”

  “Avari has his soul?” I said, and Tod nodded, standing. “So what’s keeping him…here? In his body?”

  “My guess would be Demon’s Breath.”

  “Just like Addy?”

  Another solemn, silent nod.

  “I didn’t know that would work with a reaper.”

  Tod’s beautiful lips pressed together in a frown. “Me, neither.”

  “So, what are we going to do with him?”

  “Obviously, we have to call Levi, but I think we should question him first. I’d bet my afterlife he knows what Avari’s up to. But the minute he wakes up, he’ll blink out.”

  “Ah, the age-old question: How do you keep a reaper in one place long enough to question him? Too bad he can’t talk in his sleep… .” I realized what I’d said the minute the last syllable fell from my tongue. “Sabine. Maybe she could read him while he’s out,” I suggested. “His fears probably won’t tell us exactly what Avari’s up to, but he’d have to be crazy not to be afraid of the hellion, so surely she’ll be able to get something from
him.”

  Tod shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.” He pulled his cell from his pocket and scrolled through the menu for less than a second—a reaper’s contact list can’t be very long—then pressed a button and held the phone to his ear. “Sabine? We need help with something dangerous and probably stupid. You in?”

  I couldn’t hear her reply, but it sounded like some variation of “Hell, yes.”

  “I assume you’re in my brother’s bed?” he said, and that time I was glad I couldn’t hear the reply. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  “You know, most people don’t ask questions like that,” I said as he knelt to grip Thane beneath his arms.

  “That’s because most people care what other people think about them. I don’t have that problem.”

  I frowned. “You don’t care what I think about you?”

  “You’re not other people.” Tod glanced at my torn shirt, and I realized it no longer covered much. “Why don’t you go change, then meet me at Nash’s?”

  “He’s not speaking to you.” Not without me there to play mediator. And we didn’t know how long Thane would be out. And even if Tod had been willing to leave me alone with the rogue reaper—even unconscious—I wasn’t sure I could get him to Nash’s on my own. I was still very new at the afterlife. “Damn it. Guess I’m wearing the costume, after all.”

  In the bathroom, I pulled off the remains of my shirt and pulled Emma’s candy-stripper dress over my head, relieved to see that it covered more than my ruined shirt. Barely. But my shorts were hardly visible beneath the short skirt.

  “Wow,” Tod said when I stepped out of the bathroom.

  “Change your mind about the costume?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t need that to look hot. But it definitely needed you.”

  I couldn’t resist a satisfied smile as Tod hauled Thane up, and I knelt to pick up his feet. “Aim for the living room, unless you want to see Sabine naked.”

  “Have you seen her naked?”

  Tod flinched. “Not on purpose. You ready?” he asked, and I nodded, pulling Thane’s legs higher. “In three…two…one.”