by Amele, Quinn
Unexpectedly, he reaches across the table and lays his hands over mine. They're so tan against my pale freckled skin, and so much warmer than Nate's is. The lump in my throat turns into a knot. I want to tell my best friend the truth. So, so badly.
"I know you're not going to college," he tells me in a whisper, and I catch my breath.
"You...know?"
He nods slowly. "Mike saw you coming out of that dilapidated house on the other side of town. What's really up, love? Are you in trouble? Is it bad?" His perfect blond eyebrows furrow. Oh, he thinks I'm dealing in drugs, or owe some mobster a debt, or something worse. "You can tell me, Stells. You can tell me anythin—"
"I'm dead." The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
He blinks. "Dead?"
"I—I mean, I'm not dead-dead, but I'm technically dead."
"Like you're going to be dead? Is someone after you? Does it have to do with...Jack?"
I shake my head. "No. It's...I..." My shoulders slump. How in the world do I explain something like Nate? Or Jack, for that matter? It's like trying to tell a grown-up that Santa Clause is real, and he ate your cookies last night. "It's complicated, Vic."
His hands tighten around mine, and his jade eyes stare into mine as if there is nothing else in the world he wants to see more. I see my reflection in them they're so wide, mixed with flecks of gold that remind me of sunlight. If Nate is darkness, then Vic has to be the light. I feel like I could tell him anything, and I feel like he would...I don't know. Like he would understand.
Could he understand?
There's one way to find out, and I don't know why I break the first rule of being dead, and I don't know why Nate doesn't pop out of thin air to stop me, but all of a sudden everything just spills from my mouth. Every moment, every thought, every story that led to this very moment.
It feels like a weight sloughing off my shoulders, because Vic is the one person I can tell. He's the one person who could keep the secret.
I'm sure of it.
Chapter Five
Man in Disguise
The night sky is dark with puffs of whitish-gray-looking clouds. Snow clouds, I realize. Here, in Connection? Odd. Hell must be freezing over. Connection hasn't seen snow in one hundred and fifty years. The last time it snowed, it closed Connection off from the world for an entire week. No one in, no one out. The villagers were literally trapped in the valley.
Vic stands beside me. We're blowing hot coffee-flavored breath into our mittens for warmth, and the heat rises out of our hands like smoke.
I hate the cold, how quiet and steely it is. It's one reason why I love the summer, because it always sounds louder, and it's always warmer. I guess that's why I loved The Moonstruck, too.
"I wish you would've told me sooner," Vic says after a long pause. "I could've..."
"You can't do anything. This is my mess. It's my fault."
"Jack wasn't your fault—and neither was almost killing your family."
My shoulders stiffen. "Yes, it was."
"No, love, it—"
"Let's not talk about it? You know now, and that's all I really wanted."
Another pause. He pulls his hands into his coat pocket, and nods toward the park. Neither of us wants to take me home yet. He asked to take me all the way to the house at the other end of town, but I quickly struck that down. If Nate so much as has an inkling of what Vic knew...
I'm not sure what he'll do.
"So this Death dude..." he begins hesitantly.
I sigh.
Bradley Park is cold and quiet as we pass through the rot-iron gates. The park is dark with orbs of distant lamplights shining through the barren trees. The darkness isn't comforting, but it isn't as scary as it used to be. I know what goes bump in the night now.
And he isn't pretty.
"Love?" he prods.
As if. "He's acting weird, ever since yesterday. Scatterbrained, and then he was almost late this morning to a death, and then he's so moody..."
"He must be pretty busy. I mean, he probably attends funerals and morgues and stuff..."
"He actually likes to go to funerals," I reply, tilting my head, "but not as much as he like watching births. Live births," I clarify, scrunching my nose, "but he usually only sees the ones that..."
Vic squeezes my hand tightly. I don't need to illuminate. We pass a homeless man wrapped in a moth-eaten comforter and cardboard, shivering feverishly. Vic doesn't notice him because he's hidden under two naked oaks, but I can see the dark velvet light that lines the man's body—death.
Nate will be coming soon.
I hurry Vic onto another path, and into a courtyard where a dried fountain stands like a tormented guardian, graffiti-diseased and bird-shit infested. The lamplights shine pale whiteness against the man's cheeks. He looks a little like Vic in the face, the way his nose slops down, and his chiseled cheekbones.
I sit down on the lip of the fountain, and he sits with me.
"Listen," I say quickly, afraid the big bag Reaper himself will appear and make a tantrum. "You have to pretend I haven't told you anything. Tell my parents I'm having a great time at college. Please."
"But—"
"No buts! I got myself in this mess. I can't let anyone else get hurt."
His face contorts. "Love...you need help. This dealer—Grim Reaper, excuse me—has you brainwashed. He can't actually be the Grim Reaper."
My mouth falls open. He doesn't believe me?
Gathering my hands in his, he pulls them close, and I'm too stunned and hurt to argue. "Let's go to the police. I'll help you get out of this. This guy—he'll pay. Okay? You don't have to stay in that situation. You never do. Whatever mess Jack got you into, you don't have to stay there."
Something snaps in me, then, and lights like a struck match. "Jack didn't get me into anything! And Nate's not a guy, Vic! He's the Grim Reaper! The frickin' Angel of Death!"
"No, no, I get it. He's the 'Angel of Death'...but he's also just a man."
No, he's not. He's not just a man, but I can tell that if I say as much it'll go in one ear and out the other. I purse my lips together. "I need to go back to him tonight."
"But tomorrow? Tomorrow let's go to the police?"
I know that won't happen. "Yeah, tomorrow."
He puts his arm around my shoulder as we stand, and we walk back the way we came. I can't see the homeless man anymore. Nate must have picked him up. I wish Vic could turn him in to someone... although I'm not sure whom. Who could turn Death in? And for what?
He saved my life.
Without him, my brother would be... and I would be... well, where would we be? The thought of going somewhere different and never knowing where is somewhat cheap, in a way. Like, what if we forget where we're from? Forget our memories? What makes us? What if I forget my family and my brother? My dreams and aspirations...?
Like Jack?
Vic pulls me into the tightest hug I can remember, and rubs my back gently. I don't realize it, but I'm crying. There are freaking tears rolling down my cheeks, and when I press my face into his chest, they dampen his shirt. I don't even know why I'm crying. It's not that death is sad anymore.
It's just frightening.
Vic makes shushing sounds against my ear, and it reminds me of the way a wave whispers against the sand. It unravels my tense shoulders, and I melt against him. We fit so perfectly, it's almost too right. He doesn't see me as anything more than a best friend, a partner in crime.
Somewhere under the loneliness that has settled in the pit of my stomach, there is a certain sense of...relief. He's my best friend, something that not even Death can take away.
"It'll be all right, love," he whispers into my hair. "We'll get through this together."
I wish I could believe that. I wish he could whisk me away from Nate and save me from the paperwork, from knowing how someone died, from reliving it paper after paper. But I think, because I know so much, a little of me has cracked open, and I'm not as whole as
I used to be.
He unfurls from me, and pulls a tress of my hair behind my ear. "Let's get you home."
I smile, trying to look too sad. "Yeah, home."
I lace my mitten-fingers into Vic's and squeeze his hand tightly. His are warm, unlike Nate's, and it reassures me. There's life as well as death. There's warmth with cold. There's good to evil.
"Your fingers are freezing!" he says, pulling my fingers up to his lips, and blows on them.
"They always are," I start to say, my words puffs of cold. The match inside of me flickers and whooshes to life, turning my blood to a warm, honey hum. It feels so nice to be warm. So intoxicatingly warm.
It feels like we are the only ones in the world—this cold, dead world of high-rise buildings, dark windows, and orange streetlights. But we aren't the only one. I can feel a shift in the air, and the smell of cinnamon and honey. Something in the distance catches my eye—no, someone. My stomach drops into my feet.
He's followed us. Or he's always been here. I can't really tell.
Vic nods approvingly, completely oblivious. I don't understand how he doesn't sense him. How he can be so completely oblivious. "Much warmer," he chuckles. "Almost on fire!"
If only he knew.
He brings my fingers to his lips, and blows on them. "Everything will be fine," he says into them. His jade eyes find mine, but I quickly look away. There are a million reasons why everything won't be fine. I killed my parents. I could kill him.
Death could kill him too, come to think about it.
The cold nips at my skin like sharp pinches, but my cheeks are so warm I don't notice, and my heart is beating so fast I don't care. Everything inside of me is growing hotter, like a fire, and singing like the stars. My shadow flickers behind me for a moment when I wonder if it's even mine, but who else's could it be?
Vic presses his forehead to mine, and this time his skin feels cold.
"You're glowing," he whispers as his skin begins go grow pale. His pores turn to ice and sparkle, as if they're filled with diamonds, and his light hair begins to shadow, colder and colder, until it becomes completely black. I lift my eyes to his again, and it's not Vic I see. It's not Vic at all.
It's Jack.
Our breaths mingling in a cloud between us, his eyes so deep I could fall head over heels into them, and there a certain twist in his smile as if he remembers, as if he knows how much time I've spent aching for him.
I don't even ask what happened to Vic. It's clear he hasn't been here the entire night, but instead of being frightened, or upset to have been tricked, I'm enthralled. I can't look away, afraid that when I blink it will be Vic again, and that Jack will just be a passing memory.
We stare at each other for what feels like years, our breaths in time, solid puffs of dry ice dissolving in harmony. Then he smiles one of those earth-shattering smiles, moves closer, so slowly, like glaciers, until his lips press against mine. The warmness from them radiates through my body like a rising sun, so intoxicating it shoos away what little cold is left in my toes.
"Missed me, sweetheart?" he asks, but his voice is strange and feathery, like the wind.
The heat inside of me is building, spreading its fingers across my skin like lava. It feels so good, so warm, like a blanket in a frigid room. The taste of ash lights on my tongue, and for a moment I think it's strange, but then all I can taste is firewood, and all I can smell is smoke, and all I want to do is kiss him.
I lean in to taste his lips.
"It is eleven oh one, Estella Rome," intones a dry, emotionless voice.
I wrench away, my eyes wide, and spin around toward the voice, fear replacing the warmth, coldness eating every millimeter of sunshine. The ash in my mouth turns bitter. There is something strange in Jack's face—rage? regret?—but he hides it as soon as we turn to the man in question.
"Nate," I say accusingly.
The Grim Reaper stands cloaked in the darkness between two lamplights. "Curfew, remember?"
I check my cell phone. My shock quickly transforms to agitation. "It's—it's two minutes over! Can't you give me a break?" I hiss angrily.
"Yeah," Jack adds, "let her off your leash for a little while. Let her have some fun."
Nate turns his pitless eyes to Jack. "You should apologize for taking her friend's guise."
"And you should learn to mind your own business," he rebukes.
I shoot a pleading look at Death, but his face doesn't show what he's thinking. It never does. "Nate, leave me alone."
"You told me to call the cops if you were late," he goes on monotonously. "So I did."
As if on cue, blue lights flicker down Main Street. Sirens erupt through the town like ghouls, echoing in the hollow, cold silence like shrills.
Jack sighs loudly beside me, and steps away. "Killyjoy," he mutters under his breath, and leans in to give me a quick peck on the cheek. My cheek stings where his lips touch my skin. I wince away, rubbing the pain away, but he doesn't seem to notice. "We'll pick this up again when your babysitter isn't around."
Then he takes a step back, and then another, before he begins to melt into snow and drift up into the night, a rush of frost against the brittle elm trees.
"Asshole!" I shout at Nate. "Butt out of my business!"
"He tricked you," he replied, folding his arms over his chest almost defensively. "That does not a date make."
"You're being an asshole right now," I snap.
"I did as you asked."
"You followed me."
"And he tricked you. Here is a question, perchance you care: where is your real friend, Victor?"
I open my mouth to respond, but the first police car pulls around the corner. He outstretches his hand to mine, as if to ask me to come on. I grit my teeth, because I'm not sure what other option I have. Reaching out, I grab his hand, and the world begins to swirl in a mass of black. My stomach flips, and I grow dizzy with the heady scent of honey and cinnamon, remembering the only other time I've ever disappeared with Nate. The first night I killed my parents. There had been flames around me then. I'd caught the car on fire.
Just before the shadows whisk us away, I glance back to the spot where I stood with Jack, and the smoldering scorch mark on the ground.
Chapter Six
Junk Food
"I hate you, you realize that, right?" I seethe the moment we materialize back to the house. He takes off his coat and throws it over the back of the couch, picking up the TV remote to turn it to Conan O'Brien. I scowl and storm into the kitchen. I need to eat something. Preferably chocolate.
It might sooth my crushed, dead soul.
Nate had no right to do that. Absolutely no right. Doesn't he understand boundaries? Doesn't he understand that I can't work twenty-four-seven? Is he really that heartless?
I'm beginning to second-guess myself nonetheless.
I snag a bag of orange peanut butter cups and tear through the first one hungrily.
"Are you sure you need that?" Nate asks from the living room.
About to eat it, I pause and turn my worst glare on him that I possibly can. All my hate goes into it, and if looks could kill, and I am very sure he'd be so dead he'd be alive—no pun intended. I move around into the living room. "Are you calling me fat?"
"I am saying, if you are so bothered by Rose then you should watch your—"
Before he can finish, I cram the candy into his mouth so far he can't spit it back out, and turn on my heels up the stairs.
I hear him gag.
I toss over my shoulder snidely, "Throw it up in the sink if you—"
A pillow slams into the back of my head, knocking me onto the staircase. I stumble back on my feet and whirl around, pillow in hand. "Did you really just do that?"
He puffs out his chest, the chocolate still in his mouth. He swallows it, and says in a level voice, "Do not walk away from me."
But that's when I catch it—the subtle tremor riding the edge of his voice, as if even he doesn't understand what it means. O
r what it is. Do not walk away from me. Not a command either, but a...a what?
"Do not walk away from me," he repeats. A plea, I realize, masked in a threat.
I don't know why I listen, but I do. Almost defeated, really, I climb down the stairs and put the pillow back on the couch. I flounce down on the far side of the sofa.
He hesitates for a moment before sitting down beside me, and rubs at the stitch in his neck. We sit there in silence until I can't stand the sound of my own breathing anymore.
"Wanna watch a movie?" I ask, like ripping off a band-aid.
"Not really."
I roll my eyes. "Well, I didn't walk away from you."
"You should return to work."
There isn't another sound in the house, where there should be the scratchy scribbling of another assistant. "I don't hear Rose working."
He looks down into his lap. "No, I suppose not."
Sighing, I get up and take my seat at the dining room table. The stacks of death certificates haven’t even been touched. For someone who's been managing death for eons, it sure as hell would go to shit without me.
I pick up a pen beside a huge stack of papers, take the first certificate, and begin filling out information for a man who died this afternoon at 4:30 from a heart attack. I don't need references, or consultants, to know that's when he died. No one told me—I just know. Like people know how to breathe, I know how they died, why they died, and whom they left behind.
Once, only Nate knew this stuff, but something went down a few centuries ago between him and Eshe. Something big, I'd wager. Since then, he's taken up assistants throughout time. Rumor has it, Edgar Allen Poe was one of his assistants for a while, but I'm not sure how much I believe that.
A few minutes later, a door upstairs opens and someone tiptoes down the steps. "Oh, you're home!" a fluttery voice exclaims.
I don't even look up. "Of course I'm home, Rose."
"It was just an observation. No need to be snippy," she sniffs indignantly and flips back a curtain of platinum blond hair. She smells like lavender, fresh from the shower, so she must be going out tonight. "I just thought since you had a date earlier..."
