Reaper (The Reaper Chronicles Book 1)

by Apryl Baker

  “How’s school?” I need something to distract me from my own thoughts, and listening to Cec talk about school might be the ticket.

  “It’s good. I mean the first few days were extra weird since someone hit you in the school parking lot. Lots of stares and whispers, but Jordan told them all to shove it.”

  “Jordan?”

  “You remember Eli’s friend? We met him that first day.”

  Oddly, no, I don’t. I don’t remember anything about that day aside from arriving at school, and then it’s a big blank, other than Eli. I don’t know why I remember him when I can’t remember much of anything else. Maybe it’s the whole Guardian Angel thingy?

  “Head trauma, remember?”

  “Ohhhh! Sorry.” She flashes me a smile. “He’s really, really cute, and he’s been so protective since your accident. Mom likes him. He walked me up here a few days ago.”

  “And Dad?”

  Cecily grimaces. “He wasn’t thrilled because Jordan is a junior and I’m just a freshman.”

  I could have told her that. Dad’s cranky when it comes to boys, especially older boys.

  “He likes Eli, though.”

  He would, since it’s apparently Eli’s job to protect me.

  “Did they tell you Eli’s the one who did CPR and brought you back?”

  That, I didn’t know.

  “He saw the car hit you and ran to where you were and started CPR right away. The doctor said if it wasn’t for Eli, you might not have even made it. He kept blood pumping to your heart and oxygen to your brain. It’s probably why your brain bounced back.”

  I don’t think so, but I refrain from telling her that.

  “You almost died, Ella.” Tears pool in her eyes. “You scared me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I squeeze her hand as best I can with an IV taped to the top of it.

  “Please don’t do that again.”

  “I’ll try.” I know better than to promise her it won’t happen again. With dangerous ghosts, it might.

  “So, this whole ghost thing…is it real? I mean, really real?”

  “It is.”

  “You really saw one?”

  I start to nod and stop myself before I cause an even bigger headache. “Yeah. Scared the crap out of me.”

  “So, what happens when they show up?”

  “I’m supposed to help them understand they’re dead and that they need to move on.”

  “Sounds super scary.”

  “If you could have seen the ghost in here before, you’d run screaming from the room. It’s why the salt is important. It keeps them out of the room.”

  “And its true Eli’s somehow your Guardian Angel?”

  “I guess.”

  “That’s so romantic!” Cecil’s eyes fill with ideas of grandeur that I need to squash.

  “Don’t even go there, Cecily.”

  “Jordan says Eli doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t want a boyfriend. Right now, all I want is to get better and try to deal with ghosts popping up every few minutes.”

  “And you both need to zip it.” Dad looks pissed. What did we do?

  “My job is to locate supernatural creatures and find out what makes them tick. My supervisor is on her way here, and all talk of ghosts and reapers and Guardian Angels need to stop. If they find out what you can do, Ella Grace, I don’t know if I can protect you. As far as they know, you were involved in a shady hit and run. We need to clean up the salt. I know what that means for you, but they can’t suspect a thing. If General Griggs comes into the room, you need to pretend to be asleep. Don’t engage. This is important, girls.”

  “Daddy, you’re scaring me,” Cecily whispers.

  “Good, you need to be scared. We have to protect your sister, and that means no one can know what she can do outside of those who already do. Not Jordan, not your friends at school, no one. Do you understand me?”

  Cecily nods.

  Dad tosses her the car keys. “You and your mother, go home. Tell your mom she can come back later, but right now I need you both away from here.”

  Dad really is scaring me. When he admitted why he was here, why he’d dragged us here, it made me look at him differently. I lost respect for him. To harm something he doesn’t understand just because he can, that’s not right. I hate that he does it and that I know about it.

  But right now, I see just how much he’s scared of what they’ll do to me, and the fear settles deep into the pit of my stomach. Cecily doesn’t say another word; she just takes the keys and goes in search of our mother. Daddy starts cleaning up the salt with a broom and dustpan he must have gotten from the nurses’ station.

  “This sucks, Daddy.”

  “Language,” he says absently as he looks around, searching for signs of anything out of the ordinary.

  “Window,” I remind him, and he goes to clean up the salt line. “We should never have come here.”

  “I agree, but it’s too late now, sweet pea. We’re in it.”

  “I’m not one of your soldiers, Daddy. I didn’t need to be in it. You should have left us in Phoenix. You yanked Cecily out of school during her freshman year, and then I ended up getting hit by a car.”

  “Your sister’s fine.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s not like me. She’s not numb to being yanked out of school after school after school. This is her freshman year!”

  Dad finally stops cleaning up salt and looks at me. “What are you saying, Ella?”

  “That we shouldn’t be here. None of this would have happened if you didn’t drag us around like our happiness means nothing to you. You should have left us at least until school was over for the year.”

  “I’m a soldier, Ella.”

  “But we’re not soldiers, Daddy.”

  Dad dumps the swept-up salt into the trash and falls heavily into the chair beside the small wastebasket.

  “I know you’re not soldiers.”

  “Do you, though? Or did you just convince yourself that none of this affects us? Do you care that we hate every new first day of school where people stare and whisper? Where we don’t have the same friends in the same cliques for the last ten years? Do you just not care about us at all?”

  “Where is this coming from?” he asks, confused. “You’ve never said anything like this before…”

  “I’ve never been hit by a car before and almost died!”

  A throat is cleared, and we both turn to see a woman standing there in the standard Army green. She’s older than my dad by a good decade, but she seems younger than he is, if that makes sense. I can’t explain it, but that’s the truth.

  “General Griggs.” Dad jumps to his feet and stands at attention.

  “Major.” The general nods to my dad and then looks to me. “This must be Ella.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She comes into the room, her gaze sweeping over it with an eagle-eyed precision. “You very nearly gave your father a heart attack. I’m glad to see you awake.”

  “And arguing,” Dad says dryly.

  A small hint of a smile crosses the woman’s expression. “My own kids were never happy about having to move around so much and were always vocal about their displeasure. It’s the sacrifice we must make to keep our country safe.”

  I don’t like this woman. She feels off, like she’s coated in a layer of slime. She’s a slug of evil proportions. And if she knew what I was, she’d lock me up and do things until she decided to autopsy me.

  “The good news is this posting is for several years, at least, so you won’t be moving for a good long while. The university here is very selective as well. They didn’t even accept my youngest, who has an exemplary academic record. The school library is open to students of Jacob Falls High.”

  “She’s not going to be up to that. She’ll be here for a while, and the doctor already told me he doesn’t think she’ll make it back to class before they’re out for the summer. I spoke with the school, and t
hey’re fine with her doing her work remotely so she doesn’t fall behind due to no fault of her own.”

  “That’s wonderful. Henry, can we have a word outside?”

  “Of course.” Dad gets up and drops a kiss on my head like nothing’s wrong. I guess to him, maybe it’s not. He’s wrong about us never telling him how unhappy we are; he just doesn’t want to acknowledge it. And that’s the saddest thing of all. He puts his job ahead of our happiness.

  If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be in this position.

  But that’s Dad. It’s how it’s always been and how it’ll always be.

  And that really sucks for all of us.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Eli

  There’s something wrong, but it’s not off the charts wrong. Just something that’s making her uncomfortable. Maybe Ella’s talking with her family about her newfound abilities. It would make sense. She’s not comfortable in her newborn reaper skin yet.

  And she’s probably starving. When I woke up in Jacob’s Falls General and they fed me that crap they call broth, all I wanted was real food. That, and my mom. I really wanted my mom, but it was explained to me that wasn’t an option anymore. If I wanted to live, then I had to play by the rules.

  I wanted to live.

  Which meant saying goodbye to Eli Malone forever.

  It meant saying goodbye to the entire Malone family forever.

  And it hurts. Sometimes I wake up from a nice dream about them, about us as a family, and it’s all I can do to just breathe through the pain of losing them. When that happens, I wonder if I made the right choice. Should I have just stayed dead?

  But if I had, Ella would be here defenseless.

  My mom always said things happened for a reason. My reason for being before was so Mattie could defeat a Fallen Angel and I could free my family from a centuries-old curse. My reason now is Ella.

  And I’ll take that seriously.

  Mattie was different. I fell hard for her the minute her right hook connected with my eye and I found myself face first in the dirt. She was sassy and had a mouth on her, but at the same time she was loyal and loved the people she called family to her own detriment. The bond I shared with her as her Guardian Angel got all screwed up with my feelings for her. It wasn’t until right as I died and I felt our bond weaken that I understood I loved her. Me. Eli. Not her Guardian Angel.

  What I’m feeling for Ella right now is concern. There’s no love there. I want to keep her safe, but I understand it. It’s the Guardian Angel bond. I’m hoping we can be friends. I need a friend, and I’m guessing so does Ella.

  It’ll be a long time before I get over Mattie, if I ever do. There’s not a girl alive that I’ve ever met that can even compare to her. I’ve seen the calculating wheels turning in Cecily’s head, and I have to put that wheedling to bed. I don’t want her mixing up Ella.

  I’ll have to talk to Cecily sooner rather than later.

  The Coffee Shoppe has my order ready when I pull up. I give them a twenty and tell them to keep the change.

  One good thing about being Marco’s pseudo-grandson is that I’m not without money. He doesn’t have a son and never will. Male Nephilim can’t impregnate a human. He’ll never have an heir. He’s taken me on as his own, and I’ve promised him to do my best to uphold the family name. He has more money than I can spend in a thousand lifetimes. And that will be mine one day, but until then, I have a debit card, a credit card, and my own vehicle.

  All in all, Marco McGreggor has done right by me. He’s a good man.

  Which makes me wonder about the mess Ella’s dad has gotten himself into and just how good of a man he is. He knowingly took supernaturals and experimented on them. Yes, my family is hunters, but we hunted evil creatures, not innocent people like shifters. True that there are good and bad among all the creatures, but I don’t think Major Banks sees the difference.

  How could anyone do that? The Malones put creatures down, but we didn’t torture them or experiment on them. We did it as quickly as we could.

  To be fair, I never really looked at creatures as good and bad until I met Mattie Hathaway, who is part reaper, part demon, part god. My own prejudices ruined what the two of us had, and I had to look hard at myself and my preconceived notions. I had to admit there were good people on the side of the monsters.

  I have friends now who are shifters, who are witches, and even some who are part demon. I see the struggle they go through to stay on the side of good. It’s not easy for them. Take my friend Jordan, for example. His father is a demon from the innermost circle of Hell. He works hard to keep from giving in to his urge to do bad things. Before Mattie, I would have put him down without stopping to wonder if the human part of him is stronger than the demonic side. Because of her, I’m open to a world that before was black and white. Now it’s a world full of color and shades of gray.

  And I have Mattie to thank for that.

  Which is why I’m determined to help Ella. Mattie had no one to help her once she woke up seeing ghosts. She never got help with it until she met my brother Dan when she was sixteen. Dan was there for her, and I’m glad. It forged a deep bond between them that became unbreakable. I shake my head, cleaning it of painful memories.

  Ella is who needs my help now. I’m going to be there for her the way Dan was there for Mattie. She’ll know she’s not crazy and that no matter how scared she is, I’ll always be by her side. She needs me, I’m there.

  Putting my Jeep back in gear, I make my way to the hospital. It’s not far from everyone’s favorite restaurant. I’m not sure if you call it a restaurant or a diner, but whatever classification you give the beloved Coffee Shoppe, it’s Jacob’s Fork’s favorite food spot, be it breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

  It only takes minutes before I repark the Jeep and get out. The very first thing I see is a van. My dad used to be an FBI agent. I recognize the vehicle for what it is—a surveillance van. And they’re not very good either. Two soldiers wearing fatigues are in the front seat. Shaking my head, I go into the hospital and stop long enough to shoot both Marco and the sheriff a text letting them know we have visitors at the hospital.

  What bothers me is that I don’t know if they’re here for Ella or for something else. Either way, it’s not cool.

  And they’d better not be here for my charge. They won’t like it.

  But as I’m standing there to the side behind a big potted plant, I discover they’re not my biggest problem.

  “She’s alive. Woke up earlier.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My girlfriend’s a nurse here. She told me.”

  “There’s no way she survived that. I hit her at sixty miles an hour.”

  When I hear that, my blood boils, but I have enough sense not to let it go to my head or to let my temper overpower everything else. My priority is protecting Ella, and that means from the Army people outside. If they see what I can do, I’ll be the one on the inside of a medical room being experimented on, and Ella will be defenseless.

  See, even I learn sometimes.

  So, instead of charging ahead with arms swinging, I slip into the elevator and go up to Ella’s floor, all the while sending a 911 text to the sheriff with what I overheard.

  The major is talking to a woman when I step onto the floor. I wave at him and hold up the food bags. He nods absently, and I frown, noticing the woman’s wearing a uniform. He looks distracted, which worries me.

  Slipping into Ella’s room, the first thing I see is that the salt line I’d put down is gone, and Ella is huddled by herself, her eyes searching every corner of the room.

  “Ella?”

  She looks over at me, her eyes a little wild. She puts a shaky finger to her lips, and it doesn’t take much to know it’s not safe to talk. The Army lady. Has to be.

  “I brought you some actual food. I remember what the food here tastes like, and it’s total crap.”

  I sit on her bed, so I’m facing the door. If anyone comes in with the intent to hur
t her, I’ll be the first person they see.

  “I hope you like cheeseburgers. No one makes a burger like The Coffee Shoppe.”

  “I can’t have bread.”

  “I know you can’t eat regular bread because of the diabetes, but this bun is made from whole grain. Buns are made fresh daily. You’re not the only diabetic in the Forks.”

  “Really? They have whole grain?”

  I grin and pass her the burger marked with a WG. Mine is regular. Thank God, I have no dietary restrictions.

  “I’m not sure I can eat, honestly. My throat is sore, and I’m still queasy.”

  “I brought a backup in case you didn’t think you could eat the burger.” I pull out the sugar free frozen yogurt and hand it to her with a spoon. “Sugar free and homemade.”

  Her eyes go wide. “Sugar free?”

  “Just don’t tell the nurses. You’re not supposed to have anything like this for a couple days.”

  My phone chirps. The sheriff is on his way.

  “Who’s the suit talking to your dad?”

  “His boss.”

  I grunt. Not much to say to that.

  “I don’t like her. She feels icky.”

  That’s a good description. Thanks to my Angel blood, I can see people’s auras. The woman’s, as well as Ella’s father’s, is covered in a dark sticky substance mixed in with a variety of other colors, like neither can figure out if they’re good or bad.

  “Speaking of icky, that’s not on your approved list of food.”

  The nurse comes in, and we both grimace, Ella with the spoon halfway to her mouth. She’s relieved of the ice cream with some exasperation.

  “What did the doctor say?” the nurse asks. It’s not one of Ella’s regular nurses, but then again, I don’t know every nurse in the hospital. But the guy downstairs said his girlfriend was a nurse. I’m immediately suspicious.

  “To take it easy.” Ella smiles, her face lighting up even through her weariness. “I’m sorry. I’ve been queasy since I woke up. I was hoping the ice cream might settle my stomach.”

  The nurse sighs. “As long as you don’t tell them I let you have this, then I think it’ll be okay.” She turns to look at me. “No more food that’s not approved.”