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“Why would he do that?” Scout folded his arms across his chest, looking me over. “The body is expired. It’s not like he’s going to be walking around for long. Look at him, for Christ’s sake.”

“Hey, fuck you too, Casper,” I snapped. Hearing that I looked like shit was the last thing I needed right now. Especially from some dead, pretty-boy asshole.

Scout snorted and walked around the table to look me over. A shiver rolled over my skin the closer he got. I stepped back until the backs of my knees hit the couch cushion.

Scout raised a brow and laughed. “I’ve seen one of these guys. Blond one a few years back. Stole a soul right out from under me. I’d thought he was another reaper at the time, but after the ass-chewing I got from Balthazar, I figured out he was something else. Although I think he was more pissed that there was one of you guys running for the other team.”

Blond one. Noah. He was talking about Noah. “Maybe he was trying to save the soul from that hellhole of nothingness you were delivering it to.”

Scout raised a brow and looked at Finn. “What hellhole? You must be thinking of Easton, kid. I don’t deliver downstairs. I don’t like to get my hands that dirty. I deal strictly with the Inbetween.”

“No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I’m talking about you. I saw what happens to those souls. You talk about how much you hate the scum lurking outside your door. Why the hell do you help turn them into that, then?”

“Cash?” Finn leaned down to catch my gaze. “They don’t all end up like that. Lots are reborn. And the ones that don’t get that opportunity are there for a reason. There’s something dark they won’t let go of.”

“What about Em?” I countered. “What could she have possibly done to deserve that?”

He seemed surprised that I knew but didn’t dwell on it. Instead, a look of guilt flashed over his face. “She was doomed because of me. It was against the rules for us to be together, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t let her go.”

“And that’s why you did what you did to save her.”

Finn nodded and Scout spoke up. “Look, we aren’t going to tell you the system isn’t flawed. It is. But it is what it is. There has to be some kind of order. Some kind of consequence or the world would go to shit.”

I needed to tell him about Noah. I needed to tell Anaya. I was so done with all of the secrets. Nothing was what it seemed. And, for that matter, nothing was turning out to be the way Noah said it was. What kind of game was this guy playing with me? And if Anaya wasn’t around when my time ran out, what exactly was going to happen to me? It had been hard enough just to escape my room tonight. And if I couldn’t trust Noah, either, I didn’t stand a chance. Damn it, I was so screwed. I wasn’t going to escape this no matter how long I hid in Finn’s apartment.

I stepped around the table and paced the room. My throat was closing up. I felt dizzy. God…was this shit ever going to end? I couldn’t take any more.

“I can’t…I can’t…” I pressed my fists into my eyes and tried to catch my breath. I couldn’t
breathe
.

“Hey.” Finn settled a hand on my shoulder. “Sit down before you pass out.”

I let him lead me over to the couch and fell backward into the cushions.

Scout leaned over to squint at me. “He’s losing it.”

Finn shot him a cold glare. “Leave him alone. He didn’t choose this.”

I couldn’t even form words. My tongue felt dead in my mouth. Pain blossomed in my stomach and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room. No, no, no! I needed to warn him about Noah. Maybe Noah wasn’t working for the shadow demons. Maybe he’d gone rogue and was some kind of vigilante for the afterlife. Even as the theories spun to life in my head, I knew they didn’t feel right. Something inside Noah was dark. I just prayed that same darkness didn’t live inside me.

Chapter 25

Cash

My eyes were throbbing behind my closed lids. Pulsing in the thin veil of darkness that separated me from the rest of the world. I’d only been asleep for an hour, if that, when I felt it start to creep over my skin. The warmth.
Her
warmth. It was all I needed to feel for sparks to ignite across the dark, burning me into awareness.

I heard the blur of whispers in the next room. Quiet. Urgent. Clearly not wanting me to hear what they were saying. Screw that. I was over the secrets. I groaned and sat up, raking my fingers through my hair like a comb. It didn’t help. I could see myself in the reflection of Finn’s crappy TV. Disorderly black spikes stuck up in every direction on top of my head. Like it mattered anyway. I was at death’s doorstep. I don’t think anyone was expecting me to look my best.

Seven a.m. sunshine doused the dusty living room through the sheer white curtains that covered the window. I crept across the room and stopped at Finn’s bedroom door. I pressed my palms on the doorframe and leaned in to listen to the voices on the other side.

“I don’t have another choice,” Anaya whispered. “You have to help me convince him.”

Finn laughed. “You honestly think he’d listen to me?”

“Yes.”

Footsteps caused the floorboards to groan. “You’re delusional if you believe that,” Finn said. “Besides, this is beyond screwed up, Anaya. He has rights.”

“According to Balthazar, those rights have been removed,” she hissed. “Look. I realize this is unfair but it’s the better of two horrible options.”

Uncomfortable silence spread throughout the bedroom until it made its way around the doorframe, where it wrapped around me like a tourniquet. Strangling me. What options?

“You have no idea what they would do to him down there,” she whispered. “I’ve seen it.”

She’d seen what? Did this have to do with Noah? I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and stepped around the doorframe. Anaya spun around and her gold eyes turned into big flaming saucers. Finn barely glanced at me before his gaze found his sneakers.

“You’ve seen what?” I said. “What’s going on?”

Anaya stepped forward, blending in with the sunshine around her, making her look almost human. “Cash…” She closed her mouth like she didn’t know where to go from here.

“Tell him,” Finn said, his gaze trained on Anaya. “Tell him what you want me to do.”

She never broke her gaze from mine. Almost as if she were hoping I’d pull the answers out of her without her having to say the words.

“Tell me what?” I stepped forward, shaking. Shaking so hard I could feel my bones rattling together. “No more secrets. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I need you to let him help you die,” she said.

“What?”

“Kill you,” Finn snapped. “She wants me to kill you.”

I looked to Anaya, wanting her to tell me he was lying. She didn’t.

“It’s the only way I can save you.” She stepped forward. “I don’t want to watch you suffer anymore. I
can’t
.”

My feet took a step away from her without my brain telling them to.

“Tell him the rest, Anaya,” Finn said. He folded his arms across the black T-shirt stretched over his chest.

She glared at Finn, then looked back to me. “If we do this now, we can assure I’m the one to collect you and not the shadows. And I can save you this way, Cash. I can get you to where you were meant to go. If we do this, I can get you across the gates before he finds out. He can’t touch you once you’re there. Neither of them can.”

Her words were floating around in my head like balloons without the strings attached. I shook my head, hoping they’d fall into place and make some kind of sense. She wanted me to give up.
Die.

“They?” My heart pounded and I rubbed my palm over my chest. “Do you mean Noah?”

Anaya and Finn exchanged a confused glance. “Noah? Is he the one who’s been telling you things? Is he how you know what you are?”

Don’t tell them. They’ll destroy you just as quickly as they would me if they ever caught me.

Noah’s voice echoed in my mind like poison. I pushed it out. Anaya didn’t want to hurt me. She cared about me. Or maybe she just cared about some dead guy I used to be. Either way, I trusted her.

“He’s like me,” I admitted. “He’s a shadow walker. He said I couldn’t trust you. That if I went with you I’d be responsible for turning souls into shadow demons.”

Cautiously, Anaya stepped toward me. “Cash, listen to me. He is dangerous. He’s been feeding you lies.”

“Why would he do that?” I said. “You said it yourself, I’m too valuable to be tossed aside as meat. What could he want me for?”

“He’s been enslaved to Umbria for Almighty knows how long,” she said, solemnly. I watched a braid fall across her face and she gently pushed it away. “He’s recruiting you.”

“I know.” I stumbled back against the doorframe feeling weak and hating every second of it. “He helps souls escape. He gives them peace.”

“Peace?” Anaya scoffed. “He delivers them to shadow demons in Umbria to be eaten! Open your eyes. See him for what he is. Maybe he was a good soul once. One with a heart and a conscience, but not anymore. He’s a puppet. He’s a puppet that’s been sent to bring you in.”

I braced my palms on my knees and breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. The room was starting to spin around me. Noah lied to me. He was going to use me just like this Balthazar guy wanted to.

“You can either be at peace with working for Balthazar, or go through with my plan to get you through the gates. If you refuse both of these options, then the shadow demons
will
collect you. And what they use you for will be far worse. I promise you that.”

This was a nightmare. I rubbed my cold palms over my face trying to scrub away the dumb look I could feel settled there.

“If you don’t want to do this, you could always go along with Balthazar’s plan,” she said. “Working for Balthazar may not seem like an ideal eternity, but it’s better than what’s on the other side.”

“Don’t feed him that bullshit,” Finn spoke up. He sneered at her from across the room, his eyes haunted. “Don’t delude him into believing this life is anything more than a prison sentence. A nightmare. He’ll just hate you for it later.”

“Stay out of this, Finn!”

“I don’t understand,” I whispered, leaning my forehead against the doorframe. “Why the sudden urgency? You were fine with turning me over to your boss just a few days ago.” I pushed away from the door, anger sending energy I didn’t know I had into each of my limbs. I clenched my fists, betrayal thick in my throat. She still wasn’t telling me everything. Even after all we’d been through together.

“I thought Tarik was in Heaven. And my family.” Anaya’s voice shook with the force of her words. Words that were about to decimate me. “He promised to allow me to cross if I protected you and delivered you when the time came.”

My heart shuddered and throbbed and tore to pieces in my chest. I took a deep breath and winced when my lungs swelled with pain. “It was all bullshit, then?”

Anaya looked up, pain flashing across her face. “No!”

“But you weren’t going to hesitate,” I said. “Before you knew I had his soul…”

She was going to throw me to the wolves to get what she wanted. She didn’t give a damn about me. All she cared about was some poor bastard who had been dead and buried for a thousand years. And I wasn’t him. I didn’t
want
to be him.

Anaya rushed forward. “Cash, wait. You don’t understand—”

I backed out of the room and grabbed my shoes. I shoved them on. Didn’t even bother to tie them. “Get away from me,” I muttered.

Anaya touched my shoulder and I jerked away. “Stay away from me, Anaya.” My words broke apart when I looked at her. I’d let her in. Let her see all of me. And this is what she gave me in return. I couldn’t even swallow through the pain. “Whatever this was…it was just a lie.”

“No, it wasn’t.” She sounded panicked as she followed me out the door and into the sun. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what he wanted you for in the beginning. If there was another way, I swear—”

I climbed into my Bronco and shut the door to block out her words. No. I didn’t want to hear her. I couldn’t. Not now. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and cranked the ignition until the engine roared to life under the hood. I wasn’t sure how fast my Bronco could go, but I hoped it was fast enough to outrun death.

Chapter 26

Anaya

He hated me.

He had to after everything I’d done. Everything I’d asked of him. But I didn’t know another way. And I couldn’t stand lying to him another minute. Pulling my knees up to my chest, I looked out over Cash’s backyard from the roof of his house. A few lights inside glowed with life, casting shadows across the clean concrete slab where Emma’s house used to sit before the fire that had changed everything. The billowing clouds overhead looked like smoke as they rumbled and spat out little droplets of rain. The music vibrating Cash’s studio walls cut off and I sat up when the door creaked open. Cash stepped out into the rain, not even bothering to shield himself. It pelted his scalp and within seconds his black hair was dripping over his forehead. His blue T-shirt turned to paint against his skin. I had to squeeze my eyes shut when the memory of Tarik kissing me in the rain swept over me.

“Are you going to stay up there all night?” he finally said. When I opened my eyes he looked so tired, worn down. I scooted to the edge of the roof and let my legs dangle over the sides.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to come in.”

“I don’t.” He pushed the wet hair out of his face. “But that’s probably not going to stop you, now is it?”

He didn’t say anything else. Just walked back into his studio and left the door open so the light could be swallowed up by the night. Another clap of thunder shook the house and a bright purple streak of lightning cracked the sky in half, illuminating a few shadow demons creeping around the walls of the studio. I stared at the open door. He was angry. But he wouldn’t have left that door open if he didn’t feel anything for me anymore. Some part of him still cared. Still wanted this. I hopped off the roof and headed for the studio.

When I got inside, Cash was peeling off his soaked T-shirt. He tossed it into the corner of the room and glanced up at me, shivering. His arms glittered with gold paint.

“You’re cold,” I said.

“No shit, Sherlock.” He shook his head and sat on the bar stool in front of a canvas. “So, Dr. Kevorkian. You here to finish the job yourself? I bet that blade of yours would do the trick.”

Something inside me cracked at the sound of his voice. So bitter. Angry. It didn’t sound anything like the boy leaving whispers in the hollow of my neck. If I still had the ability to cry, I knew tears would have been streaming down my cheeks. Instead the pain all stayed locked up inside.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice shattering. Just like the rest of me. “I know you don’t believe me, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it even if you weren’t Tarik—”

“I am
not
Tarik,” he snapped. “I’m just me. If that’s not enough for you, then I don’t know what to tell you. Sorry for your loss, I guess.”

I flinched as each one of his words struck me like a slap in the face.

“I know you’re not!” I shook, balling up the sides of my dress in my fists. “I don’t want you to be. And I’ll find another way if that’s what you want. Just please…
please
don’t hate me.”

“What happens to you, Anaya?”

“What do you mean?”

Cash stared at his canvas, at the half-painted portrait of a sad girl with golden eyes. He was painting me.

“I mean what happens to you if you don’t follow through for him?” he said. “What happens if you do this? If you let me cross the gates without his permission?”

I swallowed, trying to force that annoying ache down my throat. It wouldn’t budge.

“Anaya?”

“I’ll be banished,” I said. “To Hell.”

Cash placed his hands on his knees and closed his eyes. He was shaking from the inside out.

“Well, that option’s out.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” I took a hesitant step forward. “I’d do it. I’d do it for you.”

“For me…or for Tarik?” Cash said, so quiet I almost didn’t hear.

He might as well have slapped me in the face. How could he think that? I had told him I’d go to Hell for him! Didn’t that mean anything? Had I loved Tarik? Yes. But the connection I felt now was to this boy. This boy who was so wonderfully different and right for me that being in the room with him tilted my world off-balance. “How could you even ask me that?” I whispered.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “Whatever I do, I belong to someone else.”

I just looked at him.

“If I go along with this, I’ll belong to this Balthazar guy. If I don’t, then I belong to the shadow demons just like Noah.” He stopped and took a deep breath, turned around to face me. His eyes branded every part of me. “And everywhere in between, it feels like I belong to you.”

“Cash…”

He stood up and stepped into me. My shimmer sparked off his skin. His breath fanned across my face. Sweet. Heated, despite how cold the rest of him was.

“I really want to hate you,” he whispered and reached up to brush a braid off my shoulder. When the braid turned to vapor between his fingers, his jaw clenched. He focused on his fingers and the braid became solid in his grasp. I closed my eyes as Cash’s touch forced gravity to take hold of my skin. It burned as it took on the form of something I’d left behind so many years ago I’d lost count. Once I was solid, Cash pushed the braid off my shoulder, letting his fingers slide over my shoulder blade, and I opened my eyes. He stared at the strap of my dress.

“Why can’t I hate you?”

It was only a whisper. I never realized a whisper could hold so much emotion. Could sound so tortured. I couldn’t stand a sound like that coming out of his mouth. So I did the only thing I could think of to make sure the sound didn’t come out again. I leaned up on my tiptoes and pressed my mouth to his.

His lips were so cold against my mine that I wondered if I was burning him. I started to pull away to check, but Cash wound his arms around my back and crushed me closer. So close the air between us was lost. So close, I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began. Vaguely, I realized our legs were moving. A clumsy dance that landed us on the sofa in the corner of the room. All the way, he never broke the kiss. That kiss worked like stitches. It was the only thing holding either of us together. Trapping the hurt inside. I was terrified of the pain that would spill out when it ended, so I didn’t let it. Cash lay back on the sofa and I straddled his hips without him having to guide me. His hands slid up my thighs and gripped my hips. His mouth opened a little wider under mine and I gasped at the dull sensations that flowed through me, growing stronger by the second. He wasn’t just forcing my flesh into existence. He was making me feel things I hadn’t felt since a heart had beaten with life in my chest. My hands wandered over the smooth, hard lines of his chest, trying to memorize every dip and ridge and muscle. When my fingers brushed over his bare stomach, Cash groaned, his hips lifting to press into me as if he wasn’t in control of his own body.

“Anaya…” My name rested like a plea against his lips and all I could feel was his mouth working its way down my throat. The fire in my veins. The electricity that his fingertips created. A blue ribbon of energy wrapped around us, binding us, and nothing had ever felt so right. Cash’s hand worked between us and flipped open the button of his jeans, and a flare of heat exploded to life at my side. My blade. Oh God… I pulled away gasping, my palm glowing against his chest. He was so close the heat drained out of me in an instant, replaced by fear.

I looked down at Cash. My braids created a wall around our faces. My eyes the only light in our little safe haven. He reached up and cupped the side of my face, trying to catch his breath.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I’m not supposed to see it coming.” His voice cracked. He knew how close he was. He felt it too. “I don’t want to see it coming, Anaya.”

“I know,” I whispered.

His dark eyes searched my face. For what, I wasn’t sure. He rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip, so soft it made me tremble.

“I’ll go,” he finally said. “I’ll do whatever Balthazar wants me to do.”

“Cash—”

“If it means I get to keep you,” he said, pressing his finger to my lips to quiet me. “If it means we can have more of this. Then I’ll do anything.”

I sat up and placed my hands on his chest. He felt like ice under my palms. He felt like he was already dead.

“You have no idea what you’re saying.”

Cash followed me up, so that his face was only an inch from mine.

“For once in my life, I know exactly what I’m saying,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone, Anaya. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this isn’t going to work with me alive and you dead. It isn’t going work if I’m in Heaven and you’re in Hell. There is only one option that gives us a chance.”

Cash’s eyes swept over my face. His hand reached up to tuck a braid behind my ear.

“I feel like I’ve been waiting for you for a thousand years,” he whispered. “I’m taking that option.”

I searched his eyes for some kind of doubt. Something that said he was only saying these words out of fear. Or desire. The only thing I could see was certainty. And love.

“You’re sure?”

He nodded and tugged me down to brush his lips against mine.

“It’s weird,” he whispered against my lips. “Not even you can make me warm anymore. It must not be far off.”

I pushed Cash back down onto the sofa and curled up beside him. Wrapped every part of myself around him, trying to lend him my heat. He wound his arms around me and closed his eyes.

“How is it going to happen?” he asked.

“When your body gives out…I’ll reap your soul.”

“With the blade?” He sounded nervous.

I laughed. “Yeah. But it won’t hurt. It will be a relief. No more pain. And then I’ll take you to Balthazar.”

I waited for him to ask me what exactly Balthazar would want him to do, but he never did. I had a feeling he didn’t really want to know. I raked my fingers through his damp hair and pressed a kiss to his temple.

“What happens if you don’t get here in time?”

His voice carried the force of an atom bomb in the silence, even though it was only a whisper. I could feel him shaking, so I smoothed my hand over his arm.

“I’ll get here in time,” I said.

“You can’t promise that,” he said quietly. “I need to know what to do if you don’t get here and they do. Noah’s stronger than me. And he’s good at what he does.”

It took me a minute to find the words. I didn’t want to say them, but he was right. It was unrealistic to think that there was no chance of that happening. Especially when the dead kept pulling me away.

“Then you do what they say.” I closed my eyes and squeezed his arm. “You do whatever you have to do to stay safe until I can get to you.”

He didn’t say anything. Just nodded and blew out a shaky breath. A breath that sounded like it held enough fear for the both of us.

“Go to sleep,” I whispered.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “I don’t want to wake up as someone else. I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready for any of it.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said, trying so hard to sound confident. Honestly, I didn’t know how this worked. I’d never met a soul that had lived as many lives as Cash. The only kind of souls that stayed in circulation that long were the ones that continued to search for something. They never felt resolved, so they continued on their path, life after life. Death after death. It was amazing he’d made it this long. And just when his journey was about to end…I kept him from it. I rested my head against his.

“You wouldn’t be happy if I came out the other side of this Tarik?”

I turned his face so that my eyes could see his. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because…he’s not you.”

Cash wound around me a little tighter.

“Tell me what you were like,” he murmured, sleep pulling him under. “When you were alive.”

I thought back, something I didn’t let myself do very often. Usually the pain was too great. But now it wasn’t so bad. The past wasn’t nearly as scary when you had a piece of it in your present. I rested in the groove of his arm and smiled.

“My father was a fisherman,” I said. “He even owned his own boat.”

“Really?” Cash’s cheek rose with his smile. “Did he ever take you with him?”

“Sometimes,” I said. “But mainly I helped my mother. Sometimes I would burn the bread just so I’d have something to feed the birds on the beach after Father sailed away. I used to think if I fed them and sent them off with a prayer, that they’d keep watch over him. Keep him safe somehow.”

“Did they?”

I swallowed the bit of pain that rose up my throat like bile. “No. One day he sailed away and never came back. The sea took him away…and it decided to keep him.” I paused, wondering if I should tell him the rest. Cash’s voice echoed in my mind:
no more secrets, Anaya
.

“It took Tarik, too,” I said.

Cash went still beneath me. He didn’t even breathe.

“We were going to be married,” I went on. “So Father gave him a job on the boat. It was only his second trip out. He kissed me good-bye, promised he’d return, and disappeared on the horizon.”

Cash turned to look up at me. “Then what happened?”

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the good. Focus on the boy that fate had given me all over again.

“He died,” I finally said. “And then so did I.”