Ember X (30 page)

I weave through the headstones, careful not to step on them and as the wind picks up, the hinges of the gate squeak.

I’m about to the gate when I hear a whisper and turn in a quick circle, skimming the trees. “Hello… Raven, is that you?”

When someone steps out from behind a tree at the back of the cemetery, a wall crumples inside my body. Dressed in black, he blends with the night, but his hair is as white as a ghost. His long legs stretch out in front of him as he strides across the grass toward me.

“Well, if it isn’t my number one fan,” Cameron says and my insides burst with chills.

Against my own power, I halt next to the statue of the Grim Reaper, like he controls my body now, not me. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

There’s a
swoosh
and suddenly he’s standing right in front of me, his eyes dark as coals, his face hauntingly poetic. “Don’t pretend you don’t like me, Ember.” A grin pulls at his lips. “You may pretend like you’re not interested in me, but I know you are.”

I shut my eyes, my muscles constricting as I attempt to lift my foot off the grass— trying to get it to move me toward the gate again. “What are you doing to me?”

His eyes sear like cinders, on the edge of life, but not quite dead as he circles me with his hands behind his back. “You are so beautiful. So grown up. So full of life, yet always so full of death.”

My legs quiver with the desire to run. “What are you?”

“Perhaps you should be asking me what you are.” His long finger traces my cheekbone and a dark hunger flares in his eyes, dying to feed. “You really are amazing, yet you’ve been blinded by the fear of death and have never noticed all the possibilities in front of you. If you’d just accept it—”

“I won’t.” I interrupt in a sharp, searing tone. “I’m not giving in to Death.”

“You shouldn’t decide your answer until you understand everything.” He takes my hand and helplessly I follow him as he guides me to the tree.

He nestles us down next to the trunk, wraps his arms around me, and leans me back against his chest. He sweeps my hair aside and puts his lips against my ear. “Never having to fear or experience death. Imagine writing about immortality, instead of death like everyone else. You could be the first.”

“Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson already did,” I smart off. “And so did Spill Canvas.”

“Spill Canvas?” He sounds intrigued.

“It’s a band, you asshole.” I force out a scream, but it cuts off before it reaches my lips. How could I not see this coming? I’m enraged with myself. Furious. “Cameron, let me go. Please. If you’re a Reaper, I thought you couldn’t possess me.”

“I’m not supposed to… and I can’t possess your mind completely—trust me, I’ve tried. But I can possess your body.” He kisses the tip of my ear, grazing it with his teeth, and then he moves his lips down my neck, before pulling away.

“You were such a strange child. Usually, when they sent me to mess with a child’s head, it was the most droning time of my existence,” he says. “But you were determined not to get rid of me. I didn’t even faze you… it kind of took the fun out of it and was extremely annoying.”

“No… there’s no way…” It clicks in my head what he’s saying.

“And then I had to return years later, due to orders… but you were all grown up and far less annoying and I just couldn’t do what the Reapers wanted me to.” He pauses, considering something. “You know I broke the rules for you. I tried to warn you about your dad, even though I wasn’t supposed to. And then you ran away with me... Admit it—that was probably the most fun you’ve had in your life. You and me, hiding in the woods, while I listened to you ramble to yourself, trying to pretend I wasn’t there.”

“I can’t believe it… you’re
that
Grim Reaper. The one who’s tormented me for most of my God damn life,” I breathe, enraged. All that time I spent with him in the woods after my dad vanished... that was him?

“But you never did whole-heartedly tell me to go away, so therefore, I didn’t have to.” He pauses, grazing his hand down my thigh. “I tried to warn you about your dad so you could help him. Do you know that? Do you know how much I care for you?”

“You tried to force me to kill my mom,” I seethe. “That’s not caring about someone… And you don’t even know me.”

“I only did that to your mom to help you,” he whispers mellifluously in my ear. “I just want you to quit fighting who you really are. If you’d just give in to the insanity, instead of fighting it, life would be so much easier. And we could be together.”

“I almost killed her,” I fume as he tips me back and peers down with a smile. “I stole my mom’s life to save my own.”

“Don’t be ashamed of it.” He sketches his finger down my cheekbone. “It’s in your blood and your dad did it many times. Trust me.”

“Do you know where my dad is?” I snap. “The detective—or the Reaper—whoever the hell she is, said he gave in to insanity. Does that mean he’s dead? Or is he one of you? I need to know. Please, Cameron. Please tell me.”

Ignoring me, he angles my head back onto his lap and looks into my eyes. “We’re perfect for each other. Imagine it, alive in death, writing beautiful words together… And I promise I’ll never hurt you,” he whispers, slowly moving out from me and then laying me on my back. “I just want to help you.”

“No one can help me,” I say as my head touches the grass. “Especially…”

He conceals his body over mine and my words evaporate into the night. I no longer know what I want—what I feel—as his hand travels up my shoulders, up the side of my neck, and resides on my cheek, while his other hand explores the bare skin on my hip. “I could help you, if you let me. I could make all that sadness go away.” He licks his lip as he presses his body against mine, converging himself to every part of me. “Let me take it all away forever.”

My arms fall helplessly to my sides. “No.”

“Ember,” he coaxes, sliding his fingers through my hair, before cupping my cheek. “Let me in.”

My knees fall apart, allowing his body closer, and a moan escapes from my lips, but not under the control of my own. “Cameron… don’t...”

Hooking a finger underneath my chin, he tips my face up so I have to look him in the eyes. “What if I told you I could take away every ounce of pain you have and would ever feel? Think about it. You could have the perfect life.”

He leans in and I shut my eyes as he kisses my neck and my body arches into him. “That’s not possible,” I say. “Death is pain. And death exists everywhere. Besides, nothing is perfect...”

“It is possible, all you have to do is say yes.” Keeping his body sealed to mine, he grabs my arms and pins them above my head, rendering me helpless. When he looks me in the eyes again, something’s different. I feel weightless, free, like I can finally breathe. “Give me permission.” His lips touch my cheek, then the corner of my mouth as his free hand slips down the front of my shirt and his knee slides up between my legs. “Please, give me permission.”

My eyes shut and my lips part open as I feel my willpower crumble to dust. I realize it might be easier to give in. “You have permission to do what you—”

“Ember,
don’t
.” Asher’s voice jerks me back to earth—to life—and my eyelids shoot open. “Don’t promise him anything.”

I can’t see him, but the sound of his voice brings me comfort from the madness.

A grin spans Cameron’s face. “Asher, my dear friend, you’re just in time for the feast.”

My eyes widen. “You guys know each other?”

“Get away from her,” Asher demands and I can hear his footsteps nearing. “You have no right to be touching her like that.”

“And neither do you.” Cameron looks like he’s enjoying himself, smoking as he watches my excited reaction to the sound of Asher’s voice.

I need to see him—need to know he really exists. I force my gaze sideways and spot Asher storming across the cemetery ground with his hands clenched into fists. His face is bruised, his knuckles are scraped raw, and the scar beneath his eyebrow ring is more defined and dominant.

“What’s… what’s.” My lips hitch shut.

“Get off of her.” He’s so close, but still so far away. “Or I swear to God I’ll—”

Bending his knees, Cameron leaps off me, leaving me paralyzed on the ground. He turns his back on me and marches across the cemetery lawn, meeting Asher in the middle of the tombstones. “Or you’ll what?”

“You’ve broken rules,” Asher growls, balling his fists. “A lot of them.”

Wrath thunders in both their eyes as they charge for each other, their boots scrapping at the dirt. The sky rumbles and the ground quakes as they reach one another. Like mist rising from a lake, a black cloak forms around Cameron and swallows him up as he swishes it around his body. Asher lets out a derailing screech, springing on his toes, pushing into the air as wings trimmed with black feathers snap out from his back, shredding his shirt into pieces. They slam into one another and the collision of their bodies deafens the night.

Suddenly, my legs and arms return to my control and I jump to my feet as a tornado of feathers and mist swarm the cemetery. Cameron and Asher move like lightning, moving so swiftly I can barely detect them.

An Angel and a Grim Reaper? An
Angel
and a
Grim Reaper
?

“Ember!” Raven’s voice draws me back to my other problem.

She’s back in the shadows of the cemetery, curled up next to the Angel statue, clutching her head. I run across the grass toward her, waving for her to run the other way. “Raven, we have to get out of here—” I fall face-first into an open grave and land hard. Cold skin touches mine and my insides quiver as I push up and blink down at Mackenzie Baker. Her blonde hair is covered in dirt and red lines track her neck and wrists. It hits me like a shove off a cliff as my mind races back to Cameron’s house, the bands on her neck and wrists.

“Oh my God,” I breathe. “You were dead the whole time… I can see the dead.”

Dirt sprinkles down on me and I flip over to my back. Raven leans over the shallow hole, with blood in her hair, blankness in her eyes, and a handful of dirt in her hand.

“I love you, Em, I really do,” she says, sprinkling more dirt down on me. “But you can’t save me anymore. I have to give in.”

Shielding my eyes, I struggle to my feet and press my fingertips into the dirt.

“Please don’t make this harder than it already is, Em.” Raven disappears for a moment and when she returns, she has a shovel in her hand. “If you would have just given up back at the fire, I wouldn’t have to do this to you.
You
could have saved me from this burden.” She scoops up another shovel full of dirt and drops it down on my head. “But now you’re going to be buried alive, and remain there until you break.”

“Raven.” I hurdle onto the side of the grave, burrowing my boots into the moist dirt. “Think about what you’re doing for just a second. You don’t want to do this.”

She plucks out a twig from her hair and drops it down into the hole, watching it fall all the way to the bottom. “Of course I don’t. What I want is a happy life, with a mother who isn’t crazy and a friend who can be near people. What I want is to go back in time and never leave that party with Laden, so I could erase what it felt like when he had me pinned down to the ground… erase the feeling of his filthy hands on me…” she trails off, staring up at the sky.

Extending my arm as far as it will go, I reach for the edge of the hole, but my feet slip out from under me and I collapse back onto Mackenzie’s body. Forcing myself not to lose it, I push off of her and stand back against the wall. I clumsily claw my way upward and finally, I heave myself over the lip and roll onto my back on the grass.

Raven bounds on top of me, kneeing me in the gut, and she pins my arms down to the side. I bring up my knees and vault her off by shoving my feet into her stomach. She slams against the Angel statue, her head hitting the stone hard, and she lets out a groan. “What’s happening to me?”

“Nothing. Just stay here, okay?” I race through the headstones toward the Reaper and the Angel of Death still battling each other in the middle of the grass.

Cameron has Asher restrained on the grass, kneeling on him, and his fingers are wrapped around his throat. “Tell me, what’s it been like being alone all this time? Apparently, pretty bad for you to be breaking the rules.” He presses his fingers tighter around Asher, who slides his hands up Cameron’s arms, desperate to escape.

There are feathers all over the grass and pieces of black fabric, along with broken head stones and tipped over trees. Pain sets in at what these two can do and how much I need to stop it.

I stop short of them, summon a deep breath, and squeeze my eyes shut. “I want you to go away, Cameron.” It hurts to say it, like a vine of thorns entwining in my veins.

Silence settles around me and I crack open my eyelids. Cameron is still on top of Asher, but his hand is hanging lifelessly at his side. “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Ember Rose,” he advises. “Think about the last time you wished me away.”

“I want you gone,” I demand in a steady voice, taking a step toward. “I don’t want death haunting me anymore.”

“You can’t get rid of death, princess,” he says sorrowfully, letting go of Asher completely. “Death is endless.”

It frightens me how much his words match mine. “Then I guess I will outrun it for as long as I can.”