Inbetween (Kissed by Death, #1) (19 page)

“Hey, wait.” He clutched the blade at his hip and glanced around, then let his eyes fall on me. “I…I’ll see you tomorrow. If you still want to after today. All right?”

I nodded, feeling something I thought I’d left behind with my flesh. Hope.

…

My eyes opened and I gasped, choking for air, clawing at my mask. The bed I was on rolled through a doorway. There were so many doctors talking that their voices blurred into one. Anaya leaned over me, perched on the side of my bed. The fluorescent hospital lights seemed dim compared with her. She clasped her glowing palm over my forehead.

“Just a little more, Emma.” She smiled and ran her thumb over my cheek. “Just remember a little more.”

I didn’t have a choice. My eyes followed her orders and closed against the light.

…

Finn’s breath was warm on my neck. His chest firm against my back. His lips brushed the once-tender spot just behind my jaw.

“Finn,” I breathed. My insides buzzed with fear and desire. “Someone will see.”

His arms looped around my waist and his lips touched my hair. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.”

It did matter. This might be the end for me, but it wasn’t for Finn. He couldn’t risk that. I couldn’t let him.

“They’ll banish you.” Warily, I watched the souls fill the meeting square. This was it. This was my last chance. No amount of Finn’s kisses was going to make that any different.

“I’m not trying to get banished,” he said. “I’m trying to get a kiss.”

“You know we can’t do that out here in the open. If Balthazar sees—”

I yelped when Finn yanked me into the shadow of a hemlock and pressed me into an invisible wall. I gasped when he kissed me.

“Now they can’t see,” he said softly, and kissed me again.

“You’re just trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?”

I realized that this might be the last time I kissed him. If I was chosen to go back, Finn couldn’t follow. If I was tossed to the Shadow Land, I wouldn’t want him to. No matter what the outcome was today, it meant saying good-bye to Finn. A desperate feeling gripped my chest and I clutched him closer, but I couldn’t get close enough. Finn must have felt the same way because he crushed his mouth against mine.

I lost myself in the moment. Lips tangling, our breaths mixing and melting on my tongue. His kisses felt so good, his lips so gloriously solid against mine, it took my breath away.

The trumpets sounded, and he pulled away slowly. His green eyes were vibrant against the shadow of his face, reminding me of the day we’d met. The day he’d collected me. “Come on, they’re starting.”

Finn took my hand and pulled me into the hazy gray twilight that always hung over this place. He stopped just shy of the crowd, leaving us cloaked by souls. Reapers created a wall on each side of the lectern, standing firm against the group of desperate souls pressing forward. They looked fierce and ready for the danger the souls not chosen for reincarnation or Heaven might pose. A ring of guardians formed a protective circle around the porthole glowing behind them.

Finn should have been up there with the reapers, fighting for order. Instead, he was with me. “Shouldn’t you be up there?”

Finn shook his head, watching a guardian knock a soul back from the porthole. “No. I’m exactly where I need to be.”

I stood on my tiptoes and found Maeve. She smiled and gave me a little wave. I didn’t know how to be that confident. This was my last year. For souls like me—souls that had done something irreparably wrong, whether they knew what it was or not—there were only ten years before the decay set in. For the madness to take over. For the transition to a shadow to begin. I turned my hands over to expose the black spiderweb of veins crawling up my arm. I didn’t have to look to know my neck looked the same, or that the darkness had eaten away nearly all of the blue in my eyes.

Finn pulled my hand away and turned it back over to make me stop looking.

“I need all remaining reapers and guardians to the front please!” Balthazar shouted.

Finn looked torn, not wanting to let go of my hand.

“Just go,” I whispered. When I looked up, fear swallowed me. Balthazar’s careful eyes were watching us. He met Balthazar’s gaze. After a long moment, Balthazar nodded. Finn held my hand tighter and pulled me forward.

I yanked against his grip. “Stop. You’ll get in trouble.”

“That doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“Attention!” Balthazar’s voice thundered across the crowd, leaving a wave of silence in its wake. “The decision has been made!”

There were thousands of souls here, their energy pulsing, pulling, pressing in on me like a rip current. I knew the odds weren’t good, but I forced myself to imagine my name rolling off his tongue. Finn gripped my hand. I could feel him shaking.

“Anderson Mills,” Balthazar announced, “Faye Dunn, Tommy Gilford, Samantha Monroe. Can you all approach the porthole?”

I closed my eyes. He’d only say a few more names.

“Ryan Butler and…” He crinkled the thin paper in his hand and squinted at it. “Jonah Bates.”

Finn wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me close. I buried my face into his shoulder. I couldn’t look. He pressed his lips into my hair.

“Shh,” he whispered. “They’ll say your name. They will. You’re going back today, I promise.”

“All right, just one more,” Balthazar said. “As for the rest of you, better luck next year.”

There was no next year for me. Next year I’d be in the Shadow Land, a hungry, empty thing with no memory of who or what I once was. No memory of Finn and his kisses. I held my breath and tried to count to ten. I only made it to three.

“Maeve McCredie. Today, the seven of you will be born again.”

My heart sank, but the silence of Balthazar’s announcement erupted into chaos as the crowd pushed Maeve to the front. I tried to smile, but I could feel it mangle into something that felt more like a kick in the gut than a congratulations for Maeve. Maeve had only been here two years and had been nothing but rude to the few souls who’d attempted to befriend her. Worse, she still had time. I didn’t.

Maeve breezed past me and winked. “Hey, Emma. You’re looking a little…dark. It’s amazing your reaper boy can stand being that close to you with how deathly you smell.”

I blinked away the hurt and the shock as I watched her weave through the crowd. Some were bright-eyed as they pressed forward, anxious to get a glimpse of what might be their future. Others looked dark and hopeless, trying to get a glimpse of what they’d never have. Finn squeezed my hand and a dark sound rumbled in the back of his throat.

“Finn!” Balthazar moved through the crowd, but Finn wouldn’t let go of my hand. “I need you closer.”

Finn looked back at me, jaw clenched in frustration. “Can I stay with her? She’s close to transition.”

Balthazar looked me over and pursed his lips. “Bring her with you.”

“Come on.” He grabbed my hand and pushed through the souls until we were huddled against the portal, watching the chosen souls fall into the light to be reborn. The portal was beyond beautiful, with blinding streaks of color permeating its golden glow. We were so close, I could feel its warmth. If I reached out, I’d be able to touch it.

“One step through that light and you’re reborn,” Balthazar said to the sixth soul in line, a younger boy who’d been in the Inbetween for barely over a year. “Don’t be shy, son.”

For a fleeting second, I imagined myself grabbing Finn and leaping into the light together, but quickly pushed the thought aside when a guardian pinned me with a dark look, as if he could read my thoughts. I ignored him and turned my attention to the only soul left in line. Maeve. Her red hair spilled around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes glittered with excitement.

Finn dragged me even closer, and Balthazar’s brows pulled together when he noticed. I thought for sure he’d pull Finn away from me in that moment, but he turned his attention to the guardian watching me.

“Joseph,” he called over the crowd, motioning for the guardian to follow him with two fingers. He slid one last careful glance my way, then turned back to the crowd.

Finn held me close. “Ally,” he started, then shook his head. “I love you. And I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you that. I’m so sorry I waited until now.” He held my face between his palms, stealing the words from my mouth. “Remember that. No matter what happens, hold onto it, because I will see you again. Promise me you’ll remember.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Promise me!” he demanded.

“I promise.”

His lips brushed my ear. His voice lingered there, making my chest ache with want and what could have been. “Please forgive me for this, pretty girl.”

Without warning, he grabbed my shoulders and shoved me forward. I gasped and stumbled into the light. Behind me, Maeve screamed.

“Finn!” I cried against the wind. “Finn, wait!”

But no one answered. I soared through cerulean blue skies, puffs of billowing clouds whispering through my hair. I was free at last, my reaching arms turning to wings as I spiraled through the shimmering facets of color.

And within seconds of dissolving into the precious warmth around me, I couldn’t remember who I was reaching for.

Chapter 27

Finn

She’s alive. That’s all that matters.

I kept thinking it over and over, but I wasn’t fooling myself. Emma had almost died again. Because of me. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to remember what she’d looked like that last day. When the darkness was ready to swallow her. I needed to see it so I could justify what I was doing to her now. What I’d done to her seventeen years ago when I’d pushed her into a life she didn’t choose.

I stepped into the quiet hospital room and found Anaya lighting up the corner of the room, her eyes focused on Cash asleep in a chair on the other side of the bed.

“Hey,” I said, softly. “Everything okay?”

She watched Cash a few seconds longer, then gave me her attention. “He hasn’t left. Not even to go to the bathroom. Do you find that odd?”

I leaned against the wall next to her. “No. He cares about her like family. Don’t you remember what it’s like to care about someone like that?”

Her gold eyes dimmed. “Sometimes, it’s so easy to forget.”

“Why do you think I always loved her?” I watched Emma’s chest rise and fall beneath the blanket, feeling my chest swell with warmth. “She doesn’t let me forget.”

When Anaya didn’t say anything I nudged her shoulder. “Thank you for not leaving her.”

She smoothed her hands over her dress. “It’s the least I could do. She didn’t deserve to go through something like that.”

Guilt burned in my chest. No. No, she absolutely did not deserve any of this.

“Besides,” she continued, nodding to the soundless television flickering in the corner of the room. “I got to catch up on modern television.”

“You don’t even have the sound on.”

She laughed. “That’s the only thing that made it bearable.”

I noticed Anaya’s scythe pulsing with light at her side. “I’ve got it from here if you need to go.”

She looked at Emma and a soft smile tugged at her lips. “I know you do. Regardless of what you think, Finn, she’s lucky to have you.”

Her hand settled on my shoulder and a second later she was gone, leaving me alone with the sound of beeping machines and Emma’s ragged breathing.

I sank into a chair next to the bed and rested my elbows on my knees, choosing to look at the heart monitor instead of Emma. She was too black and blue. Too broken to keep my eyes on her for more than a second. It was hard to face something so horrific when I knew I’d been the one to cause it—the one to cause everything. Leaning over the bed, I kissed her on the top of her head. It wasn’t the real kind of kiss, the kind I wanted to give her, but it would have to do.

I pushed myself up and walked over to the window to keep myself from doing something stupid. The moon glowed between the skeletal treetops, casting a spiderweb of shadows across the sparkling white parking lot. Stars winked. Burned. Taunted me with memories of the Inbetween.

If I couldn’t protect her from this, I was useless to her.

Behind me, the door opened and a nurse crept into the room. She pushed Emma’s hair out of her face then checked her vitals, doing her job quickly and efficiently, the way I had been expected to do mine for the last seven decades. The difference between us? She was in the business of preserving life. I was in the business of ending it. After she was gone, my gaze drifted over to Emma. She moaned in her sleep and turned her head so that the puffy line of stitches that ran the length of her slender neck were visible. So many things burned through me. Rage. Guilt. Pain. I clenched my fist and listened to the reassuring beep of the heart monitor, letting the rhythm of the life flowing through her veins soothe me.

It didn’t take long for the pull to interrupt my thoughts. The cold crept though my insides, crackled in my skull. My fingers wrapped around my scythe and it pulsed under my palm. Trying to fight it, I braced myself on the wall, not wanting to leave her. Not now. Not after what had just happened.

“Finn?” Emma mumbled, her eyelids cracking open.

Thank God.
I started forward, but my scythe stopped me in my tracks before I could get to her.

“I’m here,” I whispered, hoping she could hear. “I’m right here.”

Emma moaned and settled back into sleep. I took one last lingering look at her, at what I had done, and I let go.