The Reaping of Norah Bentley (36 page)

The glass doors of the ER slid open, admitting me to the world of harsh fluorescent lights, beeping pagers and walls lined with coughing, sniffling people.

I didn’t want to be here. I hated hospitals—hated that awful scent of pine-cleaner trying to mask the sick smells underneath, hated staring into the faces of all the hurting people. But Luke hadn’t answered his phone any of the ten times I’d called, and we desperately needed to talk. If Sam wasn’t going to come after me, I was going to have to go after him. And I had a feeling Luke would be able to tell me exactly where I needed to go.

The receptionist was
not
sympathetic to my needs. At all.

“So you’re not family, then?”

“No,” I said for the millionth time. “I’m just a friend.” I should have lied. I wish I’d lied. I could have passed for Luke’s sister—we had almost the same color hair, we knew everything about each other.

“And you realize it’s one ‘o’ clock in the morning?”

“Yeah.” Actually, I had no idea. It was 6:13, as far as I was concerned.

She took a loud sip from the coffee cup in her right hand, her eyes sweeping over the chart in the other. Her curled, hair-spray-drenched bangs bounced when she looked up again, shaking her head.

“You’re just going to have to come back during regular visiting hours. Immediate family are the only ones I can issue a visitin’ pass to after nine o’ clock.”

I swallowed an exasperated sigh, forced a polite smile. “Well can you at least give me his room number?”

“I don’t think so, hon,” she said. “Security purposes.” She was looking at me like I was some sort of juvenile delinquent, which was completely unfair. I probably looked a little crazy right then, a little frantic—but my god, I was 5’2 and all of 120 pounds. What sort of threat did I pose, exactly?

It was stupid, but I didn’t have time to argue.

“Fine,” I said. “Thanks.” I spun around, felt her eyes following me as I slipped around the corner.

I was running out of options, so I decided to give calling him one last try. I pulled out my phone and started jabbing at the screen, cursing in one breath, praying in the next—
please answer, please answer, please answer—

“Hullo?” He sounded half-asleep.

“Finally.”

“What?”

“
Why the hell didn’t you answer me before?”

“When? What did you—”

“Never mind, it’s not important—where are you?”

Silence on the other end and then, “…Where do you think I am? Where does the ambulance usually go?”

Smartass.

“What
room
, I mean?”

“Um, four thirty something. Four…thirty four, I think?”

“Four three four?”

“…Norah, where are
you
?”

“I’m here. At the hospital. I’m coming to see you.”

“It’s after midnight,” he yawned. “I don’t think you’re allowed.”

“Watch me.”

More hesitation.

“…Just don’t get caught by security,” he said. “I’d rather not have to come bail you out of jail.”

I brought the phone a little closer to my mouth and glanced over my shoulder, keeping an eye out for the receptionist lady. “Please,” I whispered. “If I can evade death, I think I can probably get past a couple of security guards. I’ll see you in a minute.”

Luke started humming the “Mission Impossible” theme, and I called him a dork and hung up, then sprinted toward the elevator that had just
dinged
open at the end of the hall. Two nurses, wearing matching pink scrubs, stepped out of it. They caught sight of me and their walk slowed almost to a stop, their conversation coming to an abrupt halt. I pulled my phone back out and started messing with it, so I had an excuse not to make eye contact, and the second I got in the elevator I poked the ‘close door’ button so hard that there’s a good chance I broke my finger. It was still throbbing when the doors opened on the fourth floor a minute later.

This floor was a lot less crowded, and I mouthed a silent “thank you” for that as I crept out the elevator and around the corner, following the sign on the wall to find rooms 430-438. Luke was sitting up, waiting for me when I stepped into 434.

“Excellent,” he said, looking dramatically relieved. “You are
so
much prettier than my last nurse.”

I didn’t smile. “We have to talk,” I said. “And I need you to be serious for a minute.”

“I
am
serious,” he said. “Seriously still trying to figure out if that last nurse was a guy or a girl. I’m thinking guy. It had a mustache. Not a very impressive one, but still—”

“Luke.” I went back and shut the door as quietly as I could, locked it behind me. When I turned back around, his smile had faded a little. We just stared at each other at first, the uncertainty of us mixing with the terrible, definite reality of everything that had happened tonight. I don’t think either of us knew where to start.

Finally, Luke lowered his eyes and said, “…You’re alone.”

And all the words I’d been planning to say were gone just like that— lost in a sudden, intense misery. I’d managed to fight it off for the entire ride here, but the weight in Luke’s eyes was all it took to make it impossible to ignore.

“Yeah. I am.”

“What happened?”

I walked over to the window, pressed my fingertips one by one against the cold glass. Took a deep breath. “He was there. He was right there with me and then—” I hung my head, the lights outside the window suddenly too bright to stand. “Then he wasn’t.”

“Reapers are bad about that, I hear,” Luke said, almost gently.

“He had to leave. He
told
me that, and I shouldn’t have pushed him, I shouldn’t have tried to force him to stay. I was being stupid, I thought I could…I thought…I don’t know what I thought.” And I don’t know why I was telling him all this. This wasn’t what I came here for.

“It’s not your fault.”

But I couldn’t believe that. I don’t know what I could have done differently, but I should have been figuring it out. Before it got too late. Before now. Now that I’d started thinking about it, I couldn’t stop blaming myself. I couldn’t think about anything but all the what-ifs.

“And look on the bright side,” Luke said. “At least you’ve still got me. And good news: they’ve been running all these tests, and they haven’t found a thing wrong with me.”

“Imagine that,” I said, offhand.

“I’m perfectly healthy.”

I walked slowly back to his side, my arms folded across my chest, my eyes on the drab painting of a wheat field hanging crooked over his bed. “I guess they’ve got no way of testing your soul, huh?” I was glad to redirect the conversation, even if it didn’t get it exactly back on my intended path.

He winced. “All right, I deserved that.”

“…Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“What was I supposed to say, exactly?”

“You could’ve told me what you were.”

He laughed humorlessly, acted like he was considering it for a second, and then in a sarcastic voice he said, “Right. So then Norah, I’ve been meaning to tell you—I’m just borrowing this body. I’m actually a two-hundred year old soul banned from the Afterlife, doomed to wander the earth indefinitely, and I have an unfortunate habit of possessing bodies. But we’re still cool, right?”

“You could have started with that,” I said.

“You’re telling me it wouldn’t have freaked you out? Even a little?”

“Luke.
I am dating a grim reaper.
” My voice was getting entirely too loud for a hospital—or anywhere—at one in the morning, but I didn’t care.

Luke’s eyes flashed anxiously to the door, and he watched it for a minute before turning back to me. “So, you guys were really dating? Officially?”

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

“Lucian. Focus. Please.”

“Sorry.”

“I need your help.”

He gave me a hard, searching look; when he finally answered, his voice was perfectly even, “With what?”

“I need to find Sam.”

“You don’t need to go anywhere near Sam.”

“I have to. It’s the only way to save Eli now.”

“Save him?” He was the one getting loud now. “Norah, he
left
you. He obviously doesn’t want saving.”

I hugged my arms back to my chest, dug my fingers into my elbows. “He left because he had to—because it was the only way to save
me.”

“So the kid has a martyr complex.” He made a frustrated noise, deep in his throat. “Can’t we just leave him to it and get on with our lives?”

“You don’t mean that.”

But somehow I knew he did—my Luke, who took nothing else seriously, was at least completely sincere about wanting me to just forget about Eli. Like I could really do that. Stupid, stupid Luke.

“He’s the only reason I’m even
here
right now,” I reminded him savagely.

“Well I’ll be sure to send him a thank you card,” Luke said, his expression unyielding. “But then, I don’t know that they deliver where he’s going.”

A door slammed somewhere down the hall. An intercom voice echoed over it, paging some doctor to pediatrics. It reminded me of where we were, and that was the only reason I managed to keep my tone level as I said,

“You can be a real jerk sometimes, you know that?”

“And you can be a stubborn little idiot, sometimes.”

For a long time I was at a loss for else I was supposed to say. I felt strangely empty, the passion that had fueled my drive here doused for the moment by that cold glare Luke was giving me; I’d been so prepared to take on Sam. But I hadn’t been expecting to fight my best friend. I didn’t know how to fight him.

“So I guess I shouldn’t have bothered coming here,” I finally managed in a small voice. “Guess I was stupid to think you cared enough about me to actually help.”

The bed springs groaned as Luke jumped up, the sheets falling away in a flurry of white. The IV drip he was hooked to teetered along behind him, came dangerously close to falling.

“I’ve been
trying
to help you,” he said.

“No, you’ve been
trying
to make things worse.”

“By trying to drive away the only thing on Earth that could kill you?” he said, incredulous. “I’m not sure how that’s making things
worse
for you—I guess hanging around with that kid made you even crazier than I thought it had.”

“I’m not crazy. He wouldn’t have killed me.”

“Well I wasn’t taking any chances— I’ve seen how efficiently Sam operates.”

“What does this have to do with Sam?”

He looked surprised by the question.

“Everything? Eli’s little rebellion isn’t the first he’s had to put a stop to.”

“Eli told me this was the first time this had happened,” I said, shaking my head. “He said—”

“Well Eli doesn’t know shit, does he? Sam’s dealt with this sort of thing before. Reapers fight him all the time—especially the new ones—but Sam always wins in the end. Which is why I interfered and offered to take care of things for him—I’ve been doing everything I could to keep him as far away from Earth, as far away from you and Eli, as possible.”

I gave him a skeptical look, and he impatiently added, “It wasn’t that hard to convince him to let me do it; he hates dealing with this stuff.”

“Why? Isn’t that sort of his job?” My voice sounded a lot harsher than I meant it to. I don’t think I really believed—or wanted to believe—what Luke was saying. That Eli hadn’t told me everything about Sam.

“I don’t know why, Norah,” Luke said. “I’ve never sat down and had a heart-to-heart with him about it.”

“Well how do you know all this, then?”

He shrugged, looking less enthusiastic all of a sudden. “I’ve been here for over two-hundred years now. Let’s just say Sam and me have crossed paths enough times.”

I wanted to know more. I wanted to let him explain. But I had to focus, to remember why I’d came here in the first place. I’d already wasted enough time. “So you know how to reach Sam, then?”

He hesitated. “I know how
I
can reach him.”

“And me?”

“You don’t. I already told you. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to keep you alive—I’m not losing you now.”

“This isn’t about you.”

“No, it’s about us.”

“
There is no us!”

Luke opened his mouth but, for once, was speechless. And I hated myself in that moment, for saying that, for hurting him. But I couldn’t take it back. I had to make him understand.

Still, all I could manage to stammer into the silence that followed was a really lame sounding: “I’m sorry.”

The room seemed darker, quieter all of a sudden. Even the noises outside—the low hum of the TV in the room next door, the nurses shuffling by with carts full of clanging equipment— had given it a rest. I looked away, was still focused on the bright red “call nurse” button on the side of the bed when Luke finally spoke again.