The Reaping (The Reapers Book 1) (28 page)

Somehow, I couldn’t imagine Jed dating strippers. “You date them?”

“I use the term date loosely, but yeah, I take them out and buy them dinner. Sometimes, I even take them to see a movie.”

“Okay, but stripper is a profession, not a type, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but in order to be a stripper, a girl’s gotta be a little bit of an exhibitionist and a whole lotta fun.”

“With a lot of issues, I imagine.”

Jed shrugged. “Sure, some of them do, I guess, but not all of them. I usually avoid chicks with baggage.”

“Good to know. And Caleb, what he does think of you dating strippers?”

Jed looked at me sideways and smiled. “He’s my little brother and he knows better than to try to lecture me.” Jed was silent for a few steps. “What about you?”

“I’ve never dated a stripper.”

He laughed. “No, I mean, what’s your type? Is Caleb the kind of guy you usually date?”

“We aren’t dating,” I said, in a harsher tone than I meant. I guess it bothered me more than I’d realized, but I hadn’t even had a chance to figure out how I really felt about Caleb. We hadn’t been on a real date, but as far as Caleb and everyone else was concerned, we were dating. Jed frowned at me. “I mean, we haven’t actually gone out on a date, yet. I’m sorry. Caleb’s great, but I don’t even really know what kind of guy he is… I’m just tired, and nothing makes any sense, especially me right now.”

First, I was upset with the poor guy for not being more open about our relationship, and then I was uncomfortable with people saying we were dating. I was really losing it.

Jed looked at me with a serious expression on his face and nodded. “It makes perfect sense to me. This is a really crummy time to try to get to know someone, much less start a relationship.”

“Yeah,” I said, suddenly sad.

“Especially with…well, I’m sure he’s told you about the potential problems if you keep dating.”

“He told me about the potential marriage pressure.”

Jed stopped walking and looked at me. “He told you that?”

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “He wanted me to understand why he’d been keeping our…relationship a secret. He said it won’t be too bad, just a lot of very loud hints that we should get married.”

“We?” Jed shifted uncomfortably and didn’t meet my eyes.

“Me and Caleb,” I said, the heat rising in my face for no reason I could understand.

Jed’s face reddened and his hands clenched. “Kelsey…”

His gaze was so intent that I flinched and looked away. I saw Caleb heading down the street toward us and waved at him, feeling a bit relieved.

Jed followed my gaze and stormed up the street to meet Caleb. When he reached him, he grabbed him by the shoulder and started talking to him. Jed’s whole body was tense with anger, and I decided to stay where I was and let them work it out.

I looked around and realized we had just passed Bruce’s bakery. I walked back to peek in the large glass to see if he was there. I just wanted to ask him if Angelica was okay. There was a glare on the glass from the midday sun, and I stepped closer to peer inside. An arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me back toward the street. I expected to see Jed when I turned to face my captor, but whoever had me tightened his grip so that I couldn’t do more than crane my neck and get a view of Jed’s back, where he was still standing up the street. I tried to call out to him, but a firm hand clamped over my mouth. I was dragged down a small alley between the flower shop and the bakery until we were far enough from the street that no one walking by would be able to see us. Something cold and hard was pressed against my cheek, and the man or woman who held me spoke in a gravelly whisper so low that it took me a moment to realize it was Reid.

“I warned you, and I always follow through on my threats.”

I felt the first stab of pain and a warm trickle of blood as whatever he held cut into my cheek. I was certain he was going to kill me, and I felt strangely numb and completely helpless.

“Fix this or I will kill you,” Reid said, as he sliced deeper into my cheek. He let me go with a shove that knocked me to the ground. My cheek burned and stung like it was on fire, and I didn’t dare reach up and touch my wound, because I didn’t really want to know how bad it was. I heard Reid’s footsteps behind me and, when I looked, I saw him silhouetted in the light from the other end of the alley where it exited onto Cherry Avenue. I looked down at the ground to find a place to put my hands and push myself to a standing position, and I noticed my blood had fallen onto and stained my beautiful cashmere sweater.

The stain covered my left breast and was starting to run down onto my stomach. I felt numb and oddly calm as I looked around the alley for something to use to catch my blood, so that my sweater wouldn’t be stained any worse. I considered taking it off, but I was worried about it brushing against my damaged cheek as I pulled it over my head. I heard footsteps and looked up to see Jed and Caleb hurrying toward me.

“Kelsey, what happened?” Jed asked when he reached me. He already had his cell phone in his hand, and he started pushing buttons as soon as he saw my face.

“My sweater is stained. I’m afraid it might be ruined.”

Jed looked at me as though I were speaking a different language and I wondered if my cheek was so badly damaged that I could no longer speak clearly. He pulled his shirt over his head, handed it to me, and told me to hold it to my face. He put the phone back up to his ear. “Hey, Cat, Kelsey’s hurt. We’re in the alley next to Bruce’s place.” Jed watched me as he spoke. “Yeah, just hurry.” He ended the call with Cat and started pushing more buttons.

“Did Reid do this?” he asked as he put the phone up to his ear.

I nodded.

“Landon?” Caleb asked. He was behind Jed, who was taking up so much of the alley that Caleb couldn’t have gotten past him without shoving him aside. Caleb stepped closer, and I could see that he was pale and shaking.

I shrugged. I was scared to talk and further injure my cheek, or increase my blood flow and further damage my sweater.

“Which way did he go?” Caleb asked.

I pointed, and Caleb took off. He shoved Jed aside, with a strength I wouldn’t have expected from him, and headed down the alley at a sprint.

“Caleb, get back here,” Jed called after him, but his tone suggested he didn’t expect him to listen.

“Hospital?” I asked, trying to speak as clearly as possible.

“Cat will fix you up.”

I nodded, feeling a bit drunk and woozy. I think I would have gone along with anything in that state. It seemed like only seconds later that Cat was there helping me into her car. She had covered the back seat with a towel to protect it, and I wondered how I could have not noticed that she owned a car. Jed got in with me and pulled my head down into his lap, holding his shirt against my face so gently that it didn’t make my cheek hurt any worse.

Cat drove down the block and around it, heading back in the direction of Caleb and Jed’s apartment.

“What the fuck happened?” Cat asked Jed. “Where’s Caleb?”

“He went on ahead to check out the bookstore. Kelsey must have stopped for some reason and Reid grabbed her. I didn’t even realize she wasn’t next to me any more for at least half a block,” Jed said.

I almost spoke up and contradicted him, but I figured he had his reasons for lying to Cat.

“You didn’t notice? What the hell kind of bodyguard are you?” Cat sneered.

Jed sighed. “I screwed up. Kelsey got hurt, but she’s still alive, and I’d like to keep her that way, so can we please move on and focus on what happens next?”

I tuned out their bickering and stared out the window, wishing I could curl up in the fetal position and cry. I didn’t want to get bloodstains on the plush interior of Cat’s car and the tears wouldn’t come. What Reid had done to me was real and scared me more than anything Landon had thrown at me so far. I should have been more careful of Reid, especially after he had broken into the apartment. Even after everything that happened, I had still believed that people were basically good, that the world was a good, safe place, and that I could walk down the street without fearing for my life. I no longer believed any of that, and I realized, with a pang that sliced through my numbness, that Reid hadn’t just physically hurt me; he’d taken something from me I could never get back. He had taken from me the ability to believe that bad things would never happen to me. The world I saw from the car window was a place I no longer recognized, and I wanted to run from it and go somewhere no one would ever be able to find me or hurt me again.

Cat pulled the car to a stop in front of Caleb’s apartment building. Jed hopped out, opened my door, and lifted me into his arms like I was a baby. I let myself go limp against him, enjoying the comfort of his warmth and the consistent thud of his heart. For a moment, I felt safe. He carried me to the building and up the stairs like I didn’t weigh anything. He placed me gently on the couch, but he didn’t release me right away. He gave me a quick squeeze and whispered, “You are still beautiful.”

It hit me then that I didn’t really know how much damage Reid had done to my face, or to my appearance. Jed let me go and stepped aside to let Cat kneel on the floor next to me. She was carrying a small duffel and she began pulling things out as she spoke.

“I’m sorry we can’t take you to a hospital, Kelsey, but we don’t want to draw more attention to you right now. The hospital would mean you’d have to talk to cops and probably stick around to testify.”

I opened my mouth to ask her where she thought I would be going, but she waved my unasked question away with a sweep of her arm.

“Don’t worry. I’ve stitched up a lot of people in my time, and I will make the stitches on your cheek as tiny as I can.” She bent over to look at my cheek, and hissed involuntarily. “He cut all the way through your cheek, but only for about an inch. The longer cut is just through the skin. You’ll have a scar but I doubt anyone will notice it.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes when she said that last part. She lifted my head to place a sheet of plastic between me and Caleb’s couch.

Jed brought over a bottle of Jack and offered it to Cat, but Cat shook her head. “They’re likely to show up any minute. She needs to have full use of her facilities.”

“I think you mean faculties,” Jed said, and Cat threw him a glare that made me cringe.

Cat dabbed at my face with a cotton ball loaded with what could only be liquid fire, and then she gave me a shot in the uninjured part of my cheek. “We should wait for this local anesthetic to start working, but we just don’t have time. If you’re lucky, it will kick in before I’m done.” She pulled out a curved needle and string. “This is going to hurt like a bitch,” she said as she pushed the needle into my skin.

She was right. I felt every millimeter of that needle as it pierced my flesh and passed through it. I hadn’t thought it possible that that part of my body could feel any more pain. I did my best to stay perfectly still and distract myself. Luckily, Cat stepped up to help me with that.

“Landon is probably going to choose to attack you in the next hour. He will want to capitalize on this extremely weak moment for you.”

I felt that I was being particularly strong in that moment, since I wasn’t screaming out in pain at every prick of her needle.

“He is going to try to push your soul out of your body and replace it with his own. How easy that is or isn’t for him depends on your state of mind and your physical energy level. Both of which affect your life energy and the force with which your soul and your physical body are connected. A reaper with more experience would have the knowledge and the finesse to recognize that moment and slide in effortlessly, but Landon is an amateur and will likely try to force his way in.”

I wanted to remind Cat that Landon couldn’t take over my body without my permission, but I couldn’t talk. Maybe Landon pushing on my soul was supposed to get me to submit.

“You are going to have to hold on to this body with every bit of energy and love you have. Think about all of the things you love about life and all of the reasons you want to continue in your physical body. We have devices here that will slow him down and weaken him, but only you can stop him from reaping your soul.”

I knew I should be listening carefully to everything she was telling me, but I couldn’t help wondering how much longer the stitches would take and if she was now just pushing the needle through my cheek for fun.

I looked up to see Jed standing over the couch, rapidly texting with a worried crease between his brows. Right next to him was Landon. I knew I should look away and not let on that I was able to see him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He kept glancing at me and then turning away, and he looked like he might throw up. He couldn’t even look at the carnage he had caused. He was still a coward who couldn’t take responsibility for his actions, and I was so sick of having to look at his face.

I had picked up the slack for him at work on an almost daily basis, and I had done it politely, for the most part. If I had quit, I was willing to bet everyone else who had worked there would have quit with me. I was the barrier between them and Landon, and I was the one who had protected him and his job from the inevitable wrath of Al, had he had any inkling of how bad a job Landon was really doing. I had held his life together, albeit to my own advantage, but still… If he owed me anything, it was a heartfelt apology and the decision not to attempt to rip my soul from my body.

Landon met my eyes and I had no choice but to continue looking at him, or he would have known for sure that I could see him and wasn’t just staring at the wall. A fire of pure, red-hot rage started burning in my gut and worked its way up to my brain. I wanted Landon to pay for all of the physical pain and sleepless nights he had caused me. For the way Angelica had looked at me this morning. Most of all, I wanted him out of my life. I never wanted to have to see his face again. I wanted to hurt him as badly as he had hurt me.

I couldn’t attack him while he was an intangible ghost, but the next time he pulled me out of a dream and into his world, I was going to make him pay. I stared at him and imagined all the ways I would hurt him when I got the chance. I would shove his face in the sand, drop him into the ocean, and hold him underwater. I would throw him out the window of my apartment. I would punch and kick and, since it was my dream, I’d be a really kick-ass fighter.