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Chapter 20

Cash

“Happy birthday,” Emma said in a singsong voice as I opened the door. She leaned on the doorframe, holding a plate with an oversize piece of birthday cake sitting on it like a work of art. A little fondant replica of me stood atop the cake, with a T-shirt on that said
I’m kind of big deal
. I laughed and dropped the box I was holding on the floor.

“He’s edible, too,” she said when she saw me squinting to read the little Cash’s T-shirt.

“Just like in real life.” I grinned.

“Ha, ha.” Emma raised a brow. “So, are you going to let me in or what?”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Oh yeah?” She breezed past me. “Since when? Because this is the first year I can remember that you didn’t put in a request for the flavor you wanted three months ahead.”

“Things are different now.”

Now I was on my way out. I sat down on the bed with Emma and took the fork she handed me. She took the first bite and laughed around a mouthful of red velvet cake.

“You’re right,” she finally said. “Now you’re actually old enough to do all of the illegal crap you do for fun.”

“Well, thanks for pointing that out,” I said. “Now it won’t be as fun.”

I gave up a laugh and took a bite of cake, wishing I could really taste it like I used to. It was probably going to be my last birthday cake, after all. But food just didn’t taste good anymore. Everything left a stale taste on my tongue. Made my stomach churn with the want to reject it. I didn’t let her know that, though. Instead I shoveled a second bite in. Em and I didn’t have many of these moments left. I wasn’t going to ruin it.

“How’d you know this kind was my favorite?” I said.

“Do I look like an amateur?”

“No.” I smiled. “No, you do not.” No. She looked like the girl I remembered before her dad died. Full of life and love and hope. She wasn’t that girl hiding in the shadows anymore, snapping pictures of a life she refused to live. She was happy. And that made me pretty damn happy. The look on her face in this moment…this was why I couldn’t hate Finn. He gave this to her when I couldn’t. I hoped I’d get to keep these memories in the afterlife, whatever that might be. Because I wanted to remember her just like this.

“I got you a present, too.” She tossed me a wrapped package. I grinned at her and tore it open and…laughed. I held up the black T-shirt. It said
I see dead people.

“I think you know me a little too well,” I said. “I love it, Em. It’s perfect.”

Emma set her fork on the plate and sighed, her eyes lingering on the packed boxes in the corner of the room. I could hear the disapproval in her quiet sigh and she brushed crumbs off her lap.

“You’re still going to leave, even after I made you cake,” she said.

“Yep.” I sat my fork down too and watched tears gather in the corners of her blue eyes. She wiped them away before they could escape.

“You don’t have to,” she said.

“I know I don’t,” I said. “But I need to.” I couldn’t have Emma seeing me like this anymore. I’d already made Finn promise not to let her see me when I got bad. And it was getting worse. Every minute that passed it was getting worse. And I didn’t want these little shadow bastards near her. She’d already gone through a hell all her own. No way was I dragging her into mine.

“I’m eighteen, Em. And the house is in my name now that the lawyers are done.” I kicked her tennis shoe with my boot. “There’s no point in putting your mom and Parker out when I’ve got my own place.”

Emma stood up and stared out the window. “This is crazy.
Your own place
. That doesn’t even sound right.”

“It’s not like I have the luxury of being a kid anymore.”

She sighed. “I know that.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

I stood next to Emma, wondering if this would be the last time. If it wasn’t this moment, it would be one very soon. Every ache that throbbed in my body was a big countdown clock to my departure. Did she know it? Could she feel it, too?

“We shouldn’t be talking about this right now. We should be talking about what skank you’re going to take to prom, or which stupid Steven Seagal movie you plan on torturing me with this weekend, or that art festival you promised to take me to this summer. Not this…”

“Em—”

“I don’t want you to leave me,” she whispered. “I feel like you’re giving up. I feel like I should be doing something, but I don’t know what to do.”

The double meaning in her words created a lump in my throat. Emma had been such a big part of me for so long, I wasn’t sure what would happen to either of us when you took that other half away. I didn’t want to know.

“I’m not giving up,” I said. “I don’t really have a choice. And this is
not
on you, Em. There is nothing you can do. There’s not even anything I can do anymore.”

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. They felt fragile even under my weak grasp. Everything about this moment felt fragile. The ocean of unspoken words between us. The memories colliding and collapsing inside both of our heads.

The way my vision was going black around the edges.
Wait…

I stumbled back and grabbed on to the white wicker dresser behind me when my legs started to give. The room tilted off-balance. Out of the corner of my eye a shadow demon perched on the nightstand, grinning. No…

“Cash!” Emma’s hands were on me in a second, but I didn’t need her. I needed Anaya. Was this it?
God please no…please don’t let this be it. Anaya needs to be here.

I wasn’t sure when I’d made that decision, but in that moment, I knew without a doubt that it was her I wanted to see on the other side of this. Not Noah. Not a horde of shadow demons. Just Anaya and all her light, even if she was hiding something from me. Good or bad, I felt like I belonged with her. She felt like home.

“Not yet, Cash,” Emma’s words sounded choked. “Not now, damn it.”

I vaguely noticed her fumbling with her phone to dial 911. Pain flared in my insides. The darkness spread across my vision, blocking out that last little bit of light I was clinging to.

This was it.

Well…shit. Happy birthday to me.

Chapter 21

Anaya

Watching Cash sleep was peaceful.

Watching Cash sleep knowing he might not wake up was torture.

I could have lost him. If he had died, the shadows would have… I didn’t even want to imagine what they would’ve done to him. What they would have used him for. I felt sick just thinking about it. I walked through the dim hospital room, lit by monitors and the one fluorescent light that glowed above Cash’s bed, and stopped at the door. I wanted to go back and crawl in beside him to keep him warm, but Emma’s voice dueling with the doctors on the other side of the door stopped me.

“What do you mean you don’t know what’s wrong with him?” she said. “This is a hospital. You’re a doctor!”

“You don’t understand.” The doctor’s voice lowered as if he were trying to coax hers to do the same. “His organs are failing. His lungs are filling with fluid. No human should still be alive and be at the body temperature he’s holding. We know what’s happening. We just can’t figure out why. We’re still waiting on some test results to come back, so you just need to be patient. Stay calm for your friend.”

Finn murmured something to Emma I couldn’t quite hear through the door. I wanted to step through, but I couldn’t leave Cash. Not even for a second. I could smell the shadow demons lurking just beneath the surface. Hungry. Waiting.

“In the meantime…is there anyone you can call?” the doctor said. “Any family that might want to say good-bye?”

Emma made a choked sound and Finn’s voice broke in.

“How long?”

“It’s hard to tell,” the doctor’s gruff voice said. “Nothing about his condition is anything we’ve ever seen. And he won’t allow us to operate. I’d say we’re looking at a week. Maybe two if things continue to progress the way they are now.”

Emma burst into sobs and I stepped away from the door. This didn’t have to be happening. This could’ve happened quickly. He could be at peace right now. This was all because of me. How…
how
did I let this happen? How could I have been so selfish? I may be earning my way back to Tarik, but would I be the girl he remembered when I got there? Would I still feel the same when it was him standing in front of me and not Cash?

“You’re late,” Cash croaked from behind me. I turned around, but he didn’t try to get up. He just lay there, buried in the hollow of a blanket.

“I know.” He patted the spot beside him. I sank down onto the edge of the bed and did my best to produce a smile for him. “Happy birthday.”

He rolled his eyes and pushed the hair off his forehead. “Yeah, real happy. I thought for sure this was it this time.”

Cash stared at the door, lips pressed together, listening to Emma lose it in every way outside the door.

“I don’t want her here,” he said. “I don’t want her to see me like this. She’s already been through enough.”

“I don’t think you’re going to get rid of her,” I said. “Besides, she’s stronger than you give her credit for. And she’s got Finn now. She won’t be alone.”

Cash nodded and closed his eyes.

“You look a little better,” I said, studying the hard edge of his jaw under the fluorescent light. They had taken the piercings out of his eyebrow and ears. I was guessing the one in his mouth was gone, too. Lying there in nothing but a plain hospital gown, he looked stripped of everything Cash.

He grinned, eyes closed. “Liar.”

I placed my hand over his and a shiver vibrated through him. I started to pull away, but he reached over and grabbed my hand to hold it in place. “It feels nice.”

I let my eyelids slide shut, ignoring the warmth starting to burn at my hip. The call of someone waiting for me to give them what I’d refused to give him.

“Anaya,” Cash said. When I opened my eyes, his gaze was fixed on my face, his dark eyes begging for something unspoken. “I need you to show me.”

“Show you what?”

“Everything,” he said. “Something. Don’t send me to the other side not knowing who I was. I want to know. I have a right to know.”

“Cash…”

“I know you can. You just don’t want to.”

I sighed and stroked the back of his wrist with my fingers. “What if you don’t like what you see? You have enough reasons to hate me, Cash. I’d rather not add another.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said, sitting up. “Is that what you think? That I hate you for this?”

I ignored his eyes trying to catch mine and instead focused on a table across the room. Condensation slipped down the side of a pink plastic pitcher of water. “You should.”

Cash grabbed my chin and forced me to face him. “I don’t.”

He took a deep breath, his chest swelling, rising with life. “And I won’t hate you for whatever I see. No matter what it is. I swear.”

I was on the verge of breaking. Of giving him what he wanted. How could I deny him? He deserved everything from me after what I’d stolen. I looked into Cash’s wide brown eyes. So kind. A soul that kind couldn’t have anything dark enough to be afraid of.

“What if I close my eyes and wake up as something else? Someone else?” he said, squeezing my warm fingers with his cold ones. “Show me. Please.”

A beat of silence passed between us and I nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll show you. But I have no idea how many lives you’ve lived. I have no control over what you’ll see. It’s likely you’ll see something that impacted you. Scarred your soul, so to speak. I can’t promise that memory will be good.”

“I don’t care. I’ll take it.”

I leaned into Cash as he lay back onto the pillows. He was shaking. If I were him, I would have been shaking, too, with the impossibility of what I was about to show him. My palm was warm. Glowing with power. I clasped it over his forehead and he closed his eyes, shuddering out a breath.

“Are you ready?” I whispered.

Cash nodded.

“Just breathe,” I said, just before we fell right into the pulsing heart of a memory a thousand years old.

I sat on the beach. Sand sifting through my fingers. My toes. A breeze ruffled my braids and the hem of my dress. The sun, just an echo from the day, was fading fast, sinking into the depths of the horizon behind the sea. I heard footsteps behind me and smiled.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Tarik said. The wind caught his dark curls and tossed them into his eyes. He pushed them away and grinned down at me. “We’re going to be late.”

“I’ve been right here.” I looked up at him, losing my breath. The chiseled line of his jaw. The way the sun reflected off his skin, making it a shade darker than honey. No wonder the other girls in the village hated me. That heartbreakingly beautiful smile was for me. Only me. I held out my hand and let Tarik help me up. He brushed the sand from my skirt, businesslike, efficient. I still flushed and felt a rush of heat flow through me. I laced my fingers through his and we headed into the village. The smell of warm baked bread wafted through windows. The cobblestone street was spotted with shiny slick dots of moisture. Tarik squinted up at the dark sky and sighed.

“I think we’re about to get wet.”

As the words left his lips, the rain started to pour. Sheets of it created a wet, blurry curtain between us and the world. I held up my hands and laughed. The water streamed down my skin, pounded against my open palms, and I loved it. Loved the sound of Tarik laughing beside me. His black hair plastered to his scalp. His white shirt becoming one with his skin. He yanked me under the ledge of a building and pressed me as close to the clay wall as he could get me.

“We’re missing dinner,” I said through a smile. Water from his chin dripped onto my nose. “Your mother will be furious.”

He smiled and pushed the wet braids back from my face, securing them behind my neck.

“I think this might be worth her wrath,” he whispered. Tarik closed the space between us and kissed me. He kissed me like he was dying and I was feeding him the oxygen he needed to survive. I’d never in my life been as consumed by another person as I was in that moment. I’d never been as in love as I’d been in that moment. Tarik’s hands slid up the backs of my thighs and lifted me against the wall. The rain beat against his back as he pressed into me, sheltering me from the storm.

“I don’t want to wait anymore,” he whispered into my mouth. “I want you. I want to feel the way I feel right now, forever.” He stopped to claim another kiss from my mouth and broke away when I whimpered.

“I love you, Anaya,” he said, burning me with his gaze. Water streaming down his face. “Say you love me as much as I love you.”

“I love you.” I barely got the words out before his lips crushed against mine, stealing the breath in my mouth. He tasted like rain. He tasted like what I wanted the rest of my life to taste like. And I knew in that moment that I didn’t want to wait any longer for him, either.

I gasped as the sound of voices approaching tore apart the memory and blew it from my grasp. I tried to sit back away from Cash, but his fist was closed around my dress, refusing to let me go. His eyes were so wide, his mouth half-open, the words refusing to come. Something inside the hollow of my chest was hammering. The memory. Remembering what it had felt like to be that alive. I looked up at Cash and jerked my dress from his grip.

“No…it can’t be…” I bit my lip. “You can’t be…”

I shut my eyes, trying to compose myself as the door closed behind the footsteps entering the room.

“Anaya…what was that?” Cash whispered.

“It’s you,” Emma said, angry and surprised. “Anaya. I remember you.”

She stormed forward as if I were the enemy and not the one who had given her her memories of Finn back.

“What are you doing here?” She glared at me before her gaze flitted to Cash. “Why did you do this to him? This is all your fault! You get that, right?”

“Em, cool it,” he said. “Anaya…was that real? That was you. That was
me
. I felt you.” He reached out, dazed, and placed his hand on my leg, his eyes tracing over every part of me. “I…I…”

“Hello?” Emma threw her hands up. “She did this to you! Are you forgetting about that part, Cash? Snap out of it.”

“Emma,” Finn said, placing a sturdy hand on her shoulder. His eyes, eyes that had seen beyond forever, looked at us with a strange kind of understanding. He pulled her back a little. “Don’t.”

Emma looked back and forth between Finn and Cash, eyes wide and disbelieving. Her watery gaze finally settled on me.

“You were supposed to take him weeks ago!” She held her hand out. “He is suffering because of you. How can you just sit there and let him
die
? Why? I just want to know why?”

She broke into sobs and I turned away. I let my gaze settle on Cash’s face. His eyes. Tarik’s eyes.
Oh my God
… I stood up, suddenly painfully aware of the demanding call of heat at my hip. “I can’t…I can’t do this now. I’m being called.”

Cash just looked at me as if he didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to say, either. I still couldn’t believe this. He couldn’t be Tarik. He couldn’t. Tarik was in Heaven. He was waiting for me. This had to be some kind of illusion. But…it wasn’t. The memories never lied.

I turned to Emma and took a step forward until we were toe to toe. Her eyes opened a little wider, but she stood her ground, her pretty jaw clenched in fear or anger. Maybe a little of both.

“If anything happens to him while I’m gone, I will hold you responsible,” I said, my whisper like venom. “If the life is gone from his eyes when I return, then I will bring the wrath of the Almighty down on the both of you.” My eyes flicked up to Finn, who was reeling Emma into his arms, fire in his eyes like a challenge.

“Back off, Anaya,” he said. “We’ll keep him safe. You’re not the only one who gives a damn about him.”

We all turned around when we heard monitors wail behind us. Cash threw his legs over the bed, jerking IVs out of his wrist.

“Cash, what are you doing?” Emma rushed over to help him.

“I’m leaving,” he said, holding her watery gaze with his. “Are you going to help me or not? I want to go home, Em. I don’t need this hospital. And I sure as hell don’t need a babysitter, let alone three of them. Everyone needs to stop acting like I can’t take care of myself.”