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Chapter 11

Cash

“Stop looking at me like that,” I snapped at Finn and his sad eyes. I couldn’t take this. The waiting. The not knowing. He may have been an absentee asshole most of my life, but that didn’t change the fact that he was my dad. And he was somewhere in this hospital, alive, dead, dying, afraid. I didn’t know. I shoved my fingers into my hair and pulled at the long spikes until my scalp throbbed. I tapped my foot to keep from kicking something. Destroying something.

“I just…” Finn averted his gaze to the scuffed linoleum floor and watched a nurse’s shoes scurry by. I didn’t really see the nurse. I was too busy watching the rotten little shadow demon that had followed me here. It crawled in creepy little circles around me, filling up my nostrils with its disgusting scent. I finally managed to break my attention away from it to realize Finn hadn’t finished.

“You just what?”

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up.” Hesitantly, he met my gaze. “She was there for—”

“For
me
. She was there for me,” I said. “You said it yourself.”

Finn watched an old man on a stretcher roll by. Eerily silent. Dead white. A shadow hovered at the foot of his bed, waiting. So…they didn’t spend all their time harassing just me, then.

Finn kept staring even after he’d been pushed out of sight. “I was wrong.”

“Stop saying that!”

Emma and her mom rushed down the hall toward us and I jerked my hands out of my hair and bit my tongue. My dad was not dead. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. I’d seen the man win impossible cases. Survive the hell my mom had left him in for eleven years. Dad was built from steel. It was going to take more than a freaking heart attack to bring him down. And he wouldn’t leave me alone. Not like this.

“Cash?” Emma touched my shoulder and I shook my head, realizing from everyone’s worried expressions that they’d probably said my name more than once.

“He’s gonna be fine, Em,” I said, feeling my voice catch around the uncertain
fine
that fell out of my mouth.

Emma looked at Finn then back to me, nodding. “Right. He’s going to be fine.”

My gaze drifted down to the shadow circling Emma’s ankles. Flicking its dripping tongue out to get a taste of the denim that covered her calf. Without even thinking, I shoved her away and knelt down in front of it. Noah had grabbed one. If we were so much alike, wouldn’t I be able to do the same? And right now, choking one of these little bastards sounded too damn good to pass up. I flexed my fingers, watching it rise up within an inch of my hand, then reached out to grab it. Pain exploded across my hand like I’d dipped it into a flame and the shadow demon passed through my hand like smoke.

“Mother fu—” I stood up, wiping my burning hand on my jeans, and stomped on the thing. I stomped until I couldn’t breathe. Until I was sure I’d smashed it to bits tiny enough to be blown away by the sickly sweet smell coming through the hospital vents. I stomped until two hands wrapped around my shoulders and jerked me back.

I looked up at Emma, breathing hard, and realized Finn had two fistfuls of my T-shirt. Everyone was silent, looking at me like I was that crazy guy who stood on the corner of Fifth and Elm and threw sticks at people’s cars.

“There was…” I stared down at the floor where the shadow should have been. Nothing. Just some off-white waiting room tile with a questionable stain.

“Mr. Cooper?” a hesitant voice said from behind me. Finn squeezed my shoulders once and let me go. I turned, not ready to hear what Finn already knew.

“That’s me.”

The doctor’s dark brown hair was plastered to his head with sweat. His glasses kept slipping down his nose. I stared at the blue scrub cap that was protruding between his clenched fingers. I couldn’t look at his eyes when he told me this. It was too much. If I saw the truth in his eyes, I wouldn’t be able to pretend this wasn’t real.

“Is he…?”

“Your father had a massive heart attack. I don’t think we could have helped him even if he’d been here on a gurney when it happened. We did everything we could. I’m so sorry.”

I nodded. I felt…empty. Hollow. Where was the pain? My dad was dead. Gone. There should have been pain, right?

“We have grief counselors you could speak with,” the doctor said. I held up my hand, shaking my head mechanically, and he stopped.

“Cash?” Emma’s voice. It sounded muffled. Off.

Nothing. How was it possible to feel this much nothing?

“Cash, answer me.” Emma again.

“Stop it. Just give him some room. Let him breathe,” Finn said. Breathe? Was that even possible? I felt like I was suffocating.

“Cash!”

Something inside me snapped at the sound of Emma’s voice. It was
the
sound. That same rawness I’d heard in her voice the day her dad had died. I’d never understood what that sound meant. But hearing it now, in this place, forced me to.

Everything came rushing into me all at once. The wall I’d built up around myself after Mom left, decimated. The wound that would forever replace my father, ripped wide open. And it…hurt. Oh,
God
did it hurt. Just a stinging at first. But before too long it was throbbing. Burning with things I should have said. Things I should have done. I shouldn’t have shut him out. I shouldn’t have been such a moody little prick to him all the time. I couldn’t even remember what the last thing I said to him was. Shit! What did I say? What was it?

“It’s gonna be okay,” Emma whispered against my neck. “I promise.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head against her shoulder. I couldn’t catch my breath. Couldn’t stop shaking. “I said…we’re out of bread.”

“What?” Emma pulled back, her blue eyes full of
questions. I stared over her shoulder at the wall and swallowed the lump in my throat.

“That was the last thing I said to him,” I said. “We’re out of bread.”

Emma opened her mouth but stopped when Finn crouched down beside us and stared at the blank spot on the wall with me.

“He won’t remember that,” he said. “He’ll remember the good parts. Where he went…the good parts are all that exist.”

I nodded and closed my eyes. He was someplace better. That should count for something, right?

“Um…Cash, sweetheart,” Emma’s mom, Rachel, stepped up behind me and touched my shoulder. “Is there anyone we can call? Any family? Someone you could stay with?”

I shook my head. The only living family who still talked to us was Aunt Sara, and she lived in Germany on a military base. No way was she making it back. No way was I moving there.

“What about your mom?” she asked, hesitantly. I shot her a look that could’ve cut through steel, and she winced. The mom I hadn’t spoken to since I was six? The mom who hadn’t even bothered to send a birthday card in
eleven
years? The mom who had made damn sure I’d never find her? Hell, I didn’t even have her phone number.

“He’s staying with us,” Emma spoke up. “He can stay in the guest room.”

“Emma, honey, I’d have to talk to Parker—”

Emma stood up and pinned her mom with the stare that had shut me up more than once. “He’s staying.”

Rachel looked at me like I was a dog in the pound about to be euthanized. “You’re right. Emma, take him home to grab some of his things. I’ll get the guest room set up for him.”

Funny how she talked to Emma like I wasn’t even there. I wondered if that’s how I looked. Vacant. It’s how I felt. Like part of me had checked out. Gone south for the winter. Emma grabbed one of my arms, Finn grabbed the other, and they pulled me to my feet. But I didn’t want to be on my feet. I wanted to be on the floor with the shadows. In that empty moment…I wanted to let them have me. I watched one of them, a black silhouette of death, slither from one side of the hall to the other. Never stopping. Never taking the hollow holes that were its eyes off of me. Its shape changed as it moved. Sprouting wings, tentacles, arms and legs. It melted into the dark shape of a man, reached its dripping hand out to me, and I felt my grip start to slip from Emma’s.

“
Come,
” it hissed. That hiss melted through me, burrowing deep. Somewhere in the back of my mind, someone was saying,
It would be so much easier just to go
…

Emma jerked on my arm and forced me to look at her. “What is it?” she asked.

“They’re here for me.” I swallowed the broken sound down my throat and took a shaky step forward.

“Don’t even think about it,” she whispered, tightening her grip on me. “I’m not letting you go.”

Chapter 12

Anaya

Every moment of my existence revolved around death, but I hadn’t been to a funeral in a thousand years. Now I remembered why I hated them so much. I closed my eyes and fought off the memory threatening to claim me. Tarik. My father. My mother clutching my hand as the sea blew wind and salt and hair into our eyes. The awful, hopeless feeling flowing through me, knowing they were never coming back. Knowing the two most important men in my life now belonged to the sea.

Each of the cold graves surrounding me represented a soul gone from this earth. A lifetime of kisses, laughter, and love now just dust and bones and memories. That’s what Cash’s father was now. To this earth, he was just another memory.

I lingered on the outskirts of the crowd of quivering bodies all cloaked in black. I kept my eyes on the stone fixture that was Cash, praying with everything in me that I didn’t get called away now. The only parts of him that moved were his hair and the ends of his burgundy scarf, tossed around by the wind. His steady brown gaze was focused with a desperate intensity on the closed casket being lowered into the ground. A slightly off-key woman in the corner of the bright blue tent sang a haunting hymn that echoed across the cemetery. The hollow sound moved through the headstones like smoke, leaving an imprint of sadness wherever it went. Cash’s dark brows drew together as if he thought he could force the tears to stay inside. He didn’t look right like this. All buttoned and ironed without one of those ridiculous T-shirts. He looked…broken.

A memory sparked. I tried to fight it off, but it rushed back anyway. Something about seeing Cash like this, drowning in loss, dredged up memories of my own. Suddenly, I saw Tarik standing on the dock that day. His dark hair whipping in the wind. Hiding his eyes. I still remembered the warmth of his palm as he cupped my face and rubbed a stray tear from my cheek. The salty taste of the sea, dry on my lips. The way his hair sifted through my fingers like silk when I reached up to push it out of his eyes.

“Anaya…there is no need for tears,” he whispered into my hair. Every part of me lit up. Burned out of control knowing he was touching me like this where everyone could see. “I’ll return. It’s only three days, love.”

I gripped his shirt in my fist and breathed him in. He smelled like fish, but I didn’t care. It almost smelled nice next to the basket of warm bread I was balancing on my hip.

“It always feels like a lifetime,” I said.

He laughed and kissed my forehead despite the disapproving
look my father gave him as he hauled a basket full of supplies onto the boat.

“My Anaya…” He smiled. Warm. Beautiful. The way I’d always remember him after that. “We should be happy your father gave me this job.”

“You hate this job.”

Tarik sighed and tugged on one of my braids. “No. I only hate smelling of fish guts when you always smell of dreams.”

“I love you,” I whispered. “Even when you smell like fish guts.”

Tarik’s lips tipped up into that cocky grin that left my knees weak and wobbly every time. He gripped my chin and brought his lips to mine. Kissed me once. Soft. Reassuring.

“And I love you.” He kissed me once more and then he was waving to me from the ship deck. Sending me kisses to be carried by the wind. Then he was just a dot on the bright-orange horizon. And then he was gone. Forever.

I blinked away the memory and looked down at my empty arms, half expecting to see a basket of bread there. The crowds began to thin as people retreated back to their vehicles. All that remained was Cash, with Emma and Finn acting as beams of support at his sides. Emma wiped away a tear and Cash pulled away from the iron grip she had on his arm.

“I want to be alone,” he said.

Emma and Finn exchanged a glance and Emma touched the sleeve of Cash’s jacket, unsure. “Are you sure? I can stay—”

“I’m sure, Em.” His voice cracked and pain began to chip away at the protective layer around my heart. “Please. Just let me be alone with him. I’ll come straight to your house after.”

Emma placed a soft kiss on his cheek and then reached for Finn’s hand before disappearing over the hill. A few excruciating moments later, Cash looked in my direction.

“Are you planning on talking to me or are you here on a haunting gig?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped out from under the blue tent. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt a side job you’ve got going.”

I stepped into the light, allowing him to see me, my hands linked behind my back to mask the way they trembled. Would he hate me for this? He should. I’d caused this unbearable pain he was feeling. I wanted so badly to take it away.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, hating how inadequate it felt.

“Was it your call or Balthazar’s?”

I bit my lip and looked away. “Balthazar’s. I didn’t have a choice.”

He nodded almost mechanically, but I could see a flare of heat in his gaze.

“You reap for Heaven, right?” He came to stand beside me, staring off into the distance, his gaze avoiding the big blue tent and what was buried beneath it.

“Yes.”

He nodded and shut his eyes. “And that’s where you took him?”

“Yes,” I said. “I took him home. He’s happy there. I promise you that.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked and he shook his head. “See, that’s the problem. I’m kind of having a hard time knowing whose promises to believe these days.”

Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his hand, not expecting it when he laced his fingers through mine to keep it in place. “You can believe mine. Always.”

Cash squeezed my hand as if he were testing something, and blue sparks twined around our wrists. This time I didn’t pull away and neither did he. Right or wrong, I needed this contact as much as he did.

“God, you feel warm,” he whispered, letting his arm fall against mine so that our skin was fused together along our shoulders, fingertips, and everywhere in between. The heat beneath my skin blazed, reaching out to warm the boy beside me.

“I don’t know anything about you,” he said, breaking the fragile silence between us. “Besides the fact that you’re dead.”

“Do you want to?”

Cash shrugged and tilted his chin down to look at me. “Only seems fair. You know all of my secrets.”

I bit my bottom lip, thinking. I didn’t want to tell him stories about death, but that’s all my existence had consisted of for the past thousand years. For some reason I didn’t want him to see me that way. I wanted him to see something else when he looked at me. Something I didn’t get to be anymore. Alive.

“I lost my father, too,” I said, softly. “Just before I died. At the time I’d been so angry. I thought he’d been taken before his time.”

“And now?”

I shook my head, purposely hiding behind my braids. “Now that I’m on the other side, I see how foolish it is that people try to fight it. Like it’s a choice. Like it hasn’t already been written.”

“Did it ever stop hurting?” he asked.

I thought about the ache that I had carried with me all these years. The one for Tarik, so deep and cutting that the most fleeting memory of him tore it wide open all over again.

“Some wounds never heal,” I admitted. “They simply become a part of us.”

Cash stared down at me, his gaze lingering on my lips. He squeezed my hand and swallowed. “Have you ever wanted something, even knowing you shouldn’t?”

Nervous energy washed through me. I should have walked away. From the way he was looking at me. Touching me. But I didn’t. Instead I nodded, unable to look away, and said, “Yes.”

I wanted him.

The instant I thought it, I wanted to take it back. Needed to take it back. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it was wrong. Cash studied my face for a moment and his eyes flashed with a decision. He started walking, tugging me behind him toward the parking lot. Only a few empty cars littered the pavement, the gathering from the funeral already having moved on to the next destination.

“Where are we going?”

He pulled me in by my wrist and backed me against the door of his Bronco. In an instant, he was right there, so close to my lips. “It hurts so fucking bad, Anaya.” His voice shattered in a broken whisper. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we have to live with the hurt forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t numb it. Help me forget. Please. I just want to forget for a little while.”

His brown eyes swept over me like he was committing every inch of me to memory. If I were still full of blood, I imagine that look would have had me warm all over. I couldn’t help but wonder how many girls he’d looked at like that. He wouldn’t have been looking at me like that if he weren’t decimated and begging for escape.

“Cash, I can’t,” I said.
Stay calm, Anaya. You don’t care. He’s just a human and you can leave. He has no power over you.
I scooted back, trapping myself against the door. Trying to inch away from Cash’s heat. His smell. The way his eyes were looking right through me. The way the tilt of his lips said he didn’t want me to go even as the anger behind his clenched fists said he didn’t want me to stay.

“Don’t go,” he said.

He took a step closer, effectively erasing the space between us, and pressed his palm against the door behind me to steady himself. His black hair lay in damp spikes against his forehead. His eyes looked dark and tortured. He was so beautiful and sad that it hurt to look at him. God…he deserved so much more than this.

“You don’t want me.”

“You have no idea what I want,” he said.

“You don’t need me,” I whispered. “You need something any other girl in this town could give you.”

His thumb brushed the side of my face and he swallowed. “I don’t want them.”

Something inside my chest began to pound. Or maybe it was just the memory of what my body was supposed to do with a boy this close.

He leaned in closer and I closed my eyes.
This is wrong. This is wrong
. I kept repeating the thought, but my body wasn’t listening. Instead it was burning up. Leaning into this boy who was drawing me in with every breath. Cash’s cheek grazed mine, solid and warm, and my knees wobbled. Oh my God. How could he make me feel like this? How could he ignite sensations that had been dead for a thousand years? I couldn’t lose myself to this, no matter how good it felt. Not now. Not ever.

I exhaled, letting go of the corporeality, to step through him, but he stopped me just like he had in the car. Panic flared to life in my chest as my gaze traveled down to his fingers wrapped around my waist. I focused, trying again, but under his fingers, I was solid. Flesh. Every brush of his skin on mine was pushing the death out of me and filling me with artificial life.

“I want
you
, Anaya.” I tilted my face up and he took it as an invitation. I gasped as his lips grazed mine, asking for something.

“I want your taste in my mouth. I want your heat in my veins.” One of his hands came up to cradle my jaw as he gently kissed my top lip, them my bottom, lingering there the longest. I whimpered into his mouth and every part of him shook with what I could only guess was restraint. He pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. “I want it to erase everything that’s inside of me right now. Say it’s okay, Anaya. Tell me you want me, too.”

His thumb traced my bottom lip where his mouth had just been and I swayed into him. Some part of me wanted to give in, but I knew he didn’t really want me. He was too good at this. No matter what he said, he just wanted what every other girl he sought out gave him. Escape. A way to forget. I let the taste of him linger there for an instant, then broke away and gently shoved him back. I couldn’t do this. Tarik. Tarik was so close. I’d waited a thousand years for him! I couldn’t let myself ruin everything now.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Cash pulled back and stared at me, his jaw set into a hard line. He raked his fingers through his hair and backed away.

“Why’d you have to save me? Why couldn’t you have just done your damn job at that fire and taken me!”

“That wasn’t my decision. I just did as I was told.”

It sounded so cheap. So awful on the heels of the intimate moment we’d just shared.

“I hate this, Anaya!” He backed away shaking, pulling at the tie around his neck as if it were choking him, fighting the tears glistening in his eyes. “I want my life back!”

Cash’s eyes searched my face, pleading. The desperate look in them sent a shiver of fear down my spine.

“Take me,” he said.

“What?”

“Take me,” he repeated. “If I need to die first, just tell me what I have to do. Then you can take me to be with my dad and all of this will be over. Right?”

“I…I can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not?” His hands slammed against the door, caging me in.

“Because I care about you,” I said, trying to catch the breath I didn’t need. It wasn’t a lie. I did care about him. But it wasn’t the truth, either, and the words tasted awful coming out of my mouth. I should have told him the truth. I was trading his misery for my redemption. His torture for my chance to get through the gates that had taunted me every day for the last thousand years. I took away his chance at eternal happiness so that I could get back to Tarik. But I couldn’t say that. Not after he’d just kissed me.

“There’s more.” He stood frozen in place, refusing to let me free. “What aren’t you telling me?”

I slipped out from under him and stilled. The dead were calling. So warm and sweet. The scythe in my holster wasn’t as patient. It burned my hip through the leather and the thin white barrier of my dress.

“I have to go,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry if they come back. Really, I am…but I can’t stay here. Just remember what I told you. Keep calm. Keep control.”

Cash sagged against the Bronco, watching me. “This isn’t over, Anaya. Not even close.”