Page 126 of Finders Reapers

Maddox turned on the television and sat back. The lights of the screen reflected on his face in the darkness—as if he was doing his best to put some distance between us.

I waited until the shower was running before I dumped my duffle bag onto the floor and rifled through it to find my hair products, as well as the pajamas I had luckily decided to pack. Unfortunately, I had gotten a wild hair and gone for something skimpy—which used to be my MO. Though not so much recently.

I turned to face the mirror, my new freckles stark on my pale face. I twisted my body to the side before using my fingers to pull the skin on my cheeks.

I didn’t know if Reapers were enhanced enough to hear into another room with the door closed. I didn’t know what their abilities were beyond an unfathomable connection to the universe, a scythe, and the ability to go ghost occasionally, but I couldn’t help the guilty feeling racing through my veins and turning my cheeks pink as I reached into the back pocket of my jeans and pulled out one of the pages that had dotted Anderson Reynolds’s floor.

The faceless dark shadow of a Drude stared back at me. The same demons that had been plaguing my nightmares of the red deserts that looked like no human landscape I had ever seen. The same faceless shadows that haunted the greyscale place between life and death, where souls became visible.

There were scribbles in the margins.

‘Only Mara can rule Quietus?’

‘Hell is failing.’

‘Drudes are descendants of Mara. Only a few left.’

‘Drudes = no bodies’

Ever since Maddox had told me that my mother could have been possessed by a Drude, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

How it would have felt to live in someone else’s body.

I thought back to my surgeries. The desire to feel like I fit into my own body and be at one with the vessel that carried me through life. I’d had surgery to try and consolidate the image of myself with the image I presented to the world, but more than anything else, to feel comfortable in my skin.

I took my time showering and getting ready, becoming more and more nervous every time I remembered that Maddox was outside of the room. The sketch of the drude rested on the counter. The rushed scrawl of a madman.

I wrapped my towel around my body and dried my hair lazily as I held up the stolen page and tried to piece together the rest of the information, but the words were jumbled and the sentences half-finished.

Goddess of Death.

Scattered.

Pieces.

Drudes.

Nightmare.

Only the Goddess of Death can…

Contracted…

Devil gone…

Gone.

God is dead.

The goddess lives.

When my time in the bathroom went from long to excessive, I packed away the stolen page and dressed quickly before entering the room.

Letterman had finished, and Maddox watched the highlights from some boxing match in Las Vegas. He shot me a glance as I emerged before sitting up and scooting to the edge of the bed. I couldn’t help but glance at the small couch in the corner of the room. Maddox was a large man, and I was sure his feet would hang off the edge if the couch could even contain his shoulders. Which was doubtful.

Before returning to the bed, I stashed my duffle bag in the cupboard by the door. It might have been a single room, but the single bed was larger than average.

I worried my lip between my teeth before making a spur-of-the-moment decision that would probably haunt me.