Page 25 of Finders Reapers

I nodded, still chewing.

“You the new girl?” He asked. His accent wasn’t American. It had a harsher edge. The way he said ‘you’ sounded like ‘ya-ew.’

I swallowed my mouthful of pizza. “British?”

“My name’s Jamal.” He laughed and smiled at the same time. “I’m from England, yeah. Hackney. I died in the seventies, though.”

My own smile fell. “I forgot about that.”

His gaze turned questioning.

“That Reapers are dead people,” I clarified as my face warmed. I placed my hands on my cheeks and turned to the mirror. My face was beet red. “Cazzo! That’s annoying.”

“Your old body didn’t blush?” Jamal stepped forward and rounded the bar, standing on the bartender’s side. He grabbed one of the tumblers and filled it with ice.

I shook my head. “Italian. In case you couldn’t tell from the swearing. I get it from my Nonna—that woman could peel the paint off a boat with her cursing,” I held out my hand and turned over the skin. “I need some SPF, stat. It sucks that my entire skincare regime is out the window now that I have new skin.”

“You don’t say.” He poured himself a vodka cranberry and took a sip with a quirked brow. “Out of dying, being given a new body, and leaving your old life behind to go reap souls for the Big Bad—I can’t imagine having to find a new moisturizer. It sounds like a ball ache.”

“You’re making fun of me,” I squinted.

He shrugged, but his lips twitched at the edge. “Part and parcel with being English, love. We take the piss because we care.”

“I’ve had a stressful few days,” I said, changing the subject back.

“I can imagine.” Jamal nodded with commiseration.

“I just want to sleep,” I continued apologetically.

Jamal held out his hand towards the door next to the bar. “By all means, love.”

I pushed myself off of the barstool and strode towards the door; shooting a look over my shoulder, I thanked him.

“Don’t thank me, love,” Jamal warned. “That’s the last time any of us are going to be nice.”

I had no idea what he meant by that, but the call of sleep was too strong to ignore.

Chapter 4

I wondered if the four Reapers on the other side of the door realized they had fucked up by leaving a tablet on the perfectly made king-size bed in my room.

Then I realized that none of them probably cared enough about me and what I did to even notice.

My fingertips prickled with the desire to grab the tablet, log into my socials, and blast an update on the inner workings of the metaphysical afterlife and my new identity.

Then I remembered that Hell was a very real place, and although Charon had expressed that I couldn’t be sentdowntownat that moment, it wasn’t something that he couldn’t arrange in the future.

Plus, Mr. Bub—the humanoid stick insect in a suit—scared the bejeezus out of me.

I cautiously approached the tablet, giving a fluttering sigh when I realized that it was fully charged.

I had been offline for over a day. The last time that happened, I’d been having liposuction on my thighs. The only thing that prevented me from posting was anesthesia.

The first port of call was my subreddit,r/ValentineXO. My own face shone back at me, over and over. Quotes from the women in media panel I had done last year. One silly joke I told on a Live once that became a meme, inside jokes, and triple layers memes that even I didn’t know the context to anymore.

Mourning.

Stories of people going through trauma, hard times, abuse, and stress, being cheered up by my videos.