Page 66 of Finders Reapers

“Charon chooses who gets the bodies,” Maddox said through gritted teeth.

I quirked a brow. “You went to Ollie to try and get around that.”

He ignored my statement and unrolled his silverware before he began to methodically cut up his food.

“If there is anything I’ve learned from the last few days,” I said. “It’s that death isn’t always final.”

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from many years on the job,” He retorted. “It's that sometimes things are going on behind the scenes that the people on the ground don’t have a fucking clue about.”

I studied him. I got the feeling that Maddox didn’t swear often but that he was at the end of his rope.

“Why did you invite me out to breakfast?” I said as I sawed into my pancakes.

Maddox’s blue piercing eyes flicked to mine. His face was devoid of any emotion he had shown only moments before. “You’re useless.”

“Gee,” I snorted. “Thanks? I guess?”

Maddox continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You don’t know any Cyclian, so you cannot access any doorways. You aren’t a higher-level demon, so you can’t move through realities. You’re a new Reaper, and you don’t even have a scythe.”

“I can have a scythe?” I perked up.

“And...” He drawled. “You have the attention span of someone that grew up consuming every modicum of media on Twitter, Vine, and Tiktok.”

“It used to be calledMusical.ly,” I muttered in defense.

He dropped his knife and fork. “Stop deflecting.” He demanded, his jaw mashing in anger. “It makes you look stupid.”

My throat burned. I didn’t want to admit it out loud, but Iwasstupid. At least when it came to traditional measures of intelligence.

“Sorry,” I said, but the word rang false.

“Youths today.” He shook his head derisively. “Popcorn brain.”

“Okay,daddy,” I retorted, my ire heating my tone even though I refused to bring my dog to the fight.

His eyes darkened. “Father issues aside,” He continued. “You need to learn how to become a Reaper. This is non-negotiable.”

“Finally,” I rolled my eyes. “Something we agree on,” I had loaded up my fork and raised it to my mouth when I remembered that I hadn’t used any syrup—Maddox was messing with my head by going from hot to cold in an instant.

I put down my fork and reached over for the syrup when my phone began to vibrate against my ass, just as Maddox’s clattered against the table.

I reached into my pocket. A notification blinked across the screen, with an image of an address pulled straight from Google maps.

“Does everyone get a notification? Or is it a proximity thing?” I asked.

Maddox studied his phone with a frown. “Each area and type of death has an assigned team of Reapers.” He informed me, distracted. “Click into the app, and you can see the account icons. There’s one for each of us. If you’re busy, you just decline. Some jobs require one person, some require more, like the Asylum shooting. It’s like uber but for souls.”

“What if everyone declines?” I wondered.

Maddox whistled. “You really don’t want someone yanking your soul chain.”

“Soul chain?”

He tapped his chest. “You can say yes of your own accord, or you can be led about on a leash. We have a certain amount of leeway, aka the ability to say no if we need sleep or food or don’t want to deal with the kind of death on offer. We have a system in place.” Maddox explained.

I nodded, disappointed as Maddox sat up and fished some cash out of his pocket before dumping it on the table.

“Come on.” He grunted.