Page 13 of Forgotten (The Soulbound #1)

There are various types of souls to reap.

The first is the most common—a soul whose time has simply run out. Natural deaths. The body fails, the soul lets go, and I guide it where it needs to go. These are easy. Smooth. No resistance. The moment the light fades from their eyes, they slip free, weightless, and the job is done.

The second type is rarer but not unheard of. The souls of people who were murdered. These souls are given a choice: either they become a Grim Reaper themselves or move on to be reincarnated—with a better life next time.

I’ve also seen the souls of murderers. People who chose to go against the natural order instead of with it. These souls may seem the same as the first type, but only while they’re still alive. In the afterlife, they blacken, scarred by the horrors they’ve committed. Their karma stains them, like ink spreading in water.

These souls don’t get the luxury of choice. They become punching bags for the Grim Reapers who’ve been waiting for them to die. When one—or more—of their victims feels satisfied with the revenge they’ve extracted, the soul moves on.

I’ve been murdered. My karma is unbalanced, but on the positive side. If I wanted to, I could reincarnate as someone beautiful, lucky, or both in the next life. But I’ve chosen to wait for my ex-husband to die and punish him.

Punishing him will take away my karma. It will erase the good fate I could’ve had, the reward I should’ve gotten for my suffering.

His sin, if he’s punished, will be erased too—once he suffers enough to balance the scales. The pain he caused, the life he stole—it doesn’t just disappear, but it evens out. His debt is paid. And once that happens, I’ll no longer have a claim on this world. I won’t be tethered here anymore.

Souls who commit suicide on the mortal plane are treated similarly. They’re considered murderers, even if they’ve taken their own life. Their karma isn’t as blackened as that of a murderer, but there’s still something missing. A void. A loss. They’re given no choice—only another life with a debt to pay, one way or another. Some are reborn into suffering, forced to work through the pain they left unfinished. Others get a chance to make things right in a different way.

But never—never—have I seen this before.

A soul, snatched straight from the train to the afterlife and shoved right back into its body.

And that terrifies me.

Because the universe loves balance. That’s why karma exists, why everything evens out in the end. And now? The scales are tipped, the balance is shattered, and heaven only knows what kind of cosmic temper tantrum is coming to set things straight.

The worst part?

This is all my fucking fault.

I stare at this girl, who is radiating gratitude—like a golden retriever who thinks she just got saved from a burning building. But the poor thing has no idea. It’s all there in her eyes: fear, confusion, relief. She thinks she just narrowly dodged death by sheer luck. She thinks these men just happened to be here to save her.

She looks me in the eyes. Somehow. I don’t know how she does it, but she does, and I stare right back.

“I… I don’t know how to thank you,” she says, her voice raw and shaky. “I would have died if you hadn’t been here.”

No.

You did die.

You were already gone.

Nathaniel kneels beside her, nodding like some fucking inspirational life coach again. I don’t know where his vibe of a serial killer has gone, but it—puff—evaporated. Disappeared. All that’s left is this nice… thing of a lie.

“You don’t have to thank us,” he says smoothly. “You should focus on resting.”

I nearly vomit on the spot.

“We should get going,” Cassian mutters. Unlike the other two, he isn’t hovering over her like she’s a newborn. He stands off to the side, dripping from head to toe in pool water, already having wet spots all over his clothes.

His eyes meet mine. I swear I see a challenge inside them. Like he’s daring me to admit it—to say out loud that I could have just left a human to die. But he knows I would. I'm a Grim Reaper. That's what I do.

The girl lets out a weak, breathless laugh.

“Oh, I will,” she says. “But it's okay, you guys. I feel much better already. Tired as hell, but way better. And, um… I think one of you is making your girlfriend jealous.”

Silence.

Talon lets out a low whistle. Nathaniel raises a brow. Cassian doesn’t react—his face stays unreadable, but his posture? Stiffens just a fraction.

And me?

I freeze.

Because what the fuck.

Girlfriend?

Girlfriend ?

My stomach twists so hard it feels like it might rip itself in half.

As if.

Nathaniel is the first to react. His lips curve into a slow, easy smile, the kind of effortless charm that could talk someone down from a ledge or convince them the sky is green.

“Oh, she’s not jealous,” he murmurs smoothly. “She just worries too much.”

Talon snorts. “Understatement.”

Cassian doesn’t say a word. His dark eyes just bore into me, watching.

I want to scream. I don’t even remember the last time I was this shaken. Pissed. Feral.

I should shut this down. Immediately. But if I do, what then? What do I say?

Actually, I’m an entity of death who was here to ferry your soul to the afterlife, but these guys just rewrote the laws of the universe, so you probably should’ve stayed dead ?

So I just… stand there.

Like an idiot.

Like a jealous girlfriend watching her boyfriend flirt with the half-drowned chick he just rescued.

God.

The pull, which had been screaming through me moments ago, is now dead silent. Like it’s sulking. Like even it doesn’t know what the fuck is happening anymore.

The girl lets out a nervous chuckle, her cheeks tinting pink. “Oh. I didn’t mean to... um, overstep.”

“You didn’t,” Nathaniel assures her. “She’s just protective. It’s sweet, really.”

Pain caws sharply from his perch, ruffling his feathers like it, too, is personally offended by the entire situation.

Nathaniel smirks, catching my expression.

Talon looks downright delighted .

At least Cassian looks like he wants to get the hell out of here just as much as I do. If I had the option, I’d just phase through the floor like a dramatic little ghost bitch and vanish. But no—this girl would definitely see it, probably scream, maybe faint, and suddenly, the guys would be prime suspects for whatever horror-movie scenario she’s been through. Then they’d get arrested, and my ex-husband would continue breathing.

Absolutely not.

Luckily, the girl seems too exhausted to care anymore. She slumps back against the tile, eyes fluttering shut.

The sirens are getting closer.

“Ambulance is close,” Talon announces, standing up and stretching, his leather jacket creaking. “We should probably go before we have to explain ourselves.”

Nathaniel nods, rising to his feet in one smooth motion. “Agreed.”

Cassian follows without a word.

Me? I’m already four steps ahead of them.

But just as we reach the exit, the medics rush in, and we’re stopped dead in our tracks.

A uniformed paramedic, a man in his mid-forties with tired eyes and a sharp gaze, raises a hand to stop us as his partner rushes to the girl’s side.

“Hold up,” he says. “You were the ones who called it in?”

I blink. Oh, right. The broken entrance door. The total disregard for subtlety. Also, the glaringly obvious fact that no normal person just wanders into an abandoned building for fun and accidentally stumbles upon a drowning victim.

“Yes,” Nathaniel steps up. “We were driving by and saw something move under the pool cover through the windows. We weren’t sure, but it didn’t look right, so we stopped to check.”

The paramedic’s eyes narrow. “And you… broke in?”

“Seemed quicker than looking for a key,” Nathaniel replies.

I hate that even in this moment—even with the fresh crime scene energy all over this place—he somehow looks trustworthy. Without all his piercings, and with that calm, take-my-hand-I-won’t-let-you-die voice he’s using, he could pass for a responsible citizen.

How is he even doing it? It shouldn’t be possible. I swear that back at the abandoned hospital he looked like a walking menace.

The paramedic studies him, then glances at the girl, still breathing—alive, thanks to us. I hold my breath, waiting for more questions, more scrutiny—maybe even the part where the guys get tased and arrested.

Instead, the man exhales sharply and rubs a hand over his jaw.

“Well,” he mutters. “Looks like you saved her life.”

Talon whistles under his breath, amused. Cassian remains unreadable. Nathaniel just nods like this was the only logical outcome all along.

“We just did what anyone would’ve,” he says smoothly.

I nearly roll my eyes. Liar .

The paramedic nods, then waves us off. “Alright, get out of here. Let us do our job.”

We don’t need to be told twice.

I walk fast, my legs carrying me away from the three of them before my brain even catches up.

“Skye,” Nathaniel calls after me.

I pretend I don’t hear him. I keep walking until we’re far enough from the pool that I don’t feel like reality is actively melting down.

Then I whip around to face these three idiots responsible for this absolute catastrophe.

“What the fuck was that?”

Now, listen. I don’t normally cuss. My ex-husband hated it, so I trained myself out of it like some tragic Victorian housewife who clutches her pearls at the word damn. But right now? Right now, my soul demands violence .

I want to blaspheme these men into oblivion. I want to call upon every unholy force in existence and drag their collective asses into the underworld for a lecture on why they are the absolute worst.

But before I can even start, Nathaniel interrupts me.

“What was what?” he asks, smooth as ever, as if he’s genuinely confused why I’m about to combust.

I take a sharp step forward, jabbing a finger at him. I don’t touch him, but I pretend to.

“Don’t. Do. That. Don’t act like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. You saved her.”

“She wasn’t supposed to die,” he replies, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world.

I scoff. “She did die.”

“And now she’s alive.”

Oh my god. Oh my actual god. There is no talking to him. The conversation is already dead on arrival. I press my fingers to my temples, inhaling deeply, trying to push past the overwhelming frustration crawling up my spine.

At some point, the three of them climb into the car, leaving the door open for me. And when I apparently stand here too long, silently fuming, Talon comes back to get me.

“Come on, Little Grim,” he coaxes.

Fuck his softness. Fuck his voice. Fuck everything about this night.

“Fuck you,” I spit at him. And to really drive my point home, Pain—my beautiful, vicious raven—circles overhead before letting loose a white-hot spiritual shit aimed right at Talon.

Of course, being a spectral bird, it doesn’t actually hit him. It phases right through him, straight into the abyss, probably reappearing in some unfortunate dimension. But it’s the thought that counts.

Talon’s mismatched eyes go wide for half a second before he sighs. “Don’t be like this,” he says. “Just get in the car, and everything will be fine.”

“Is that a threat?” I snarl. The anger is bubbling up, too big for my body, too much for my nonexistent lungs to contain. “You think you can make me?”

Talon’s smirk flickers for the briefest moment before it returns, lazy and amused—but now there’s a hint of wariness behind it.

“Not a threat, Little Grim. Just a reality check.” He tilts his head slightly. “You’re mad, I get it. But it’s done. She’s alive. No use throwing a tantrum about it.”

I want to rip his entire head off.

“You interfered,” I snap. “You have no idea what you’ve done. The balance—”

“Oh, spare me the lecture,” Talon interrupts, rolling his eyes. “No one’s gonna smite us for saving one girl.”

I growl under my breath. “You don’t know that.”

Nathaniel leans out of the car, arms resting on the open door. “Get in, Skye,” he says calmly. Not an order, not a plea. Just a fact. Like he already knows I will. Like it’s inevitable.

I narrow my eyes. “And if I don’t?”

His expression doesn’t change. “Then we'll make you.”

Fury coils tight in my chest. Oh, that’s just cute. I phase straight through the door, just to be petty, landing in the seat with my arms crossed so tight my non-existent nails would’ve dug into my non-existent skin. Talon slides in after me, completely unfazed—like phasing through solid objects is just another thing I do to be hot —and Cassian pulls away from the curb without a word.

The drive back is silent.

It’s not until we pull up to the abandoned hospital, the engine still humming, that I finally speak.

“You lied to me,” I say, voice dripping with venom.

Nathaniel exhales through his nose, watching me carefully. “We didn’t touch your soul,” he says. “We didn’t break our word.”

“That’s not the point!” I snap, whirling on him. “The point is that you changed something that wasn’t meant to be changed. You undid death .”

“And what’s so bad about that?” Talon leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “She didn’t deserve to die, did she? You said it yourself—it wasn’t murder. It was an accident.”

I clench my jaw so hard it aches. “Accidents don’t happen,” I grit out. “Not when it comes to death. When the pull calls, it’s final. That’s how it works. The balance has to be maintained or—”

“And how was the balance maintained when you died?” Nathaniel's expression is so dark it's like looking straight into an abyss. “You were murdered. Did the balance feel fair to you then?”

I go still.

The car is silent.

I can feel all three of them watching me—waiting. I don’t answer, because his words strike something raw, something deep. Something so buried that even thinking about it feels like peeling back my own skin.

The balance.

What balance?

I was killed in cold blood. Buried in the dirt like I was nothing. No justice. No reckoning. Just silence. A forgotten life, erased without consequence.

My fingers twitch, clenching into fists before I force them open again.

“That was different,” I snap.

“Was it?” Nathaniel tilts his head. “Or do you only believe in the rules when they work in your favor?”

I want to hit him.

I want to scream, to shake them, to make them understand that this isn’t about me. That there will be consequences, and I have no idea what they’ll be.

But I don’t get the chance.

Because the moment I open my mouth, something shifts. The anger inside me bubbles up so much that it shakes me from within. One second, I’m in the car, my fists clenched, my anger swallowing the air between us.

The next—I’m nowhere.

The world drops away like it was never real to begin with.

There’s no car, no men, no weight of my scythe at my back. Just darkness. Void.

It takes me a moment to realize what’s happening—or that I’ve been here before.

This isn’t the empty, endless in-between of the afterlife. This isn’t the quiet stillness of my grave, where my body still rots beneath my willow tree.

This is the space between reality’s seams.

Here, I have no body. No form. Just thought, just presence, just—ugh.

It used to happen when I was new to being a Grim Reaper. Whenever I got overwhelmed—whenever my stupid soul confused “being back in the human realm” with “being alive”—I’d slip. Just… blink right into the void.

It hasn't happened in years.

But now, after everything—after tonight, after them, after that girl seeing me—I feel unmoored. That's probably why I blinked in here.

Ugh.

If I could shake my head, I would. If I could scream, I would.

Instead, I focus.

I breathe—no, not breathe. Exist. I push through the swirling nothingness, through the weightlessness of the void, and think .

In the past twenty-four hours, I have:

Met serial killers.

Been seen by said serial killers.

Been trapped in place by them like a goddamn insect.

Watched them steal a soul that was mine to reap.

Witnessed them get rid of a body like it was just another Tuesday.

And now… they saved a life they shouldn’t have.

What the hell is my existence even turning into?

Time passes. I don’t know how much or how little, because time doesn’t exist here. Not the way it does in the human world. It stretches and folds, dragging me deeper into the abyss of my own horrifyingly unproductive thoughts.

But eventually, my anger simmers down. Not gone—just… idling. And then—something happens again.

The pull returns.

It's different this time, not as painful or urgent, but still just as relentless. It tries to drag me back to the world of the living, literally pulling me out of here. But I’m not even sure I want to listen to it this time.

Maybe I should just stay here, let the void take me. Let it erase everything—the anger, the confusion, all those stupid emotions I never asked for in the first place. Let it dissolve whatever’s left of me until I’m nothing. Just a wisp of existence. Just like Cassian said I was.

But the pull doesn’t give a shit about my wants and needs.

It yanks, steady and insistent, wrapping around whatever part of me still is and dragging me back to reality. Back to the world I don’t belong in.

Back to them .

I blink into existence inside the abandoned hospital, plopped dead center in the main hall like someone just dropped me out of the sky. I feel heavy, like I’ve just been fished out of a lake and slapped onto dry land.

Pain flutters down from above and lands on my shoulder, his claws digging in slightly, like he’s scolding me for pulling a disappearing act.

Then I notice the three men staring at me.

Cassian is by the wall, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. Nathaniel stands near the center of the room, his piercings back in together with the murderous aura he has. And then there’s Talon—right next to him, casually holding my carved skull like a collector of particularly morally unhinged artefacts.

“Well,” he drawls. “That was dramatic.”

I glare at him. “Fuck you.”

He lets out a low whistle, his smirk so insufferable it immediately makes me want to punch something—preferably his face. And just like that, I feel myself start blurring at the edges again. Nope. I’m done. I don’t know why they pulled out my skull like this, but I don’t care.

I blink out.

And then—before I even fully hit the darkness—I’m yanked back again.

“Careful, Skye,” Nathaniel says. “We've just found out we don't like it when you disappear like that.”

“I don't give a shit what you like or dislike, asshole,” I spit at him. “Let me be.”

I try again. Blink.

It works—barely. I’m back before I can even settle into nothingness.

I narrow my eyes at them. “What are you doing to me?” My gaze snaps to Talon’s hands. “Drop my freaking skull and let me go into the darkness. I like it better than reality.”

“But we like you better in here,” he counters smoothly. “And sorry to break it to you, beautiful, but I told you before—you don’t have a choice. You do as we say.”

He presses his finger to the rune on my bone and brings the skull to his lips. There, he whispers something. I don't know what. I don't want to find out. The only thing I do want is to leave this godforsaken reality.

“I can’t watch my ex-husband anymore,” the words tumble out before I can stop them. “It’s not fun for me anymore. I keep feeling things. I’m angry. I’m grieving. I’m disgusted by the absolute bullshit injustice of this world.”

Where is this coming from…?

“And now I’m stuck with you guys, just like I was stuck with him—spine-deprived, decisionless, unable to control my own damn existence. And now what? Now I’m failing as a Grim Reaper, too?”

They stare at me.

Yes. I just trauma-dumped them. Three serial killers with—clearly—their own baggage.

But for whatever reason, there’s no stopper on my thoughts. They just spill and spill and spill between us.

“I don't want to exist anymore,” I continue. “There's nothing left for me here. I'm done.”

“Little Grim,” Talon murmurs, stepping forward. But I can’t even look at him. My own skull is in his hands, and that’s too jarring for me to process right now. I turn my head away, silently willing myself to cease.

They think they can control me? Well, they can't control my blinking.

Except—oh, wait. They totally can.

Talon whispers into my skull again, and just like before, I get yanked right back into place.

Nathaniel tilts his head, amused. “We can’t stop you from trying to disappear,” he says. “But we can make you come back.”

I clench my jaw.

Oh, it’s war.

Fine. They wanna play this game? I’ll just keep disappearing. Over and over.

I blink out again.

And again.

And—

The next time they yank me back, it’s harder. Rougher. Like they're getting annoyed. Good. But before I can savor my tiny victory, Talon does something that makes my brain short-circuit.

His hand touches my wrist.

Not physically—not exactly. But it’s deep, like an impression pressed into my very being. More than before. More than I’ve felt in years.

I freeze.

The sensation is impossible—too real, too solid. Not like someone grasping air, but like he’s actually holding me.

My breath stutters. My eyes snap to his.

He smirks, mismatched eyes flickering with something hot and amused. “Gotcha.”

I try to jerk back. Blink out. Do anything. But his grip tightens—not physically, but through whatever magic or bullshit dominance trick they’ve worked into my skull.

“You should just stay in the living plane with us, Little Grim,” he purrs. “We don't give up that easily.”

His voice dips lower, rich with something that should not be doing things to me.

A shiver skates down my spine.

Talon leans in, close enough that I can almost feel him, his breath a whisper against my non-corporeal skin.

“But perhaps,” he murmurs, “we could find a different way to convince you?”

I hate everything. And worse? I hate that I want to know what he means.