Page 29 of Veil of Death and Shadow (Order of Reapers #1)

29

MAREENA

Present Day

I should have been sleeping. Nothing was going to change between when Rina left and when she got back, but sleep was proving impossible.

The strange vacancy of the small house made me squirm. There were two bedrooms, one of which was clearly decorated for a small child. Something about seeing the abandoned toys, the impossibly tiny clothes still hanging in the closet, the race car starter bed, filled me with a thousand questions about what had happened to the people who lived here before? What could make them pick up and leave, without what appeared to be most of their things? Was the small child who lived here simply gone?

I knew the nature of the House of Wrath, knew how ruthless, how bloodthirsty they could be. Had they forced this family to leave behind the only home they knew? Or worse—had they killed them, simply because of the house’s proximity to their stronghold?

Thinking that Rina belonged to their ranks made my head spin. I didn’t blame her, of course, for murdering Cheryl and Joe. Not if they attacked her. And she was right, as much as Sora and I had been through over the years, I had no idea what kind of suffering Rina experienced in our absence.

She was alone in that suffering. Sora and I at least always had each other.

But Wrath was . . . ruthless.

As much as I didn’t recognize my old friend inside of this new iteration of her, I made a solemn vow to myself not to judge her too harshly. We all had to make decisions, allegiances in this new world. Ones that, in the past, might have seemed impossible to the versions of ourselves we used to be.

I trusted that she would help. Was it possible that Wrath’s followers would use Sora’s possible imprisonment as justification to start the war that had been brewing between them and Lust? Probably. But if it would lead to Sora’s safety, I didn’t care.

Maybe that made me just as ruthless as the rest of Wrath.

Right now, Sora was all that I could bring myself to focus on.

Because if I let my thoughts wander anywhere else, they turned only to the suffocating reality that I was, quite literally this time, being followed by Death. As haunting as Death’s presence always was, it had never made me feel personally victimized. I had never been the one Death was after, not directly. Tangentially, yes, but it was strange now, realizing that my life was the one at stake.

And an awful, sinking part of me thought that it might be right, justified even. I’d brought death to so many people’s doors, it seemed only fair that it be my turn now.

But faced with the very real probability that I would be running towards my own demise in a few hours, I couldn’t help but feel a piercing fear. There’d been many nights over the years, when I laid awake in bed, reflecting on my death. Nights when I almost wanted it, thought that it might make the world better. Nights where my own grief ached so sharply, that death seemed like the only way to release my body from the pain. Those nights had always haunted me after, the guilt of those thoughts crawling over my skin and sinking into my pores like a poison.

Now, faced with the inevitable reality, I couldn’t help but linger on a different guilt. Assuming we could rescue Sora, I’d be finding her, just to lose her forever. And Menace—what would become of him? He could survive on his own, sure, and I knew that Sora would take care of him, but realizing that I wouldn’t be there, that they’d have to reshape their lives without me, that I’d be putting the people I loved in the same position Amto Amani and so many others had put me—it was harrowing. Suffocating, enough to bring me to my knees.

But it also helped, in some small way, to know that when I was gone, Sora wouldn’t be alone. Her sister was alive. Here. And she still cared about her enough to abandon her project of alienating us long enough to rescue her. Maybe they could shape something new in the future, a different relationship than the one they had growing up, certainly, but something just as strong, just as tender. Sora wasn’t the sort to let Rina go, no matter what shit she was involved in now. And no one was strong enough to resist Sora’s affection. She had a way of grabbing hold of someone and forcing them to see their worth, their importance. They’d be okay again, one day.

“You should be sleeping.” Kieran’s voice pierced the quiet.

I was lying on the couch, because I couldn’t bring myself to rest on the bed—not without ruminating on the lives of those who’d abandoned it. My eyes were closed, but I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that Keiran could tell I was awake.

When I abandoned the ruse, I glanced towards the voice, spotting him leaning against the doorway, half-covered in shadow. Thorne didn’t appear to be in the living room, but I had no doubt that he hadn’t gone far.

The sight of Kieran there, studying me like a zoo animal, only amplified the uncomfortable tension whirling in my stomach, choking my breath. I latched onto all the suffocating fear and confusion, lassoed it and morphed into something else: rage.

“Don’t you mean I should be dying?” I shot back, feeling almost satisfied at his flinch. “What use is sleep when we both know I don’t have much time left.”

“Agony.” He stepped forward, stopping when I shot up into a seated position, pinning him with my glare. “You can’t seriously consider going after Sora. You will die; don’t you get that?” His hand flexed, and though I couldn’t see it beyond where his sleeve opened at his wrist, I knew that the dark veins had only wound themselves higher. “This isn’t something to fuck with. Why are you running towards danger when you know it will only lead to one fate. Just stay here.” He shook his head, his jaw hard. “Better yet, go home. Lock yourself in your apartment. Stay safe. ” Then, in a soft whisper that seemed more directed to himself than to me, he added, “I don’t want you to die.”

“No.” I stood up, my arms shaking with rage. I couldn’t even bring myself to meet his stare. “You don’t get to tell me how to live what remains of my life. You don’t get a say. You don’t get anything from me. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you around.”

Before he had a chance to respond, I turned to the front door, slamming it behind me as I stepped outside. I couldn’t go far. Rina told me to stay on this property, and if I wanted a chance to go after Wrath with her and the other recruits, I knew I had to obey that order. I also knew that Kieran couldn’t stay far from me, as much as I wanted him to. And that I was taking my anger out on him, even the bits of it he hadn’t earned.

But at least out here, I didn’t see him. At least out here, I had the illusion of freedom from the thing he represented.

The air was cool, crisp, and the darkest edges of the sky were slowly turning into a grayish haze. The sun would be up in maybe thirty or forty minutes, which meant that Rina would be back; that we’d be leaving soon.

I dropped down on the front stoop, the rough cement uncomfortable and cold against my hands.

As it always did, my thumb found my ring, twisting the small beads over and over—a soothing balm. For the first time in a long time, I let my thoughts drift to Levi. It felt safer now, to linger on those memories, now that I knew there wasn’t much of a future before me. No reason to pretend I might one day find someone else, might one day have the semblance of that kind of connection.

Not that I would have ever let myself fall for someone like that again. He’d been the closest anyone had gotten—the only one in a decade, other than Sora, to chisel their way into my chest and carve out a home.

But he’d left. That home abandoned and forgotten, just like the one at my back.

It was an odd, indescribable feeling, living through what might be my last night. Everything felt so much sharper than usual, but also more separate from me. Like I was already gone, observing the world from outside of it.

I buried my head between my legs, fighting to suck in even breaths. It was only then, when my cheeks pressed up against my forearms, that I realized they were wet.

I was crying. The realization only made the tears fall faster.

“So, you’re actually going to do this,” a deep, snarky voice asked. “Drag out your death, waste what could be your last moments charging into what will almost certainly bring about your demise? Just ask him to end it now. If you do, he might.”

Swallowing back a sob, I jolted my head up.

Thorne.

His expression, usually stiff with a mixture of anger and boredom, twitched briefly, as his stare catalogued me.

Great, I’d ditched one reaper, just to be bothered by another.

With trembling fingers, I wiped away my tears. “It’s not a waste. I’m not leaving this world until I know that my friend is safe. She’s my family.” I shot him a defiant glare. “There’s no other way I’d rather go out.”

For a long moment, he considered me, his dark stare unreadable, save for the slight tension in his mouth that looked almost like a grudging respect. He sat down beside me, careful to put as much space between us as possible.

“You don’t have to stick around, you know.” It was so painfully obvious that Thorne despised every second that he had to spend in this realm. He wasn’t drawn to it the way that Kieran seemed to be. “Kieran will be here . . . to suck out my soul or whatever. You don’t have to monitor him.”

“It’s not souls that we’re after,” he said. His voice was quiet, but still somehow seemed lethal. “I don’t even know if such a thing exists. We collect shadow magic. Before The Undoing, that meant we only pulled from the supernatural. Now, we’re also tasked with the shards of it that have lodged themselves in humans, too.” He was silent, so preternaturally still that there could be no mistaking him for a human. “Unfortunately, I can’t leave until Kieran returns. And Kieran can’t leave until you are dead. That means I’m stuck here, until either you die of natural causes, or he kills you. Seeing how you seem to skirt death at an impossible rate, and his general stubbornness, I suspect you’ll be stuck with me for a while.”

“Why don’t you just do it?” I asked, though it was probably a bad idea to lodge the option in his brain. “Kill me, I mean. If you want me dead so badly, if you want Kieran back to his regular programming, why haven’t you just handled it yourself?”

“I would,” he shot me a look out of the corner of his eyes, “but I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Reapers are sent to siphon shadow magic from one charge at a time. Usually, we aren’t called to them until just moments before they die. On the rare occasion when they’re still alive,” he turned to me, his stare making the skin on my cheek prickle with awareness, “the reaper on the other side of that tether can simply reach in,” he shifted his ringed hand between us, but stopped just before his fingers could touch me, “and take their life.”

“But you’re a reaper, too.”

“I am, yes,” something passed over his expression, “but if a reaper steals the life of someone they aren’t tethered to, something is stolen from them in return. The fates like balance.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What will they take?”

“The memories that it’s taken me years of my death to collect, and all of the power that I have stored.” Something flared in his eyes when they locked onto mine. Emotions that I couldn’t pass, but that I hadn’t seen in their depths until now. “We don’t all waste our strength on a night of frivolity in the mortal world.”

“So, if you killed me, you’d forget who you were?” I nudged my head towards the house, where I knew Kieran was probably brooding. “But if he kills me, he goes on as normal—onto the next charge?”

“More or less.”

“Why?”

“Because taking a life that we aren’t asked to signals a connection we aren’t supposed to have. It would be interpreted as feeling too strongly about something in this world: be it rage, nostalgia, or something else. Our memories are used to keep us in line.”

“Oh.”

It was the only thing I could think of saying in response.

Thorne nodded, his usual mask replacing the brief shadow of something else I’d seen in his expression. “So you see,” his lips curved into a dark smile that had the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge, “personally, I’d love to kill you and put an end to this ridiculous production. End it—and you—here and now. But you’re not worth losing everything I’ve worked for. So instead, here I am, stuck with babysitting duty until Kieran gets his shit together or you die.”

“Does he do this often?” I asked, fighting the urge to inch away from Thorne after hearing how badly he wanted my death. “Draw it out, I mean.”

“No.” Thorne let out a dark chuckle. “He’s as power hungry as the rest of us. It’s unusual, to say the least, for him to drain the measly power stores he has left after wasting them on a night in the mortal world. And unwise as hell, considering what he must return to.”

A soft breeze blew my hair between us, and Thorne clocked the movement with vague, fleeting interest.

“What do you mean,” I asked, “what you have to return to?”

“Our world is a dark one. Power reigns there, more obvious than it does here.” He shifted his gaze back to the street, and I knew, just like I knew when Kieran was skirting a topic, that he wouldn’t be adding more detail to that statement.

After a few breaths of silence, Thorne stood, as if to leave. And the possibility of him following through gave me the courage to voice what I couldn’t until now. “Will I end up there? In your world? Like one of you?”

“There are many stipulations that need to be met to become a reaper.” He stopped his retreat, staring down at me. “Only supernatural creatures end up as one of us.” His nostrils flared slightly. “You are touched by the magic, yes, but you are decidedly human. Even if you weren’t, even if you met the other requirements of our kind, which I don’t think you do, the newest recruits to our . . . vocation have already been culled months ago. Another cohort won’t be called for at least a year.” He shook his head, then added, “So no, you will never exist in our world, never be one of us. You are one of the lucky ones.”

When his eyes met mine, the depth of those words sank in. It was strange to think of myself as lucky, when I knew that I was about to die. But something about the way that his voice dipped when he spoke of his world made it clear that he meant it.

“Thank you.”

There was something oddly calming about Thorne’s presence, despite the constant anger boiling just under his surface, despite knowing that he wanted me dead sooner than later. In fact, maybe it was the latter point that I found comforting altogether. Unlike with Kieran, there was no question where things stood between us. The divisions were clear, the hatred and disgust unquestionable. There was no gray area.

In a lifetime of feeling caught between worlds, there was something oddly soothing about the easy binary of his starkness. A simplicity in his dislike of me, his desire for my death, that quieted the constant tumult of the last few days.

He walked by me, as if to go back into the house, but then paused just before reaching the wall. “I understand your anger towards Kieran, but you might go easier on him.”

I narrowed my eyes. “He lied to me. For days.”

“He did.” He arched his brow. “But he’s sacrificed a lot to try and give you more time—drawing things out for as long as he has, in the hope that the fates might change their mind before it’s too late.”

“Does that happen?”

He shook his head. “Not often, no. Though I suppose it’s not impossible.”

Thorne studied me for a moment, as if deciding something, before finally saying, “Do you know why he calls you Agony?”

“Yes,” I snorted, “because he knows that I hate it.”

The corner of his lips twitched, not quite a frown, but the shadow of one. “Perhaps. But I suspect there’s more to it than that. Kieran spends his death chasing dopamine, fleeting pleasures. I’ve known him for years, but I’ve never once seen him attached to something in the way that he is to you. Your death will, I think, be quite agonizing for him. Even more, perhaps, than your extended life has been.”

I licked my lips. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve seen his arm?” Thorne raised his own ringed hand. “It’s painful for us—to not siphon the power we’ve been fated to collect. The longer we wait, the more painful it becomes. He cannot get power or any of his strength back, until he siphons from you.” He tilted his head to the side, almost cat-like as his gaze swept over me. “Kieran is no stranger to pain. Like most of us, he’s learned to build up a tolerance for it. But letting you live as long as you have . . . not many would be able to stomach that kind of pain. It’s the longest I’ve ever seen a reaper last. If he waits more than another day or two, I suspect it might even kill him.”

And then, with that, he stepped through the wall and back into the house, leaving me alone with my thoughts that were somehow more conflicted than they’d been before he’d found me, as the edges of the sun started to crawl over the horizon.