Authors: Lisa Swallow
"Help me make this right," he whispers into my hair. "Make me believe someone as beautiful inside and out as you could possibly have room for me and my darkness."
My heart flips at these words coming from Alek, at the sad earnestness from the depths of a lost soul. As he strokes my back, I know this can't last and we'll give into the building surge of arousal. But in this moment, I can understand how Alek feels about me - us - is more than I believed; how I feel for him is more than I admit.
CHAPTER
20
The
Alek I wake up with the next morning has loosened, his eyes less guarded than before. We shared a bed last night, despite my better judgement. Inevitably, our comforting embrace became something physical and intensely sexual, but we fell asleep together, and I awoke wrapped in his arms. A voice niggles I’ll regret him using me again but after our conversation last night, I’m more comfortable with the situation.
Alek
sits at the table as I get ready for my hospital shift, eating toast as he watches me move around.
"Are you working tonight?" I ask him.
"I'm not leaving you alone in the house until we figure out where the stronger Shades are coming from."
"I fought the last one,
Alek. I'll be okay."
"Maybe, but I don't want to risk losing you."
I don't want to revisit last night's conversation. "We've been invited to a party."
"A party? Whose? You don’t know anyone." He smirks. "Don't tell me... the
ghostbuster?"
I hit him on the head with the teaspoon I'm holding. "He's not a
ghostbuster. Why are you so horrible?"
"Because he's a sad geek?"
"One day, I think you’ll eat those words. He's helping you. Us."
"I'll think about it." He shoves toast into his mouth. Funny
, we still have to sustain our bodies; the need for people's energy is in addition to food and not instead of it. In a way, I'm happy; I can't imagine a life without junk food.
I haven't seen Lizzie since yesterday and when I mention her
, Alek gets cagey. A creeping feeling he's not telling me everything grows.
On the way to work, I check my phone.
There are a couple more messages from Finn, which I ignore, but ignoring Finn forever isn’t an option. I check my jobs list when I arrive for my shift and groan when I spot ICU on there. Suspiciously, Finn's roster always matches mine, so I suspect he's working today.
Finn goes one better and hovers outside the entrance to the porters' locker area as I arrive for work
. He leans against the scuffed, magnolia-painted wall, legs crossed at the ankles and hands folded across his chest. He isn't dressed in nurse's blues; instead, he has long legs in dark denim and a black shirt over a T-shirt. His tattoo is visible, snaking around his wrist.
"Hey, Rose
," he says as I approach.
"Finn."
"I really need to talk to you."
"What about?"
"About what's happening. I get the impression you think I'm killing people.” He cocks a brow.
I want him to leave.
"Someone is."
"Correct. Not me."
I step to one side as a guy passes us to get into the room. "Who?"
"Tom gave you the wrong story. Yesterday, when I saw you in ICU, were you checking up on me?"
"Tom?" I rub my head. "When did you speak to Tom?"
"Yesterday
. Nice guy, invited me to a party." Amusement sparkles in his eyes. "Are you going to the party?"
"Maybe."
"With Crazy Boy?"
I ignore him. "What did Tom say?"
"Look, why don't we sit down?" I eye him dubiously. "I'll buy you another cup of tasteless coffee?"
Curiosity overrides common sense and I sit at the scratched wooden table,
wiping away crumbs from the last occupants. Finn queues with the two cups in his hands, waiting to pay. Has this become our unofficial meeting room? His height is noticeable around others, but he's not as imposing as he could be. I study people around him, as if their reactions to him were a measure of his nature. A young guy leans around him to pick up a sandwich from the display and their arms brush. No reaction. I guess it's just me who gets frozen pain when he touches; otherwise, how else could he be a nurse? The public has more of a problem with me than with Finn.
Finn returns and drops two chocolate chip muffins onto the table next to the cups. I pick one up and tear open the plastic wrap. "Thanks."
"No problem."
The first time we sat and chatted, he was confident and aloof. This time
Finn sits stiffly, tapping his long fingers on the side of his cup.
I lean down to get my phone from my bag and he startles. I frown. "I'm not leaving."
"How long until your shift starts?"
"Half hour."
Finn rubs a broad palm across his face. "There's so much more going on than I thought," he says. "I thought this was about you, but they've thrown me right into the middle of shit."
His stronger language surprises me. "So you did... come here for me?"
We're in a corner, at a table as removed from everyone else as we can get. I sip my coffee, grimace at the lack of improvement in taste, and then look expectantly at him.
"That Tom guy
, he's deceptive-looking."
"What do you mean?"
"He has a lot of knowledge and looks so ordinary. He threw all these questions at me about Reapers, knew things I didn't think humans did."
I flinch at
Finn using the word human so casually, putting people in a different box to us. "He has a network."
"He said. I'd like to get to know him better
. Maybe he can help me, once he realises I'm not the bad guy here." He studies my attempt at an impassive face. "You do believe I'm not the bad guy?"
I slump back and study him. "You don't have a bad vibe about you but I'm not the best judge
, am I? I saw you with someone; someone Tom believes is killing people in the hospital."
“Who?”
"The doctor I saw you with in the ICU room where the patient died.” I study Finn’s reaction, hoping to gauge the truth.
“
He’s nothing to do with me! He knows who I am, and I’ve been trying to counteract what he’s doing. The doctor, he's a demon and a powerful one. He's orchestrating the deaths and calling on the Dark to take their souls."
"And you’re not involved
? Tom thinks you might be Dark."
"No, Rose! I’m not a Dark Reaper!"
"What are you then?"
Finn rubs his hands across his face. "Fuck it," he mutters
, and drops his hands, fixing the intense blue eyes on mine. "What do you think a Reaper is, Rose?"
"Someone who takes souls when people die?"
"It's a little more complicated than that. People are assigned their time of death before they enter the world and follow their human lives until that moment. Then, Reapers arrive at the allotted time to take the souls into the next world. We never kill people; we go to them when they’re dying. Dark Reapers want to take the souls for themselves instead. They interrupt the natural course of someone’s life by creating an accident or event and wait for them to die. If we don't get to those dying quickly enough, their souls are lost to the Dark. Anyone who is taken by the Dark is tortured day after day until they break and agree to become a demon."
"The Dark Reaper came for me and Jamie?"
Finn scrunches his face in the way people do when you know they're going to give you bad news. "Jamie's time was due to end; yours wasn't, so I was there to take his soul. You weren't supposed to die, too; when I saw you dying and saw the Dark Reaper, I knew he'd come for you. I was on my own and I didn't know what to do."
"What did you do?" I whisper.
"The Dark had his hands inside you, taking your soul. I wasn't assigned to help you Over, so I was going to leave you until I saw you fighting against your fate." The world retreats into the distant memories from the night, and I shake the feeling away. "I left Jamie...I interrupted the Dark and we fought until I managed to banish him. I shouldn't have, but I couldn't stand seeing your pain and knowing what your soul would suffer if he took you. When I won, I was happy because I thought I'd saved your soul and could send you Over with Jamie.”
"But you
didn’t? Why didn’t you?"
"Other Reapers appeared, screaming at me for interfering. I didn't understand what I'd done wrong. They told me I wasn't allowed to take your soul because the Dark Reaper had torn into it. Your soul was broken and your physical body dead. They told me to leave you
, but I couldn't. If I'd left you, you'd be stuck in the Void, or the Dark would come back for you and it would be my fault."
The image from the fog, from the dreams
and of the men around me, contained him. I always knew. "So how am I here?" I ask hoarsely.
Finn inhales and closes his eyes. "I gave you life and returned you to the living again
, not understanding what a fuck-up that would be."
"Is that why I'm...
like this? Because I have no soul?" I whisper.
"You do have a soul but it's broken
. You’re tainted by the Dark, and that's why you feed off human energy to counteract the demon tainting you after that night."
I squeeze m
y fingers around the warm cup. "Demon? I'm not a demon!"
Finn closes his hand around mine and the icy sensation travels along my veins again. I snatch my arm away. "Tell me I'm not a demon!"
A young guy carrying a tray containing a sandwich and fruit glances at me oddly, and I look down at the table. I pick the chocolate chips from the muffin and eat them. I can't comprehend what he's telling me, but my gut instinct is it's true.
What does my existence mean now?
It’s not one where I eat muffins and work a dead-end job, that’s for sure.
"Not really," says Finn. "You're Between."
"Between. I know, Alek said I'm between worlds."
"But what worlds, Rose?"
"This one and the dead."
Fin shakes his head. "The demon realm and the angel realm. You're alive but damaged."
I stand, chair nearly tipping. "I can't listen to this..."
"Rose. Stay. Listen." He grips my sleeve, careful not to touch me. "You're powerful, that's the whole point. That's why you're a danger to us and the Dark
want you. Because you’re Between, you have the ability to cross into any of the realms - demon, angel, the Void. Nobody else can do that.”
Finn pauses and rubs the back of his neck
; the wary look in his eyes worries me. “What? There’s something else, isn’t there? What else?” I ask.
“I created you
, so you also have some of my power; you can heal people, maybe even give them life. That makes you more dangerous – and more desirable to the Dark."
“How can I? I take human energy when I’m close.”
“You can choose not to.”
A
sick churning in my stomach accompanies everything Finn tells me. This is his fault. "You made me this creature, Finn?"
He looks at the table. "I
didn’t realise what I was doing, but at least I saved you from going to Hell with the Dark.”
The cafe bustles around
us, the scraping chairs and low voices on the periphery of my thoughts and life. I didn’t ask for this. "I wish you hadn't interfered, Finn."
"I wanted to help you. I still do." Finn shakes his head slowly, focusing on his cup.
"How? How can you possibly help me? You were sent to fix the mistake - me."
"I don't know, but I'll do everything I can to fix
you,
not the mistake. I don’t want to harm you, Rose"
I blink back at him. "I have to go…"
The blood plummeting from my head toward my toes is cold, not from Finn’s touch but from everything he’s told me. He doesn’t follow me, so I pause and place a hand on the cool hospital wall.
I fight the fog. And I win
.
CHAPTER 21
The idea of going to a party when
earlier today I discovered I'm part demon (or something) doesn't exactly appeal.
How will other people react to me while I'm there?
I dress in leggings and a short, blue-cotton dress, topping the outfit with a blue cardigan because I don't want my scars showing. Slipping on a pair of black flats, I head downstairs.
Alek
sits on the sofa with a beer in hand and stands when I enter the room. I haven't spoken to him about Finn yet, and Finn's words have churned around my mind since our meeting.
What about Alek? Who created him?
"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asks.