Call Me Grim (31 page)

I nod. Now, more than ever, I refuse to take over for him. Not after all of this. Kyle was right. He knows my stubborn nature all too well.

“If that’s how you feel,” Kyle says with a curt nod, “then I have no choice but to try my other idea.”

“What other idea?” I say.

“It won’t work, Kyle,” Aaron says at the same time. “I told you last night, I already have a replacement.”

“I know what you said, but I have to try.” Kyle’s face pales paper-white as he turns away from us. “Just make sure you catch me, Aaron.”

Before my brain even processes what’s happening, Kyle sprints to the safety railing and leaps over into the misty void.

I don’t think. I just move.

I run faster than I ever have with Aaron, whether he held my hand or not. I move so fast it feels like I disappear from in front of Max and reappear at the safety rail. My hands swing down and I catch Kyle’s forearm.

His slick, sweaty skin slips in my palms and I dig my fingers into his flesh.

“Grab onto me!” I yell over the roar of the waterfall.

“No. Let me go.” He kicks his dangling legs. One shoe slips off and spirals down, leaving a twisted path in the mist.

“I won’t let you kill yourself!” My voice squeaks in panic.

“Let me go, Libs.” He yanks his arm. “Aaron needs to do it.”

“Aaron needs to do what? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Kyle thinks if I save his life,” Aaron says behind me, “that he’ll be a Reaper’s apprentice, like you, and have the power to hurt me, like you do. Then we’d be able to kill each other and leave you as Reaper. But it doesn’t work that way. I can’t have two apprentices.”

My arm muscles burn as my belly smashes against the railing. Kyle is so heavy. A hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. I don’t know how much longer I can hold him. My fingers ache.

“See, Kyle? It won’t work,” I say through gritted teeth. “Grab my arm.”

“I don’t care if he thinks it won’t work. We have to try,” Kyle yells over the roar of the falls. “If you insist on dying today, Libs, I don’t want to live either. Let me go.”

“Help me, Aaron!” I twist and plead with my eyes.

“I want to help, but I can’t. He’s made his decision. You have to let him go.”

“No!” I lean back and heave, but it’s useless. I’m not strong enough to lift him. It would be easier if Kyle grabbed my arm and climbed, but he’s trying to break loose.

“It’s his free will, Libbi,” Aaron continues in his teacher voice. “We can’t interfere. It’s against the rules.”

“You said it yourself, Aaron. Screw the rules. And screw Abaddon.” The words shoot out of my mouth in short, breathy spurts. “Sara had free will. We stopped her. What makes Kyle any different?”

“We changed her mind before she acted.” Aaron stands at my side with his arms crossed, not helping me. “Kyle has acted, Libbi. It’s too late for him.”

“That’s crap.” My shoulders are on fire. My fingertips tingle and Kyle slips a little more out of my grasp. I’m losing the feeling in my hands.

“Please, Aaron. Help me. I’m going to drop him.”

I try to lean back again, but I lose purchase and my feet slip out from under me. Suddenly, all of Kyle’s weight is on my upper body, yanking on my joints, stretching the tendons and ligaments, separating the bones. The stitches in my shoulder snap, snap, snap as they rip open and I scream out in pain. Fresh blood drips down my arm, but I don’t let go. I refuse to let him go.

Aaron’s hands thrust down past mine and he seizes Kyle’s arm at the elbow, relieving the strain on my upper body instantly. With the pressure off my shoulders, I can get my feet back under me.

“It’s not going to matter if we save his life.” Aaron grunts as he leans back and digs his heels into the wood, hoisting Kyle a few inches. “His idea won’t work and he’s already made his decision. Look at him. He’s permanently marked. He intends to die today.”

Kyle tilts his face up to me and I suck air in between my teeth. My grip loosens, but not because of his weight. The liquid, black stuff inside of his mark has stopped bubbling and boiling, but it’s not the tranquil black sea I’ve seen before. This looks smooth and hard and absolutely permanent, like his face has been replaced by a layer of volcanic rock.

“That’s not going to change,” Aaron says.

“I don’t care. We can’t let him go now.” I lean over the railing to get a better hold on Kyle’s forearm and then I pull. “He would do the same for me.”

Surprisingly, Aaron heaves with me. Then he releases one hand, and I think he’s about to let Kyle go and make me do the rest on my own, but he doesn’t. He repositions his hand under Kyle’s armpit and lifts again.

“Let me go, Libbi!” Kyle screams and struggles as we haul him up. “Aaron has to do it. I have to be his apprentice, not yours! We have to kill each other.” He twists and kicks and curses, but we manage to pull him up and over the railing anyway.

Once his feet clear the top of the railing, Aaron throws him down on the tracks and straddles him, pinning him down.

“Let me up!” Kyle’s voice bellows from the black rock where his face used to be.

“Not until I know you won’t try that stupid stunt again.” Aaron leans forward and tries to clamp Kyle’s arms to the wood, but Kyle is too fast. He twists away, balls his hand into a fist, and swings.

I hear the solid thwack of Kyle’s fist against Aaron’s face. Blood splatters from Aaron’s lips and sprays the ancient ties.

“Ha!” Kyle laughs. “See! I can hurt you! I told you it would wor—” Kyle’s body goes limp. His eyes roll and he flops back against the wood.

Aaron’s soul surges with light and the hair on my arms prickles with energy. A puzzled frown crosses his face as he wipes the blood from his fat bottom lip and chin with his shirt.

The Scythe burns in my pocket. It vibrates and tugs against the fabric like it’s trying to escape. An arc of lightning shoots out of the ring, right through my jeans, and circles Aaron’s thumb. The light moves up his hand and arm, across his chest, up his neck to his face, leaving a jagged trail of radiance that fizzles out moments after the light passes. A glowing pinpoint of fire gathers in the middle of his forehead and grows brighter and brighter until it blazes with blinding intensity.

Lightning bursts from the pinpoint of light, connecting Aaron to Kyle. The smell of ozone permeates the air around us, and thunder rumbles. The bright circle created in the middle of Kyle’s forehead pulses like a heartbeat. Kyle jerks, but he doesn’t wake up.

“What the hell…?” I say.

“I can’t believe this.” Aaron stands, but the bolt of lightning joining him to Kyle doesn’t break. It moves with him and continues to pulse light back and forth between them.

“What happened to Kyle?” Max whispers. “Is he dead?” He stands next to his chair, his face whiter than the mist. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten about him.

“I don’t know,” I say, trying to stay as still as possible. The arc of lightning still surges to Aaron from the Scythe in my pocket. Aaron may be brave enough to move around with a bolt of lightning blasting out of his forehead, but I’m not.

“I didn’t think it could work on a suicide. Charlotte said they’re too unstable.” Aaron runs his hand through his hair and then gestures to me. “And I already chose you. I can’t have more than one. Can I?”

“What?” I almost scream. “What the hell is happening?”

“You don’t remember this…” He gestures to the light pulsing from his head. “But this is what happened right after I saved your life the first time, when you passed out on the lawn at school.” Aaron looks at me with wide, astonished eyes. The bolt thrums one last time and then suddenly the link between them blinks out.

“We just saved Kyle’s life, Libbi. That means I just offered him my job.”

“He’s still marked.” I point to Kyle’s face and he moans like he heard me, but he doesn’t move. “I thought Reapers’ marks are forgiven.”

“They are, once they accept the job.” Aaron’s brows furrow in thought. “Kyle hasn’t accepted.”

My heart and stomach switch positions and then switch back. That’s it. That’s how we can heal Kyle’s mark. “We have to get him to accept the job!”

“I don’t think he will.” Aaron scratches his chin. “His plan was for us to kill each other so you could be Reaper. I don’t think he’s changed his mind about that…” His words trail off as if he has more to say, but he’s holding back.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Max walks up next to me. The color has returned to his cheeks, but his eyes are glossy and wide.

“It’s complicated, Buckaroo.” I squat in front of him and take his hands.

“Stop talking to me like I’m two, Libs. I’m almost nine and I’m sick of it.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Why did Kyle jump off the bridge? Why isn’t he moving? What’s going on?”

“It’s hard to understand.”

“I’m smarter than you think.”

“What the hell?” Kyle jolts into a seated position. Aaron grasps his shoulders to keep him from getting up, but Kyle struggles against him. “Let go of me.”

“Things are going to be really strange for you now,” Aaron says and his words cause a shiver to drip down my spine like icy water.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Kyle rubs his eyes and shakes his head. “Everybody’s glowing. Did I fall? Am I…dead?”

“You’re not dead. Libbi and I saved your life.” Aaron lets go of Kyle and sits back, crouched and balanced on the balls of his feet. “There’s nothing wrong with your eyes. You’re seeing the glow of our souls. By saving your life, I’ve offered you my job.”

“So I was right.” Kyle sits up straight. “It worked.”

“Yes, it worked. I didn’t think it was possible, but you were right. You’re my apprentice, along with Libbi.” Head tilted and eyes narrowed, Aaron studies Kyle. I can almost hear the gears in his brain cranking. “Which means…”

“I can kill you now,” Kyle says with a sly smile.

He leaps to his feet and lunges for Aaron, his clawed hands aimed at Aaron’s neck. Kyle’s fingers circle Aaron’s throat, but before they can clamp down, Aaron disappears and reappears at the safety railing next to me.

“You’re forgetting something important, Kyle. You can’t kill me and expect Libbi to kill you. She won’t do it.” Aaron steps up onto the bottom rung of the safety railing and smiles. The wind billows his shirt and whips his hair around his face. “If you want your plan to work, we need to do it together. We have to kill each other. At the same time.” He steps up one more rung, sits on the top rail, and pats the spot next to him, inviting Kyle to join him. “Why not push each other over?”

Kyle shrugs. “That’ll work.”

“No!” I step between them, but Kyle walks around me. I grab his hand, but he yanks it away. “Please. Kyle. Aaron, stop this!”

Kyle turns back to me. He touches my hair, my face, with trembling fingers. He wipes the tears from my cheek with his thumb.

“I love you, Libbi. I always have, even if you don’t love me the same way.” He kisses my forehead. “Keep an eye on Haley for me, will you?”

Max rushes over to Kyle and pushes between us. He grabs a fistful of his shirt and words gush out of him like a flood as tears collect on his lashes.

“You can’t do that. I won’t let you, Kyle. You’re supposed to be my buddy. My big brother. You can’t die. Promise me you won’t do it.”

“You don’t understa—”

“What?” Max interrupts. “Am I too much of a kid to understand it? I wasn’t too much of a kid to hang from a rope under the bridge.”

Kyle looks to Aaron briefly, then to me, then back to Max. “If we don’t do this, Libbi will die today and something really bad will happen to her. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but this is the best way. The only way.”

“That’s stupid.” Max crosses his arms and scowls. “Libbi’s not going to die today. Are you, Libbi?”

I kneel in front of Max and restrain the desire to smooth his unruly hair. Max is tired of being treated like a child. And today, of all days, I think he deserves the unadulterated, non-kid-proof truth.

“No, Max. Kyle’s right. As idiotic as their solution to the problem is, I am going to die today.”

I tell Max everything. I tell him about being a Reaper’s apprentice, and Abaddon, and the Blackness, and the terrible predicament we all face. Aaron chimes in when I’m not sure about something, and I think, not for the first time, that Aaron would have made a great teacher, if he’d had the opportunity to grow up.

Max scowls at his hands in his lap. Then he tilts his head up and his red locks flop into his eyes. He blows them away. “What if Aaron keeps his dumb job and you and Kyle run away together? Then no one has to die. And Aaron can’t get in trouble with the Abaddon guy because he won’t be able to find you. That would work, right?”

Max beams at us one at a time. Aaron scratches his cheek and the stubble sounds like sand paper.

“Good idea, Max. But, unfortunately, it won’t work,” Aaron says. “I’ll be able to find Libbi and Kyle wherever they are in Carroll Falls. And once Abaddon realizes there are three Reapers in the area and the time for training has passed, he’ll come for them.”

“We’ll just leave Carroll Falls then.” Kyle leans against the railing next to Aaron and slips his hands into his pockets.

“You can’t.” Aaron jumps down from the railing. “A Reaper can’t leave his territory. I’ve tried. It’s impossible. We’re trapped here.”

“
You
may be trapped in Carroll Falls, Aaron,” I say softly. “But I’m not.”

All heads turn to me.

“What do you mean?” Aaron says. “You’re my apprentice. Of course you’re trapped here.”

“No, I’m not. I left town Sunday night to pick Max up from camp. I drove out Hell’s Highway, right past the Gateway where you said the end of our territory is, with no problem.” I shrug. “Maybe the official Reaper Rules don’t apply to me until you die. Or maybe they only apply to whoever wears the Scythe.”

Aaron touches his empty thumb and I feel the weight of the ring in my pocket. Heavy, like a shackle.

“So you and Kyle can leave town.” Max grins.

I smile weakly, and Aaron takes my hand. His cold palms are slick with perspiration.

“Before you get too excited,” Aaron says. “Even if you can leave the territory, we still have a huge problem: Abaddon. You will be seriously breaking the rules if you leave. Abaddon isn’t confined to Carroll Falls. He will hunt you.” Goose pimples stand his arm hairs on end and he shivers. “Facing the Blackness is better than what he’ll do to you when he finds you. And he
will
find you. No offense, Libbi, but you’re barely ready to be a Reaper. You don’t have enough experience to train Kyle and keep out of Abaddon’s sight. You wouldn’t last a day.”