Death Becomes Me (Call Me Grim Book 2) (23 page)

Kyle nods again, then a cry of pain gurgles up from his chest.

“We need to go.”

His determined gaze locks on mine and he gives me a small shake of his head. “We can’t let him control us.”

He’s decided we should ignore Abaddon’s call, but I don’t have much hope that he’ll succeed at staying away. I remember all too well how painful that headache can get if it’s ignored.

I’m not about to let him endure it for me. All of this is because of me, because of my stubborn nature. Abaddon wants us back. He took my mother’s soul because Aaron and I escaped the shackle of the Scythe and left Carroll Falls. We decided to escape because I was too stubborn to kill Aaron, like I was supposed to, and take over for him as the Carroll Falls Reaper. I got all of us into this. I should be the one to get us out of it.

“You don’t have to go, Kyle.” I place a kiss on my mother’s forehead, touch her cheek, and then turn to face him. “I’m the one he wants. And if he has me, he might let her go.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but Kyle’s face becomes even paler and his eyes grow to the size of dinner plates.

“What are you thinking, Libs?” He flings his hands up in frustration. “You can’t just turn yourself in to him.”

“It’s the only thing I can do.” I slip my hand in my pocket and yank out the note I found in Mom’s mouth. I hold it up so Kyle can read it. “I’m already gone, Kyle. To everyone I care about, except you and Aaron, I’m dead. It’s not fair for Max to lose his sister, his mother, and then his own soul. And for what? So I can continue to live like a ghost? On the run all the time?” I shake my head. “That’s not living.”

“He’ll kill you, Libbi. And it won’t be pretty.” Kyle grips my shoulders and his fingers dig into my flesh. “You don’t know how pissed he is that you and Aaron got away. But I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it.”

He lifts his shirt. If I thought Aaron’s chest was bad, Kyle’s is ten times worse. He’s completely covered in wounds. Some angry-red and fresh, some crisp around the edges like he’s been beaten with a hot poker, and some are old and puckered, but not one inch of his skin is healthy. “He won’t let you get away with this without hurting you.”

“I don’t care.” I twist out of his grasp and step back. “I’ll take whatever he wants to do to me over Max becoming like that.” I jab a finger toward my mother’s soulless body as my little brother watches over her.

“I won’t let you,” Kyle says through gritted teeth. His hands curl into fists at his sides.

“I don’t see how you can stop me, Kyle.” My arm darts forward and my fingers wrap his forearm. Power surges from my chest and blasts down my arm. “Rela—”

Kyle jerks his arm out of my hand before the pulse reaches my wrist and he jumps back. His eyes narrow as he studies me.

“Really, Libs?” He tilts his head then lurches forward, arm outstretched. I leap out of the way just before he can touch and use the relaxing power on me. “Is that how you want to do this?”

“No,” I say. “I want you to let me go.”

“Not happening,” he says as he leaps in front of the door. “You’ll have to get past me first.”

Before I have time to react, his legs stretch and suddenly he towers over me. His blond waves transition to black wisps and form the Reaper’s hood. His face sinks back and disappears. Kyle lifts his skeletal right hand and the Scythe unfolds with a metal-on-metal clang. He catches the weapon in mid-air. Not that he has a choice. Aaron said the Scythe is like an extension of the body when in Reaper form. He could just as easily drop his own arm.

I can’t use the relaxing power on him now. The only reason it worked on Bobby, and Aaron was because they weren’t expecting it, but with Kyle, the element of surprise is gone. I showed him my ace. There’s no way he’ll let me touch him again without using it against me.

My only chance to fix this is to run.

Faster than ever before, I whirl around, morphing into Reaper form in an instant. I bolt away from Kyle and the door he has blocked and toward the wall with a small window set up close to the ceiling. The cold cinderblocks under the window chill me as I slam into them, then through them.

One moment I’m on one side of the wall, inside the hospital room, and the next I’m floating fifty feet in the air over the front lawn of Carroll Falls General. No. Not floating, falling. Shit. There’s no time to panic. I pump my legs, but quickly realize I don’t have legs. I’m in Reaper form.

Right. I’m in Reaper form. I can fly.

Instead of fighting it, I lean into the wind and take off. The cool breeze catches in my shroud and it billows behind me. I don’t know if Aaron showed Kyle how to fly when he’s in Reaper form, but I hope he didn’t. I can’t afford to have Kyle catch up to me, or worse, beat me to the Gateway. He already messed things up enough when he missed putting a bullet through my skull.

“Libbi.” Kyle shouts. He’s close behind me. So much for him not knowing how to fly in Reaper form.

“Go back,” I yell over my shoulder. “This is my mess. Let me fix it on my own.”

“Not a chance, Libs. We’re in this together.”

A rush of wind and something tugs at the back of my shroud. I glance back. Kyle’s Scythe finishes a long, swooping arch in front of him, an arch that came within inches of cutting me.

“Jesus, Kyle.” I dart to the left, out of the reach of his weapon. “What are you trying to do? Remove my soul?”

“No. I’m trying to stop you.” Another rush of air behind me. “Will you just wait for a minute so we can talk about this?”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.” The wind pulls me back even as I push myself to go faster. “He’s got my mother’s soul, and Max is next. He may never let her go, but if turning myself in gives her a chance, and keeps Max safe, then that’s what I have to do.”

“I know.” Kyle’s closer now, close enough to touch me without his Scythe. “But there’s got to be a better way than giving in to that monster.”

“Maybe, but there isn’t enough time to think of something.”

“Libbi, please.” His hand closes around my upper arm. He tries to pull me back, but I yank my arm out of his grasp. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”

Fury boils up from deep inside of me.

“You know what?” I drift to a stop, though I’m still floating fifty feet above the ground, and whirl around. Kyle stops in mid-air just before crashing into me. “I am so sick of people telling me what I can and cannot do. First Ruth, then Aaron, and now you. This is
my
family,
my
mistake,
my
choice. I was supposed to die in a wreck months ago. That was how my life was supposed to end. And if I had chosen to follow the Death Plan, I wouldn’t even be here for you to try and save.” I cross my skeletal arms and glare at him. “Here’s the thing, Kyle, I don’t need anyone to save me. Especially you. I never have. And I’m tired of fighting with you about it.”

Kyle drifts back and I can feel his eyes on me, even if I can’t see them within the midnight black inside his hood. I know him so well I can imagine the look he’d have on his face, if he was in human form. It’s the wide-eyed, slack-jawed look of shock and hurt and I hate myself for giving it to him. But I know it’s the only way he’ll let me go.

“Leave me alone, Kyle. I don’t need or want you in my life anymore.”

Several seconds pass, and each one of them feels like an eternity as he hovers motionless in front of me. Silent. Watching me from the blackness beneath his hood. Eventually, he growls, “Fine.” He flings a dismissive hand toward the horizon and says, “If you want to kill yourself, then go. I give up.”

He turns from me. The Scythe folds in on itself and wraps his thumb with a clang as he floats back toward the hospital. His shroud flutters behind him like black fire.

Immobile, I follow Kyle with my gaze. An emotional tug-of-war develops inside of me, but there are so many ropes I can hardly keep them straight.

There’s the joy of knowing that I can fix this without endangering anyone else. Relief that he’s letting me go alone and that fact might keep him safe. Regret for hurting him. Longing to go after him and apologize. And hurt that he gave up on me so easily. But that last one is awfully selfish. I should be glad he let me go. It’s what’s best for all of us. It’s what I wanted.

Mixed in with all of those emotions is the dull tug of a dying soul somewhere in Carroll Falls. But that’s Kyle’s job now. Maybe that’s why he gave up. He knows he has a job to do.

I remain frozen in midair until he slips behind the foliage of a gigantic maple tree and disappears. He’s left me to face Abaddon on my own. And no matter how I feel about it, it’s for the best.

29

My feet hit the pavement on the shoulder of Hell’s Highway as I transform back into human form. The dangerous hairpin curve Mom calls Dead Man’s Bend streams with cars, trucks, and all other types of vehicles. I wouldn’t expect anything less. Hell’s Highway is the main route in and out of Carroll Falls and it’s the middle of the day.

I stand at the guardrail and follow the thin string of light with my eyes. It cuts through the metal rail, swoops down the hill, through the trees and underbrush, and ends abruptly in the center of a perfectly cleared circle of grass: the Gateway.

I didn’t need to follow it from the hospital to know what that string of light is. It’s my mother’s soul, stretched thin like thread across Carroll Falls. I guess Abaddon can’t remove a soul completely if a body is still alive, but what he
can
do with it is bad enough.

Mom’s is not the only glowing string leading to the exact center of the clearing. There are two others jutting off into the woods in different directions. A frown furrows my brow. I’ve never seen them here before. Maybe the stretched souls of Shadows are something only a full-fledged Reaper can see.

I wonder who they belong to.

Sunlight glints off the swaying blades of grass within the Gateway. I remember once thinking the grass looked like miniature knives, or rows of teeth. It feels like a lifetime has passed since then, but I still feel that way. The cleared circle in the middle of the woods looks like a gigantic maw, waiting to swallow me whole. And my mother was just an appetizer.

Standing above the Gateway, Nicholas’s predator theory seems more accurate than any of his other theories. Abaddon is evil. A monster. If only Nicholas had figured out a way to shut the Gateways sooner, I might not be here at all.

I shake my head. No time for regret. Nicholas will figure it out eventually. He’ll find a way to close all of the Gateways, and maybe I’ll be remembered for my small part in it.

Without a thought, my body slips through the guardrail and I trample down the hill, but stop about twenty feet from the clearing. I know what I’m here to do, but somehow walking blindly into the mouth of the monster is a little too much like suicide for my taste. I at least want Abaddon to know I’m here. Let him come out and take me.

He’s in there. I can feel his presence emanating from the center of the Gateway like a cloud of death and hate and fear. And now it’s time for me to give in to him.

My teeth chatter and my whole body trembles. The more I try to make it stop, the worse the shivering gets. I run my sweaty palms over my jeans, my eyes locked on the point in the middle of the clearing where my mother’s stretched soul and the souls of two others disappear into the Gateway.

I could turn around. I could leave Carroll Falls and just keep running. It would be easy enough. My Reaper powers would help me. Max and Mom would have to fend for themselves against Abaddon, but Mom is probably a goner anyway. And Max wouldn’t fall for Abaddon’s tricks, so he should be safe. If Abaddon used Mom as a Shadow to try and lure Max to the Gateway, he’s smart enough to know it’s a trick. He’d stay away.

Wouldn’t he?

No. That is not a position Max should ever be in. He should never have to face Mom as a Shadow. Why would I even think that’s okay? God. What’s wrong with me?

Trembling or not, scared out of my mind or not, I have to do this. There is no other answer.

I ball my damp hands and stand up tall. Shoulders squared, I cross my arms over my chest and breathe deep. My parched throat sticks when I try to speak so I swallow a few times and try again.

“Abaddon.” My voice echoes back to me as if I called into a bottomless pit instead of into a clearing in a dense forest. “I’ve heard you’re looking for Libbi Piper.”

The air around me suddenly stills. The trees and grass freeze in place like someone snapped a picture and trapped me inside of it. The dull rumble and whoosh of cars passing up on the road vanishes, along with the noises of the forest. The only sounds I hear are my voice repeating my name back to me and the thud of my heartbeat.

A thunderous crack resonates from the center of the clearing and I stumble back. My shoulder slams into a tree trunk but I hardly notice. I’m focused on the yawning rip in reality that opens like a vertical eye in the center of the clearing.

When Aaron took me to the Gateway for the first time, he ran straight into the center of the clearing, dragging me and Jon with him. He gave us no choice in the matter. I didn’t see the doorway until I was already on the other side of it. Perhaps that was a good thing. I don’t know if I would have entered if I had seen then what I’m looking at right now.

The black, oily substance inside the Gateway swirls and bubbles like boiling tar. And, God, the smell: burning flesh, rotting meat, and the musty stink of freshly turned soil. My hand instinctively darts up to cover my nose. Not that it helps.

“Liiiibbiiiii …” A deep voice rumbles from the Gateway. It vibrates around me, through me, shakes my insides like they’re made of Jell-O.

I probably should answer him, but I can’t speak. I can’t do anything but stare into the growing chasm as the oily goop within morphs and moves and forms distinctive shapes.

The faces. I forgot about the faces. Heads with gaping mouths. Pleading hands with curled fingers stretch against the surface of the black tarry substance inside the Gateway. Silently screaming, reaching for me, begging for help.

A disgusting sucking sound, like the sound a tennis shoe makes when it’s pulled out of mud. A hand punches through the Blackness followed by an arm. Then another hand and arm break through. A knee and leg step out of the glop and I recognize the dress draped over the thigh. It’s one of her favorites, a black and white striped dress I bought my mother for her birthday two years ago.

My mother’s soul steps out of the Blackness, her eyes wide with fear. She leaps from the Gateway to the grass circle and lands gracefully on her feet. Her head snaps up and she finds me.

“Libbi?” Her voice trembles with an odd mix of relief and terror, and there is no doubt this is my mother.

“Mom?” I push away from the tree trunk and take a step toward her.

A scream of pain tears from her throat and her back arches unnaturally. Her fingers claw at her face like she’s trying to rid herself of a swarm of bees attacking her head. She whips around, thrashing in pain, screaming, until I can’t take it anymore. I cry out her name and rush to the threshold of the circle, unsure of what I can do, but determined to do something.

Then she stops. Her hands drop to her sides and she slowly turns her head toward me. Eyes glassy and dead.

Slowly, those lifeless eyes transition to inky black. The green irises that I share with her become obscured and replaced by crude oil. I can’t tell if she’s looking at me anymore, but at the same time I feel like she’s looking through me, into my soul.

“Libbi Piper—” That rolling growl most definitely does
not
belong to my mother. “You came back to me.”

I skim the ground at her feet and catch sight of the twitching dark shadow that leads back to the Gateway—Abaddon’s hold on her soul. The string of light I followed across town also stops at her feet, though it stretches in the opposite direction, toward the hospital, where her body lies.

“Yes, Abaddon.” It may look like Mom because he’s using her soul as a puppet, but I know who I’m really talking to. “You threatened my family. Of course, I came back. And I’m ready for you to kill me and take my soul, if you’ll just let my mom go.”

Abaddon twists my mother’s head from side to side so his obsidian eyes can scan the clearing, the woods, and the road.

“Where is Aaron Shepherd? And Kyle Dennis?” Her empty stare finds me again and she frowns. It’s odd that her face can be so slack and lifeless, and simultaneously look confused.

“Kyle is not here. And you said if I came, you’d let Aaron go, so he’s not here either.”

Mom’s head tilts. “Who told you this lie?”

Panic grows inside of me. Bobby. Why the hell did I trust Bobby? He probably thought if he told me Aaron could be free, I’d come running back and sacrifice myself. And I did. I’m such an idiot. He probably figured Aaron would run after me. Little did he know I’d knock Aaron out. He never did give me enough credit.

“Bobby from Millersville,” I say through clenched teeth. He’s lucky I’m dying today, or I’d go back to Millersville and strangle him myself.

“Ah, yes. Bobby from Millersville. A clever one, he is. A troublemaker, for sure, but clever.” He glares at me. “That was an untruth he told you. I need all three of you here.”

“This is between you and me.” I tilt my chin up in defiance even though I feel like crying. Or screaming. Most likely both. “Leave Aaron and Kyle out of this.”

He throws Mom’s head back and a bark of laughter bursts from her lips.

“This is not between you and me, girl,” he growls once the laughter stops bouncing around us. “This is between you, me, and two others. I will not release this woman unless you and the others are here to close our contract.”

Yes. The verbal contract I made when I promised Aaron I’d become the Carroll Falls Reaper. A contract that makes no sense if Nicholas’s predator theory is correct. I mean, what predator makes a contract with its fishing lures? What predator offers its tools the option of free will?

Unless that theory is wrong and one of Nicholas’s other theories is the correct one. Maybe we benefit from our relationship with Abaddon, somehow. Maybe it only works if we agree to be a part of it. Or, maybe Abaddon really is the guardian of the Gates of Heaven and he’s not limited by nature, but by rules, just like the rest of us.

“Sorry, but you’ll have to settle for me.” My fingernails dig into my palms hard enough to draw blood. “I told Kyle to stay away and Aaron is not coming.”

“Hmm…” He tilts his head to the sky, like he’s considering my statement as an offer of negotiation. “That is not acceptable. I am due two souls. And I am also due a Reaper to harvest Carroll Falls. I will not settle for any less than what is rightfully mine.”

“Rightfully yours?” I scoff under my breath, even as a finger of doubt snakes down my spine. What if he’s telling the truth? “Look, Kyle can be your Reaper—he already has the Scythe—and you can take my soul.” I sound strong, sure of myself, and totally unafraid. If only my insides didn’t feel like they’re about to shake apart. “But I don’t know where Aaron is, so you’ll have to do without him.”

“Libbi Piper.” Abaddon’s narrowed eyes hold me captive. “I do not think you understand how this works.” He brings my mother’s palms together in the prayer position and touches her fingers to her chin. “I am due two souls. And no matter how much you think of yourself, you only count as one.” Abaddon suddenly straightens and closes Mom’s eyes. “But wait. Your friend has not listened to you. He’s close. I can feel his Scythe.”

Oh no. Kyle. My heart skips a beat in joy and then again in terror. He came. Even though he told me he’d given up on me, he came. But he shouldn’t have come. It’s too dangerous here.

A car door slams up on the hill but I don’t dare take my eyes off of Abaddon.

“Libbi?” someone says from the top of the hill behind me.

The ground might as well open up under me and swallow me whole. He can’t be here. He can’t. He’s normal and I left him on the floor in Chicago. I left him a note that told him not to follow me. He’s supposed to be safe.

“Aaron?” I whip around and confirm with my eyes what my ears didn’t want to believe. “Oh, no. You guys need to go. It’s too dangerous.”

“We came here for a reason.” Kyle steps out from behind his father’s white truck parked up on the shoulder of Hell’s Highway. “As soon as Aaron entered Carroll Falls, I felt his soul. I figured if I can’t convince you, maybe he can.”

Of course. It was Aaron. The tug of a dying soul I felt when Kyle left me outside of the hospital was Aaron.

Kyle’s eyes flick to the apparition of my mother within the circle. “But I guess we’re too late.”

“Nonsense.” Abaddon’s voice oozes from my mother’s throat. “I’m so happy you’ve joined us. This involves you. Both of you.”

“Get out of here.” I yell over my shoulder as I step between Abaddon and the boys, shielding them from him, like that will help. “I refuse to let you sacrifice yourselves for me. Let him take me.”

I hear a rustle behind me, like dry leaves blowing in the wind, and the underbrush surrounding me disappears. It’s suddenly replaced with a carpet of swaying grass. A distinct line forms on the ground in front of me—grass on my side of the line, and dense underbrush on the other. Like an amoeba, the clearing has stretched out from the Gateway and encompassed me. And it happened so fast I didn’t have time to react. And now I can’t move.

Cold fingers slither up my arms and an icy breeze bites my cheek. I want to recoil from the touch, but I can’t. I’m immobilized. Paralyzed.

You keep saying I can kill you,
Abaddon’s voice echoes inside my head,
but you overestimate my abilities in your world. I cannot interfere with your Death Plan any more than I can make you accept the job as Reaper. What I can do is make your life and the lives of those you love a living hell. Infinitely. Only one of those two boys can kill you. They are the ones bound to you by the Scythe.