Death Becomes Me (Call Me Grim Book 2) (6 page)

I don’t have time to worry about our lack of speed. We burst through the attic wall and into the open summer air, at least thirty-feet off the ground, probably more.

And I drop.

“Fly, Libbi.” Aaron’s hand tightens around mine. He pulls my arm and lifts me a few inches, but it’s not enough. I dangle like a useless sack of meat. A Libbi piñata.

This is not acceptable. I refuse to be the anchor that gets us both caught.

I pump my legs in the air like I’m running from a zombie-girl with blacked-out eyes and Ursula tentacles and float up a few inches. Pumping harder, I gain a few more inches.

“You can do this,” Aaron says. I focus on his determined eyes and float up a little more.

A rope of fire singes my ankle and I’m jolted back. My knee and hip joints pop with the sudden jerk. One of Annalise’s black tentacle-things has snaked around my left ankle. It tugs me back again and my fingers slip in Aaron’s slick hand. His other hand clamps down on my forearm. His fingers dig into my flesh.

“Don’t let me go!”

“I won’t.” Aaron’s grip tightens and he pulls me toward him even as the tentacle yanks me harder in the opposite direction. “If he gets you, he gets me too.”

Fire crawls up my leg, burning the skin, the muscle, the bone. A cry of pain bursts from me and the world goes black.

So dark. Tangible darkness. There is nothing. Just voices.

Voices and panic.

And screaming.

The scent of rotten, burning meat.

Is it
my
meat? Am I burning?

Libbi Piper…
The voice needles into my brain and then explodes like a million voices inside my head, overpowering, all-consuming.

Libbi Piper… You cannot escape me. You belong to me.

Burning. Everything burns. Everything. Hurts. But a part of my consciousness feels this strange hold on me has loosened. Or maybe that’s the tenuous hold I have on my sanity slipping.

Come back to me or I will hurt the ones you love. And I will STILL find you. Wherever you go. I will find you. In time. It’s only a matter of time.

Something snaps. The voices, the screaming, and the pain all disappear. And I am left in darkness. That’s all there is. All there will ever be. Swimming, oily, slick, crushing darkness.

6

Wind batters my body. My hair whips wildly around my face, clinging to my lips and tickling my cheeks. I breathe deep and the familiar scent of fresh dirt and dried flowers fills my senses.

              Pain. I was in so much pain. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t do anything but feel. Scorching. Agony.

              I’m his. And he will find me.

              My eyes snap open and I jump, kicking my legs, swinging my fists. I have to get away. If I can. But I can’t. He will find me. No matter where I go, he will find me.

              “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” Arms tighten around my legs and back. I’m being carried. “You’re safe.” He pulls me close against his warm body. Lips press against my temple. “Libbi, it’s me. You’re safe.” I look up. Aaron swims into focus. His large blue eyes search my face and he gives me a tight smile. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

              “Where’s Abaddon?” I ask. My voice squeaks. There’s no disguising my terror. It’s inside of me now, weaved through my fibers. It’s part of me.

              “Not here,” he says.

Blue electricity crackles around us as we pass through the barrier of a territory. Aaron doesn’t seem to notice. His lips press into a determined line and his eyes focus on the road only he can see clearly. It’s still a blur to me.

“Where are we going?”

“West, for now,” he says as he takes a sharp left. “Then north, I think.” Each breath puffs from his mouth. Sweat glistens on his brow.

“I’m okay, now, Aaron. I can fly by myself.” My ankle throbs where that thing grabbed me, but I’d only have to run on concrete long enough to get air born. I think I can handle that.

“Not yet. Still not far enough away.”

I almost argue with him, but bite back my protest. His ridged jaw and creased brow display more than just stubbornness. He’s afraid. Really afraid. And meeting his stubbornness with my own will probably make things worse.

“What happened back there?” I’m ninety-nine percent sure I know what happened, but I really need to hear him say it. I need to know where he thinks we stand.

“Abaddon knows we escaped.” His frown deepens but he keeps his eyes steady on the road ahead. “Way before we wanted him to know.”

Yup. That’s what I thought. Bubbles of panic grow and burst in my chest.

“The little girl.” I swallow the dust in my throat. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

“Abaddon’s voice came from her mouth.” Aaron shudders. “Somehow, he got inside of her body. Used her like a freaking ventriloquist’s dummy.” He shakes his head like he can’t believe what he just said. His forearm tightens against my ribs. We bank left.

I look ahead and squint, trying to see anything other than the horizon and the hazy stripes of color around us with no luck. I may never be able to see clearly when we run.

“Bobby said he’s using her as a Shadow.” I adjust my arm so it’s not pinched against his chest and wrap it around his neck. “What’s a Shadow?”

His shoulder lifts in a shrug and he sighs. “I don’t know.”

My heart flutters with alarm and I dig my fingers into the back of his neck. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You have to know. You told me not to let her touch me.”

“Because I felt Abaddon was inside of her, somehow. I know he can paralyze with his touch. I didn’t want her to do that to you.”

A blast of pain. Fire. Darkness.

He will find me. I belong to him.

My back straightens and I shiver. Abaddon did more than paralyze me when he grabbed my ankle. He told me things. Terrible things.

This freedom is a lie. I’ve never been free. From the moment I accepted Aaron’s job as Reaper, Abaddon has owned me. And it’s only a matter of time before he catches me and drags me back to Carroll Falls to become Death. Well, unless death becomes me first.

“You okay?” Aaron glances at me. His pale cheeks glisten with sweat.

“Yeah.” I shake my head to dispel the dread that clings to me like spider webs. “You should really put me down. You’re going to tire yourself out if you keep carrying me like this.”

“I’m fine,” he says between strained breaths.

“You’re not. You can’t even breathe. And look.” I wipe sweat off of his brow and show him my damp fingers. “I promise, I can keep up.”

“You’re sure?” He gives me a sideways glance. “Your foot doesn’t hurt too much?”

“It burns, but I’ll be fine.” I roll my swollen and blistered ankle to show him how fine it is. “See?”

“Okay.” He slows his pace and after a few moments, his feet touch down in a grassy field beside a busy highway. He gently places my feet on the ground, keeping his arm behind me, like he’s afraid I might topple over.

I take a tentative step into the field and the tight, burned skin of my ankle pulls. Fire shoots up my leg as the raw skin there splits. Warmth seeps from the new wound, down my heel and into my tennis shoe.

I bite my lip against the pain. It’s not so bad. I might need a new pair of socks, but it’s bearable. Not nearly as bad as when it happened, at least. I smile up at him despite the agony. “See? Fit as a fiddle.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” I smile again. “Totally sure.” No way he’s carrying me ten more feet. His face is so red he could be a stop sign.

“Okay. Let’s go.” He takes off running and I run beside him, matching his stride. We take flight when the grass gives way to asphalt and soar over the highway, barely missing a few cars. Moments later, the landscape blurs with pure speed. I pump my legs to keep up. Luckily, running on thin air is much kinder to my sore foot than running in the field.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Aaron says after a half hour of silence. The bright red color has drained from his cheeks, leaving him pale. I guess he looks better. At least he doesn’t look like he’s about to have as stroke or something. “I mean, he was
wearing
her body like a suit.”

I tremble. The sight of the little zombie girl’s long, twitching shadow and blacked-out eyes leap into my head. And that voice, so deep, demonic, unnatural. So wrong.

We make another sharp turn and he looks down at my clawed fingers sunk deep into his bicep. “Can you let up a bit? You’re about to draw blood.”

“Sorry.” I force myself to loosen my grip, though it’s hard to do.

Bobby called Annalise a Shadow. He said Abaddon was holding his great-grandniece as a Shadow because of him. Because of things he had done.

“I think it’s a punishment,” I say softly, because if I don’t say something I’m going to scream.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean hurting Bobby wasn’t enough to keep Bobby in line, so Abaddon took his niece. He knows Bobby cares about her and he’s using her body to punish him for breaking the rules.”

Aaron keeps his eyes focused on the horizon. After a few seconds, he nods.

“I don’t think anyone has broken Abaddon’s rules as badly as we have.” The muscles in my hand ache. I’ve clamped down on Aaron’s forearm again.

His answer is a slow shake of his head.

By leaving Carroll Falls, Aaron and I have taken Abaddon’s precious rules and trampled them with stilettos. If Abaddon would take Bobby’s niece as a Shadow because he missed a death to celebrate his one-hundredth birthday, what will he do to us if he finds us? No.
When
he finds us.

In my mind, Max’s face replaces Annalise’s waxy gray features. His green eyes stare out from under limp copper bangs. Black fluid fills his eyes, blotting out the green irises as well as the white. His hair flickers like a torch in the breeze.

No, it’s not his hair. His head is on fire. His body jerks and his face twists in agony. The memory of the scent of rotting, burning meat rolls over me again and I gag. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to push the hellacious image out of my mind, but it won’t leave. As much as I want it to, the vision doesn’t feel like my artist’s imagination working overtime. It feels like a premonition.

My skin prickles.

“He’s going to take someone we love and use them as a Shadow against us.” My head throbs, but I ignore it. “He’s going to take Max. Or maybe Sara.”

Aaron finally speaks after a moment of thought. “I don’t think so. Max and Sara aren’t dead. He has no control over the living. That’s why he needs Reapers to do his dirty work. We’re the go-between.”

“I don’t know, Aaron. Who knows what he can do,” I say, but Aaron keeps talking like he didn’t hear me. Maybe he just didn’t want to.

“Even if he could, why would he take them if he couldn’t use them against us? It’d be a waste.” He looks my way, and I can see a hint of uncertainty in his sideward glance, but it quickly disappears. “We’re not trapped in a territory or connected to him by a Scythe anymore. We got away and he doesn’t know where we are or where we’re going. We are out of his control. As long as we stay out of sight, he won’t be able to use them to punish either of us. So it wouldn’t be worth his time.”

“He spoke to me.” I rest my head against his shoulder. My eyelids droop as heaviness settles over me. I’m so tired. I wish I could just sleep until all of this is over.

“What?” Aaron shrugs my head off of his shoulder. I look up at him.

“When he paralyzed me back there, he took me somewhere dark and he spoke to me.” I let my fingers play over the back of his arm. “He told me he would find me. That it was only a matter of time. That I belong to him.”

“That’s bullshit, Libbi. Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t own you.”

“He said he’d hurt people I love.”

“He can’t. He’s lying to you. Trying to scare you into doing what he wants.”

“No. He’s not lying.” I shake my head. “He can hurt Kyle.”

“Kyle’s prepared for that. He agreed to it. You heard him. He said torture is better than dead.” The muscles in Aaron’s jaw tighten. “But Kyle doesn’t know where we are, either. So torturing him would be useless.” He tugs me closer and we take another turn.

“But he could take Max as a Shadow to hurt Kyle.”

“Libbi. Listen to me.” The force in his voice strikes me like a slap. “Abaddon can’t touch the living. Even if he could, if he wanted to punish Kyle, and torturing him didn’t do the trick, he wouldn’t take Max or Sara as a Shadow. He’d take Haley.”

My heart sinks. Haley. Kyle’s twin sister and one of my best friends. That’s almost as bad as if he stole Max. There has to be something we can do, some way we can warn them. I’d say we could find the closest Reaper and ask to use their Scythe to talk to Kyle, but after the trouble we had with Bobby, I think getting to know our fellow Reapers might not be such a good idea.

“We should go back to Carroll Falls.” I touch trembling fingers to my temple. “We need to warn them.”

“He’ll expect us to go back there. After all of that, he’s probably counting on it. But you don’t have to worry about warning Kyle or Max.” He looks down at me and smiles. It’s a small one, but it’s still a smile. “I already did.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.” His grin spreads a bit more, but there is no mistaking the fear that swims behind his eyes. “In the attic, when you were getting our things, I basically forced Bobby to use his Scythe and take me to Kyle. I didn’t have time to give details, but I told Kyle Abaddon was onto us, and to be careful.”

For a moment, my shoulders drop with relief. Kyle’s been warned. He will keep them safe, even if it kills him, which it won’t. He’s a Reaper. He can’t die. His death is postponed.

Right?

My shoulders shoot back up to my ears. Kyle is a Reaper. In less than a week, he’ll disappear. Who will warn Sara, Max, Mom, and Haley when they can’t see or hear Kyle anymore? And even while he’s visible, who’s to say Kyle can stop Abaddon from taking anyone he pleases, whenever he wants?

“Will warning them be enough?” I bite my lower lip so hard I taste blood. “We don’t know how this Shadow thing works. For all we know, he could take people in their sleep, or when they walk in front of a graveyard without shoes. Anything is possible.”

Aaron turns, his eyes steady and hard with determination. “You saw that little girl back there. She was dead, a walking corpse. She moved like she was being manipulated. Awkward, jerky. He was using her body.”

“Right. Like a zombie.”

“No. Like a puppet.” His eyes widen with surprise, like he just thought of something important. “Hold on. If Bobby told Abaddon we were in his house, why didn’t he come as himself? It seems stupid to try and catch two stray Reapers in the hard-to-control body of a dead girl.” He smacks his forehead with his palm. “Unless, he needed her.”

“Annalise?” My brain slowly wraps around the idea.

“Yeah.” His hand slides down the side of his face. “How come I never thought of this before?”

“What?” I ask, exasperated. I hate it when he gets like this.

“I’ve never seen him outside of the Gateway. Ever. He always summoned me to him with the Scythe.” He touches the empty space where the Scythe used to circle his thumb. “What if he can’t leave? What if he used the girl because he couldn’t summon us without a Scythe and he needs a body to leave the Gateway?”

It makes sense. But that might be the tiny shred of optimism I still have inside of me talking. If Aaron’s right and Abaddon can’t leave the Gateway, then if Kyle keeps the people we love away from it, maybe they’ll be okay. Maybe we didn’t sentence our friends and family to zombiehood when we left Carroll Falls. I hope that’s the case. Because I don’t think I could live with myself if it’s not.