If I Die (7 page)

I zipped my pants and Tod turned to me, dismissing his half-naked brother. “Sorry, Kay. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

“What’s wrong?” I couldn’t manage any more than that as I pushed hair back from my face, trying to pretend he hadn’t just seen me in my underwear.

“I got your reaper’s name.” He glanced at the ground for a moment before meeting my gaze again, and I felt my heart
stop. “It’s him, Kaylee. The same one as before. They’re bringing in the reaper who killed your mom.”

“Does my dad know?” I stared at the kitchen floor, trying to wrap my brain around the facts. Minutes earlier, I’d been seconds away from losing my virginity and concerned with nothing else. Now I sat at the kitchen table, virginity frustratingly intact, embarrassed beyond belief, and suddenly scared of my approaching death for a whole new reason.

My mother’s reaper. Now
my
reaper. Again.

“No one knows, except you two.” Tod leaned against the refrigerator, watching me, probably wondering if he should have said anything at all. Knowing who would be coming for me didn’t exactly lessen the stress of my last days. But I was glad he’d told me.

“How could this even happen?” I demanded, as Nash paced back and forth between me and Tod. “This reaper—what’s his name?”

“Thane,” Tod said, watching me from across the room. “If he had a last name, it’s long gone now.”

“Thane.” Once I’d heard it, I had to say it. I had to try out the name of the man who’d taken my mother’s life out of spite when he was denied mine.

I shook my head to clear it and found both Hudson boys waiting for me to finish my thought. “Shouldn’t this bastard be on the run or something. I mean, he’s psychotic, right? He tried to kill me again while I was still in the hospital, before my mom was even buried!”

“Yeah, and if he’d actually been caught with an unauthorized soul, he’d have been fired on the spot,” Tod said. “But your dad stopped him before he could kill you again. The bright side, obviously, is that you’re still alive—at least so far. But the not-so-bright side is that Thane got away with at
tempted murder and potential soul trafficking because no one in the afterlife knew he’d tried it. Your dad didn’t even know he
could
report the incident, much less who to report it to. So, from what I can tell, Thane’s spent the past thirteen years in another district, where he continued reaping off the record, but was never caught.”

“So you’re saying the only way to keep him from killing me this time is if he’d succeeded in killing me last time?” My life had already been a nightmare. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that my death was becoming one, too.

“Yeah.” Tod shrugged miserably.

“But there’s no proof he did anything, after he went after Kaylee, is there?” Nash said. “If there was proof, they’d have repossessed his soul and sent him on to a true death, right? So how sure are we that he’s ever even reaped off the record?”

Tod exhaled slowly, then met his brother’s gaze. “Not sure enough to openly accuse him, but sure enough to have caught Levi’s attention. Turns out he was Thane’s supervisor when Kaylee died the first time. He didn’t like Thane, but he didn’t have proof of anything, so he had him transferred out of the district. Then, when Levi saw Thane listed for your reaping the other day, he did some digging. There are no official complaints, but there are a few discrepancies in Thane’s last district. No one’s associated them with him yet, but then, they don’t know what he tried to do to you. He’s never been caught in the act, or with an unauthorized soul.”

“So, how did he wind up in line to kill Kaylee again? Legally, this time?” Nash asked, sinking into the chair next to mine. “The bastard actually got promoted?”

“Not yet. This is something like a courtesy call, if I understand correctly,” Tod explained. “Thane is up for advancement—proof positive that the system is flawed—and since Kaylee was supposed to be his kill in the first place, some idiot higher up in the chain of command has decided that she should be his test case. A chance to finish what he started and secure a promotion.”

And that’s when I truly understood why Tod had considered his news important enough to interrupt me and Nash, even knowing what we were…up to. “So, if my death is the key to Thane’s promotion, there’s no way he’s going to let my dad do anything to mess that up.”

“That’s right.” Tod’s eyes were eerily, frighteningly still, and suddenly the “grim” descriptor seemed to fit him perfectly. “And if Thane gets this promotion, he’ll be working without a regular schedule, which will leave him plenty of time and opportunity to reap souls off the record, for profit or his own amusement. And what would amuse him more than reaping the soul of a man who’s gotten in his way not once, not twice, but three times before?”

That man, of course, would be my father.

“No.”
No!

“Kaylee, it’s going to be all right.” Tod started across the room toward me, but stopped when Nash scooted closer to rub my back.

“No, it’s not. He’s going to kill me. That sucks, but I could almost deal with that, because I thought that after Thursday, all my problems would be over.” Nash would have Sabine to lean on, and I wouldn’t care what they did together, because I wouldn’t even exist anymore. My dad would be sad, but he’d still be alive, and eventually he’d deal.

But Tod’s bombshell had changed everything.

Tears filled my eyes, and I scrubbed my face with my hands to hide them. But I could still hear them in my voice. “If my dad makes trouble and Thane kills him, what will he do with his soul?”

Warm hands wrapped around my wrists and gently pulled my hands away from my face. I blinked, expecting to see Nash’s hazel eyes staring into mine—but I saw blue instead. Tod knelt in front of me, holding my arms, staring straight into my eyes. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Don’t promise her things you can’t deliver,” Nash snapped from the chair to my left, and I could hear anger in his voice, just as thick as the tears were in mine. “We all know how well that worked out for Addison.”

Tod’s jaw clenched, but his attention never left me. “I can’t stop whatever’s going to happen on Thursday, Kaylee. More than anything in the world, I wish I could.” I nodded, sniffling. “But Levi said if I can get proof that Thane’s been reaping off the record, he’ll take it to his boss, and at the very least, we can get him removed from your case and held for review. And that should protect your dad. No promises…” The reaper glanced pointedly at his brother, then met my tear-blurred gaze again. “But I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you.” I wiped away more tears, trying to balance overwhelming fear and frustration with the bone of hope he’d just tossed me.

“How do you know all this already?” Nash’s gaze narrowed on his brother when the reaper finally stood and stepped back. “You popped in here like you had urgent news, but if it was so urgent in the first place, how did you and Levi have time to work this out?”

I glanced at Nash, surprised by his anger. “He’s just trying to help,” I insisted, sliding my hand into his.

“Don’t you think his timing is a little convenient?”

Tod actually laughed. “Little brother, the last thing I was trying to be was convenient.”

Something silent passed between them. Some kind of unspoken challenge that made my stomach pitch. “What am I missing?” They’d never been best friends, but I’d rarely seen them openly hostile.

Nash never even glanced at me. “You’ve delivered your news. Now go deliver some pizza.”

I glanced at him in surprise. “What’s wrong with you?”

But when Nash didn’t answer, Tod did, his eyes darker than usual, but still steady. “He wants to pick up where the two of you left off.”

I could feel myself flush, and Nash’s hand tightened around mine. But he was watching his brother again. “Do you have a problem with that, Tod?”

That sick feeling in my stomach grew stronger, and I looked up to find the reaper watching me, like he was waiting for some kind of signal. And when I didn’t give him one—when I couldn’t even fully understand the words they were saying, much less the ones they weren’t—he exhaled heavily, holding my gaze. “Not if that’s what she wants. At least this time she’s actually in there and able to speak for herself.” He tapped his head to illustrate his point, and I struggled to breathe through a complicated mix of embarrassment and squirming discomfort.

I didn’t like the reminder that he knew what had happened. What Nash had let happen when he was high. I didn’t want
to think about it, and I didn’t want to know that anyone else ever thought about it.

Nash went stiff at my side, and I could practically feel his temper rolling off him in waves. “Get. Out.”

Tod watched me for another second, while I tried desperately to calm the storm of confusion battering my heart from all sides. Then he disappeared.

“I can’t believe he said that to you.” Nash pulled me up by the hand he still held, and I let him tug me toward the living room.

“He was talking to you,” I said softly, as I sank onto the couch next to him, and Nash went very, very still.

It was the thing we didn’t talk about. It had happened, more than once, and it had broken us up for a while, but he felt horrible about it, and the whole thing was behind us now. And I was fine as long as I didn’t think about it. About what was said and seen and done while I wasn’t in control of my own body.

Nash looked straight into my eyes with an intensity and sincerity that made me catch my breath. “It’s never going to happen again. Not even if you lived to be a thousand. You know that, right?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” I said at last. Wasn’t that proof enough that I was trying to move past it?

But I couldn’t get Tod’s expression out of my head. There’d been just a flash of motion in his irises—a swirl of blue too quick to interpret.

I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head. Tried to get back to the place Nash and I had been an hour before, alone, in my room, where thoughts didn’t matter—it was all about feeling. But when I met Nash’s gaze, I knew the moment was
over. He was still mad at Tod, and hurt by the reminder of things we’d put behind us. And maybe I was, too.

“He did this on purpose.” Nash let his head fall against the back of the couch. “He dredged up old problems to start new trouble.” And this time I couldn’t argue.

As it turns out, there’s no greater impediment to
la petite mort
—the little death—than a visit from the real thing.

I blinked in the dark, confusion covering me like a blanket over my head. Why was I awake? Then Styx growled, and I realized two things at once: I was in my room, and I wasn’t alone.

I sat up, heart pounding, pulse whooshing in my ears. Light from the hall painted a strip of color over one corner of my desk and the end of my bed, while the rest of the room stood shrouded in shadow. Styx lay near my footboard, curled up like she was still asleep, except for her raised head, shining black eyes, and sharp teeth, exposed as she growled in warning.

Avari
. Harmony had said Styx would wake up if a hellion came anywhere near me, even from the other side of the world barrier, and though I’d managed to piss off two other hellions—Belphagore and Invidia—in the six months since I’d learned I was a
bean sidhe,
Avari would always be my default guess. My go-to bad guy, a title awarded on the basis of persistence alone.

It creeped me out to know that Avari was wandering around the Netherworld version of my house—a field of razor wheat—with nothing separating us except for the world
barrier. Was he trying to possess me again? He couldn’t take over my body while I was conscious, which is why Styx’s job—half guard dog, half security alarm—was so important. And that was also why I was under orders to wake my dad up if Styx so much as growled in her sleep.

I crawled out from under the covers and stretched to reach her fur, stroking her in reward for a job well done on my way out of bed.

“Well, look who’s all grown up.”

I jumped at the sound of an unfamiliar voice, then sat up slowly, skin crawling as I reached for my bedside lamp. It wasn’t Avari. It couldn’t be—unless he’d possessed someone else and broken into my house.

Shit, shit, shit!
I flipped the lamp switch and every dark silhouette in my room was thrown into full color, the sudden light blinding me for one long moment. I blinked rapidly, fighting off panic as I waited for my vision to adjust, but when it did, it brought no answers—only more questions.

A man sat in my desk chair, watching me silently, arms crossed over the front of a white button-up shirt. His dark eyes glittered with some perverse version of anticipation or amusement, as if he knew me and was waiting for a familiar reaction. But I’d never even seen him before—I would have remembered that face. Smooth and young, with a strong chin and wide forehead. If I’d seen him at a party, I would have watched him—or watched Emma fawn over him. But in my room, in the middle of the night…?

“Get out.” I slid off the mattress on the opposite side, and squatted to pull an aluminum baseball bat—one of Nash’s spares—from beneath the bed. I was no stranger to late-night unwanted company.

“Do you even know who I am?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Unscheduled visitors rarely
brought good news—just ask Jacob Marley. “Get out now, or I’ll yell for my dad.”

The stranger settled farther into my chair, getting comfortable. “How
is
your dad?” he asked, still watching me eagerly, like he’d rather read my thoughts than hear me speak. “I haven’t seen him in, what? Thirteen years?”

No, no, no
… I shook my head, but I couldn’t deny the swift understanding and terror colliding within me. “Thane?” I whispered, suddenly cold all over.

He was early.

“No. You can’t be here yet.” I glanced into the hall and started to yell for my dad—until I remembered what Tod had said. If my dad got in Thane’s way, Thane would kill him. That would give us proof enough to get Thane fired, but my dad would still be dead.

Instead of shouting, I backed slowly away from the bed, tightening my grip on the bat, for all the good it would do. I could handle this myself. “I still have four days, and you’re not gonna—”

“Relax.” Thane smiled, and no matter how pretty he was, I couldn’t shake the certainty that kittens everywhere were suddenly screeching in pain from the mockery of joy that had just settled onto his face. “I just thought we should formally meet, since I’m going to be the last thing you ever see.”

I took a deep breath, trying desperately to focus on the fact that he hadn’t come to kill me—yet—instead of on the fact that he’d come at all. “Do you always show up early to taunt your victims?”

“You’re not a victim, you’re an assignment,” Thane said, watching as I made myself climb back onto the bed and lay the bat at my side on the comforter, as if I wasn’t terrified and in shock. “Do you always act like having a reaper in your bedroom is a matter of course?”

Show no fear
.

I shrugged and tucked my legs beneath me, glad I’d slept in pajama bottoms. “I know interesting people.”

“Of course. Because you’re a
bean sidhe,
right?” the reaper said, as if he’d just remembered. “And that makes me one very lucky worker bee. The average reaper will go his entire afterlife without ever encountering a nonhuman soul, and here I’ve got the opportunity to reap yours for a second time. It doesn’t get much better than this…” Thane rolled the chair close enough that his knees touched my mattress, still eyeing me boldly, studying me. “Except for reaping your mother.”

My hand flew before my brain caught up with it. A second later, my palm throbbed, and an angry red patch marred his smooth, stubbleless cheek.

Thane threw his head back and laughed, and I glanced at the door, hoping my father would sleep through the whole thing. Hoping Thane was audible—and inexplicably corporeal—only to me.

“Well, aren’t you fun!” he said, raising one hand to his cheek. “Who would have guessed that the toddler who once died without a whimper would grow into such a hellcat!” He leaned closer, and I held my breath. “It’s almost a shame I have to extinguish such a bright flame, but it’s true what they say about life being unfair. Death, however, is the great equalizer. Death comes to everyone, eventually, and
you
have the honor of meeting him twice.” Thane leaned back in my chair and recrossed his arms. “Lucky, lucky girl…”

“Get out.” I picked up the bat again, thrilled to find fury overwhelming my fear. “Get the hell out of my room and don’t come back.”

“Or what? You’ll sic your father on me?” He raised both brows in silent challenge, and I wanted to hit him again. With the bat this time. “He’s a sad, desperate man, with the poten
tial to become a real thorn in my side. But you have to respect his determination to save his daughter. Too bad it’s not going to work.”

I didn’t really want to know, and I certainly didn’t want to prolong Thane’s visit or admit my own ignorance. But I had to ask. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s been hanging around the local reaper office for two days, begging anyone who’ll listen to let him trade his expiration date for yours. It’s not going to matter, though. Your file has a big red ‘special circumstances’ sticker on the front, and the notation inside states clearly that you’ve already had one date exchange and are thus ineligible for another.”

Uh-oh
.

“I don’t suppose you know how he found the local headquarters, do you?” Thane asked, and I shook my head, though it had to be Tod. Who else could have told him? Who else would even know?

Thane looked like he didn’t believe me, but didn’t really care one way or another. “As amusing as the whole thing would be, if it weren’t so pathetic, if he doesn’t back off soon, he might find his expiration date exchanged for someone he’s never even met.”

“Is that why you’re here?” I asked, fury burning bright behind my eyes, a headache in full bloom. “To threaten my dad?”

The reaper laughed again, softer this time, and I already hated the sound. “That’s just a bonus. I’m here to get to know you. By my count, we have several days to spend together before our business is concluded, and I say we make the most of it. How do you feel about Mexican takeout?”

Was he serious? “Why are you doing this?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never reaped a soul from someone who knew what was coming, so I look forward to observing your
last days, studying how you cope as you count down the hours. Like a fish in a glass bowl…”

“You’re psychotic.”

Another shrug. “Nah. Just bored. But don’t mistake my interest for sympathy. Nothing will stop me from ending your life when the time comes.”

“When is that?” I asked, trying hard not to reveal how desperate I was for that nugget of information. “When am I supposed to die?”

For a moment, he only watched me, and I got the feeling he was trying to decide whether I’d suffer more from knowing or from not knowing. “I think this will be more fun as a surprise,” he said finally, and I groaned on the inside. “See you soon, Kaylee.”

Then he was gone, and I was alone with my own fear and anger. And with Styx, who glanced around the room, sniffed the air once, then curled up and went back to sleep, secure in the knowledge that the big bad reaper was gone.

But I couldn’t sleep—not after what had just happened. Not knowing it could happen again, at any time. Not knowing my father had spent the entire weekend painting a target on his own back, for me.

I lifted my cell from the charger on my nightstand and autodialed Tod. He answered on the first ring. “Kaylee?”

“Did you tell my dad how to find the local reaper office?” I demanded, without a greeting.

Tod sighed. “You in your room?”

“Yeah.”

Another pause. Then, “Are you dressed?”

For just a split second, I considered saying no, and I wondered if he’d take that as deterrent or motivation. Then I came to my senses. “Pjs.”

He appeared at the foot of my bed an instant later, already
sliding his phone into his pocket as he pushed Styx over and sank onto the mattress. She growled at him until I patted a spot next to my right hip, and she curled up there, content to watch him in threatening silence.

“I’m sorry,” Tod said, one bent leg on my comforter. “I was trying to help.”

“How is telling my dad where to go beg for my life possibly helping? You know they’re not going to make the trade.”

“That’s why I sent him there. Because they won’t do what he wants, but they won’t hurt him, and Thane’s not going to make a move on him while he’s in a building full of other reapers.” He shrugged, and it got a little harder for me to stay mad at him. “Besides, that way I know where he is, and I can check up on him without having to hunt him down.”

“Oh.” When he put it like that, it sounded kind of…smart. “Well, then…thanks for keeping my dad out of trouble.”

Suddenly nervous, for no reason I could pin down, I fidgeted with the handle of Nash’s bat, and Tod noticed.

“You know, most girls sleep with a teddy bear or an extra pillow. But I gotta say, that’s kinda hot…”

My cheeks blazed on the lower edge of my vision. “Nash gave it to me. But I wasn’t sleeping with it. I…” I shook my head and started over. “Thane was here, Tod. That’s how I knew Dad was at your office.”

“Thane was
here?
In your room?” He sat up straight, eyes churning with cobalt streaks of anger like I’d never seen from him before. “Please tell me you bashed his skull in.”

“No, but I did slap him. He’s planning to watch me to see if I crack up, knowing I’m going to die in a few days. Can he do that?”

His dimple disappeared beneath a dark scowl. “Yeah, but he’s not supposed to tell you he’s doing it. You’re never supposed to see your own reaper.”

“Would that be enough to get him fired, if I told Levi?”

Tod shrugged. “If he were a rookie and you were a clueless human, yeah. But since he’s not, and you’re not, it’d probably just derail his promotion and get him knocked a peg or two down the ladder. Which would piss him off.”

“I don’t suppose you’re any closer to proving he’s done anything else?”

“Not yet. I’ll get him, though, Kaylee,” Tod said, and that look was back. His irises were too still, like there was something he didn’t want me to see. And when I realized how badly I wanted to see it, I glanced down and noticed I was playing with the bat again.

My weak laugh sounded nervous, even to my own ears. “I guess I should tell Nash he was right about the bat. It did come in handy.”

Tod leaned forward to catch my gaze, and a blue twist of fear churned in his. “Kaylee, you can’t tell him about Thane. Anyone Thane sees as a threat is in danger. The irony there is that if he killed Nash, or your dad, or whoever, we’d be able to catch him with an unauthorized soul. But it’d be too late for whoever he took.”

A chill ran the entire length of my body. I’d known that, of course, but I hadn’t actually thought it through that far. No one else could know about Thane. No matter what.

“You want me to stay the night, in case he comes back?” Tod asked. I glanced at him in surprise, but he was serious.

“Don’t you have to work?” He was less than two hours into his shift.

“I could ask someone to cover for me.”

I stroked Styx’s fur, but she refused to sleep as long as he was there. “I thought you were out of favors.”

“Yeah, now I’m taking on debt,” he admitted. “But I can handle it.”

“Would Thane be able to see you, if he comes back?”

Tod nodded. “Reapers can’t hide from one another. I can’t, anyway. Maybe if I had more experience…”

“But if he sees you here, he’ll know you know about him, and your investigation will be hosed,” I said. Tod started to argue, but I cut him off. “You have to stay away from him and find proof. I’ll be fine—till Thursday, anyway.”

He nodded again, reluctantly, this time. “I’ll let you know when I find something. Until then…keep sleeping with the bat.”

When Tod left, Styx went back to sleep, like her night had never been interrupted.

I lay awake for another hour and a half, listening to her breathe.

Sabine was waiting by my locker on Monday morning—not the beginning I’d hoped for on the third-from-final day of my life. But honestly, considering my luck, it fit.

“So, how’d it go?” she asked, leaning against the locker next to mine while I entered my combination, and for several seconds, I thought she was talking about the unscheduled appearance of my own personal reaper. Then I remembered she didn’t know about that…