The Revolt (The Reapers: Book Two) (26 page)

I fought in what became a mindless blur of
fists and soul sucking. When it was over, I felt hollow and cold. I
looked around for a new opponent, but none appeared. I peered
across the veil and saw my friends standing in the snow with no one
left to fight. Holly sat in the driver’s seat of the pathfinder.
The bodies of the dead must have already been placed inside.

I slid back into my own body and looked at
Tucker as he sat down next to me. He met my gaze, his expression
grim in the dim light of the pathfinder’s headlights. Holly drove
as far as she could off the road through the deep snow, and then
motioned for the others. They walked over to her and helped her
push the SUV onto its side. Or as far onto its side as they could
get it in the snow.

“Who’s going to believe that accident killed
or hurt anyone?” I asked. Then I saw a flash of light and the
pathfinder exploded into flames. “They killed everyone?”

Tucker shook his head. “Two are just
unconscious. See them lying there on the snow?”

I looked into the dark night, but all I saw
was my dad’s team, limping back to the van. “How are we so much
stronger than them?”

“The more of them we encounter, the more it
looks like Rose and Houston orchestrated the taking of the town and
recruited the young, untrained, and naïve. Older reapers don’t play
well with each other. I’m surprised Houston and Rose have managed
so well.”

“They recruited the naïve and then we killed
them and destroyed their souls,” I said.

“They were warned,” he said. “They knew the
risks.”

“Like I knew the risks?” I wondered what
they’d been promised or how they’d been threatened. I wondered what
hopes they’d had for the future, who they’d loved. My stomach sank
and then rose. I pushed my way out of the van and onto the snow as
the team stepped up. Thad grabbed my shoulders and held my hair
back until I was done. I stood and wiped my mouth. I could smell
the burning van, the smoke so thick it almost choked me. I imagined
I could smell burning bodies, and I got back into the van before I
really had time to think about it.

“You did good,” Thad said. He sat down next
to me, while the others loaded into the van and Isobel took us away
from that place of death and pain.

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I
know. But now’s not the time to fall apart. Push it aside and get
ready to fight again.”

I moved his arm off my shoulders, the tactile
comfort more than I could handle without crying. “They called for
back-up?”

“Yep. The next crew will be larger and more
experienced,” he said. I shivered and steeled my body to keep from
shaking. I was so tired my head ached and I just wanted to curl up
in a bed and pretend none of this had happened.

I looked around the van and counted heads.
“How’s everyone?”

“Wounded but ready to fight again,” Holly
said from the front.

We only drove for about ten minutes before
Isobel picked up a tail. Three sports cars without a lot of room
for fighters this time, but they used the same maneuvers to stop us
as the last group. Four men and two women stepped out of the cars
to face my friends. Each of the men were bigger than Jed and he was
the biggest guy I personally knew.

Worn out and weak, mentally and emotionally,
I had a harder time crossing over. I faced the five reapers they’d
sent, my stomach twisting, my heart hammering, aware I might not
come out of the battle whole and alive. My fear must have traveled,
because Alice popped up next to me, pushing Tucker out of her way
so she could stand next to me. He rolled his eyes over her
shoulder, but he didn’t say anything. She looked tiny next to him,
and wide-eyed, a delicate little girl. I wondered if Alice was more
powerful than Tucker.

“You should not do this. You should run.” She
looked at me with a somber expression and a heavy tone that didn’t
belong on such a small child. I wanted to do what she said. I
hadn’t seen her in months, and I knew she wouldn’t be there if I
weren’t in serious trouble.

“Where should I run?” I asked. That was the
un-escapable question.

“Away,” she said, as though the answer was
simple and I was an idiot.

I smiled at her and tried to be confident. “I
have to do this, Alice. I know you want to protect me, but I’m
strong. I’m going to be okay.”

She shook her head slowly and tsked like an
old lady. I liked Alice, but sometimes she was downright creepy.
“If you are not, I will help you. Your fight will be my fight.”

She’d never offered to fight with me before.
She usually stayed on the sidelines and helped when it was least
dangerous for her. Her life had been one of violence and abuse and,
even after being dead for more than one hundred and seventy years,
she still clung to the shadows, afraid of the pain stronger reapers
could cause her.

“You don’t have to fight. I don’t want
you—”

“It is wrong what they are doing. The dead
should stay dead. I will fight with you.” Her eyes were intense and
dark, her demeanor calm.

I nodded, and stepped to meet the reapers
advancing toward me. One grabbed me and held me, pinning my arms
behind my back. The other leaned in for a punch. I could see Tucker
out of the corner of my eye, fighting the other three reapers. I
ignored the panic slowly building in my gut and screamed like a
little girl. That startled the one holding me enough for him to
loosen his grip and I leaned into him and kicked out, landing a
solid blow to the stomach of my attacker. He flew back several
feet, my kick still considerably stronger than it would have been
in the living world, even though the fighting was weakening my life
force. In top form, that kick would have thrown him twice as
far.

I threw my head back and hit the guy holding
me with enough force to cause something in his face to crack and my
head to ache. He let go of me, just as the other guy socked me in
the belly. I doubled over and he grabbed my face, pressing his
hands flat against my cheeks. I tried to slide out of his grasp,
but before I could move, strong arms wrapped around my shoulders
and held me in place. I pushed hard against both reapers, and tried
to pull the essence of the one pulling mine, but he kneed me in the
gut and broke my concentration. I felt my essence leaving in a
flash of pain and brilliant light. My body grew weaker as more
energy drained from me, and a weird calm and acceptance replaced my
panic.

Someone shouted and I found myself suddenly
free from the reaper holding my shoulders. I slipped away from the
reaper pulling my life and punched him in the throat. He staggered
back, and Caleb swept a leg under him and brought him to the
ground. I wondered why Caleb would help me, but he wouldn’t meet my
gaze.

An iron grip around my throat stopped my
thoughts. I was lifted into the air, my feet kicking at nothing. I
tried to pull essence through the hand, but I was only able to
prevent the reaper from taking mine. I might not need to breathe,
but I did need my head and I was pretty sure the reaper would
remove it if he squeezed much harder. My panic would also make it
easier for him to take my essence, so I fought hard to remain calm.
Caleb fought super-reaper number one as a third reaper, the spirit
of one of the living my team had dispatched, approached at a
run.

I hit the ground so hard and so suddenly that
I blacked out for a moment, and I had to check to make sure my head
was still attached. It was and as soon as my vision cleared, I
turned to find Alice standing behind me, still and easy. The reaper
who’d been throttling me was gone.

“Return to your body, now,” Alice said. She
looked at me with wide eyes, putting on a little girl act that
didn’t fool me. I knew she’d just destroyed a reaper in a matter of
seconds.

“I can’t,” I said. “If I don’t fight them
now, I’ll have to fight them later.”

She nodded and stalked over to the two
reapers fighting Caleb.

“Caleb look out!” I shouted. “Get out of the
way!” Even after everything that Caleb had done to me, I couldn’t
let him get caught in the crossfire. I told myself it was because
we still needed him, but deep down I knew it was because I felt
sympathy for him. Our childhoods weren’t so different, though we
were ostracized for different reasons. And he was helping me, he
was fighting beside me, even after everything.

He spun away from a punch and moved toward
me. Alice took each of the two reapers by the hand. She looked like
a little girl being walked down the street between two burly
uncles. The reapers looked at her with fear in their eyes, but
neither of them could speak a word before they were gone. I
wondered who she really was, because the reaper who had so easily
destroyed two reapers was not the scared little girl she’d always
had me believe she was. I wanted to ask her, but I knew it was
neither the time nor the place.

“What about him?” Alice asked, gesturing to
Caleb. Caleb took a step away from me, but I shook my head.

“Go back to your body, now?” Alice asked.

I saw that Tucker stood alone, watching us. I
nodded, and she vanished.

“Come with me?” I asked Caleb.

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re here now, and you just saved
my soul. I think that means you still care about me. I want to
apologize for killing you, and I want you to forgive me.”

He rolled his eyes. “You just want my help to
fight the reapers.”

“Yeah, I want to get the reapers out of this
town, because I don’t trust them. They’ve been draining me so hard
it’s only luck I’m still alive. But I also want you back. I believe
you and I could rule the town.” I hadn’t expected to see Caleb
again, but now that he was there, I couldn’t help playing the same
old game. He still had answers I needed and, if I got them, maybe I
could still save Briarton and Angelica, if she was still alive.

“How do I know you aren’t lying to me?” he
asked, but something in his face had shifted, and I knew I was
close. Even after everything that had happened he wanted to believe
me. The look on his face reminded me of myself, but I shook the
thought off as an effect of my exhaustion.

I took his hand and pulsed a bit of energy
into him. “Because I can’t lie to you here.” I definitely could lie
to him there, because I just had, but it sounded good. “Can we talk
about this in the van, with me back in my own body?”

He pulled me closer. “I kind of like you like
this.” Panic surged through me. What if Caleb had a reaper waiting
to take over my body while I was away from it?

Tucker grabbed my shoulder and glared at
Caleb. “You aren’t supposed to be talking to him,” he said. He
hauled me down to the van and I slipped back into my body. When I
opened my physical eyes, Caleb was next to me. Tucker was squished
up against the far window of the van, rolling his eyes, but he was
also smiling. He obviously thought befriending Caleb was a good
idea.

Before anyone could say anything, the rest of
the team jumped back into the van. Bodies lay on the ground outside
but, since nothing had been done to make it look like a car
accident and we’d only faced one reaper from among the living, I
assumed most of them were still breathing. Our team was still
intact, somehow, though Rooster limped into the van and Holly held
her arm like it hurt. Isobel got in and slammed her door shut.

“You got them?” she asked.

“We got them,” I said.

“Then let’s go.” Isobel started the engine
and we sped off into the night. Caleb reached for my hand and I let
him have it. He didn’t solidify like Tucker did when I touched him
and I was glad. I didn’t have the energy to wonder why he
didn’t.

“What the hell, Kelsey,” Thad asked, once we
were on the road again. “What’s he doing here?”

“I want him here,” I said. I couldn’t exactly
explain myself or my plan to Thad with Caleb right there, but I
figured Thad would be smart enough to figure it out. “If you’re
going to kidnap me and force me to fight, I can have him here for a
few moments of comfort.”

Thad shook his head and disgust crossed his
face. “You still think you love this asshole?” I was pretty sure
Thad knew I’d never loved Caleb, which meant he was playing
along.

“You love me?” Caleb asked, his voice bitter,
his face twisted in scorn. “But you killed me.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to kill you. I
just meant to shoot you so Jed and I could get away. Jed convinced
me you were lying and using me. I know the truth now, and they,” I
gestured to Thad and the others, “kidnapped me to try to force me
to fight with them.”

Caleb looked at me and his lips turned up
just a tiny bit. He wanted to believe in me so badly. “If that’s
true, than let me call for back-up to get you out of here.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be necessary,”
Tucker said, as he popped up in front of Caleb. He grabbed Caleb’s
wrist and, when he pulled away, there was a silver chain running
between the two of them. “You’re staying with us.”

“Tucker! What the hell are you doing?” I
didn’t want Caleb to go for help, but I needed to make it seem like
I was on Caleb’s side.

Tucker looked at me and frowned, but his eyes
twinkled with mischief. “We need him Kelsey, almost as much as we
need you. If we let him go he’ll take you back to Sadie’s and
you’ll be killed.”

“I would never let anyone hurt her,” Caleb
said.

“Caleb would protect me.” He would probably
take me back to Sadie’s if he got the chance and the farther I got
away from there the less I wanted to go back.

“Like you protected her before, you cowardly
little shit?” Thad asked.

I looked at Thad, brows raised, but he
ignored my look. He was overplaying it just a bit.