And then, the realization dawns.
The woman blinks. Once. Twice. Then her head tilts, just slightly, as if her brain is buffering. Because the man—along with the other two chaos gremlins standing beside him—is looking straight at her.
Her scythe-wielding, very much supernatural, should-be-invisible-to-mortals self.
They see her.
And finally, she understands what just happened.
They stole her damn soul.
Her gaze swings from Talon to Nathaniel and then finally lands on me.
“What the hell is going on here?” she asks, voice sharp.
And, well… I have no idea what to tell her. Because how do you casually explain to someone that they’re currently looking at the only three mortals in existence who can see Grim Reapers and decided—completely unhinged and of their own free will—to hijack the natural order of life and death like it’s their personal plaything?
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
Because, really—what the hell am I supposed to say?
“Surprise, bitch?”
“Welcome to your worst-case scenario?”
“Congratulations, you just got spiritually mugged by the afterlife’s least qualified participants?”
Before I can land on an answer, she takes a slow, measured breath and says, voice tight, “Give it back.”
She’s angry. But underneath it, there’s something else. Something raw.
Not just wrath.
Desperation. Talon doesn’t give her a break. He tosses the marble into the air and catches it again.
“Oh? You mean this?” He grins. “Nah. Think we’ll keep it.”
Her fingers whiten around the scythe. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Unfortunately, they do. Somewhat.
Nathaniel sighs dramatically, stepping forward. “Believe me, we’ve heard it all before.” His mismatched eyes glint just like the others’.
The woman’s lips part just slightly, just enough to let a very human frustration seep through her carefully constructed Grim Reaper persona. But there’s something else in her eyes too. Something darker. Something that makes me take a step forward before my brain can catch up.
“What was she to you?” I ask, nodding at the cooling corpse of Laura Collins.
Her gaze snaps to mine. “She was mine to reap.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Silence. A long one.
For a second, I think she won’t answer. But then—
“She took something from me.” A breath. A pause. Then, softer: “Someone. And, well…”
Oh, fuck me.
