Her glow is fading, not strengthening.
Like an ember suffocating under cold ash.
“What did this person do?” I ask her. “What did Laura Collins do?”
She turns her eyes to me, and her expression is unreadable—something between exhaustion and rage. Her fingers twitch at her side, like she’s debating whether to summon her scythe, but it wouldn’t matter. The glow has dimmed too much.
“She took everything,” the Grim Reaper finally says. Her voice is hoarse, like she’s speaking through dust and time. “She killed my child.”
The words land like a stone in my chest.
“Then she killed me,” she adds. “And I've been waiting all this time to make her pay. She made me watch.”
Oh. Oh.
This has escalated real quick. I glance at the men, waiting for one of them to say something. It’s their whole “hunt down murderers and bring justice” crusade, after all. Not mine. I’m just here for my personal revenge. And, well, because they have some voodoo powers over me because of that whole skull-carving thing.
Anyway, what now?
“We made her pay,” Talon interjects, and for once, his usualsexy ginger rogueshtick is gone. Now there’s just a flicker of something else—something raw. Righteous fury. The same thing that drives them to do what they do. “We made her suffer.”
“Not like I would have.” The woman flickers, her form thinning out like cheap smoke. Her fingertips go see-through, and for a second, she looks less like a Grim Reaper and more like a Fata Morgana. A ghost. A fading memory.
But here’s the thing about ghosts: they loiter. They linger. They’re the nosy neighbors of the afterlife, always peeking through the curtains of reality. And if this one is slipping through the cracks—if even limbo won’t keep her—then, well…
“What's happening to you?” Nathaniel asks, and for once, he actually sounds concerned.
I don’t answer. Because I know what’s happening. I’ve always known.
In fact, I was counting on it happening—to me. You know, after we deal with my darling ex-husband. But these three? Oh, they absolutely cannot find that out.
The woman cannot answer, so Nathaniel’s piercing gaze lands on me.
He’s demanding answers.
“She’s—” I try to say, but my throat tightens around the words like a trap snapping shut. Because if I say it, if I confirm it, the truth will be out.
And Talon? Talon tilts his head, eyes narrowing like a cat who’s just caught the scent of something interesting. “She’s what, Skye?”
I hesitate.
Because the second I spill, they’ll connect the dots. The second I tell them, they’ll realize.
That once a Grim Reaper’s killer dies… the Grim Reaper stops being a Grim Reaper.
And if they realize that? If they put it all together? They won’t kill my ex-husband for me.
Fuck.
“Skye,” Cassian says, his voice a slow, dangerous thing. “What are you not telling us?”
But before I can spit out a lie so beautiful it deserves an award—
The woman gasps.
No, not just a gasp. She sucks in air like it’s her last meal and then immediately starts choking on it. Her hands claw at her throat, her body convulsing like she just realized the air is, in fact, poison.
Talon reaches for her, but his fingers pass right through her wrist.
