I press my lips together and take a step back. The pull is still there, as strong as ever when I’m about to reap a soul. But for some reason, there’s no flicker of light from the man’s body. No soul ready to be collected. It’s right there on the edge… just waiting for that last nudge.
I narrow my eyes at Pain. Again.
“You know, you really deserve to have a feather ripped out for this,” I say. “Not only did you drag me away from the house—where, by the way, some mystery guy showed up with a shovel under my willow tree—but you also brought mehere. For what? So I can sit around in this blood-soaked basement, waiting for this poor guy to… what, die of shock? Blood loss? Or…?”
I have no idea, and honestly, I don’t even want to know. It’s been a long time since I last felt disgusted by death, and I can’t say I missed it.
I exhale slowly and continue rounding the table—if only to keep passing the time. I walk up to the man’s face, meet his terrified eyes, then keep going until I reach his middle from the other side. Nothing new to note. Nothing except the slick, slimy feel of my boots splashing through the jelly-like dark blood pooling on the floor.
I’m already teetering between absolute boredom and ridiculous revulsion when something happens. Not with the body. No. Behind the plastic curtain that slices this room off from whatever’s beyond it.
There’s movement.
Then, a voice.
“I think we’ve got it,” someone says.
The sound is so low and dark I almost mistake it for the distant rumble of a car passing by the abandoned warehouse above. But no—it’s real. A voice. Just beyond the plastic divider.
A man’s voice.
Pain shifts uncomfortably on the rusted pipe, like it’s caught off guard. The bird doesn’t get startled easily, but this time, I can’t blame it. I feel that same strange unease curling in my gut. It’s rare to find the living in places like this—by the time I get to a soul, the violence is usually long over. But, well… Apparently, this case just has to be special in all sorts of ways.
Not only am I ridiculously early, but the soul refuses to leave the body. Oh, and we’ve got some seriously creepy visitors too.
I shift, my fingers twitching on the scythe—some distant survival instinct from when I was human. It’s faint, but it still prickles under my skin, an uneasy sensation warning me not to be in the same blood-soaked room as the killer.
Orkillers, as it turns out.
The man isn’t alone.
The plastic curtain rustles, and suddenly, I’m face-to-face with two massive men, both wearing unsettling smiles. Dressed in all black with rubber gloves on, they step into the room like it’s a dentist’s office and they’re here to show off their pearly whites.
I freeze completely.
Not because I have to—after all, I don’t breathe, I don’t fidget, I don’t even really exist in their world. But there’s something about the way they walk in, so casual, so at ease in this scene of horror, that knots something tight inside me.
They don’t look like your typical killers—if that’s even a thing. Aside from their big, dangerous bodies and the gloves, they just seem… normal. Handsome, even. The kind of men who look like they have it all figured out. Like a version of my ex-husband, except with clear signs that, unlike him, they actually know what it means to be alive.
But I’m a fool for having these stupid, wildly inappropriate thoughts. Because these men? They know exactly what it means to kill.
They step closer to the body, stopping right in front of me—just on the other side of the table.
The glow from my scythe washes over them, lighting up their faces.
The shorter one has sharp, foxlike features and a thick scar cutting from his cheekbone to his jaw. His left eye is completely white—no iris, no pupil. A wound, maybe. Or something else entirely. His hair is a deep, burnt ginger, but under the glow of my scythe, it flares into the color of dried blood.
The taller one is different. Dark-haired, with features that almost lean aristocratic—but not in the polished, untouchable way my ex-husband had. No, this man has the look of someone born into power but who clawed his way into keeping it. His hair is slicked back, but a few strands have fallen loose, brushing against his forehead, making him look just a little too wild. A little too unpredictable.
And the weirdest part? His right eye looks just like his companion’s left. Milky white. Clouded over. Sightless.
A matching set.
One left. One right.
If I were still alive, I’d shudder at the sight of them.
But I’m not. I’m just here to wait for the man on the table to die, take his soul, and get the hell out of here.
