Foxface, however, tilts his head like he’s watching his next best form of entertainment and narrows his eyes.
“Let me guess. You watch someone in particular.”
I don’t answer.
Which is answer enough.
He grins. “Oh, that’s rich.”
I force my expression into something neutral. “It’s nothing. Just a habit.”
But clearly, I’m not convincing. He crosses his arms on his chest and tilts his head back, like he’s seeing me in a new light, or something. Which is ridiculous, considering that up until now, he’s referred to me as “it”, not as a being with actual needs, wants, and... habits.
“Who is it?”
I hollow out my cheeks. Then, I glance at Pain, who’s somehow back to sitting on the metal pipe like it wasn’t just crying and writhing on the bloody floor. Newsflash: blood and dirt doesn’t stick to its feathers just like they don’t stick to me.
The little bastard is all squeaky clean.
It’s only when Cassian proceeds to cut off the men's head that my stubbornness finally cracks and I look at Foxface again.
“What’s it to you?” I ask.
“Not every day you capture a Grim Reaper in the form of a young, hot woman and get to interrogate it a little,” he says, not missing a beat. “Color me curious.”
And that? That might have surprised me more than realizing I got captured by... Well, I’m not even sure these men are human. But they’re definitely mortals. I can feel their souls. They’re there, even though it might seem like they don’t have them.
A young, hot woman? Is that how he sees me?
“If that’s your weird way of flattering me, don’t bother,” I deadpan. “I already agreed to help you with whatever you need.”
That makes him laugh.
“Don’t worry, I don’t give compliments where they’re not deserved.” His eyes rake up and down my incorporeal body. “But it’s quite a shame, really. All this is just wasting away.”
Huh?
“Wasting away?” I echo.
He gives me a funny look.
“Taken away from the world of the living so quickly?” he supplies. “Unjustly torn away while still in your prime?” His eyes flick over me again. “This body of yours looks just as it did when you died, I take it?”
I open my mouth. Well… yes. It does.
I haven’t changed at all since the moment I became a Grim Reaper. My hair doesn’t grow. My nails never chip. My skin never scars, never bruises, never ages. I am frozen in time, thesame as I was on the day my ex-husband killed me—down to the very last breath I never got to take.
The only thing that’s different is my attire. Instead of the dress I died in, I wear all black. Fitted pants that leave no portion of my legs uncovered, a thin black turtleneck with sleeves that flow around my hands, and black leather boots that never scuff, never dirty, never wear down.
But the body beneath it?
It’s exactly the same.
I don’t let my expression betray anything as I process what Foxface just said.
Unjustly torn away.
As if he knows.
