I just stare at him. “Subtle.”
“Someone's dying inside,” he says, like that justifies felony-level property damage.
Maybe it would if it wasn’t fate for that person to die there. But it is.
Nathaniel steps past me, brushing stray glass shards out of the way with his boot before slipping inside without a word. Cassian follows, his movements smooth and controlled as always, and I—I don’t need to squeeze through like them. I simply step forward and phase through the ruined entrance, my form passing weightlessly through the fractured glass.
Pain flutters in after me, landing on a nearby railing with a quiet rustle of wings.
Inside, the chlorine smell is even stronger. But nothing looks out of the ordinary.
No blood. No smoke. No gunpowder.
No immediate signs of a struggle.
Aside from the very recent act of breaking and entering, of course.
I don't evenhearanything. The ventilation system is clearly turned off; there's no water lapping against the pool walls in the distance. Showers are turned off. It's like no one's been here for at least the weekend.
But there's still a dying soul here.
My feet move before I think about it, guided by the pull still clawing at my ribs. My steps are silent as I glide past the front desk, beyond the changing rooms, and toward the main pool area. The men follow behind.
The moment I step into the pool area, I realize what's happening. The entire pool, at least sixty feet long and wide, is covered by a thick, opaque tarp, the kind they use to keep the water clean when the place isn’t in use.
Under the cover, something moves. A faint ripple. A trapped motion.
Someone's drowning.
My Grim Reaper instincts kick in. I approach the dark shape in the pool and lean forward slowly, searching for the soul about to leave the body. Pain flies by, and my miniature scythe appears in my hand, which I let expand to its full size.
But the men have other ideas. Completelyinsaneideas.
Before I can react, Cassian is already pulling off his sweater in one smooth motion as he heads toward the pool's edge. Nathaniel moves to the cover, tugging at the edges with quick, precise movements, trying to free them. When it doesn't give, he pulls a knife from his boot and starts cutting through it. Talon jumps in to help.
Before I know it, Cassian has kicked off his boots and jumped in.
Just like that.
“Wait, this is...” I try to argue. “You don't actually want to save this person, do you?”
But it’s obvious that’s exactly what they’re doing. And that realization makes my already-dead heart lurch violently back to life.
Theycannotdo this. They told me they wouldn’t. This soul is mine to reap and mine to guide to the afterlife. Not theirs to heroically save.
“Stop it!” I shout, uselessly flapping my arms. But they don’t stop. They double down.
The pull is so strong that the soul's about to leave the body any moment now. And not like it was with the murderer lying on their table. This time, it's actually escaping. I can see it—the faint, silvery shimmer just beneath the rippling water, about to separate from the body.
But then Cassian gets there first.
He dives under the water, disappearing beneath the plastic cover, and grabs hold of it. Nathaniel and Talon move in perfect sync, tearing the pool cover apart in jagged pieces. Cassian’s dark figure surfaces, his arms wrapped around the drowning victim—a young woman, limp and lifeless, her face barely visible through the water as Cassian pulls her up.
“No.” I start to panic. “This isn't happening. You can't rescue her.”
I lurch forward, my scythe’s blade glowing bright, reacting to the tension inside me. The soul is right there—right there—slipping free, already on the verge of severing from the body—but then Nathaniel runs over and helps Cassian drag the girl up. They lay her flat on the ground, and Nathaniel drops to his knees, pressing his hands to her chest.
No.
