No, no, no.
“Tal,” he calls out. “Call the ambulance. Tell them a woman was found unresponsive in the community pool, drowning. I started chest compressions and rescue breaths.”
I watch, frozen, as Talon pulls a burner phone from his jacket and starts dialing. Cassian stays kneeling beside the girl, his drenched form looming over her as water drips from his hair, sliding down the sharp angles of his face. Nathaniel keeps steady pressure on her chest, pushing down in rhythmic compressionsbefore locking her nose, opening her jaw and breathing into her lungs.
“You told me you wouldn’t interrupt!” I protest. “You promised the soul would be mine.”
“For God's sake, Skye!” Nathaniel suddenly yells at me. “This girl isn’t dead yet. She can still live.”
A sharp pain lances through my chest—through my ribs, through my stomach, through whatever part of me the pull has coiled itself around. It hurts in a way it never has before.
Because this isn’t how my job works.
You don’tundodeath.
You don’t just shove a soul back in like it’s a loose plug in a wall socket.
“She was already leaving,” I choke out, my voice uneven. “It was her time to—”
“Not on my fucking watch,” Nathaniel snaps, pressing down harder.
The glowing thread of her soul flickers above her chest, hovering, as if waiting, as if deciding.
That… I don’t think it should be able to do that.
And then, just like that, the girl’s bodyjerks. Her back arches, her lips part with a strangled, gurgling sound, and suddenly—
She gasps.
The soul snaps back into her body.
I stumble back.
The glow of my scythe flickers—wavers—then dies, like evenitcan’t believe what just happened.
Pain lets out a sharp, rattling caw from his perch, his feathers ruffling, his beady black eyes fixated on the girl now coughing and gasping on the floor.
I watch in horror as color returns to her face, as her fingers twitch, as her body starts working again.
It’s like the universe just changed its mind.
Like death just… hit a reverse button.
Like I never even had a claim on her soul to begin with.
Cassian exhales sharply, rolling his shoulders before he stands, dragging his sweater over his head again, not even bothering to dry off. Talon kneels beside the half-drowned girl, giving her a once-over before turning to Nathaniel.
“Hey, hey,” he coos. “Easy.”
She coughs up water, turning to the side. Her entire body is wracked with shivers and her eyelashes flutter like she doesn't even know where she is.
“What… Who…” she croaks between shaky breaths.
I grip my scythe so tightly my hands tremble. I know I shouldn't wish this random girl was dead, but here we are. It's just the way things are.
Accidentsdon'thappen. They don't exist. When it’s time for a human to die, they just do—no take-backs, no “oopsies,” no second chances.
Except these lunatics just gave her one.
