Cassian stops the ambulance in the middle of what looks like an unfinished construction site. Half-built structures rise around us, silent and abandoned. There’s no one in sight.
I don’t recognize this place. It wasn’t part of my Grim Reaper jurisdiction before. Not that it would matter. Even if it had been, I wouldn’t feel it. The pull—the invisible thread that once tethered me to Death’s will—is gone.
I kept trying to reach for it on the way here. Over and over. But there was no answer.
It’s like trying to open a door that still exists, but the handle’s been ripped off.
Technically, I’m still a Grim Reaper. I can slip between realms, brush against the void. Death even gave me a new task. But whatever used to guide me, whatever made it all make sense, is missing.
Painis missing.
And no one told me how to play by these new, changed rules.
Nathaniel lifts me gently from the ambulance, and I cling to him, the stiff fabric of my orange scrubs catching against hisclothes. Even after everything, he still smells clean, like citrus and antiseptic, and I can’t help myself but inhale him deeply.
“If the wraith shows up now,” I mutter next to his neck, “my only defense is playing dead. Really fucking ironic, huh?”
Nathaniel huffs a breath that’s a little amused and a little annoyed.
“We’ll talk about it later and figure everything out,” he says. “For now, let’s just hope the wraith doesnotshow up.”
He sets me down on the ambulance tray, right next to the Candy Maker’s corpse. Then he retrieves a wheelchair, sets it up, and lifts me again, carefully placing me into it like I might break.
I stare at him. Hard. Not because I’m ungrateful, but because I hate how much I need this.
Apparently, stepping into the void now feels like running a full marathon. It drains me, body and mind, leaves me hollowed out and filled with lead.
And Nathaniel, bless his soul, has the audacity to buckle me in.
Talon, somewhere behind us, is wheezing so hard he might pass out. I don’t even have the strength to turn my head. I just sit there and let Nathaniel tuck a blanket around my shoulders so I can pretend, at least vaguely, that I’m not half-dead and I can hold my head just fine.
Since when did I become someone who’s both babied and laughed at at the same time?
I glance at Cassian. Surelyhehas enough dignity to put a stop to this nonsense.
He does not.
Cassian blinks, and rubs a hand over his brow.
“The whole wraith business aside, we’re in deep shit anyway,” I rasp. My voice barely clings to sanity. “Just look at the four of us. A half-paralyzed woman, a half-naked man with a fresh pink scar like he just got off the black-market organ donor list, awannabe goth, and a fox in human form who’s currently losing his lungs.”
I suck in a breath, chest aching.
Nathaniel doesn’t even acknowledge me. Talon is still thoroughly entertained. And Cassian? He slow-blinks again, first at me, then at the wheelchair, then at the corpse wrapped neatly beside me like we’re both fragile shipments.
“We need to move,” he mutters.
"Yeah," Nathaniel agrees.
And I just sit there, waiting.
Because really, what the hell else am I supposed to do?
The three of them shuffle things around before opening the ambulance doors and peeking outside. Once they decide it’s safe, Nathaniel tilts the wheelchair back. Talon steps out first, then returns a moment later with… a wheelbarrow? Without ceremony, the Candy Maker’s very dead body is dumped into it, and Cassian pulls a tarp from who-knows-where to cover the corpse.
Real subtle.
“Do they know we’re coming?” Cassian asks Nathaniel. I have no idea who “they” are or what kind of fresh nightmare we’re walking into, but Nathaniel nods.
