“Do you think we could sit for a while?” He didn’t look at me when he asked. He’d turned his face back up to the sky to soak in the warmth, though I realized I couldn’t see a place where the sunlight actually came from.
Maybe in this dreamworld he imagined, there wasn’t one?
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I frowned, my hand coming up to stroke a wayward petal. Even in his mind, the red color drained and faded to brown, to black… to dust. When I glanced at him, he was staring at me with that same curious and gentle expression.
“It’s okay. I know who you are and what you want. I know why you’re really here.”
“Do you?” He seemed calm for someone who knew what was going to happen to him.
“Because I could not stop for death…”
“Very clever,” I murmured. His laugh was melodic as he settled back into the flowers, nearly disappearing in the waves of crimson.
I had to lean over him to catch sight of his face again—he was small, slender. He’d probably been compact and well muscled before sickness had stolen it away, but I could see the ghost of it hovering just around him. His Vitality was still so pure and strong, even though it couldn’t make him whole again.
“You’re very calm for someone who knows who I am.”
He opened one eye to peek up at me. “I told you, you’re the first person I’ve seen in a while, and your voice is… nice. I’ve been waiting for you, and now we just need to wait a little longer. Please?” With his last word, the air around us shifted in a burst of color, blossoming into a black sky filled with stars that twinkled a vibrant shade of green. The low light made my skin shine, made the dark veins running beneath my flesh visible.
Like he could see me—could tell I was Death-Kissed.
They usually couldn’t see me.I wasn’t actually sure I’d ever beenseen.
“I…” I frowned, reaching down to pluck a petal from his collarbone. I was careful this time, and the red didn’t fade. “I suppose we could stay. For a while.”
He nodded, closing his eyes again. “Yeah, just for a little while.”
What wouldit take to make the unfeelingfeel? Reapers were not born… we were made. We were formed from the very Vitality and souls we took from mortals—given breath and life through Death’s essence and will. We weren’t created to experience emotion; we were made to do a job.
But for the first time, I wanted tofeel.
It was dangerous, and I knew it, even as I stretched my hand out and carefully traced the soft line of Caiden’s palm. He’d told me his name after we’d sat in soft silence for twenty minutes and watched the stars above us drift—I’d been enraptured by the green color pressed into black velvet.
For some reason, I’d given him my name in return. It was the first time I’d spoken it aloud to a human, and he’d sat with it on his tongue like it was something almost saccharine. When he finally said it in a soft exhalation of breath, it seemed like he was feeding it back to me, to the very stars above us, in offering to something bigger.
At the touch of my cool skin, he opened one lid and glanced at me.
“What do you think it would take to have more time?” His question came softly, not like he was begging… like he was actually curious.
“Time for what?” I drew my hand back. Just touching him made my skin tingle, that siren call of what I was supposed to be doing hovering on the edge of my senses. Death was theonlything I could feel—the longing of the soul to leave the body, evenwhen the spirit wasn’t ready. He was some strange mixture of the two… ready to die, but unwilling to take my hand.
“I don’t know. I think I was ready to go, you know? I have been for a long time.” His brows came together, and he sat up. A shower of petals spilled from his shoulders, clinging in his hair. “I’ve only been holding on because there are people who are going to miss me… but when I closed my eyes and showed up here, I was… relieved.”
Relieved.
“Then why do you want more time?”
He looked at me again, his head tilting, that messy hair falling into his gaze. “You seem lonely, like you’re waiting for something too.”
“I—” I cut myself off. “I’m not.”
I couldn’t feellonely.
I couldn’t feel anything.
But I didn’t pull away when he carefully drew his fingers along the dark veins that ran beneath my pale skin. “You remind me a lot of what I’m leaving behind. And… I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It almost feels like I’m in this place for more than just me. Like we’re both supposed to wait here until the right time.”
“We can’t stay here.” My answer came carefully.
