When I raised my arm up again, I watched as it flickered, slowly growing translucent. I could see my body on the ground through my fingers, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I brought my hand to my chest and pressed my palm over that red thread trailing out from me to the only reason I was still here at all—it was kind of funny. I wasn’t sure if Iwantedto savemyself, but I’d made sure to tell the only one who knew how to keep me alive to stay away.
Chapter 12
Sephtis
I feltit the moment the heartbeat in my chest stopped, and I knew something was wrong. I’d just finished taking a soul—killing a man who probably had years left to make up for the Vitality I’d funneled into Cole’s body. I wasn’t sure how long Death was going to let me get away with my little ruse, but hopefully the extra life swirling in my chest would be enough to get me through figuring out what I was supposed to do about the human I was tied to.
The human who hated me.
The human who’d looked at me before he left his apartment this morning like I’d personally torn his entire world apart and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever forgive me for it.
I wondered quietly if Fate was fucking with me because I’d fucked with his cupid—was this my punishment? Was I destined to spend the rest of our existence making Cole angry? I’d lasted less than a few hours before completely ignoring the demand he’d made of me.
I couldn’t feel his heart.
I couldn’tfeelhim, and the red thread trailing between us lookedpale. What he told me to do didn’t matter—the only option I had was to go to him.
It felt like the only choice I’d ever had was to go where Cole was.
The first thing I saw was his body prone on the floor. I didn’t have to be a Reaper to see he was dead. I barely had time to register that his soul wasn’t in the vessel before someone grabbed me by the arm and spun me around.
“What the fuck, Sephtis?”
My eyes darted between the body and the very physical sensation of Cole’s hand on my arm.
This wasn’t normal—his soul shouldn’t have been up and walking around, especially without a Reaper to call him. No one was here but us and the poor man on the floor trying to resuscitate a body thatcouldn’tbreathe again until Cole’s soul got back into it.
“What happened?” I could tell the instant the question left my lips that it wasn’t going to be very useful.
“Why don’t you tell me?” He stepped closer, his fingers still biting into my arm in the most tangible way a soul had ever touched me. “Because until I met you, I never had any kind of out-of-body experience. I figured when I died, that would be it. So what thefuckis going on?”
“I…” I wasn’t sure he’d be happy with the fact that I didn’t have an answer. I’d been alive for longer than I could remember, and I’d never seen a soul do what he was doing now.
“You don’t get to walk into my life and ruin everything and then stand there while I watch myselfdie.” Cole drew up short at the anger in his voice, and I wondered if the expressions flying across his features were because being angry about it meant he had to admit to himself that he didn’twantto die.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Admitting it didn’t feel good, but I didn’t know what else to do. I reached out, frowning in confusion as my hand landed solidly on his shoulder. It wasn’t the fact I could touch him that was strange—it was that my body wasn’t thrumming totakehim. It wasn’t demanding I ferry him to the Lake.
He was just here.
“Well, you better figure it out because that—” He gestured angrily toward the man who was quietly sobbing while still performing CPR on a very obviously dead body. “Isn’t okay. If you want me back in that body, you better get me there before it’s broken.” Cole’s hand reached out, and his fingers wrapped around the crimson thread trailing from my chest to his—apparently he could see it now that he wasn’t tied to a mortal body. “Because if I go down, I’m taking you with me.”
He yanked the red thread and my vision blurred. Almost of its own volition, my body dropped to the ground. It was strange, looking at his pale, lifeless face beside me and then glancing up to see the pure fury nearlyglowingfrom above.
It was just like when he’d found me with Caiden, wasn’t it?
“I don’t… know…” I trailed off, because now that I was closer to his body, I could feel it—the tug in my chest, the burn of the crimson line that I could see a ghost of, still trailing between me and the figure on the ground.
Of course…
“Cole, man, you need to wake up.” The figure looming over him spoke, and I blew out my breath in a soft sigh. He didn’t need to see this, did he? I stretched out my fingers and gently trailed them across his face, and his body collapsed.
“Did you just kill him?” Cole sounded shocked, horrified as I lowered the still figure to the ground, pushing him out of the way.
“No. Come here.”
His words caught in the back of his throat in a furious click, like he wanted to argue with me but realized it would be pointless when I was doing exactly what he wanted. Maybe itwas the fact that the man beside me let out a low groan to show that I wasn’t lying and he really was alive.
