I glanced at Joel, giving him my best glare. He looked entirely unapologetic for reading my very private discharge papers and then snitching on me. Mandy backing him up made him cocky.
“The tips are yours as long as you take care of yourself.” His voice trailed off. His mouth kept moving, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then his voice grew louder than before. “Need the money for bills...”
The sound of his voice might as well have been a spike he pounded into my brain. I didn’t know when it happened, but I must have blacked out and fallen. When I blinked, I found myself on the restaurant floor, staring up at Mandy and Joel.
“Call 911,” Mandy said. Joel pulled out his phone.
I wanted to tell him I was fine and not to cost me any more money than I’d already spent. When my mom died, it was sudden. She had a brain aneurysm. Those things sneak up on a person. But I had called the ambulance for her, so I knew howmuch that particular chauffeured ride actually cost. Limousine rentals were cheaper. Not that I had much of a choice.
Whatever was happening made my vision and hearing go wonky. Mandy and Joel’s conversation faded before they did.
I was mostly out before the paramedics arrived at the restaurant, but I caught glimpses of them. One of them focused on the wound on my head. She noticed me staring at her and smiled. “There you are. I see you hit your head recently. Did you hit it a second time?”
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t seem to form words. She glanced at Mandy and asked her when I didn’t answer right away.
“When he fell, his head hit the floor. I think.”
The woman nodded.
“Is he going to be okay?” Mandy asked. I couldn’t see her from my vantage point, and I couldn’t move my neck. I later realized it was because the paramedic had put a padded collar on me.
“We’ll do everything we can,” the paramedic said. It was a non-answer, likely meaning bad news.
She spoke to her partner. By then, my hearing had faded again, but I saw her mouth move. Then I was lifted and laid onto something soft. The movement made the pain spike.
I blacked out after that and didn't remember anything until waking up in the hospital.
Chapter Seven
Grym
Iknew the second my beloved was in trouble. I felt it in my gut. It twisted, then ached. That was right before the contract to ferry his soul into the afterlife ignited on my kitchen counter.
I stared at his name on the paper. Elliot Coyne was firmly set in red letters. The parchment it was written on contained fine print, but it was always hidden from me until a soul walked through the door to the afterlife. Then I saw it, though I never read it even after it appeared. It was just legal mumbo jumbo that meant nothing so long as I did my job according to Bureau policy. Until Elliot’s contract. I was desperate to find out what it said.
Instead, I turned to Morgana. My hands shook as I picked up the contract and showed her the name. “This is my beloved’s contract. I know it’s him.” I didn’t want her to doubt me.
“He’s right.” Ozzy was the most attuned to his intuition. Thankfully, he was also the first to back me. “It’s like he has a tracker under his skin. I don’t feel drawn to him the way Grym does, but there’s something there. An instinct.”
“Let me see that.” Cael took the paper from me when I handed it to him. He sucked in a breath, then cursed. “He’s right. There’s a knowing. He feels like family.”
Cael handed the paper to Neo, who confirmed both Ossy’s and Cael’s reactions.
“What does the fine print say?” I asked Morgana. That was the burning question. I needed to know the consequences of failing to fulfill the contract. I’d never considered not following through. I had a perfect record, but I had a feeling Elliot was about to change that.
“The contract will go to another reaper. If no one fulfills it, the Bureau sends an enforcer. They’re usually demons. The powerful kind. They’re usually grade-A assholes, too,” Morgana explained.
Morgana made it sound as if Elliot Coyne’s death were a foregone conclusion. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t and that I wouldn’t honor the contract. Before I could, she began talking again. “The consequences are loss of life, Grym. For you and him.”
She didn’t have to tell me the last part. Unemployment for a reaper meant I’d die in that river with the prince. I’d be ferried off to Donn’s realm where he’d torture me for eternity.
Perhaps I was wrong about Donn and my time there would be grand. Perhaps even Elliot would be with me if he wanted that, too. Maybe I’d spend my days on the ranch I’d always wanted, with the stable full of horses. Being a stable hand had always been my favorite job. I would have been happy living that life and dying when I grew gray and my body gave in to old age. But that wasn’t the deal I’d taken when I agreed to become a reaper. And since I’d signed up for the job, I’d lived long beyond a single human lifetime.
She sighed. “What to do about Elliot Coyne?”
Cael raised his eyebrows at her. “It seems he’s already slotted for ferrying. One of us could just take the contract.” Cael met my gaze as if silently saying I was the one who needed to, since it was technically mine. The right thing, according to Cael, would be to take my beloved to the afterlife.
But shouldn’t Elliot be the one to decide whether he wanted to move on or stay?
