You can do it. C'mon.
Greg tried with everything he had.
He grabbed the thread.
It held.
A tether to Dustin—not the clipboard, not the system, not anything the reaper bureaucracy had built. Something that had formed in a motel room when Greg had been flickering out of existence and Dustin had cupped his face and saidstay with meand something between them had fused. Soul-stuff to soul-stuff.
Greg held on.
It was like swimming against a current. Every part of his dissolution pulling him backward while the thin, stubborn line between him and Dustin pulled him forward. The foreign presence stayed at his back, steady now, no longer shoving but bracing. Keeping him upright while he fought.
The world came back in fragments. Sound first: Dustin's voice, ragged and desperate. Then pressure: hands on his shoulders, fingers digging in. Sight came back in a beautiful burst of colors.
He had a body.
He was on a hill. There was rock under his knees and sun on his face and wind in his hair and his hands hurt. A bright, screaming, physical pain that was sorealit almost made him laugh.
Dustin's face was inches from his. There were tears on it.
“Hi,” Greg said. His voice was rough.
Dustin made a sound like he'd been punched.
“I'm here,” Greg said. He looked at his hands. Burned and blistered, the skin across his fingers raw and red, but solid. “I'm still here.”
“You were gone.” Dustin's voice was barely a whisper. “What happened?”
Greg opened his mouth and closed it. How could he explain?
“I think,” Greg said. “I held on to you.”
“I couldn't hold you. I was trying. My hands went through you.”
“Not your hands.” Greg pressed his burned palm against Dustin's chest. The heartbeat under his fingers was fast and hard. “There's a thread between us. I followed it back.”
Dustin stared at him.
“I almost couldn't,” Greg admitted. “I wasn't strong enough. But something...” He trailed off. He could still feel that foreign presence like a fading echo. “Something helped. Someone. It almost felt like you.”
Wind moved across the hilltop and through Greg's hair. He shivered.
Dustin pulled Greg against him with both arms. He didn't say anything. He just held on, face in Greg's neck, his body shaking.
Greg let himself be held. He pressed his face against Dustin's shoulder and felt the connection between them — solid, real, no longer a thread but something stronger.
They stayed like that. Foreheads together, breathing the same air, on a hill where two brothers had once spread their arms and saidwhat if.
Greg's hands hurt. The sun was warm. He was here.
He didn't know what he was. Not a reaper. Not a human. Something new, held together by a bond he couldn't name and a shove from something he'd never fully explain.
But he was here.
CHAPTER 40
An hour later—it had taken that long for Dustin to feel like he could operate a vehicle—they pulled into Cathy’s driveway.
