“I’m going green with envy when I look at you,” she says. “But I don’t hate you. I kind of root for you, actually.”
“Wow.”
The silence that follows turns heavy, the kind that presses into your lungs. I rub the back of my neck, trying to anchor myself in something real, in the pain still humming under my skin. Then, slowly, I lift my eyes to her again.
“If you root for me,” I whisper, “can you lend me some of your powers again? Just a little. Enough to get us out of here. Enough to save the girls.”
Her expression collapses.
“I’d love to,” she says softly. “Believe me, I would. But I can’t. Death cut you off completely.”
“Maybe we can bypass it somehow.”
“We can’t.” She shakes her head once. “You’re as divided as dividing goes. There’s you, the mortal you, and then there’s your raven. Everything that ever made you supernatural is with him. It’s like there are two of you. Honestly, it’s a miracle I could even touch you. You shouldn’t still be in the in-between.”
It takes a second for the meaning to sink in.
“Is that why I can’t even talk to him?” I ask. “To Pain, my raven. Is it because he can’t hear me?”
“Yeah,” she says. “You don’t have the power to reach him. You can’t send the message.”
I press my palms to the cold floor and breathe out through my teeth.
Goddamn it.
So that’s what Death meant when he said I need to merge with Pain to get my powers back. I literally have to bridge the gap between us.
Easier said than done.
Another wave of silence rolls in, thick and sour. I try not to dwell on how much everything sucks right now, but the surroundings make it impossible. The air is freezing, the floor leaches heat from my hands, and Lila and Hailey lie close enough that it feels like they’re already gone. I’m sitting here talking to a dead girl who would rather be me, like that’s a normal thing to do.
And my men are gone.
I think that’s the worst part of all.
To my next surprise, because there have been a lot of them lately, Rhea doesn’t really leave. She stays with me, just sitting in the silence like she belongs here. I appreciate it so much that I don’t even ask her about her Grim Reaper duties. She made it clear last time that she’s constantly busy, and if her absence for the past couple of days is any indicator, she actually was. Now I just take what I can get, even if it’s quiet. Her presence makes me feel less alone.
About an hour later, or what I think is an hour, she shifts. She sits up straighter and stares at me, eyes suddenly wider, like something has finally clicked into place.
“What?” I ask.
“Wait. I didn’t think about something,” she says, and then she’s moving, standing and coming to sit right beside me. The air drops a few more degrees with her proximity, cold curling under my skin. When she takes my hands, I don’t pull away.
“What?” I echo.
“Your raven can’t hear you,” she says.
“Yeah. You already told me that.”
“But he can hear me.”
I blink, not sure I heard her right.
“I’m going to send him a message,” she says.
My throat tightens. “You can really reach him?”
She snorts like I’m insulting her. “Hold still.”
