“Skye…”
“Not because they don’t deserve it,” I cut in quickly. “They do. They absolutely do. But I need some time. I need to tell you something before you do anything irreversible.”
His gaze searches mine, suspicious and dark. “What is it?”
“Meet me upstairs,” I say. “And send a message to Talon. He should be there, too.”
He holds my stare for one more beat, then gives a sharp nod, like a soldier taking an order he hates but respects anyway.
I slide through the ceiling, leaving behind the basement, the table, the water tank, the muffled hatred, and Cassian’s attention pulling at me like a hook in my back. When I breach into the main area again, the smell of chili hits me hard.
Nathaniel is still at the kitchenette, but he is not cooking casually anymore. He is standing with his shoulders squared, the overhead light turned on, his eyes fixed on the exact spot where I appeared last time. The second I slide up from the floor, he exhales through his nose like he has been holding his breath for ten minutes straight.
“There you are,” he breathes.
I land on the tiles and lift both eyebrows. “Aw. You missed me.”
“More like I hate being left hanging,” he says. “Can you tell me what it is?”
I glance through the window. The number of crows has doubled. That is… not good.
“Can you set up a couple of wards in here, so we won’t be heard?” I ask.
Nathaniel’s brows pull together. “Now I’m starting to worry.”
“Really? I thought you started to worry the moment I jump-scared you.” I force a smile, but the nerves win, and it slips right off my face. “Please, Nathaniel. Just trust me.”
He holds my gaze for a beat before nodding. Whatever he’d been doing in the kitchen stops there. He abandons the quest for food entirely and reaches for the salt instead. By the time he’s drawn two of the four wards that will form a rectangle, Cassian joins us. Talon arrives not long after.
While Nathaniel finishes, I keep my eyes on the window and scan the grounds for any sign of the other Grim Reapers.
I know what it means to them to kill their murderers. They want to move on, and I hate being the one to throw sand in their plans, especially after the van. After Rhea helped me. After they still chose to trust us. But that trust is exactly why it has to be now. If we wait, they will already be inside, breathing down our necks, trying to rush everything along, and I cannot have that. I need to talk to my guys in private while the Grims still do not suspect a thing.
“What is it?” Nathaniel asks the moment everything is prepared and the Grims cannot get inside. Cassian and Talon stand right beside him, waiting for my answer with the same sharp attention.
I straighten, squaring my shoulders, and meet their gazes head-on.
“We cannot kill those murderers,” I say. “Not now. Not ever.”
When they only stare at me, blank and uncomprehending, I force the rest of it out.
“If we do, the whole afterlife will collapse,” I say. “And when that falls, everything else goes with it. We might even… end the world.”
Iwill say it again.
It isinsanehow much changes within you once you unify with your inner world. Groundbreakingly insane.
Things just… click. Powers emerge, and you understand so much more than you used to.
That is what happened to me.
The moment I merged my soul back together, I realized exactly what the Grim Reaper girls asked me to do. They want me to throw their existence out of balance, driven by the hatred and injustice that have blinded them.
It is the exact same thing I wanted to do with Mark.
I sidelined my true purpose, and what my soul truly wanted, to chase an answer that was never an answer at all.
“They say they want to move on, but…” I shake my head. “If they want that, they can. They really can. There is nothing stopping them from going into the afterlife and letting go.”
