“You’re welcome?” she said, a hysterical laugh bubbling out of her throat. I pulled her against me and crushed her in a hug.
“If you had died I would have been so pissed.” I pulled back and looked at the Reaper. “Why didn’t she die?”
He shook his head, still staring at Piper.
“He lost his claim to me when Dex broke that stone. You heard him just now. He can never come for me.”
“I guess I just thought that meant he would never kill you, not that he couldn’t.”
“I kind of thought that too,” she whispered.
We both looked at the man who should have all the answers. He looked rattled. Like he couldn’t even form a sentence. “I… I didn’t know,” he muttered to himself and I had to strain to hear.
“Are you saying you didn’t know that was going to happen?” I asked.
He looked up at me. His eyes were still a little glassy and vacant. Beside me, Piper shifted and his eyes fastened on her once again.
“No.”
It was a simple word, a single response. But the weight behind it was immense.
“I have to go,” he said, shaking himself and walking back through the apartment and toward the front door.
We rushed after him, watching to see what he would do. On his way past the coffee table, he stopped and looked down at the vase of white carnations I put there just before I went away with Charming.
Without saying a word, he reached out and fingered the snowy petals of one of the flowers. It died instantly, turning an ugly shade of brown as the petals dried out and curled in on themselves. He looked down at his hand and then back at Piper again before walking quietly out the door.
We stood there for a long time. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the nearby wall. Finally, I snapped out of it and rushed forward to throw the lock on the front door, turning around and collapsing against it.
Piper sat down on the couch, staring at the single dead flower in a vase full of living ones.
“I touched the Grim Reaper,” she said.
“You saved my life.”
“I didn’t die.”
I pushed away from the door and joined her on the couch. “You’re badass.”
She looked at me and grinned. “Yeah, I guess I am badass.”
I nodded. “But never do it again.”
“Definitely not. I hope I never see him again.”
I hoped that, too. Still, I couldn’t help but think that he was trying to kill me. The Grim Reaper wanted me dead. He wanted to use me to get to Charming. I was lucky and got a reprieve from death because my BFF seemed to be the Reaper Whisperer.
I just wondered how long my reprieve was going to last.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Freedom - liberty of the person from slavery, detention, or oppression.”
Charming
I ran for about a mile after leaving G.R.’s upscale neighborhood. I knew I could keep on running to Frankie’s apartment, that I would likely be able to keep pulling in energy, but it still would have taken me longer than I wanted. I wanted to be there with her now. I couldn’t even call because I was afraid he might still be there and I didn’t want him to even think I might have figured out I wasn’t as trapped as he wanted me to think.
So I stole a car.
A plain four-door sedan that I wouldn’t have normally driven to save my own life. Yet it appeared I was willing to do just about anything to save Frankie. I was just about to pull out of the back of the parking lot when Storm appeared in the backseat.
“Man, you would have lost it and I never would have gotten you out of the house if I had told you that shit before you got into your body.”
“I’m still going to deck you if you ever get a body.”
“Don’t hate the playa. Hate the game.”
I glanced in the review mirror as I drove. “Did you seriously just say that?”
“Just keepin’ it real.”
I focused back on driving and trying not to speed too noticeably. Now would not be a good time to get pulled over by the cops. The drive seemed to take forever and with every passing minute, I grew more worried I would be too late.
About a block from her apartment, I pulled the hotwired car over and parked it in a parking garage. I hurried to use a napkin that was in the glove compartment to wipe down all the surfaces I touched. I knew my fingerprints weren’t in the criminal system, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I had a feeling if I managed to get out from under the G.R., this was the body I’d be keeping.
The thought drew me up short and I stood outside the car, staring down, doing nothing but thinking.
Get out from under the Reaper? Where did that thought come from? The way I thought it just now seemed like it was something that had already been decided—like my head knew something it didn’t inform the rest of me about.
Was it even possible?
Could I somehow manage to get completely free of him?
I didn’t mean I could pull of this job, kill the Target, and use those bodies to get myself out of being Recalled. Because even if I managed to do that, G.R. would just keep assigning me impossible jobs until I failed. I would spend the rest of my existence scrambling around trying to do his bidding.
I didn’t want that.
I wanted a life. A real life. One that meant I didn’t have to kill anymore. One where I didn’t have to switch bodies and identities, one where I was the only person in charge of what I did.
It wasn’t possible. Was it?
Could I somehow trade everything I had of his for true freedom?
Frankie wouldn’t have to make peace with me killing because I wouldn’t have to kill. We could live without looking over our shoulders. I could love her the way she deserved to be loved.
I’d never had such thoughts before—such hope.
“Dude, how long you gonna stand next to the car you stole?”
I jerked up, reality crashing back in. My feet started moving; I jogged away from the car and toward Frankie’s apartment.
“Okay, yeah,” Storm called from behind. “I’ll just meet you there.”
I finally figured out what I wanted and I was going to get it. I just had to figure out how to get there. But before I did any of that, I had to see her. I had to make sure she was okay.
When her apartment building came into sight, I wanted to rush down the sidewalk and barge right in. But I couldn’t. G.R. might be watching the building. I ducked into an empty stairwell across the street and watched for signs that someone else might be out here watching or waiting.