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The destruction of perfectly good gaming equipment aside, Fletcher’s voice was filled with such heartache that it raced through my body and stole my breath.
Jamal sat up. “Did you feel that?”
Fletcher waved him away. “I need more whiskey.”
Charon’s eyes moved, but his body remained still. I felt it when his gaze landed on me. I expected his eyes to shift and pass right through me as usual.
They didn’t.
His lip ticked into an enigmatic smile.
After Charon looked away, he didn’t look back at me again.
Had he seen me?
The guys got better after that. I wasn’t sure what had lit a fire under their behinds, but I was thankful for it.
One day, I watched them open a door for the five hundredth time, and I decided to try and follow. Instead of being pushed away by an unseen force, I was sucked through on their heels as they traveled a hundred miles in a few seconds.
I had gleamed a few details about my guys from hours of listening to their conversations.
They were Reapers, and they collected souls.
Sometimes I wondered what I was because they should have seen me if I was a soul.
The sun sat high over the desert, and the colors were so vibrant that they made me want to cry.
I’d realized very quickly that one doorway had to link to another, they’d been spat out at a gas station, but they didn’t complain as they walked on the desert road.
I followed, drifting and taking in the scenery.
I didn’t know why, but it was familiar.
I wasn’t sure how long we walked before we came to a car just off the road, its back wheels still spinning and its nose in a ditch.
It was the first time that whatever force that kept me tethered to the world allowed me to watch my guys in action—collecting a soul.
The woman was young. No more than twenty-five, though she looked like she needed a few good meals and a whole night’s sleep. Her soul had wandered off, drifting a hundred yards from the road like a tumbleweed on the wind.
When we approached the car, it was evident that her every earthly possession was in it.
Rock, paper, and scissors deemed Rome would collect the soul, leading to muttered curses.
I bent down to study the body as Maddox, Fletcher, and Jamal hung around on the side of the road, bored. I wondered what would happen if, just for a moment, I had a body.
I could see it. Clear as day. The body was a casing, and whatever clasps that lived inside to hold a soul in its place were long gone.
It wouldn’t be hard.
I was strong enough to travel through a doorway. Maybe I would be strong enough to slip inside the body. Perhaps I could use it to speak. Maybe nothing would happen. I didn’t know, and I wanted to try. Who knew? Maybe it would be fun?
It felt like pushing against pudding, not that I had any reference for such a feeling. There was a moment of resistance before I tumbled into the body and settled under its skin like I was donning a coat.
Then I felt it. Pain.
Unbearable pain.
My skull hurt. My skin hurt.
