Page 65 of All Her Ghosts

“Can I evenbekilled?” I wonder. “Can either of us? Did my mom break death or just make it mortal?”

Oh shit,mortal—

“Cain!” I launch myself forward but my knees give out, spilling me to the ground. Screw it. I don’t have time to coax my flesh into functionality. I scramble along on whatever parts of me still work, scrabbling across dirt and dead bodies to the RV door.

I wrench the handle, break my fingernails on the latch. The door won’t budge—locked. I lever myself almost standing, slap my palm against the window, bruised fist slamming into the spiderwebbed glass,howling his name. My chest creaks around the sound, laced with a terrible inevitability. This close, the stench of copper overwhelms me. I can’t breathe without the taste of mortality filling up my mouth, asphodel kissing the toes of my boots.

Too rough, Bas latches hands around my shoulders, prying me away. I’ll bruise tomorrow, but I barely feel it now, the open terror on his face a knife in my missing heart. Wasting no time, his skin still bright with dregs of sunlight, Bas cracks his elbow through the last remaining window. Reaching in, he grips the inside handle and rips the entire door away.

“Cain,” he whispers, knees crashing to the RV floor.

Cain lolls his head, flashes us something almost like a grin. He sits slumped in the aisle, long legs crumpled at odd angles, wedged between the dinette and the back passenger seat. And I’ve always hated the hideous mauve shag carpet in this stupid RV but today it’s worse, marred by a terrible spreading stain.

Ripping what’s left of his hoodie over his head, Bas lurches forward, balling it into Cain’s side.

“Stop,” Cain mutters, prying weakly at his hands. “Why the hell are you here, you moron, I bought you time.”

Bas fights hard to smile, an awful choking noise trapped in his throat.

“Driver picks the playlist, old man; she said no unnecessary deaths today.” He shoves the hoodie hard enough to make Cain wince, trapping it in place. “We gotta get you through this or Jenny’s gonna be so pissed at you.”

“Then she’s gonna be pissed at me.”

“Don’t say that. You’re gonna be fine.”

“Bas,” he coughs. “Sebastian.They got me in the liver.”

“Shut up.” Steam glitters in the corners of his coal-bright eyes. “You don’t know that.”

“I’ve been in this job a long time. Long enough to get slow.” Cain’s hand flutters vaguely, gentle as a leaf against his shoulder. “Kid, I’m sorry, but I know.”

“No,” I whisper. Stuck in the doorway of the RV, chest heaving, I shake my head. “I veto. You’re not allowed to die. I’m a god, aren’t I?Idecide when.Iget to choose.”

And I chose to end who did this. I drew the line in the sand—what I would forgive and what I wouldn’t. And faced with Cain bleeding out in my mother’s RV, faced with Bassobbing, my regret for all those soldiers’ souls evaporates.

We didn’t ask for this.Theybroke the world, dragging us out of hell. They ripped us through the fabric of reality and sprang a leak so big all hell’s ghosts came with me. And it wasn’t Cain’s fault—he was a glorified bodyguard—but he tookresponsibility.

No.I won’t allow it. The memory of soul-weighing scales sears into my palm, but I don’t need them to know this isn’t fair. This feather weighs too much. No obol is worth this. I won’t take it. Iwon’t.I won’t force Bas to ferry his own chosen father across the river.

The ocean in my chest roars, loud as the engine overhead, the DNR helicopter circling back with the storm dimmed. I stare at its approach, fury building in my bones, tamping down my terror with teeth bared.

How dare they? How dare they hunt me and mine? How dare they hang out the door of the helicopter, even knowing what I am, and have theaudacitynot to beafraid of me.

Why amIthe only one afraid of me?

At my feet, a radio crackles on the belt of a dead body. It’s a long shot, but I rip it free, striding out past the circle of idling SUVs. An easy target in an empty flea market street, I stare up at the helicopter, hovering so low now I feel it pulsing in my feet. From its open door, a rifle dangles like a string of drool from the mouth of its emblazoned asps.

Unflinching, unblinking, I stare down the scope.

“Your bullshit got my friend hurt. Got a lot of your friends dead,” I say over the radio, through my teeth. “Put your gun away and bring the helicopter down. We need to get him to a hospital.”

A megaphone screams on the underside of the bird.

“Persephone Green,”it screeches.“You are ordered to surrender by the authority of the US government. Get on your knees, hands in the air.”

The man with the rifle flexes his hands. He wears a black helmet that covers his entire face. Probably not the one speaking then, and wow, how brave of his driver to make demands while hiding behind him.

I bring the radio to my mouth.