Cameron has Asher restrained on the gra.s.s and is clutching at his throat. "Tell me, Angel boy, what has it been like being alone all this time? Apparently pretty bad for you to be breaking the rules."
I squeeze my eyes and stop short of them. "I want you to go away, Cameron." It hurts to say it, like a vine of thorns inside my veins.
Silence enfolds and I crack open my eyelids. Cameron is still on top of Asher, but his hand is hanging lifelessly at his side. "Don"t say things you don"t mean, Ember Rose," he advises. "Think about the last time you wished me away."
"I want you gone," I demand in a steady voice. "I don"t want death haunting me anymore."
"You can"t get rid of death, princess," he says sorrowfully. "Death is endless."
It frightens me how much his words match mine. "Then I guess I will outrun it for as long as I can."
Cameron climbs off Asher and dusts the dirt and gra.s.s off his hands. He lowers the hood of his cloak, so I"m looking directly at him, not the Reaper. "You know I only did it to bring you to me. I only push so you"ll give in to me, not to the others."
My heart thumps in my chest as he stops in front of me. His blonde hair glows palely in the moonlight and sadness caves his eyes, like the first time I saw him.
"Why were you really here that night?" I ask, with a shiver. "When I saw you digging up the grave?"
His fingers twitch, longing to touch me. "I already told you, looking for a family jewel." He gently touches the tip of his finger to the hollow of my neck. "Turns out you had it."
"My grandma"s necklace..." I trail off, confused. "Why do you want it?"
He smiles miserably. "And I"m sorry I took it, but I had to. Besides, it wasn"t yours to have in the first place. It belongs to my family."
"Then why did my grandma have it?"
"Because she stole it from us."
My eyes widen. "Cameron, tell me-"
He shushes me with his finger across my lips. "I don"t want to talk about that right now. I want to talk about you and me."
"There is no you and..." My eyes digress to Asher, lying in the gra.s.s, encompa.s.sed by black feathers. "Did you kill him?"
"He can"t die, princess." Cameron frowns. "Unfortunately."
"Why did you kill Mackenzie? And Laden. And I"m guessing Farrah is probably on the list too." My legs beg me to run, but my desire to know the truth overpowers.
"I didn"t kill Laden. Asher did," he says. "And Mackenzie and Farrah died from the same human"s hand, not mine. And if you listened closely to her story, you probably could figure out the culprit."
"Her dad?"
He shrugs. "That"s for you to figure out, if you want to. I just collect the souls. And I"ll admit, I didn"t try to stop Mackenzie"s death. I wanted her to suffer for all the times she was rude to you."
His misconstrued logic is a puzzle to me. "That"s the craziest thing I"ve ever heard."
"I know you don"t understand." He cups my cheek, emitting both ecstasy and sheer terror throughout me. "But that day when I saw you in the cemetery, I knew I had to have you and that I would hurt anyone that ever caused you pain."
"Your little friends," I point over my shoulder at the forest, "hurt me. Do you know about that?"
"I can"t help that without breaking more rules. But it can all be over if you want it to be. All you have to do is agree to be with me-want to be with me. And then I"m allowed to help you."
"And what? Become a Grim Reaper and start collecting souls and killing people?"
"There"s more to it than that," he says, his eyes blazing. "More to you than what you realize and you"re in for a rough and painful life until you realize that. But it can all be over if you"ll just give in to your Reaper blood."
I compress my hands into fists, and will myself to deny his request, even though a small part of me wants it. "I"m telling you to leave, just like I did when I was four."
His face falls and his eyes flash with anger. Lightening zaps across the sky, but I refuse to look away. "Is that what you really want, Ember?"
I swallow the refusal building in my throat and make myself want it. "That"s what I want."
He bites down on his lip so hard blood drips down his chin. Then he cups the back of my head and pulls me in for a rough kiss. I taste the blood on his lips, the foul darkness of death, but a flicker of something substantial is hidden deep inside him, like a seed in the center of an apple.
He releases me, breathing fervently. "I"ll pay for that one forever." He backs toward the gates, his eyes locked on me. "They"ll come for you-the rest of the Reapers. They won"t stop until they get you to crack."
"Then I"ll tell them to go away too."
"That won"t work on them, sweetheart," he says gravely as he sinks farther into the shadows. "The Anamotti aren"t quite as easy-going as me." Then with a swish of his cloak, he alters, sprouting wings and shrinking into a raven. He circles around my head, before disappearing into the night sky.
My body aches to fly away with him, be free, shed my skin, become one with the night.
Asher makes a noise and I rush for him. "Are you okay?" I ask, not daring to touch him.
His shirt is torn from his cuts, and bruises cover his beautiful pale chest. His black hair is disheveled, his lip is split, and his striking feather wings are crooked, the feathers scarce.
"I"m fine," he a.s.sures me with a weak smile.
I crouch down in front of him. "Does it... does it hurt?"
His eyes unite with mine, zealous and hungry. "Nothing could hurt at this moment. You just sent him away."
"I"ve sent him away before." I brush stray feathers from his arms and then rest my hand in the curve of his shoulder, feeling his warmth. "But he came back."
"I know." His hand finds my hip. "And he"ll find a way to keep coming back until you completely surrender to him-they all will."
"What did you do to them?" I ask. "The other Reapers-the Anamotti. Detective Crammer or whoever she is?"
"She"s a Reaper-all the Anamotti are. They"re the Reapers who have banded together to eliminate the Grim Angels, even though it"s forbidden to touch them. And I took care of them, for the moment, but they"ll be back."
I note his hands on my hips, wondering if he"s allowed to touch me. "You mean, until they make me lose my sanity."
He nods, his eyes never parting from me. "That"s the point of all this, yes. We are all cursed to this world until you do."
My knees sink to the ground. "Cursed?"
"Our curse to this world," he explains. "It"s our punishment for our part in the Battle of Death. The Angels of Death and the Grim Reapers are bound to the earth by the existence of the Grim Angel. And it"s only the Grim Angel that can free one of us back to our homes."
"But aren"t the Grim Angels supposed to create balance, so no one can steal souls?" I ask.
"They are, but they will break the balance. The Reapers have been working to weed out every Grim Angel that exists, until there is only one left standing. And that one is the one that will have to pa.s.s the test. If they can live their life enduring the Reaper and Angel blood, then the Angels of Death will gain back their power over the souls and be freed from earth. If they give in to the insanity of the Reapers, then the Reapers gain control over the souls."
"But I thought Reapers collected the evil souls and the Angels collected the innocent."
"That"s how it"s used to work," he says, reaching for me, like he wants to touch me, but withdraws his hand back. "But the rules were broken and a bet was made. Now whoever wins, wins all the souls."
"But if Reapers could collect any soul," I glance at the tombstones, "then it would be bad."
"It would probably be worse than you can even imagine." His voice weighs heavily in the air.
"How many are left?" I ask, gripping the gra.s.s, fearing the answer. "How many Grim Angels still roam the earth?"
"I"m not exactly sure. There used to be a lot, but the Reapers have been singling them out and the many have died of old age. The longer they exist, the scarcer the Grim Angels bloodline is." He winces as he adjusts his weight. "And the Reapers must know how few there are, because over the last couple years, they"ve been really determined to hunt them down, even though they"re not supposed to."
"That"s what I don"t get," I say. "If they"re not supposed to, then why doesn"t someone stop them?"
"It"s up to their leader to punish them. Or we could go into battle," he says. "But Michael, my father and the ruler of the Angels of Death, won"t allow us to bend any rules under any circ.u.mstances."
"You said your dad was bad. And dead." I frown. "And that you moved from New York to get away from him."
"We did," he says, holding back something with a fire in his eyes. He swiftly changes the subject. "You look beautiful like that." He strokes the tip of my fake wing. "When I saw you, I almost had a heart attack. For a second, I thought somehow... you became one of us."
The wind howls a violent storm, flipping my wings in front me and my body off balance. Asher slides his fingers over my hips and hugs me against his chest. I sense the impending goodbye like a death omen waiting for me at his lips. My black hair flaps in thin wisps around our faces. We stare at each other, hearts beating, eyes connected, never desiring to move. The moment is fleeting, like the sound of a weightless laugh, the flash of a lightning bolt, the last breath of the dying.
"You"re leaving me, aren"t you," I say quietly.
"I broke the rules and now I can"t stay. I wasn"t supposed to get involved with you-no one is. It"s all supposed to be of your own free will, to prove a point." He kisses my lips and I grip onto his shoulders. "But I couldn"t help it. When I saw you that night at the party, standing there by yourself, so sad and lost, I knew I had to get to know you. You were the first Grim Angel I met that"s ever done that too me."
I hook my arms around his neck and breathe in his comforting scent. "Why were you there at the party?"
"I was collecting someone"s soul for Michael." His hands travel down my spine and reside on my lower back. "But I messed up. I let the person live and took someone else"s soul instead."
"You were supposed to take Raven"s, weren"t you?" I arch into his hands. "You let her live and took Laden"s soul instead."
"I could see in your eyes when you were talking about her that night that you need her."
"And you killed Laden, because he was trying to rape her."
"I wasn"t supposed to take his soul or kill him. I just got carried away," he says, and I"m reminded of what I read in the book: pa.s.sionate in battle. "And the Anamotti used it to their advantage. They took his body and made it look like your dad"s crime scene to mess with your head."
"And you got in trouble for it," I say. "What are they going to do to you?"
"I"m in trouble for a lot of things." He lures my chest against his and kisses me with such heat my skin nearly ignites. I rake my fingers through his soft hair and his hands grip my thighs, his fingertips pressing into my skin, wanting everything, but knowing he can"t take anything.
But I need him, like I need air. "Don"t go," I plead. "Please stay with me. You"re the only one who"s made me feel at peace. "
The sky rumbles and his eyes travel upward to the dark clouds. His face is masked with pain as the sky begins to drizzle. His long eyelashes flutter against the raindrops. "I have to. Michael doesn"t ever let any angel go unpunished. And besides, you have to do this on your own."
They sky booms again like the snap of an elastic band. I feel it break, my freedom.
He guides my ear toward his mouth and drops his voice to a low whisper. "Find out everything you can about Grim Angels and the Battle of Death. Find out what happens with the last Grim Angel standing... There"s a part I can"t tell you. And Ember, don"t trust anyone. Ever." His hand slides down my neck, searing hot against my damp skin. "Shut your eyes."
Reluctantly, I close them and cling to him. I hear his wings snap wide and then a delicate flutter as he flaps them. He kisses my forehead, my cheek, my lips, and then like a feather in the wind, he flies away.
When I open my eyes, I"m alone, kneeling in the mud, rain soaking my hair and clothes. I refuse to move; I"ll stay here forever in the cemetery with the only peace I have left.
"Oh my G.o.d!" Raven screams and I turn around. She"s staggering through the mud toward me. "What the h.e.l.l happened? How did I get here? Em, I"m... I have no idea what"s going on and why I"m in a cemetery." She stops just short of me and glances down at her white dress, tattered and marked red with tonight"s torture. Her artificial wings are ripped to pieces and her neck is still bleeding a little.
I pick up a piece of Asher"s shirt, stand up, and press it to her neck. "We need to get you to a hospital." I drape her arm around her shoulder and lead her toward the gate.
Her death is back; standing on the ledge and someone begs her to jump, so she does. Different, but still painful.
"Em, why are there feathers all over the gra.s.s?" she asks. "Was it from your costume?"
I make the decision, the thing my dad tried to engrave in my mind since I was young, and what Asher warned me to do-don"t trust anyone. "Yeah, Raven, they are from my costume."
We walk together across the cemetery, yet I"m in this alone. A p.a.w.n in a game between the Angels of Death and the Grim Reapers-between good and evil.
But which one am I?
As if giving me an answer, sirens sing through the night and blue and red flashes vibrantly across the dark cemetery. Doors shove open and cops hop out of the vehicles.
"Alright," one of them yells with his gun out in front of him as he glides through the gates. "Put your hands up where we can see them."
I obey, knowing I"m in trouble this time. Mackenzie"s body is in a grave and the only proof that I didn"t kill her flew away with the wind.
Raven sobs in my shirt and clutches onto me. "I want this to all be over. Please make it stop. It"s driving me crazy."
I raise my hands in the air, renouncing. "Don"t worry. It"s almost over."
A swarm of cops bustle through the gates, spotting their flashlights across the gra.s.s and tombs, guns and batons in their hands. The one that shouted at me approaches with caution, step by step, never looking away from us. When he reaches me, I let Raven stand on her own.
"Ember Edwards, I should have known," Officer McKinley"s expression instantly turns bias as he remembers the night he picked me up from my house, after my car was found in the lake. "There was an anonymous tip that the body of Mackenzie Baker could be found at the Hollows Grove Cemetery."
With my hands up, I shake my head. "I don"t know anything about that."
He spotlights the flashlight in Raven"s eyes. "What"s she on? And why is there blood on her neck? Were you two doing some kind of ritual out here or something?"
"Like a vampire ritual," I joke unenthusiastically.
He narrows his eyes. "You don"t need to get smart. This is Halloween-all the crazies are out tonight."
Raven blinks and shields her face with her hand. "We were taking a shortcut to our houses through the woods and I tripped and cut my neck on a branch."
Internally, I sigh. "That"s what we were doing, just barely-heading to go find a phone and call the hospital, because neither of us have our phones."
The cop checks underneath the piece of shirt Raven has pressed to her neck and then pulls a revolted face. "That"s going to need a few st.i.tches." He sighs. "Come on, follow me."
As we walk for the gates, the cops search the cemetery, by the trees, behind headstones. A female officer, with her hair braided in the back, wanders toward the hole in the ground where Mackenzie"s body lays.