Chapter 26 Helena
I awoke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in my bed, my chest heaving, my heart revved to top speed, thundering like I’d just been jolted back to life with a supercharged defibrillator.
No doctors or nurse staff surrounded me, and no bright surgical lights beamed down on me. Instead, my fairy lights alone brought relief to the darkness of the night that had settled again.
While I sat there with my hand on my sternum, like that might keep my heart from winning the battering-ram battle against the bone, I waited for understanding to return.
Grim. I’d been with Grim. And everything we’d been through together must have really happened, because I still had on my Halloween earrings, my purse, my jack-o’-lantern sweater.
“Oh my God,” I said as, one after the other, I took the earrings out.
“Oh. My God,” I repeated as I laid the plastic pumpkins on my Ikea bedside table.
“Oh my God, I kissed him.” I turned this proclamation on my piles of pillows, none of which had anything to say. My heart, though, did an extra-jumpy triple step, pure terror pumping through my veins. My hand abandoned my heart to touch my lips—the same lips I’d dared to lay on the Grim Reaper.
“Oh my God, I kissed him,” I repeated, a strange transmutation alchemizing my fear into something less mortified and more… giddy?
“Oh, wow,” I said, scooting to the edge of my bed, slinging off my purse along the way.
That kiss. I scarcely recalled it because I’d been under the influence of his spirit. That freezing essence had seized my soul, giving it an uprooting tug that hadn’t hurt at all.
On the contrary, I’d again had some trouble with sensations of the opposite sort.
Polar opposite.
He’d made me… drunk somehow. Infused me with a bliss-inducing balm I hadn’t wanted to let go of.
Did that mean I could blame what I’d done on some otherworldly version of liquid courage?
“Oh, I really did that,” I mumbled as I pushed off the bed to stand on wobbly legs.
What did he think of me? He must think I was utterly bonkers.
Then again, he had responded, his freezing essence pouring into mine, twisting and winding me up.
Wait a second. Had we… made out?
I’d certainly been ready to very literally jump his bones…
I still kept fingertips pressed to my lips as I marched out of my bedroom and into my disaster area of a living room.
“Oh, goodnight moon,” I growled as I spotted my flipping bra just hanging out—flopped across the back of the couch, right where I’d thrown it the other night when the girls had needed a breather.
Heat rushed to overtake my face as I made a beeline to the garment and snatched it up, like it made any difference now.
“I can’t believe…”
What, Helena? You can’t believe what? That, while in a soul-wringing stupor, you kissed death on the teeth? Or that the sender of souls had gotten a gander at your fruit-themed underthings? What had I been thinking? That was just it. I hadn’t been thinking. Except… I also had.
Caution was so much easier to throw to the wind when you knew you didn’t need it—when you understood that playing it safe ultimately wouldn’t do you any good. And with my number being up, I suppose I thought I’d live a little by giving the Grim Reaper a smooch.
“Right on the lips,” I whispered as I started to pace, even though, technically speaking, he didn’t really have lips. At least, he hadn’t had them at the time of my forwardness.
At the same time, he’d sure blown all the dud-muffins I’d ever kissed before out of the water.
Cover to cover, that kiss had been as hot as his soul was cold.
And those unyielding teeth under my lips—they hadn’t moved, but they’d still sent one hell of a zing through me. Just like the rest of his teasy, deep freeze-y, scorched-earth, end-of-the-world essence.
Talk about a wild ride.
“I cannot believe I made out with death,” I mumbled, pacing again before tossing my bra back onto the couch.
Apparently, I hadn’t been able to help myself after spending half the night flirting with him. Flirting with him again.
“I hit on death,” I muttered, heading straight for my kitchen. Because I needed tea. No, coffee. “I straight up hit on death. Then I made a move on him.”
Had he made a move back? I still couldn’t say.
Well, if my history with guys had taught me anything: If he hadn’t already stopped calling, he certainly would now, wouldn’t he?
Speaking of now, what time was it anyway? Heck, what day was it?
“Oh, shoot,” I said, glancing at the oven clock, which read 6:28.
God help me, I hoped that meant 6:28 in the morning, and that I hadn’t slept through work. My shift started at eight, and the library opened at nine.
My phone. I needed my phone.
I hurried back into my room, tripping over my unicorn house slippers along the way. I scoured my pumpkin purse but found nothing. But Grim had given me back my phone… hadn’t he?
Maybe I had somehow dreamed the whole thing. The whole night. Except that couldn’t be.
As I left my room again, I once more pressed my fingers to my lips, the sensation of that death’s-head grin still inscribed there. As I stared out into space, I shifted my hand once again back to my heart, which had yet to settle, because it remembered things, too.
The way he’d flooded me like that, his whole spirit descending upon me, doing things to me—to mine.
My cheeks flared anew at the memory, the way his ice had clashed with my fire, the two of us, I was pretty sure, spiritually sprinting to second base.
Now my hand went to my brow because what?
I could hardly understand what had happened—only that he hadn’t recoiled in disgust or affront when I’d done what I had, which is exactly what I’d feared would happen. I hadn’t expected him to return my gesture. Was that what he’d done?
He’d certainly done something. And I’d certainly enjoyed all of it—the way those tendrils had infiltrated and wound me, cooled and teased me, scoured me in a way I wasn’t sure I could go without.
That thought brought more heat to my face, my cheeks flaming now.
What, exactly, had we done? And why, if I had to die, couldn’t I pick the method?
I’d choose him and our shadow-and-sunshine tango for sure. And if he were here right now, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold back from telling him as much.
“Omigod,” I muttered to myself, tempted to start pacing again, “I have a crush on him.”
Maybe that was an understatement at this stage. Because, if I was being honest with myself, I’d had a crush on him on that damn balcony. The elevator episode had given me palpitations in more ways than one, and then when he’d cursed at me like that while pushing ninety?
Well, that had been the nail in the coffin I apparently wanted to roll around with him in.
“This can’t be a healthy reaction to knowing you’re going to die,” I whispered to myself, once more going in search of coffee.
But then, maybe I still had some vodka in the freezer?
Because if I was still going to make it into work and wasn’t fired as well as being on death row, I’d have to call an Uber anyway.
Somewhere nearby, my phone alarm went off.
I jumped with a yelp, my eyes flying to the little table stationed next to the door to my apartment.
My phone. It sat there, plugged into the wall—because it must have needed charging.
Except I hadn’t plugged it in. I hadn’t set my alarm for six thirty, either.
But… someone had.
After only a beat of hesitation, I hurried over, skirting my couch until I arrived at the table, which, in addition to my phone, held a strange set… of keys.
“Oh,” I whispered, my hand bypassing my phone to clasp the silver metal keys looped by a simple key ring.
When I’d complained about my car, Grim had asked me if I could drive a stick.
I’d told him yes. Years ago, when I’d been in high school, my father had taught me to drive the family truck so I could take myself to Friday-night book club. That way he wouldn’t miss any football or March Madness games on TV…
Carefully, I scooped up the car keys—the vintage car keys—letting the phone alarm pulse while I examined them.
Grim couldn’t seriously have lent me his car, though… could he?
Keys clenched hard in my fist, I abandoned the table and my phone, cutting a path straight across my apartment to the window overlooking the parking lot.
Sweeping aside the curtain, I peered down on the slowly brightening world, the sherbert horizon letting me know I’d reawakened to morning, and I found my parking spot.
My Bug wasn’t there, and I hadn’t expected it to be.
But neither had I anticipated seeing… The Judge.