Chapter 9 The Present #2
He folds the top once, carefully, like it’s something fragile, and sets it on the nightstand.
Then, finally, he looks at me. And this time, he really looks. No caution. No shield. His eyes burn. It’s not lust, not exactly. His lips part. He hesitates. There’s something on the tip of his tongue—I can see it.
But he swallows it.
And just like that, the moment breaks.
He steps back.
I blink.
I clear my throat.
“Let me just… put the pants on.”
I grab the scrub bottoms and add them to the top he folded so neatly. Then I step into the drawstring pants. Of course they’re huge. But I’ll take that. I tighten the waist until they stay in place, then glance back up.
Cassian is still watching me. His gaze trails from the waistband clinging to my hips, up my torso, and finally, to my face.
“Ready?” he asks, like nothing just happened.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Then let’s get you something to eat and get the hell out of here.”
After Cassian makes me the best instant noodles of my new life—and I mean it, they’re actually insanely good—we’re ready to head out for the job.
Out of everyone in our little group, we’re probably the most skeptical about this whole operation. But between his unrelenting need to punish anyone who’s ever destroyed a life, and my very real fear of defying Death’s orders, we’re more than motivated to see it through.
We leave the hospital through the main doors. Talon and Nathaniel are already gone, off handling their own task for the day: retrieving the Candy Maker’s body from the organ trafficking gang we left it with.
The moment I step outside and glance at the parking lot, I can tell they took the car we were gifted last night.
Our ride, though? It’s… different.
Parked under a crumbling awning, it looks like something out of a noir fever dream.
Sleek, matte black, windows tinted almost to black-out.
When Cassian gets in and starts the engine, it doesn’t purr so much as loom, like a car built for someone either running from something, or chasing something they absolutely shouldn’t.
A hitman’s hearse. That moonlights as a getaway vehicle for demons. A seriously messed-up kind of ride.
I open the passenger’s side doors and stand there, eyeing the insides like it might bite.
“Uh. Whose car is this?” I ask.
Cassian adjusts the mirrors and his seat.
“Ours,” he says. “Something gave you an idea that someone else lives in the hospital?”
I blink at him.
“Very funny. I just haven’t seen this one before, and it looks… how do I put this… a little out of your price range? And extremely suspicious, might I add.”
He doesn’t even glance at me.
“The guys dropped it off before heading to the meet-up.” He shifts the car into gear.
“They dropped it off?” I repeat.
“We’ve got a few stashed around the city for emergencies. Makes trips into town safer when we need to blend in. They went to retrieve it, parked it, and left.”
I swear, I learn something new about their shady little network every day.
I slide into the seat slowly, still half-convinced I shouldn’t leave fingerprints on anything, but knowing I don’t have a choice. The interior smells like gunpowder, cedar, and something metallic underneath it all—blood, probably.
“Still,” I say as we pull away, “it’s kind of weird you guys have a car like this. It’s bound to draw attention.”
“It was the closest one,” he says, unfazed. “And I’m not thrilled about it either. But when Talon gets one of his fucking ideas…”
He trails off. After a beat, it’s clear he’s done talking, so I decide to drag the rest out of him.
“What happened?” I ask. “What did Talon do?”
“He bartered for it.”
As if that explains anything.
My eyes narrow. “Bartered?”
He hesitates. Just for a beat. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this kind of pause from him.
Cassian likes to keep things close to the chest. He weighs every word before letting it out, and besides the fact that he’s one of the reasons I’m stuck in this postmortem slavery or whatever it is, he also knows I have a tongue, a face, and a body now that can be seen by other people.
I’m probably a threat in his head, even though a quiet one, for now.
But something shifts. Whether he wins the inner fight or loses it, I don’t know. Either way, he decides to spill.
“He trades favors for shit,” he says finally. “The bigger the favor, the better the loot. He thought this one was a good deal, so now we have it.”
I can picture it easily, Talon wheeling and dealing in some smoke-filled alley, flipping a coin, striking bargains with men who don’t live to tell the tale.
Hell, I can practically hear him sealing the deal with one of those too-smooth grins, shaking hands, and leaving someone in a trunk.
He might even kiss both cheeks over a car like this.
And that same mouth was just buried in your pussy…
The thought slams into me so hard it knocks the air from my lungs.
I blink, once. Twice. Try to shake it off like a spiderweb, but it clings. Lodges into my brain like a splinter dipped in heat.
I shift in my seat, suddenly aware of every inch of skin, every breath between my thighs.
It’s stupid. It's so stupid. This isn’t the time or the place.
But the image won’t leave. It morphs, sharpening, intensifying.
That half-smile he gives when he knows exactly what he's doing.
The heat of his breath against me. The way he looked up when he noticed me watching him.
My thighs press together on instinct.
I look out the window, hoping the cool glass might leech some of the heat from my face, but all it does is reflect my expression—flushed, distracted, caught somewhere between arousal and shame.
God, he’s like a drug, that man.
No, scratch that.
They all are.
I glance at Cassian. Then out the window. Then back again.
He turns slightly, just enough to catch me in his peripheral. I give him an awkward, crooked smile.
He doesn’t return it.
In fact, he doesn’t return anything for the next fifteen minutes.
The silence builds between us like a wall. Or a wave. I can’t tell if he’s irritated, thoughtful, or just... simmering. But I can feel it pulsing off him, whatever it is.
It lasts long enough for the image in my head to start fading. Long enough for discomfort to take its place.
That’s when he clears his throat. His fingers tense around the steering wheel like he’s trying not to break it, and he shifts in his seat, jaw tight.
“If you’d asked him for clothes before they left,” he says, like the words have been sitting on his tongue too long, “I’m sure he would’ve given you something.”
It takes me a second to even catch the thread of what he means.
“Asked who?” I frown.
“Talon,” he mutters, not looking at me.
Talon?
I blink. Is he seriously circling back to him? In this context at that? We were only talking about him because we were talking about the car. And I really, really don’t want to think about him again.
“Uh, yeah, maybe,” I say. “They left kind of early though, didn’t they? Him and Nathaniel?”
“Yeah.”
Another beat of silence settles between us. Thick, heavy, and suffocating.
I glance down at the clothes I’m wearing. I thought he didn’t care, he said as much, pretty bluntly. But now… I’m not so sure. Did I take something that mattered? His favorite pants or something?
“Do you… want me to ask him for clothes?” I venture carefully. “So I wear his instead of yours?”
His grip on the wheel tightens. Just enough to make the leather creak.
“No,” he says. “Just think it’s weird he didn’t offer. You know, after you two fucked on our coffee table in the middle of the night.”
The words hit like a slap.
My breath hitches.
Slowly, carefully, I turn my head to look at him.
His face might as well be carved from stone.
But his voice?
That edge wasn’t just annoyance.
It was sharp. Raw. And unmistakably personal.
Is he... jealous?
I think back. To yesterday. To the car crash. The way he snapped when Talon started sweet-talking me in the backseat. The way his jaw clenched. The way he cut in like he couldn’t help himself.
And now this?
It’s not just about the coffee table. It’s not about borrowed clothes. It's not even about the car.
It’s me.
It’s Talon.
And Cassian doesn’t like that they’ve overlapped.
Well, shit.
“I doubt Talon’s the kind of guy to do anything selfless,” I say. “Especially not for a girl he just slept with.”
He exhales sharply, nostrils flaring. Still won’t look at me.
“So you think it meant nothing,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
His fingers tap once on the wheel before gripping it again. “You think it was just… scratching an itch. For him.”
I swallow. The air is suddenly electric.
“I didn’t realize that was up for debate,” I murmur.
“I see,” he says.
His eyes flick to me and that same burning gaze returns. The same one he had when I changed up in his room.
“Then… was it worth it?”
Oh my god. I actually laugh. Just a little. A soft, disbelieving sound, because what else can I do?
“What?” I ask.
His jaw ticks. Once. Twice.
“Did your… you know, powers get better?”
That shuts me up. A long pause follows. My mouth opens, then closes. Then opens again.
He thinks I slept with Talon to power up?
That wasn’t my intention. But… now that I think about it, I do feel different.
My body aches like hell, but I didn’t have to be carried today, did I?
I made it through the night, the morning, even scrounging for clothes this afternoon, without a single glitch.
No stress, no dimensional slips, not even a stumble.
I even felt like I could fight the wraith with Cassian’s dagger if it showed up.
Pain is still gone, completely. But… shit, I think I actually got better.
Cassian sees it on my face before I say a word.
He turns back to the road with a sharp exhale, muttering something under his breath I can’t quite catch, though I’m pretty sure it starts with “fucking Talon.”
I watch him, stunned.
“Cassian,” I say quietly. “That’s not why I did it.”
He doesn’t answer.
“I didn’t even know it would help,” I press. “It wasn’t like I had a checklist. It just… happened. I wanted to. That’s all.”
I’m not sure why I feel the need to explain, but I do. And it’s not just because I don’t want any of these men—men who are still technically strangers and more than capable of doing awful things without a second thought—getting the wrong idea.
No, it’s more than that.
Sleeping with Talon was easy. I never pretended it would mean anything or change the dynamic between us. Talon’s that kind of guy. Where Cassian and Nathaniel keep parts of themselves guarded, protect what matters to them, Talon acts like nothing really does.
Which is why it was so jarring to see him lose it over Cassian’s life. But mine? Would he ever care like that about me? I doubt it.
I just wanted to let go for a moment. Live a little.
That sex meant nothing. Nothing at all.
But…
“Why the hell do you care, anyway?” I ask.
Cassian doesn’t answer right away. The silence stretches, filled only by the road slipping past.
Then he says, flatly, “I care about the efficiency of our team.”
Um… What kind of an answer is that?
“Oh, sure,” I say. “That’s why you’re asking me about sex with Talon? Team efficiency?”
He draws in a slow breath.
“There’s a reason fraternization is against protocol in the military.”
I narrow my eyes. “We’re not in the military.”
“No,” he says. “But I was. And some lessons don’t fade just because the uniform’s gone. You think this group works because we’re emotionally stable? We’re holding together with duct tape and denial, Skye. Anything that shifts the balance could snap us in half.”
“And I’m the liability now?” I snap. “Because I had sex?”
He looks at me then. Not just a glance. Really looks.
“You’re not a liability,” he says, quieter now. “But you’re unpredictable.”
“Unpredictable?” I echo, my voice sharp. “What am I to you, Cassian? Your soldier? Your project? Careful, you’re about to contradict yourself. Not long ago, you made it pretty clear what I was. A wisp of nothing. Forgotten that already?”
His jaw tightens. Something—regret, maybe—flickers across his face, but he masks it fast.
“No.”
“No?” I press. “You sure about that?”
There’s a pause. But it’s not the usual kind. This one isn’t a wall, it’s a minefield. One wrong move and we both blow up.
Then he speaks, voice low but steady. “You’re not property. Not a subordinate. And definitely not a fucking wisp of nothing anymore, alright?” His voice rises and softens at once, each word landing with the weight of both comfort and confrontation. It's weird, but it also shuts me up.
“I know we fucked up, Skye. I fucked up. I never thought a Grim Reaper could turn into something like you. Feel things. Grow a body. Have her afterlife torn to shreds. That’s on me. I take the blame.”
He breathes, then adds, quieter, “But I know Talon. And he’s not the guy you should put your trust in. He breaks things. That’s all I meant.”
I study him. This might be the first time he’s actually showing me something real. And even though I’m pissed that we’re having this conversation at all, there’s a part of me that… likes it.
When was the last time anyone gave a damn about me, even in this twisted, jealous, displaced way? When was the last time someone handed me the truth, raw and unvarnished? When did anyone take responsibility for what they did to me?
Too long ago.
And I know better than to soften just because someone gave me a sliver of kindness. A flicker of accountability. It doesn’t change the fact that he and his friends dug up my bones and shredded what little peace I had left. But still…
It’s something.
Enough to calm me down. Just a little.
“I know the three of you are bad guys, Cassian,” I say finally. “You don’t need to tell me that.”
Trusting them would be the worst mistake I could make.
The very worst.
And I thought I’d made that clear from the start.
But he just turns to look at me, his eyes suddenly heartbreakingly sad, sadder than I’ve ever seen them. His brows knit together, and in that moment, he looks like someone else entirely. A stranger.
“Is that so?” he says. “Because you had me convinced otherwise.”
And I can’t tell if he regrets saying it… or if he’s quietly asking me not to stop.