Chapter 11
Cole
I couldn’t sleep. Everything Sephtis had said, everything I’d seen… every impossible thing that had happened to me over the past day was swirling in my head like a vortex that refused to let me close my eyes.
Every time I did, I saw the glow of crimson from the beast that had attacked me.
Every time I did, I could see the phantom image of a red thread trailing from my chest and out my door, leading to the man who was still in my living room—no, not a man… a Reaper.
A Grim Reaper.
As ludicrous as it all was, it was impossible to deny when there were scars on my chest where I’d been torn open. Not when I’d seen two men with wings.
Not when Sephtis’s skin shone like moonlight, and I could see black veins spilling beneath the glow.
It was as impossible as the way his eyes were golden like the sun… and I hated him just a little more for leaving me like this.
It was even worse, because the hate was a low burn in my chest that made me restless… that nearly had me standing up more than once through the night and tearing my bedroom door open so I could confront him again.
It felt like there was still so much I didn’t understand, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to process it if he told me anything else.
Cupids. Reapers. Soul hounds. Soulmates.
Caiden had died telling Sephtis to watch over me.
It was too much.
It kept me awake for hours, made my dreams so fitful that when I finally climbed out of bed before the sun had even started to rise, I knew what I was going to do.
And I knew when I threw my bedroom door open after taking a shower and getting dressed that Sephtis was still going to be in my apartment. I could almost feel him waiting for me to come out and demand answers.
“Okay. You need to tell me everything that’s going on. Slowly.”
Everything. It was too much, I knew it was going to be too much… but I also knew I wasn’t going to be able to stand another day without understanding why my life had been turned upside down.
Everything Sephtis said seemed impossible, and if I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed him. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around it… still wondering if I had space to blame him for ruining my life.
Again.
Because if what he said was true, the hate I’d felt for him, the anger… there was no place for it at all.
If what he said was true, he was in that room with Caiden because it was his job, and I’d missed my chance to tell my brother goodbye because I’d been too slow to get to him.
I didn’t want to believe what he was saying. Hate was easier than embracing the self-loathing that made itself known every night when I went to sleep.
Every night when he came to me in my dreams and put his hand on my chest, whispered that it was okay.
That he was here.
Fuck, was that real too?
It was too much. Cupids and Fate, Death and Reapers. From the way he spoke, there was an entire supernatural world that no one knew about, and humans ran around tied together with red strings of Fate that determined who they belonged to.
And he said we were connected.
I couldn’t do this.
“I need to go.” The silence that stretched between us after he finished his explanation was almost palpable, and it seemed to physically wound him when I spoke.
I couldn’t help it, though. I knew my voice was full of disbelief and anger.
It was full of all the emotions that had been swirling around in my chest since Caiden had died.
Emotions that seemed determined to bury me now that I was really facing everything that had happened since.
“Cole, wait.” Sephtis reached out for me and I recoiled. I couldn’t let him touch me right now. Not when I felt so fragile.
Not when I might actually lean into the cool sensation of his palm against my skin if I let him get too close. I wasn’t going to let the man—no, the monster—who had literally killed my brother comfort me.
I couldn’t.
“No. Don’t follow me. I need to go live my life. You know…” I narrowed my eyes as I backed toward the door. “The one you forced me into.”
There was that little bit of knowledge too. He’d kept me alive not once… but twice. I wasn’t sure I wanted to die, not really. But he didn’t have the right to choose for me. He didn’t have the right to be so selfish that he couldn’t let me go because he thought we belonged together.
He didn’t get to take Caiden’s hand and lead him away while making me stay.
I slammed the door on whatever he was trying to argue and stomped down the stairs and onto the street. The fact that my motorcycle was out of commission wasn’t so bad when the frantic energy beneath my skin demanded I do something to quell it—something inside me felt like it wanted to fly apart.
To burst me at the seams.
Some part of me was screaming to go back to Sephtis.
The further I got away from my apartment building, the more that feeling seemed to build in my chest. I wasn’t sure if it was anxiety, or the knowledge that there was every chance Sephtis was going to ignore what I’d asked and follow me anyway.
It definitely wasn’t because of the look on his face when I’d stormed out the door, or that strange tension that seemed to pull taut between us whenever I got close to him.
I blamed it on the fact that he’d apparently had a cupid shoot me without my permission. Nevermind that he said it couldn’t happen unless the connection was supposed to happen.
Never mind any explanation he tried to give me.
I was pissed at him. I was furious, and I wasn’t going to let him talk me out of my anger just because he was cool and calm, just because the cadence of his voice made something inside me that had felt broken since the day I’d lost Caiden settle.
In fact, I was going to be even more angry, because he had no right to make me feel that way.
I made it all the way to work riding on the wings of that anger, completely ignoring the soft fluttering of panic in my chest. Preston was on shift with me, and I saw concern on his face as soon as I came through the door.
“Are you sure you should be here today?”
I opened my mouth to ask him how he knew about what had happened… and then I realized he wasn’t talking about the weird supernatural stuff that had suddenly cropped up in my life. He was talking about the fact that I’d wrecked my bike, that I’d fallen into the river.
He didn’t know I’d had the most fucked-up near death experience anyone could have, and it had nothing to do with the water and everything to do with monsters…
I waved him off. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Honestly, I’m lucky I didn’t hit the guardrail when I flew off. Water is a lot softer than metal.”
Preston gave me a dubious look, because we both knew physics said flying at water from the height of the bridge was probably just as bad as the metal… but I was standing in front of him, and as far as he could tell I was fine.
It was hard to argue with.
“If you’re sure. Though…” He stepped forward, putting a hand on my shoulder with a warm smile.
“What if you let me do the heavy lifting today?” I started to open my mouth to protest, and he shook his head.
“If you can’t swallow your pride and do it for you, then do it for my peace of mind.
I don’t need you dropping a car on top of me because your body suddenly realizes you aren’t Superman. ”
“Oh, come on now.” I stepped back from him with a slight flex, lifting my arm and showing him the lean muscle I had from working with my hands all day. “You know I’m your favorite superhero.”
Preston shoved me, but his dark eyes were full of relief—maybe because he’d really worried that something was wrong with me, that I wasn’t going to come back to work whole.
I didn’t have it in me to tell him I wasn’t sure how I was standing here at all, other than the fact that I apparently had one of Death’s minions obsessed with me.
“Okay then, superhero. Let’s get this car on the lift so we can figure out what’s wrong with it.”
I could work seven days a week and the most I would be was tired.
I’d thrown myself into my job after Caiden’s death, and I’d never really regretted it, but I could say without a doubt that I was more exhausted today than I’d ever been in my entire life.
By the time the end of my shift was rolling around, I could barely lift my arms.
I listened when Preston shoved me to the side and told me to take a break, because I didn’t have the strength to argue with him.
This wasn’t anything I’d felt before. I’d been sick. Shit… I’d died.
This was different.
It felt like something was spilling out of me with every second that passed—all the angry energy I’d had earlier in the apartment with Sephtis, all my excitement to prove to Preston that I was fine and he had no reason to worry about me.
I couldn’t seem to grab hold of it now. It was slipping through my fingers like water, and when I slumped over on the desk where I was carefully filling out paperwork, I didn’t have it in me to raise my head when I heard Preston say my name.
It was the worry in his tone that told me something was probably wrong.
The worry that told me that maybe I should have taken the day off after dying twice and learning that the entire world as I knew it was a lie.
But…
“I’m fine.” I slurred the words, and when he came forward and took my shoulder to lift me, I tried to raise my hand to stop him.
At first, my arm wouldn’t move. I couldn’t move. The terror of that streaked through me, made something in my chest clench tight before my heart started racing.
When I tried to raise my arm again, it was like pushing through something thick—sticky, angry liquid trying to hold me down, to sink me to the bottom of the world where I’d meet the fate that I should have met a year ago when my brother died.
The fate I would have happily accepted if it meant he could have stayed.
The fate Sephtis had saved me from twice.
Sephtis… fuck. The last thing I needed was to see those golden eyes as he saved me again. The last thing I needed was him suddenly appearing and showing me how much he cared about me when all I wanted to do was be angry with him.
It was my determination not to need him that gave me the strength to lift my arm so I could push Preston away. My triumph was short-lived, though.
I fell straight through him, spilling past his body and tumbling to the ground.
“What?”
I frowned, lifting my hand—it had gone through him.
My eyes drifted up, then widened as I watched him lower my body—my prone body that was quickly losing its color—to the ground and yell for someone in the office to call 911.
Oh, shit.
“Preston, I’m fine. I—” I reached for him again and my hand went through his shoulder. “Oh… shit, oh fuck.” When I kneeled down and tried to press my fingers into my own chest, nothing happened.
Nothing except me looking down at my body and realizing somewhere in the back of my mind that I’d seen this before.
That this was exactly how Caiden had looked when I’d found him dead in his bed.
“No… no, no, no.” I scrambled back on hands and knees, wondering if I was going to hear that howling again, or if Sephtis was going to show up like he always did.
My eyes drifted down almost helplessly—he’d explained it in detail this morning. The arrow that Wren had shot through me, the fact that souls were joined together by red strings of fate. Soulmates.
Destiny.
And I could see it now, in whatever this state was. I could see the thread that trailed from my chest and led backward, toward the garage entrance.
But I couldn’t see the man at the end of it. He wasn’t here; he wasn’t magically around to save the day this time.
“Fuck, Sephtis. What did you do to me?”
This wasn’t normal… and even as I sat there on the ground staring at Preston doing a shit job of trying to perform CPR on my body, I could feel myself starting to grow weak.
So weak.
When I raised my arm up again, I watched as it flickered, slowly growing translucent. I could see my body on the ground through my fingers, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I brought my hand to my chest and pressed my palm over that red thread trailing out from me to the only reason I was still here at all—it was kind of funny. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to save myself, but I’d made sure to tell the only one who knew how to keep me alive to stay away.