Chapter 3 #2
“Nathaniel should have never left you alone like that,” Cassian says, as Nathaniel looks up from a sofa across the room. He’s sitting with a big book on his lap.
“Nathaniel thought Skye could use some privacy,” Nathaniel counters smoothly. His voice is like buttered milk. A little bit sweet, a little bit balmy and perpetually belonging into the realm of the late evenings and cozy winter blankets. “If you had it your way, she wouldn’t have any.”
“Well, we wouldn’t know what she preferred,” Cassian counters, jaw tight. “You didn’t ask her.”
The muscle under my palm goes rigid.
“It’s okay,” I say, putting my other hand on his forearm and stroking it gently. “I think I needed a little time alone with my head. And honestly? I doubt I was in danger of anything worse than tripping over my own feet.”
Death didn’t take me back into the afterlife. The guys don’t know why like I do, but the moment my heart restarted on its own during the second day of unconsciousness, the outcome was sealed. Death wanted me to stay.
My gaze lifts before I can stop it, and I look up at Cassian just in time to see his eyes fixated on the hand I still have resting on his arm. His breathing stills. Slowly, deliberately, his stare travels up to meet mine, and when our eyes lock, he swallows. Hard.
“Yeah. Right,” he says. “Still, you could imagine why I got worried.”
Only one reason makes sense.
Because he cares.
And that—apparently—is enough to detonate a small nuclear event inside my ribcage. Butterflies don’t just flutter; they riot, sprinting laps around my organs. I yank my hand off his as if touching him burned me and slap my palm to my stomach like I’m trying to hold the chaos in.
My mouth drops open. My face goes volcanic.
The reaction is so overpowering I don’t notice when my legs simply… stop working. One second I’m walking; the next, I’m a statue in the middle of the room, frozen like a deer that’s just realized the headlights are eyes staring back.
Cassian stops too.
He looks at me in that unreadable way of his, and for half a second it feels like the room no longer contains oxygen.
Then, slowly, deliberately, a small curve breaks through his usual severity, the faintest smile, like he can’t help it, and he tugs gently at my hand.
The world jump-starts again. I let him guide me to the sofa, my knees still unreliable, and I land beside Nathaniel with a soft plop that sends a dull ache through my joints.
Come on, Skye. Get a grip.
You’re losing your mind over what? Basic decency? Human kindness?
Wouldn’t you care about the person who saved your mother, too?
“So,” I manage. “How’s your mother, by the way? Did you… um… talk to her? Overall, fill me in. What was happening while I was gone?”
Cassian doesn’t answer right away.
“She’s fine,” he says. “I made sure she’s fine.”
It should be a simple response, but it isn’t.
Back when I asked Cassian if he wanted me to save his mother, he was unsure. He carries a lot with him. His sister died in front of him. His father broke his mother long before Cassian ever got the chance to save her. If he lost his mother… it could have been a catastrophe.
But she’s alive. And he’s still standing.
Nathaniel turns a page in his book, his pale eyes flick toward Cassian, then slide to me.
“We made a deal a long time ago to cut off all ties that would make us hesitate,” he says.
“As much as it’s a relief Cassian’s mother is safe, re-establishing contact with her would put all of us at risk.
And starting a dialogue with her just to soothe loneliness, only to vanish again afterward… would be too cruel.”
Both my eyebrows lift before I can stop them.
“So you didn’t even talk with her?” I turn to Cassian.
His head snaps toward me. Those mismatched eyes hook into mine.
“No,” he says, rougher than before. “I… uh…” His gaze drifts away.
He makes distance like it’s instinctual, crossing the room toward a chair and bracing on the back of it while rubbing the tension out of his neck.
“I called Grayson. He went to her house and brought her to the hospital. She doesn’t even know we were there. ”
“And it should stay that way,” Nathaniel mutters.
I think about it for a moment, about a mother waiting behind a door that will never open again, and I get it. I really do. He’s protecting her from the life he’s shackled to. From the truth of who he became.
Leaving her alone, in a way, is the last kindness he can still control.
“Anyway. Drop it,” Cassian says. “I made my decision a long time ago.”
If that’s really what he wants… Who am I to try and change that?
Nathaniel smooths a hand over the closed book in front of him.
“Alright,” he says gently. “Then it’s time for a recap. I’m sure there are things you want to share with us.”
Want is not the word I’d use.
Should, maybe.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Talon?” I ask.
As much as Pain—rightfully so—pointed out his fucked up outbursts and jealousy, Talon’s still part of this little murder club. If we’re doing a recap, he should be here.
Nathaniel glances toward the far corner.
“He’ll be here. He’s… finishing something outside.”
“Outside?” I echo, brows pulling together.
“Yeah,” Cassian says. “We’ve been having some problems while you were out. We figured it’s because you’ve been in one place all this time, but—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nathaniel cuts in smoothly. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“No, of course it matters.” I fold my arms across my chest. “If it’s about me, I want to know now.”
Nathaniel’s gaze meets mine. “It’s not the most pressing thing.”
I open my mouth to argue—
—but the door to the common area creaks open.
Talon strides in, drenched in sweat, sleeves shoved up his forearms. There’s a streak of something dark smeared along his cheek.
It could be dirt. Could be blood. He strips off his gloves and tosses them onto the table beside Cassian with a heavy smack before dropping into a chair like he’s clocking out of a twelve-hour battle shift.
“Sorry I’m late,” he mutters, dragging his wrist across his forehead. “They’re un-fucking-relentless.” He turns toward me. “Welcome back, Little Grim.”
And… his demeanor hits me sideways.
Not in the angry, barbed way I expected.
Not cold. Not bitter. Not resentful.
Worse.
Indifferent.
He’s acting like nothing happened at all. Like I disappeared for half a second and just stepped back into the room before anyone even registered a pause.
The pit in my stomach goes molten.
I don’t know why it bothers me. I thought he was the one leaving those small, soft things for me in the ICU.
Was I wrong?
I lean back into the sofa slowly, watching him without blinking, waiting to see if there’s… anything else. There’s nothing.
“What’s un-fucking-relentless?” I ask finally.
He doesn’t answer right away. He grabs the canteen off the table and downs half of it like he hasn’t had water in hours. His throat works under the swallow. Then he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and finally says, flatly:
“Crows.”
I blink. “Crows?”
“Yeah. Just like last time,” he says—and for some reason he rushes those words, like he’s trying to file the whole issue into nothing to see here. “But they’re different lately. There are more of them. And they’re not random anymore. These bastards are fucking organized.”
I glance at Nathaniel, but he’s just watching Talon with that unreadable, patient expression of his. Cassian’s leaning forward slightly in his chair, elbows on his knees.
“Organized how?” I ask.
“They follow us,” Talon says. “Not just here. Out on runs, too. They perch where we can see them, but never close enough to hit. Always in pairs or groups. Staring.” His jaw flexes. “It’s fucking unnerving.”
“You said before that crows gather where she is,” Nathaniel says. “So it may be no more than that. I don’t find it that pressing.”
My spine prickles.
Yes, crows have always hovered near me. They nested in the willow like sentries. They littered roofs around the hospital, thick as smoke. Pain and I couldn’t make it five minutes without one swooping down like it wanted a front-row seat to my misery.
But this…?
They’re following them. Not me. Them.
That’s new.
Does this tie into what Pain warned me about? The “others watching me”?
“I don’t think they’re mine,” I say, slow and careful. “If they were mine, they wouldn’t be tailing you like surveillance drones. They’d just… exist near me. Orbit me. They wouldn’t track you.”
Nathaniel’s expression barely shifts. “Perhaps now that you’re different,” he replies, “they’re responding to that difference. We’ve all seen you changing—rapidly and without a clear pattern.”
“Maybe,” I say, though my gut disagrees. “I still think it’s worth looking into.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Talon chimes in. “I’ve been looking. Ravens and crows belong to Grim lore. Ravens bond to the Reaper; crows drift around the periphery. That’s all there is in the books.”
He tosses his empty canteen onto the table. The metal clank says end of discussion.
Except… no. It doesn’t.
Either the crows have successfully bullied Talon into a genuine mood shift, or something is clawing around under his ribs hard enough to shake him.
Why the hell is he in such a sour mood?
“Either way,” he adds, leaning back in his chair, “I’m telling you, this isn’t the usual fluttering around. These fuckers are acting like it’s their personal mission to fuck with me.”
I sink further into the couch.
The room goes quiet for a moment.
Nathaniel breaks the silence first. “We keep watching them. If it escalates, we escalate. That’s all we can do for now.”
Then Cassian turns his head. “Meanwhile,” he says, voice low, “we should talk about plans.”
And then all three of them look at me.
Not look.
Assess.
Weigh. Measure. Judge.
“We want to know if you’re in.”
My pulse kicks once. “In what?”
Nathaniel leans forward, elbows on his knees, the book now forgotten entirely.
“The work,” he says quietly. “The hunts. The kills.” His gaze doesn’t waver.
“We were doing it before you. We’ll keep doing it after.
But with you…” A flicker of something—hope, fear, belief, doom—moves behind his eyes. “With you, it changes what’s possible.”
He glances once toward Talon.
“No one’s going to blame you if you walk away, Little Grim,” Talon says in a tone too flat to be casual.
And that’s when it hits me.
This is not a conversation about logistics.
This isn’t strategy.
This is… an invitation?
They think the act is done, the curtain dropped, and now they’re asking if I plan to take a bow with them or leave the stage. If I’m going to officially stitch myself into their mission of righteous slaughter.
Gods.
Nathaniel’s gaze is a needlepoint. Cassian looks like he’s already gearing up for the fight he’ll start if I say no.
And Talon, leaning back like he couldn’t care less, has tension ghosting along his jawline that betrays the truth: he’s braced. Waiting to be disappointed. Or relieved. Or both.
So I lean forward, copy Nathaniel’s hunter-poised posture, let my eyes drift across all three of them.
“Actually…” I start, pursing my lips. “There’s something you should know.”
I swallow once.
“I wasn’t just… gone. Death pulled me into the void.” Beat. “Again.”
Nathaniel goes statue-still. Which is saying something, considering “statue-still” is his baseline.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“He told me the wraith wasn’t the last one,” I say. “There will be more. A lot more.”
Silence. The kind that feels like the floor just dropped out from under us.
“And,” I continue, because why stop now, “the kid who healed me? That was my raven. In human form. His name is Pain—which is honestly the most accurate name I could have given him. He’s not some random Grim Reaper who wandered into our situation and decided to help.
He’s mine. Part of me. The part that now walks around as a snarky teenage boy judging my existence harder than any of you ever have or could. ”
The three of them don’t even blink.
“I mean, I even talked with him right after Nathaniel left me in the room. Before I went into the ICU room you guys set up for me. A really amazing room by the way, so thanks for that. It might have been the best thing I’ve walked into since…
well, since not dying. But anyway, Pain told me something else—turns out he’s been doing my Grim Reaper job for me ever since I got a body, and uh…
That’s not really over for me either. The dead don’t really stop dying, huh? ”
No one laughs.
No one even breathes.
They just stare at me like I’ve turned them all to stone with a single sentence.
Which, fine. Call me Medusa. I’m the one who dropped the gaze-paralyzing truth bomb.
But that isn’t the part that’s making my stomach drop.
Because here’s the thing I’ve learned, after all this time tangled up with my monsters who believe they’re righteous:
There is nothing, nothing, these three worship more than freedom… and justice.
And what I just dropped in their laps?
It’s the opposite of both.