Chapter 26
The highway looked different in the morning. Tamer, somehow.
Greg walked south along the shoulder toward the accident site, hands in his pockets. Skid marks scored the asphalt in long, dark arcs where tires had locked and vehicles had spun. The median barrier was dented and scraped, the metal peeled back in places where impacts had buckled it.
Cars rolled over the skid marks like they were just another part of the surface.
Greg stopped walking when he reached the stretch of median where the silver sedan had crumpled.
This was the spot where Jessica's soul had separated from her body.
There should have been a reaper there, standing beside her, holding her hand. Telling her it was going to be okay, the way Greg had told Marco Reyes-Ybarra it was going to be okay.
But Greg had been thirty yards away with his knees on the asphalt and his hands on Dustin's face, and he hadn't even remembered Jessica existed until the window was closed.
What kind of reaper was he?
Greg tried to shake the thought.
He had to find his clipboard. This was where he'd set it down.
But it wasn't here anymore.
Greg looked left. Right. He walked ten paces south and ten paces north. He checked the shoulder and the grass beyond it.
Nothing.
Had someone taken it?
But why would they?
And what was Greg going to do now?
Without his clipboard, he would have to return to HQ.
Was that why it wasn't here anymore? Because Morrith wanted him to come back and face him?
Panic rose like a sharp, prickly thing in Greg's throat. There was nothing he could say to his supervisor. No way he could explain—
“Looking for this?”
Greg spun around.
A man was sitting on the guardrail ten feet away, holding Greg's clipboard.
He hadn't been there a second ago. Greg was certain of that. He'd walked past that exact stretch of guardrail moments ago and it had been empty.
The man looked ordinary enough. Early thirties. Brown hair, brown eyes. He was wearing slacks and a button-down shirt and a bow tie patterned with… were those small rubber ducks?
“Who are you?” Greg asked.
“Noah,” the man said pleasantly. “And you're Grigoreth, aren't you? Field Reaper, first solo assignment. Currently...” He glanced at Greg's translucent hands. “Having a rough week.”
“How do you have my clipboard?”
“I picked it up.” Noah turned the clipboard over in his hands, examining it with casual interest. “You left it on a highway. That seemed careless for someone whose bodily stability depends on it.”
“I was—” Greg stopped. He'd been about to say I was dealing with an emergency, but the emergency had been Dustin, and explaining that to a stranger felt like exposing a wound. “I need it back. Please.”
“Of course.” Noah didn't hand it over. “In a moment.”
“I don't have a moment. I'm dissolving.”
“I can see that. It looks uncomfortable.” Noah studied him. “You've been dissolving since yesterday afternoon, and yet you're still here.” He tilted his head. “Why do you think that is?”
Greg licked his lips. How did this Noah person know so much?
He wasn't mortal, he couldn't be.
“Are you from Oversight?”
“Not exactly.”
“Are you a reaper?”
“No.”
“Then what are you?”
“Curious.” Noah smiled. A car rushed by at high speed and the wind stirred his hair. “I'm not anything you have to fear. Just answer the question.”
The question… right.
Greg was still here because…
Because Dustin held him together last night.
Because Dustin's hands on his face and Dustin's voice saying stay with me had been enough to reverse what should have been irreversible.
Because even now, forty miles away, something about the fact that Dustin was waiting for him—that there was a place to go back to, a person expecting him—was keeping the edges from fraying all the way.
“I'm here because I have a reason to be here,” he said.
“And that's why you need your clipboard back?”
“Yes.”
“And what will you do with it once you have it?”
“I'll...” Greg started, and then the words stalled.
He couldn't lie and say he'd go back to work. He could never go back to work now. He'd known that when he left this highway without his clipboard. Maybe he'd even known it in the ice cream parlor, when he'd wanted a kiss more than he'd wanted to get his job done.
Noah watched him with patient, unreadable eyes.
“I just don't want to dissolve,” Greg said honestly. “I need more time.”
“Time for what?”
“To figure out what's protecting Dustin. Something is interfering with the natural order and I was assigned to—”
“Grigoreth.” Noah said his name gently, but the gentleness had something firm to it. “I'm not asking what you were assigned to do. I'm asking what you want time for.”
The highway hummed beside them. A truck roared past, shaking the guardrail, and Noah didn't flinch. Greg's edges rippled in the displaced air and he pressed his hands against his thighs to keep them solid.
“I want to protect him,” Greg said quietly. “I want more time with him.”
There it was. The raw, stupid, terrifying truth.
Greg wanted to go back to the motel. He wanted to sit across from Dustin at a restaurant and watch him explain what a taco was. He wanted to exist in the same space as someone who made him feel like existing was worth the effort.
Noah studied him for a moment. Then he smiled.
“Good.” He held out the clipboard.
Greg took it. The moment his fingers closed around it, he felt more solid. The anchor caught and held, pulling him back into definition, his edges sharpening, his hands going opaque. The relief was so sudden and so total that his knees almost buckled.
He stood there clutching the clipboard to his chest with both hands, breathing hard, solid.
“Thank you,” he managed.
“Don't thank me yet.” Noah slid off the guardrail and stood. “You said you want to find out what's protecting your mortal. I think you've been looking in the wrong place.”
Greg frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Dustin wasn't the only person who made unwise decisions in the wake of Tyler's death.”
“What? Who else?”
“That's for you to find out, but I'm sure you will.” Noah straightened his bow tie.
Greg's mind was racing. Who was Noah, and who was he talking about? Who was protecting Dustin?
He had a sudden idea.
Could it be—?
Before Greg could voice his question, Noah was gone.
He'd vanished just as suddenly as he'd appeared, leaving Greg behind with his clipboard, staring at the empty stretch of guardrail where a man with a rubber duck bow tie had been standing three seconds ago.
Greg lifted his clipboard to glance at his messages. He had three of them from Morrith. All were written in caps-lock.
He should probably read them.
Probably.
Or maybe he should just get back to Dustin.
He started ambling back toward the gas station.
He didn't make it far before he saw a figure approach.
Valerie was walking along the highway shoulder, picking her way through the gravel with an expression of deep personal offense at the terrain.
“There you are.” She crossed her arms, looking approximately as irritated as the last time she'd been sent to fetch him.
“You were looking for me?” Greg asked.
Valerie's face was taken over by a look of full exasperation. “Was I—of course I was looking for you!”
“Sorry,” Greg said, resisting the urge to scratch the back of his neck. “I was having a chat with a man named Noah. He had my clipboard.”
“A man named Noah?”
“He was wearing a bow tie with ducks on it.”
“Naturally.” She didn't ask follow-up questions about Noah, which was either a sign that she knew exactly who he was talking about or that she'd given up on any of this making sense. “Morrith is about to pop a vein. I've been covering for you since yesterday.”
“You have? I'm sorry.”
“You should be. I told him you were conducting essential fieldwork in an undisclosed location. He asked what kind of fieldwork. I said classified. He asked by whom. I said you.” She exhaled. “He didn't love that.”
“Valerie…”
“I also told him your clipboard was damaged and that's why you weren't responding to messages. Which was absolutely plausible until thirty seconds ago when you picked it up and all three of his messages showed as received.” She gave him a pointed look. “You're welcome.”
Greg didn't know what to say. She'd repeatedly lied for him to their supervisor.
“Why?” he asked.
Valerie's mouth thinned. She glanced at the highway, at the skid marks.
“Jessica Torres,” she said.
Greg went still.
“I found her.” Valerie's voice lost its edge. “Yesterday. After you left. She was confused and frightened and she kept asking if someone could call her mom.”
Greg's chest caved in. That was his fault. He should have been there.
“I guided her through,” Valerie said. “She won't be earthbound.”
The relief hit Greg so hard that his vision blurred. He pressed his hand over his eyes, under his glasses, and breathed.
Jessica wasn't stuck. She wasn't wandering the highway, confused and alone. Valerie had found her and done what Greg was supposed to do. What Greg had forgotten to do because the only thing that had existed for him in that moment was Dustin bleeding on the asphalt.
“Thank you,” he managed.
“Don't thank me. Do better.” Valerie's expression now landed somewhere between exasperation and reluctant fondness.
Was she fond of him?
When had that happened?
“So,” Valerie said before Greg could speak. “Let's talk about your fieldwork.”
“Um.”
“Specifically the fieldwork you were conducting at that motel.”
Greg closed his eyes. “How do you know about the motel?”
“I'm a very bored reaper with centuries of experience,” Valerie said by way of explanation. “And you stayed in a room that only had one bed.”
“I can explain.”
“You don't have to explain, I already understand. Just give me the details.”
“There are no details!”
“You smell like a human, Grigoreth.”
Greg wanted the highway to open up and swallow him. “Um,” he said again, intelligently.
“You smell like cologne and sweat and something that I'm going to generously describe as exertion.” Valerie's lips drew into a gleeful smile. “Did you sleep with your assignment?”
“That's not relevant.”
Valerie clapped her hands together. “I can't believe you actually did it!”
“It was— there were extenuating circumstances—”
“What kind of extenuating circumstances lead to sleeping with the mortal you were sent to reap?”
“He kissed me first!”
Valerie stared at him.
Greg stared back, mortified.
A truck blew past and ruffled both their hair.
“Okay,” Valerie said slowly. “This was so worth covering for you. You actually went and did it, you absolute dog!” She smiled brightly once more.
“I expect a full write-up at the end of all of this, but first—” She dropped her hands and her expression sobered.
“Morrith isn't just annoyed anymore. Your missed collection triggered a review.
Oversight is asking about Dustin's file and why it's still marked Pending after this long.”
Greg's dread sat like a stone in his gut. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough that Morrith can't sit on it much longer.” Valerie's gaze turned sympathetic. “He vouched for you once. He's not going to do it again. Whatever your next move is, you need to make it fast.”
“Okay.” Greg took a deep breath, processing. “I think I know where to look,” he said.
Valerie nodded. She didn't ask where. Maybe she didn't want to know.
“Be careful, Grigoreth,” she said.
“I will,” Greg promised, feeling oddly touched.
Valerie gave him one last look, and then she teleported away, back to HQ.
Greg stood alone on the highway shoulder.
He wanted to panic. He very badly wanted to panic.
But this was not the time for panic. This was the time to act.
He had his glasses and his clipboard. He had Dustin waiting for him.
He could do this.