Chapter 6 #2
“He needs his friends to take over,” the youngest supplies.
And goddamn, there’s venom in their voices that spooks me from the start. As much as I hated Rhea showing up and threatening me, she did seem to restrain her disdain compared to these three.
The first thing I register when I see them is a whole lot of unfiltered hate.
Most of it aimed at Talon, it seems.
“What’s the matter, Talon?” Buzz Cut drawls. “Talking to three dead girls is too much for you? Rhea says you love talking to Grim Reapers.”
“Apparently only if he can touch them,” Braids says.
The youngest tilts her head. “Aren’t you a manwhore?”
“Okay…” I wave my hand. “Hi. Hello. Grim Reaper convention. Great. Love this for us. Is there, uh, a sign-in sheet, or did you skip that part and go straight to verbal assault?”
The one with braids looks at me. Her raven shifts on the pipe, claws rasping metal. Her gaze moves down my body and back up again, lingering on my flushed cheeks, Cassian’s hand on me, and my lack of shoes.
“You’re Skye, right?” she says. “The Grim Reaper Talon passes around to his friends.”
I drop my head and plant my hands on my hips. I think I just got dizzy again from that. Then I lift my head and look at Talon.
“I don’t fucking know,” he mouths, shaking his head.
Alright. So it seems like Rhea’s friends could be Pain’s age-mates—if they all teleported here from a parallel universe. Not only are they just as hateful, they have even fewer brakes on those sharp tongues, and clapping back would be… unclassy.
Out of the four of us, Talon, Nathaniel, and I seem to grasp that immediately. But there’s one particular person who clearly needs to learn the hard way.
“That’s enough,” Cassian says, walking toward them.
He looks the way he always does when he gets serious: chest puffed, body tight and military-straight, face set into that grim, no-nonsense mask.
Too bad three sets of eyes slice toward him without a hint of fear.
“Oh, the handler speaks,” Buzz Cut snarls.
“Be careful, Cassian,” the braided one says. “We have a thousand little claws at our command. Be nice, or we’ll tell the crows to attack your precious human Grim.”
“You wouldn’t like that,” the last one says, and the other two echo her like a chorus.
Cassian shifts just enough to put himself in front of me, blocking their view. It says: I’ll break you in half before I let you lay a hand on her.
Buzz Cut smirks. “Touchy.”
“You don’t want to find out how touchy,” Cassian replies.
And in my mind, I can already see it: him taking two steps back, procuring the scythe-forged dagger, and throwing the thing into one of their throats.
There’s nothing, nothing, stopping Cassian from slashing all three of them for insulting me, except Rhea’s threat.
And in my head, it’s fifty-fifty whether he decides that threat is worth respecting.
“Okay,” I say, swallowing down my nerves. “Does someone want to tell me what exactly is going on? Who are you three?”
All three pairs of eyes swing to me.
I really miss the needle.
“Rhea sent us to help,” one of them says. “Either that, or to torment you four if you don’t listen.”
Cassian tenses up all over again. I reach for him, tug him by the clothes, and half-force him to fall back into our line instead of standing there like an angry tree. Half, because it wouldn’t work if he didn’t want to comply. He’s too damn strong for that.
“Oh, we’ll listen.” I smile.
None of the girls smile back.
“One of your boy toys doesn’t seem too eager,” she comments.
I shoot Cassian a look.
“He’ll come around,” I say.
Cassian answers with a huff, crossing his arms over his chest and, most likely, plotting how the hell we could collapse the entire afterlife in the next five minutes.
“How can you three… help us?” I ask as politely as I can manage. See, my usual response to a mouthy brat is to be even mouthier right back. Can’t really do that here.
“We tell you what we know, and you four go kill our murderers,” Buzz Cut replies. “Or at least that’s the plan. We’re still deciding whether it should go down like that.”
Then her gaze cuts to Talon.
“We should just make you hurt for what you did to Rhea,” Braids says.
The words hit Talon like a blow.
Our bond spikes.
His guilt punches straight through my chest. I have to inhale carefully to keep from choking on it.
“Stop,” I say. “You’re not being fair here.”
Buzz Cut’s gaze slices to me. “Fair?”
Her voice drops.
“How is any of this fair?” she asks softly. “Rhea dies. She gets chained to Death. She drags souls across for years. And your slimy boyfriend gets to forget all about her and not even give her a funeral. Fucking asshole.”
Talon’s face goes somewhere else—somewhere small and hurt and familiar. I’ve only seen it a few times, usually right before he throws a joke over the wound to cover it.
But he doesn’t joke now.
“What do you mean?” he asks. “I remembered Rhea. I never forgot her.”
“Oh, spare us,” the youngest says.
Okay. Yup. In their heads, a verdict has already fallen on Talon, and they clearly hold a grudge against him on Rhea’s behalf. Funny, considering Rhea was just making buttery, loving eyes at him, but alright. I chalk it up to the age they died at.
“You’re angry,” I say, nodding like I understand. “On Rhea’s behalf. But she asked you to tell us more about your murderers so we can help her achieve her goal—whatever it is,” I add silently. “So how about we just… calm down and get to it, yeah?”
I lift my hands, palms out.
“I was murdered too,” I try again, looking for a common ground. “I know how it is to break free.”
A beat.
A small flicker goes through them.
“Also, you may not like us,” I continue. “But we have experience in getting rid of people who shouldn’t be on the living plane anymore.”
Then the one with the braids sighs.
“You guys know nothing about Rhea or what she wants,” she says. “But you’re right. We need you.”
“Doesn’t mean Talon gets a pass, though,” the youngest murmurs.
I swallow, careful.
That’s… a win, I guess.
Braids exhales slowly, her shoulders dropping a fraction. “Rhea sent us ahead,” she says. “Those married monsters have routines. We’ve been tracking them for a while.”
The youngest pushes off the wall and strides toward the table on the far side of the room. There’s a map spread out there now, courtesy of Cassian and Talon, I suppose. It’s weighted down with a mug and a knife.
She points at a stretch of highway marked in Cassian’s tight handwriting, lining her finger up along a route. Whenever she gets too close, her finger passes through the map and the table, and she has to correct herself. Then she glances at us.
“Are you going to come here or not?” she asks. “I can’t bring this goddamn map to you, you know?”
Cassian gets there first, naturally. He circles the table and his eyes glue to the map. Nathaniel drifts to his shoulder, close enough to see everything, but staying as close to me as possible just in case. Talon hangs back half a step.
I lean in over the map and force my attention down.
“Okay,” I say. “Show us.”
The youngest taps the highway again, then drags her finger along it. Or tries to. Her fingertip ghosts through the paper, the ink, the wood beneath, and she swears under her breath.
“For fuck’s sake,” she mutters, then re-aims with exaggerated care, hovering a hair’s breadth above the map like she’s tracing in air. “Here. This stretch. They drive it once every three months, more or less.”
“They’ll be there in three days,” Buzz Cut adds from the wall.
The area they’re showing is at least a two-day drive from here. And it’s the middle of the woods. I look up and catch Nathaniel’s gaze.
“Okay…” I drawl.
He cocks a brow.
No one ever knows everything when they go in for a kill, huh? Still. Two days away, deep woods, terrain we know nothing about? Sounds like the perfect place for something unknown to crawl out of the dark.
“They drive a white van,” the girl continues, “with fake plates. They like gas stations that don’t have working cameras.
Motels with side exits. They always pick girls traveling alone, or with one other female companion.
They never take from groups, and they never take anyone who looks like they have someone waiting for them. In other words, they’re paranoid.”
Now my three guys exchange glances.
“Why the woods?” Cassian asks. “What’s up with that?”
Braids looks up with a flat stare.
“That’s where they burn the bodies, of course,” she says.
“That’s where you’re going to burn them instead,” the youngest supplies.
I get dizzy again.
I mean, yeah. Sure. Let me just find my matches.
Not a big deal. Right?
Ugh… who the hell came up with this plan?