Chapter Seven
Phin
Being on time meant being ten minutes early.
Showing up on time had always been a hallmark of a good work ethic, and I prided myself on giving one hundred percent.
I parked my car. I had fifteen minutes before my workday was supposed to start.
That left five minutes to get from the parking garage to the elevator, which could be slow.
I accounted for that, too. Since I had a meeting with HR first thing, I was even more anal about time management than usual.
Nothing scared me more than HR, except maybe Donn.
Being late only stressed me out, and I was already tense enough.
There was just one tinsy-tiny problem. I couldn’t make myself get out of the car.
I couldn’t even say why, other than the conversation with Ossy replaying in my head.
If the entire reaper department had quit, as I suspected it had, then I was up a shit creek without a paddle.
My grandfather used to use that idiom all the time.
It was gross but appropriate to the situation I was in.
That all the reapers were in, it seemed.
What I didn’t know was why. Ossy had said he would tell me as soon as we saw each other again, but I wasn’t holding my breath for that to happen.
Ossy was unreliable at best. He didn’t like it when things were uncomfortable.
Ossy had always been a good employee, though.
I couldn’t count on him, but the Bureau had always been able to, even if he was a little late some of the time.
Which meant that if he wouldn’t tell me over the phone and the other reapers wouldn’t talk to me, I had to find out on my own.
It made my stomach twist in knots. Whatever the reapers were doing, they had left me out of it.
Was I ever part of the Reaper family? Ossy had called me Phin Reaper during our conversation last night.
The others had made the change years ago.
None of them had asked me whether I wanted to.
It had always made me feel separate from them.
Well, that, and the fact that I was in the office, not in the field.
Was I so easily forgotten, so insignificant that the entire department had left me behind like trash? I must have been, because no one was answering my calls, not even Morgana.
Morgana’s silence hurt the worst, even more than Ossy’s flakiness.
With Ossy, I expected it. I’d grown used to the pain.
I’d never been important enough to truly matter to him anyway, but Morgana and I had worked closely together.
I thought we were friends, to the point that we’d built a family of sorts. Apparently not.
I kept a pack of travel tissues in my car and grabbed one when my eyes filled with tears.
Never let them see you cry. That was what my grandma always said. I’d learned never to let anyone see me lose it. Not even Ossy had ever seen how he twisted my guts into knots and made my heart break a little each time he ditched me for waves and a good party.
I needed to get myself under control. Hale was my friend, but he was also a notorious gossip. The last thing I wanted was to be fodder for the office.
Buck up, buttercup. Get in there and give the day hell.
The pep talk helped a bit.
When I had myself together, I headed into the office.
Getting past Hale undetected was a minor miracle. I made it across the lobby and pressed the elevator button before he even noticed me.
As soon as Hale saw me, his eyes widened, and he nearly ran across the lobby.
I sighed. I’d already spent too long wallowing in self-pity. I couldn’t afford to linger in the lobby gossiping with Hale, not that I liked doing it. But this morning, I especially didn’t.
I shook my head and pointed to the elevator without stopping. “I’m running right on time, Hale. I can’t talk. I’ll be late. Sorry.”
He kept coming at me anyway, dogging my heels. “You’re going to want to hear this.”
I doubted it. All I wanted was to get to HR at the specified time so I wouldn’t get a demerit. I’d never had one before, and I didn’t want to collect any anytime soon. It had been a long time since I’d had to go to HR.
He grabbed my arm. “A reaper came in today. With Ezul.”
Hale widened his eyes. “The elevator stopped at your floor.”
How likely was it that Ossy did what he said he would do? Fair to middling, for sure.
I let myself hope that someone had taken two seconds to think of me and my well-being, even though I had not questioned it with any seriousness before that moment.
“They probably had paperwork to catch up on.” It was a plausible explanation, but I didn’t believe it any more than Hale did. Still, revealing that I knew anything at all, even the bits I knew and suspected were true, was a bad idea. My gut told me to play dumb.
Hale shrugged. “I heard they all quit their jobs, even Morgana.”
“It could be just rumors.” Ossy had planted the seed of doubt in my mind on the phone last night, but it was growing with each passing moment.
“So you haven’t heard anything?” So Hale was on a fishing expedition. He wouldn’t get anything from me. I certainly wasn’t telling him that Ossy and I had talked a couple of times, or that I hadn’t spoken to any of the others, including Morgana.
“I’m sure Morgana will explain what’s going on soon. They must all have a ton of fieldwork.” Not that I’d ever seen Morgana go into the field for as long as I’d worked with her, but I wasn’t about to tell Hale that.
“I’ve noticed a lot of souls hanging out in the lobby of my apartment building.” Sometimes I forgot that Hale was special. He could see souls just as well as any reaper. “Maybe more people are dying than the projected amount.”
“Maybe.” The fewer words I said, the better.
Who was listening to our conversation? I never cared before.
Working for a god, even Death, I knew there was a distinct possibility he listened to every word I said, but I was just a lowly office assistant.
I wasn’t anyone important. Donn had no reason to care about what I did, so it hadn’t bothered me.
Until I was standing in the lobby, gossiping about my division with a human who would most certainly spread anything I said around.
I wanted to study every corner, just in case the god of death had cameras to spy on his employees, including me. It was a ridiculous thought, considering he didn’t need human contraptions. The building was Donn’s creation. He had eyes and ears everywhere.
Maybe the meeting with HR would fill in some of the gaps.
“Which reaper came in?” I already knew the answer, but I had to be sure.
“Osiris.” Hale bit his lip. “He’s the hot surfer.”
I sighed. I was well aware of who Ossy was, and I knew better than anyone how attractive he was. “Are you sure it was Ossy?”
“Long, bleach-blond hair. T-shirt and board shorts.” Yep, Hale had captured Ossy in two perfect sentences.
“He’s with Ezul?”
“Watched them walk right in.” Hale held out his arm, gesturing from the front doors to the elevators, as if we weren’t standing right next to them.
The left elevator dinged to life, and the doors slid open. I hurried on board as if my ass was on fire.
“Have a good day, Hale.” It was a paltry way to end our conversation, and I knew it. But so far, the morning was shaping up to be different from the usual. It made me wonder whether Ossy was right and my life really was in danger.