Chapter 2
Ihate feeling weak.
No. Hate is too soft. I abhor it. I want to dig my fingers under my ribs and peel the feeling out of me like rot. Maybe it’s because I spent too much of my first life being everyone’s favorite chew toy for fate, but helplessness hits me like a phobia now—a full-body get-it-off-get-it-off reaction.
And of all the times for it to hit?
Now.
Trying to walk to a bathroom.
A bathroom.
Imagine being undone by a hallway. I survived death, undeath, a wraith, cosmic bullshit, and here lies my downfall: twelve sad feet of linoleum.
My legs drag like they’re shackled, and I really don’t want to think they won’t get better on their own, because, heaven help me, if I need to suck some dick just to regain the vitality of the living, I’d rather drop dead.
Sucking dick takes a lot of effort.
You need to use your muscles right. The tongue, the neck, fuck, even the biceps. Holding your balance while you’re on your knees? No joke.
And right now?
It’s like I’m made out of soggy tissue paper.
All I can hope is that I’ll magically regenerate on my own, and push all thoughts of servitude on my knees to later.
One foot, then the other. Pathetic, but it’s progress.
By the time I drag myself in, I’m greeted by cracked tile and the familiar scent of mildew and bleach. I grab the sink for balance, stare at my reflection in the speckled mirror, and try to ignore the way my hands are trembling.
“Pain, are you here?” I mutter at my reflection. Talking to myself in solitude is familiar. The difference now? Myself might actually sass me back.
“If I find out you’re lurking and enjoying this like some invisible creep, I swear I will—”
“—what? Scold me to death?”
I whirl. Or, correction, I pivot at the blistering pace of a mildly motivated snail.
And there he is.
Standing behind me like he spawned from my irritation alone.
Dark eyes, dark hair, dark aura. Not really looking like a teenager should, to be honest, but a close enough copy. Now that I know what he really is, I realize that his appearance is just a reflection of his inner self.
Skin pale enough to make the shadows under his eyes seem painted on? Hair falling into his face in jagged black pieces? posture all cool indifference?
The baby is feeling sorry for itself.
And, well… since the baby’s a part of me, that must be saying something about me. But I decide to ignore that part.
“Cut your wings off,” I finish, my hands finding a wall instead of the sink. “That’s what I will do.”
He shrugs one bony shoulder. “See any wings on me, Skye?”
I glance over at him. Alright, maybe I don’t see any on him, but I’m sure they are somewhere there.
“Fuck off,” I say. “Once you turn back into a bird, and you will, I’ll pluck you feather by feather and practice my carving skills on you. How’s that?”
He cocks a brow.
“You’ve been spending too much time with your little murder club. You’re getting fucked up in the head.”
What did I say just now? Myself might sass me back, and will do just that.
“Cut the crap.” I narrow my eyes at him. “You fucked me over. I know that much. I heard you disappeared when I blacked out and lay dead out there.”
I vaguely flap my hand in the area where I came from.
He slowly mirrors my squint.
“Maybe I just didn’t feel like babysitting a corpse.”
My palms go clammy with rage.
“Forgot this corpse—” I pat my chest. “—is you?”
Remember when I said that this rogue part of me might not want to help me? I guess we’re getting a first-hand display of that. Turns out I am my own tormentor when the role is vacant.
How much disappointment can one human soul contain before it detonates?
“I didn’t forget anything,” Pain counters. “You, on the other hand…”
He turns and steps into the hall. On cue, the light there starts flickering. I am absolutely not going after him.
“Hey!” I shout after him. “Get back here, you little—”
Pain does not.
Of course he doesn’t.
He’s living up to the damn name.
He pauses just outside the doorway, half his face lit in the weak, jaundiced glow from the single working bulb in the hall, the other half swallowed in shadow.
“Why? So you can keep being ungrateful?” His voice goes scalpel-sharp.
“I saved you from the wraith. Multiple times. I also did your Grim Reaper duties while you were off getting Stockholm-syndromed by your kidnappers. Then I show up when you call, like hey, maybe she’ll finally appreciate me, only for you to not even recognize me.
I’ve been with you for five years, Skye. ”
For a moment, I’m confused. I just blink at him. Twice.
Then it hits.
Oh.
That time. When we tried to summon the wraith and didn’t know what we were doing and summoned Pain instead. Sure, that tracks. But he expected me to recognize him immediately? Like on sight? In his surprise emo boy form?
“You were a bird for five years,” I tell him flatly. “Forgive me for not sprinting into your arms screaming, ‘Ah yes, my beloved corvid son, how I’ve missed your worm-regurgitating beak.’ How exactly was I supposed to connect the dots there?”
Pain’s lip twitches. “If you’d been paying attention, you would’ve known what I was before Death had to spell it out for you. It was not that hard.”
“Um, excuse me?” I shove off the wall. My knees nearly buckle. “There were bigger problems happening. Even if I did get weird vibes from you, which I did by the way, I was kind of busy thinking I might die every five minutes.”
The shadows in the hall seem to cling to him like they want him back. He leans against the doorframe, all casual posture and razor-edge voice.
“Even now you refuse to own up to it. Is it so difficult for you to admit you made a mistake?”
I laugh, but it’s hollow. “What mistake? You’re acting like some jilted kid when you’re—”
He steps forward. Two inches closer and every coherent thought I’ve ever had evaporates from my head. His eyes lock on mine, and they’re so freaking dark, bottomless, and with the kind of intensity that doesn’t belong to the living world that it kind of throws me off.
“When I’m what?” he asks.
I swallow, my throat clicking.
“...When you’re supposed to be part of me,” I force out. “You and I are one. So what exactly are you blaming me for?”
His voice drops low.
“I am you, Skye. That’s the goddamn problem. But you aren’t me. Not all of me. Because this tiny sliver of myself you’re keeping wrapped in flesh is terrified. You can’t handle the rest. Ever thought of that?”
It caves right into my ribs.
Because… yeah.
Maybe I’ve thought about it.
Maybe I’ve thought about it more than once.
And every time, I’ve hurled that thought straight into a ditch, shoveled dirt over it, and salted the ground so nothing could grow there.
Don’t look.
Don’t acknowledge.
I am fine.
That’s the script.
I perform it flawlessly.
“I handle myself just fine,” I lie, trying to straighten even as my knees threaten to fold.
His gaze sweeps over me in one slow, eviscerating pass, catching every tell: my fingers tightening on themselves, the tremor I can’t hide, the too-shallow breathing. He doesn’t need to say he sees through me. I know he does.
“You survive yourself,” he corrects, stepping in again. “And you call it handling.”
Ouch.
I want to bare my teeth at him, tell him to back off, tell him he doesn’t get to talk to me like this. But I guess, this just tipped my scale of pain I can handle.
“Why are you even here?” I ask instead. “You bailed the second I went under.”
“You called. Thought things would be different this time.” He turns around and walks a few steps down the hall. “But I’m going to leave again. Souls don’t stop dying just because you’re lying around like carrion. The ones tied to your jurisdiction? They stacked up. Somebody had to handle them.”
I freeze.
I’d never… even thought about what happens if a Grim Reaper goes offline. I half-assumed Death just put the universe on pause on the workload, or something.
Apparently the universe just keeps bleeding out. With or without me.
“You didn’t think to tell me?” I call after him.
“You weren’t conscious to hear it.”
“You could’ve… left a note.”
A low, mirthless sound passes for a laugh. He still doesn’t turn. “Oh sure. Let me just use up my precious energy to pick up a pen and give you a little post-it for your comfort. I’m not wasteful like you are.”
“Wasteful,” I repeat, grabbing the doorframe and limping a few steps toward him. “You mean existing? Speaking? Taking up space in ways other than brooding in the nearest shadow?”
He flicks me a sidelong look.
“You call folding yourself in half for three men in a car living?”
I scoff.
This is insane.
I have a working body now. A brand new working body. If I want to fold in half why the hell not? Seems like a way better thing to do than wallowing in self-pity.
“You really want to have this conversation with me?” I ask. “You, my literal fragment, the voyeur hitchhiking behind my eyes for half a decade, are judging me for… having fun?”
He doesn’t blink.
“I’m judging you for making it the center of your universe.”
The words land in me like hooks. Tiny, sharp, painful.
“What?”
He faces forward again. “Just… have some self-respect, maybe? Why them? Talon slut-shamed you three days ago, and you still climbed into the back seat and let him fuck you senseless.”
My mouth opens. Closes.
I… yeah. That happened.
I remember every syllable Talon said.
But when Pain points it out, there’s suddenly nowhere to hide and it seems uglier than in my memory.
My jaw sets. “Thanks for the recap, but that was for the power.”
He laughs yet again.
“Right,” he says. “Power. That’s your catch-all lately, isn’t it? You needed it, so you took it. No matter who it came from. No matter what it cost.”
“It didn’t cost me anything,” I snap.
His gaze cuts to me, narrowed and razor-sharp. “It cost me something.”
I scoff, crossing my arms. “Oh, please. What did it cost you?”
“Dignity.” No hesitation. No softness. “That’s what.”
The breath leaves me faster than I can control.