Chapter Eighteen
Darcy
The first time I died, there was no great white light. No gently trilling harp music. No golden gates.
There was just a corporate hallway with tacky carpet and a busted fluorescent light.
Now, though. Now there’s calloused hands against my face, holding me carefully like I’m made of spun glass. A rough voice calling my name, and a low pulse of warmth that starts in my palms and vibrates out. If I had to choose a death experience, it would be this one. Every time.
Then reality comes rushing up to bite me in the ass, and I know only pain.
“Ow,” I groan, like I’ve fallen and skinned my knee instead of tossed my body in the path of a careening vehicle.
I squint open one eye, raindrops pelting my face.
The storm has let up a little, but not much.
It smells like burnt rubber and car exhaust and that damn song is still playing, too loud, vibrating through my bones where I’m splayed awkwardly across the road.
And Gabriel is kneeling over me, water dripping from his dark hair down his nose. There’s no trace of his curls, flattened by the rain, and his face is—
Well. His face is furious.
“You little fucking idiot,” he seethes. He can’t seem to decide where to settle his hands, moving them over me in a frenzy. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Behind him, Nate appears. He pushes his glasses up his nose, his face less furious. More concerned.
And alive.
I smile.
“I did it,” I whisper.
“Gave me a fucking heart attack? Yeah. You did. Congratulations.”
My head rocks back and forth against the asphalt. “Nate,” I whisper. “He’s okay.”
Gabriel’s hands pause. A deep, rattling sigh presses out of his chest. He’s connecting the dots and figuring out I’ve been lying to him for the better part of two weeks.
“Yeah,” he finally says. “He’s okay.”
“I saved him?”
Gabriel nods. “Yeah, sweetheart. You did.”
I close my eyes, relieved.
I did it. I saved a soul. I didn’t stand to the side and watch a death unfold. I chose a different path and I—
I saved him.
“Everyone is okay?” I ask again, blinking my eyes open. The light hurts, muted as it is. Everything hurts.
Gabriel gives me a look.
“I don’t count,” I half slur. “The car barely hit me.”
“I want you to listen to yourself right now. Barely hit you,” he mutters under his breath. He continues his evaluation, easing his hands over my body. His palms press to my ribs and squeeze. I hiss out a breath and his eyes jump to mine. “Broken?” he asks.
I shake my head. Badly bruised, most likely.
The car was already skidding into the sidewalk when I stepped into the street.
The bumper clipped my hip with enough force to send me sprawling, but it didn’t hit me head-on.
My left side is aching and I can feel abrasions down the length of my back, but they’ll heal themselves over the next couple of hours.
I’ll feel the phantom pain of it for a couple of days, and then—good as new.
One of the few perks of being a dead girl.
“What the hell is going on here?”
I roll my head against the pavement, smiling dazedly. “Oh. Hello, Frank.”
“Hello, Darcy.” He frowns. “Were you just hit by a car?”
“A little bit,” I answer at the same time Gabriel says, “She jumped in front of a car, yes.”
Frank presses his hand over his forehead. He’s wearing his forest-green apron. The one he puts on when he’s making arrangements. I wonder if he could make me a get well soon bouquet. Sunflowers, but dahlias, too. Because I can’t seem to have the light without a little bit of darkness with it.
The thought makes me giggle.
“Has someone called an ambulance?”
“I’ve got her,” Gabriel says. There’s a hint of demand in his voice, some of his Guardian magic slipping through. He shifts so one of his arms is under my shoulders and the other is under my knees.
“I don’t know if you should move her, man.” Nate takes off his glasses and tries to wipe them on the edge of his shirt, but it doesn’t help. The rain is still coming down too hard. “What if she broke her neck or something?”
“My neck isn’t broken,” I offer. “The car hit my hip.”
“Fine. What if your hip is broken?”
The driver finally climbs out of the SUV that’s straddled across the sidewalk. He has a Bluetooth earpiece in and a Red Bull in his hand. I can’t believe this is the guy who was destined to kill Nate.
The universe is so unfair.
“That crazy lady jumped in front of me!” he shouts. “I won’t be held liable!”
Gabriel’s body tenses. I curl my hand around his wrist and feel the press of cold metal against my palm.
His sword.
“Gabriel,” I whisper. “You can’t pull a sword on a mortal.”
But he’s not looking at me. He’s glaring at the driver, his big body curled protectively over mine.
“Why weren’t you paying attention?” he snaps.
The driver glares at Gabriel, his lip curled. “Didn’t you hear me, buddy? This crazy lady ran into the street. She’s got a death wish.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. It croaks out of me, shaking my whole body, making everything hurt. I laugh until tears squeeze out of the corners of my eyes, mixing with the rain that’s still pelting my skin. I laugh until I start to cry, my chest jumping with deep, heaving sobs.
When is the last time I let myself cry? I can’t remember.
Gabriel lifts me from the ground and cradles me against his chest. I turn my face and bury it against his wet T-shirt, embarrassed and overwhelmed and so damn relieved I feel like I’m floating.
I did it. I saved a soul. I can be more than my cloak and scythe.
There’s a quick and hushed conversation between Frank, Nate, and Gabriel that I can’t begin to grasp the specifics of, and then Gabriel is striding down the street, my body tucked to his, my hands fisted in the material of his shirt.
I can’t stop the sounds that are pouring out of me, decades of heartbreak tumbling free.
“You’re all right,” Gabriel says into my hair. There’s a hint of pressure, a kiss brushed against the top of my head. A door creaks, and the rain finally stops. “C’mon, Darcy. You’re okay.”
“I know,” I warble, dragging my hand under my nose.
Gabriel’s pristine white shirt is smeared with dirt and blood.
I realize with a start that it’s probably my blood, useless as it is.
It’s so stupid. Blood without a heartbeat and tears without a functioning automatic nerve system.
It’s always felt like the worst sort of tease.
Fragments of a mortal life I no longer get to have.
I try to wipe the marks off his shirt, but I only make it worse. I can only imagine what I look like right now.
“You look fine,” Gabriel tells me with a huff, climbing up the stairs behind the bar that lead to his apartment. He peers down at me through the muted light. “Well. You look like you’ve been hit by a car.”
A soft laugh eases out of me. My ribs twinge, and I wince.
Gabriel sighs. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
“Okay,” I agree, giving in without the fight he probably expects.
I like how I feel like this, held carefully in the circle of his arms. My magic is flickering in my chest, just like the bar light downstairs.
There was a surge of it when I stepped in front of the truck, and now I’m feeling the aftershocks.
Low rumbles of power that rise and fall like the tide.
I shiver, and Gabriel makes a short, huffed sound of disapproval.
He sets me down on his couch, and I reluctantly untangle my arms from around his neck.
“When you said you wanted to get on your knees for me—” I wince as Gabriel peels the wet jacket from my shoulders. “This isn’t what I expected.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” His shirt is practically translucent, his tattoos dark outlines that bleed through the white material. He pushes his wet hair back over his forehead and scans my body quickly. “Can I use my magic, or is yours going to lash out?”
I check in with my magic, sparking just beneath my skin. It still feels wild. Untamed. Likely on red alert with the physical threat. Death had been so close, but I chased it away.
I hold out my trembling hands and shadows dance between my fingers. I squeeze them into fists and focus until they disappear.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I’m ready.”
Gabriel nods. “I’ll be gentle.”
I’ve felt his magic before. I’ve sensed it in the space between us, humming, like a frequency too low for me to watch.
It’s warm and soft and glowing. Like a blanket, fresh out of the dryer.
Or the way sunlight sifts through the curtains in the morning, crawling across the bedsheets, dust motes dancing in the stillness.
“Where is the worst of it?” he asks.
I touch my hip gently where I collided with the bumper. “Here,” I say. I reach toward my back and touch the top of my shoulder. “Here, too.”
My back feels rubbed raw, the skin burning every time I move. I ease myself up on his couch until I’m sitting at the very edge, holding myself perfectly still.
Gabriel lifts the edge of my sweater, rubbing the material between thumb and forefinger. “Can I—” I watch his throat as he swallows. “I need to see what your back looks like,” he explains. “But I don’t want to hurt you trying to get this shirt off.”
“I know.” I brace myself for the pulse of his magic. “Go ahead. I trust you.”
He stiffens, then relaxes. Like I’ve just handed him a truth he didn’t expect. He circles my wrists and gently places my palms against his chest, his expression so soft I can barely look at him.
His thumbs trace over the backs of my hands. “Hold on to me.”
“Okay.”
His palms drift over me and my shirt slowly disintegrates into nothing. He gives me a half smile. “Not how I expected to be undressing you either, for the record.”
I’d laugh, but I’m too dizzy, my body limp with exhaustion now that the adrenaline has worn off. I let my forehead drop against his chest, right between where my palms are pressed. Where his heart would be beating, if he still had one.