Death Becomes Me (Call Me Grim Book 2) (16 page)

“Yeah. I saw
Finding Nemo
.”

“What’s that, now?” He gives me a quizzical frown. “
Finding Nemo
?”

“It’s a cartoon.” I shake my head dismissively. “Never mind.”

Nicholas shrugs and continues. “I’m afraid that if I disrupt the natural order of things by closing the Gateways, I’d hurt both Abaddon’s kind and humankind. That could potentially be disastrous. I mean, universe-shatteringly disastrous. Could you imagine blindly destroying life and death as we know it, just because of a hunch?”

It seems like a pretty damned good hunch, but I shake my head. I’m usually full of words and opinions, but they seem to have left me now.

“There’s one more thing. It’s a less natural and more supernatural reason.” He stands from his chair and walks across the kitchen. His shoulders tense as he places the mug in the sink. “I’ve never been a spiritual man. Even after I should have died,” he says. “But I’ve always believed that the great thing about science is you don’t have to know everything.” He turns around and meets my eyes. The moral conflict pulls his face down and bends his shoulders. “What if by closing all of the Gateways I ended up closing off the gates of Heaven?”

“Oh,” I manage to say. Now, I get it.

His eyes drift over my shoulder and glaze with thought. “Even if I had thousands of Scramblers, I still need some way to prove Abaddon is what I think he is: a predator. Until then, I’m afraid I’m stuck.”

We stay in relative silence while I finish my milk—me lost in my thoughts, and Nicholas lost in his. The milk might have done its job if I’d sat in the kitchen alone and drank it, but something tells me my insomnia will likely be worse now.

“Do me a favor, Nicholas.” I place my empty mug in the sink. “Don’t mention your predator theory to Aaron, all right? He took his job as a Reaper very seriously. If he found out he’s been feeding souls to a monster for the last forty years…Well, I don’t think he’d handle it well.”

“All right,” Nicholas says. “It’ll just be between you and me.”

“Thanks.” I head toward the stairs. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Aaron’s soft snores echo into the hallway as I tiptoe by his room. I go to my bedroom door and stop, one hand on the knob, and listen to his breathing. In and out. In and out. There’s something comforting about it. Soothing. Hypnotizing.

The milk is not going to help me sleep, I know that. But maybe listening to Aaron’s breathing will. Maybe nestling my body next to his will. Maybe feeling his heartbeat under my hand will.

His door opens with a gentle push and I’m surrounded by the scent of him. I breathe it in, letting his aroma fill me and relax my coiled muscles. I pad across the room to his bed, slip out of my fuzzy slippers, and drop my blanket to the floor. The mattress squeaks as I climb in. Aaron stirs, but his eyes remain closed. I scoot closer, laying my head on his shoulder and placing my hand on his chest.

He jumps at my touch and lifts his head to see who’s cuddling up to him in the dark.

“It’s just me,” I whisper.

“Oh.” His eyes drift closed as he relaxes back on his pillow. He wraps his arms around me, holding me close. “Is everything okay?” he mumbles.

“I’m fine. Just insomnia.”

“Better now?” His voice gets slower, more slurred with sleep, with every word.

“Yeah. I’m better now.” I kiss his bare chest. Not to be a tease, but because it’s what’s in front of my lips. He smiles.

“Good.” His breathing slows and drags into a snore. I close my eyes to try and follow him into Sleepytown. But before I get there, he mumbles, “Libbi, I lo—zzzzzzz…”

My eyes snap opened. What? Was he about to say he loves me?

No. He was probably going to say something like ‘I loathe insomnia’ or ‘I love Renee’.

Stop being ridiculous. He wouldn’t tell me he loves someone else, no matter how sleepy he was. He’s not a complete jerk. So, what was he about to say?

I almost elbow him to ask, but stop myself. What if he
was
about to say he loves me? Does he really mean it? How could he? I mean, I’m not even real anymore. I’m a ghost. And there’s so much about me that’s unlikable. I’m jealous, stubborn, a born trouble-maker, and sometimes I’m a royal bitch. I mean, not even my own father wanted to hang around after a while. Being with me is a trap. Plus, if he did mean to say he loves me, can I say it back? Should I? And if I don’t, would it hurt his feelings?

My head settles back on his shoulder and I close my eyes again. I’m not ready for the answer to any of those questions.

On the short periods when we’re apart, I can’t deny the flutter in my chest when I see him again. And it’s not just the joy that the separation headache goes away when he’s near. I’m happy to see him, to spend time with him, to talk to him. He gets me. And I get him. Over these last two months he’s become closer than my best friend.

Would it be right to keep someone I truly care about from the life they deserve? Aaron can have a life now. A real, honest to goodness life. I can’t. Being with me ties him to the Reaper life. And to keep him to myself has to be the most selfish thing I could ever do.

18

Smoke fills the sundrenched kitchen, along with the greasy and only slightly burnt scent of Aaron’s grilled cheese sandwiches. He sits a plate stacked with two sandwiches on the table next to my sketch pad.  Cheese oozes out of the sides of the sandwiches making tiny delicious puddles on the plate.

“Sorry they’re burnt.” He takes a seat across from me and shoves half of a sandwich into his mouth.

“They’re the perfect amount of burnt.” I smile and reach for my amber colored pencil. I want to get the color of this eye right before I eat. Aaron peeks over at the portrait of the two little girls I’m working on.

“That looks incredible, Libbi,” he says. “When will it be done?”

“Soon.” I blow a tuft of yellow-tinted dust off the paper. “Probably tomorrow.”

“Great. My, I mean, your patrons will be pleased.” He kisses the top of my head. “You amaze me, you know.”

“All right.” Nicholas saunters into the kitchen beaming, both hands tucked behind his back. “I believe I’ve finally figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” I set my pencil aside and stretch out the aching fingers of my left hand. How long have I been drawing? Gooey cheese oozes inside my mouth as I take a bite of the top sandwich. It’s almost as good as Mom’s grilled cheese. Almost.

“After our conversation last week, I decided to sit down and figure out, once and for all, how to get rid of these god-awful headaches you and I experience whenever we’re not around Aaron.” His smile is so big it’s contagious. “I think I did it.”

“You did?” Aaron says around a mouthful of cheese.

“You did?” I repeat, but my words have a hidden meaning. Does this mean what I think it means? Did Nicholas figure out how to shut down the Gateways? Nicholas looks at me and nods.

“Yes.” Nicholas drops his hands from behind his back and holds up a small, rectangular device. It’s about the size of a smartphone and could fit in the palm of his hand, but he holds it out with both thumbs and forefingers like he’s presenting the Holy Grail. “Tah-dah.”

“Wow.” I say, studying the little black object. It looks electrical, like a small remote control, but with only one switch and no buttons. “Is that a—”

“Yes. It’s a Scrambler.” His eyes sparkle.

“Okay.” Aaron sounds skeptical. “What does it do?”

“If it works, it
should
scramble your signal. Come here.” Nicholas waves Aaron over to him. He slides his thumb over the switch and goes to pull up Aaron’s shirt.

“Whoa. What’re you doing?” Aaron smacks Nicholas’s hand away and backs up a step.

“You have to have it under your shirt or it won’t do anything. It needs to touch skin and be as close the center of your soul as possible. See?” Nicholas turns the device over. There’s a metal clip affixed to the back. “You just clip it to your slacks.”

Nicholas moves like he’s about to lift Aaron’s shirt again, but Aaron steps back one more step and snatches the Scrambler from his hand.

“I got it. Thanks.” Aaron pulls up his shirt just enough to expose the waistband of his jeans and clips the device to the inside of his pants. His soul instantly surges with brilliance. The smell of ozone fills the kitchen and the lights flicker. The bulb above the kitchen table bursts and glass rains over the table and across the floor.

Aaron’s soul bunches in the middle, funneling toward the black box clipped to his pants, like the scrambling device is vacuuming him up.

“Shit!” Aaron grimaces and doubles over. He clutches the device. The stench of burning hair mixes with the scent of electricity. “What is this thing doing to me?”

“It’s too strong.” Nicholas reaches for Aaron, but stops shy of touching him. “Get it off. Quickly.”

“I can’t.” Aaron claws at the box through his shirt, his eyes wide with panic. “It’s stuck.”

“Flick the switch.” My voice squeaks with fright. “Turn it off.”

Aaron yanks up his shirt to get a better look at the device. But before he can find the switch and turn off the scrambler, his eyes roll and he teeters forward. The ancient kitchen floor quakes as he drops to his knees.

I rush to him, reaching for him as he keels forward. I hook my arms under his armpits just in time to stop him from slamming his face on the cracked linoleum.

“Help me,” I say as I try unsuccessfully to wrestle Aaron onto his back.

Nicholas grabs his legs and together we turn him over and lower him to the floor. Smoke curls up from a burnt circle on his shirt where I know Aaron clamped the Scrambler moments ago. I carefully tug the crispy fabric up, being sure not to expose any of Aaron’s skin, and find the switch on the side of the device. I click it off. Aaron’s body jumps as his soul snaps back into place.

“Aaron?” I shake his limp shoulders and his head lolls to the side. “Can you hear me?”

He doesn’t answer. A drop of blood leaks from his left nostril, painting a red stripe down his cheek.

“I believe he’s unconscious, my dear.” Nicholas runs shaky fingers through his shoulder-length hair. “He’s lucky that’s all he is. If you had switched the device on instead of me, he’d likely be dead.”

I turn and catch Nicholas with the deadliest glare I can muster. “What did you do to him?” I seethe, low and deadly.

“I’m sorry. The signal was too strong. I must have miscalculated.” He shakes his head slowly, like he can’t imagine where he went wrong. Then he gives me a sheepish smile. “But it
did
work. You saw it. I just have to do a few more adjustments and—”

“The only way you’ll try that contraption out on my boyfriend again is over my dead body, Nicholas.”

“He’ll come out of it.” Nicholas kneels down beside Aaron, yanks his shirt up, and slips the device off of his waistband. “He’ll just be unconscious for a while.”

“Is that all?” I say sarcastically, instead of punching a few of Nicholas’s teeth out. How is he to know how self-conscious Aaron is about his scars? I carefully place the shirt back down over his belly, sneaking a peek at the damage as I do. The skin under the device is scarred, as I expect, but not with anything fresh. It seems the thing only burned his clothes. The singed fabric crumbles at my touch. “How come it didn’t affect me? I touched the damned thing, too.”

“You’re a Reaper. Your soul is brighter, fuller. He’s supposed to be dead. His soul is dull, weak. He doesn’t have as much power to draw on.” Nicholas stands, moves to Aaron’s head, and scoops him up under the armpits. “Help me move him upstairs, Libbi. He’ll likely be out for some time. It’ll be better if he’s in his bed.”

I go to Aaron’s feet and together we lift him up off the kitchen floor. He’s a lot lighter than I thought, or maybe I’m a lot stronger. Either way, I lift his feet easily, and together we carry him across the kitchen toward what I’ve dubbed “The Machine Room”, because it sure isn’t a living room.

As Nicholas steps through the arched doorway, a folded square of paper drops from Aaron’s back pocket and lands on the linoleum at my feet.

“Wait a sec,” I say to Nicholas as I stoop down and snatch the paper off the floor. It’s probably a half-folded origami figure Aaron was working on or a love note from Renee. My heart breaks then mends again. I’m being stupid. The paper crumples a bit as I slip it into my pocket.

Nicholas walks backwards and I trail behind as Aaron dangles between us. Somehow we manage to navigate through the tangle of wires, tubes, pulleys, and other bits of machinery to the stairs, and then up to Aaron’s room. Nicholas lays Aaron’s head gently on the pillow and I swing his legs up on the bed.

“He’ll be okay, Libbi. You’ll see.” Nicholas steps back and I pull the blanket up over Aaron’s legs. “He just needs some time to replenish his soul.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know.” Nicholas shrugs. “Could be a few minutes. Could be a few days.”

“Speaking of time ….” I give him a pointed look. “Do you mind giving me a few minutes alone with him?”

“Oh. Of course.” He backs out of the room and closes the door quietly behind him. Seconds later, the unmistakable clang and bang I’ve come to expect when Nicholas works echoes from below. I won’t be surprised if he’s trying to fix the Scrambler. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Nicholas over the last several months it’s that he doesn’t give up easily. But in this case, he’s wasting his time. I won’t let that thing anywhere near Aaron, whether he thinks it’s fixed or not.

The floor boards creak as I make my way to the head of the bed. His chest gently rises and falls but that’s the only movement I see. I lift his hand off the mattress and sit on the side of the bed beside him. My butt touches the sheet and I feel the crumple of paper in my back pocket and stand right back up.

The paper. I almost forgot about the paper that dropped out of Aaron’s back pocket. I dig the crushed and folded thing out of my pocket and sit back down. I was wrong. It’s not a partially folded origami figurine. There’s no evidence of intricate fold lines, and the paper is way thicker than origami paper.

Slightly confused, I turn it over. My breath catches in my throat when I see the elegant logo of the hotel we stayed in that first night in Chicago. I know what this is before I even unfold it all the way. It’s the rushed drawing of the Chicago skyline I sketched with zero light on the balcony. The heavy strokes of ballpoint pen cause the edges of the paper to curl. I smooth down the corners and examine my work.

In the cruel daylight, my mistakes are glaringly obvious. The skewed lines of one building look as if I drew it blindfolded with one hand behind my back. More than a few strokes of pen are dreadfully out of place, making several of the buildings look hairy, like they forgot to shave. For weeks. And the lake looks like a scribbled blob of black ink.

It’s sloppy. In my excitement to capture the beauty of Chicago at night, I managed to create a disaster. That’s what happens with poor lighting and a need for speed.

My fingers curl to squash the pen and ink drawing into a ball and toss it in the trash, but my hand freezes mid-crush. I can’t throw it away. This scrap of paper covered in frantic, messy ink is something Aaron and I shared.

Warmth spreads through my body at the memory.

He was true to his word. The sketch didn’t end up in the trash. Judging by the soft quality of the paper, he’s been carrying it in his pocket ever since, unfolding and refolding it many times. I turn the page over to look at the hotel logo again and notice Aaron’s slanted handwriting in the bottom left corner.

6/15/2013, just past midnight: This is when I knew, without a doubt, that I love her. She sets me free.

Oh God. Tears spring to my eyes. My hands tremble and I almost drop the sketch. He said it was perfect. But he wasn’t talking about the picture.

I gasp at the realization. When he looked at this drawing, he didn’t see the imperfections. He didn’t see the hairy, lopsided buildings or the ink-blob lake. He saw me. All of me. He saw my excitement and passion, my love of creating art. He saw my stubbornness, and my tendency to be a little bitchy sometimes. But most importantly, he didn’t see those hairy imperfections as problems at all. He saw them as adding to the whole. Each bit, good and bad, was part of me. And he thought the whole was perfect.

All of this time I’ve been afraid to trap Aaron and have him resent me, when all along he feels I set him free. Why didn’t he tell me?

“Libbi?” Nicholas’s voice booms from the bottom of the stairs.

Startled, I almost drop the drawing again, but quickly grasp it tight in my fingers. I clear my throat and wipe the tears from my eyes with the backs of my hands.

“Yes?” I say, when I’m sure I can speak.

“Can you come downstairs, please?”

“Um, yeah. Hold on a sec.” I fold the drawing in half and place it on the bedside table, where I know Aaron will see it when he wakes up. One last kiss before I go. I lean down and press my lips to his relaxed mouth. From the corner of my eye, I swear I see his eyelids flutter.

My heart does a summersault.

“Aaron?” His eyes flutter again, but his face remains slack. He’s still out cold.

“Libbi, please. Hurry.” The sheer panic in Nicholas’s voice sends an iron rod down my back and I jump up.

Something’s wrong.

Heart racing, I sprint out of Aaron’s room and down the stairs. Nicholas waits in the kitchen. He turns from the sink and faces me.

“What’s wrong?”

“One minute, please.” He holds up a finger and suddenly his eyes change from his familiar hazel to a deep and piercing brown.

“Where’s Aaron? I told you I needed Aaron.” Nicholas’s lips move, but the voice coming from his mouth is Ruth’s.

Nicholas’s eyes shift back to hazel again and his voice says, “Aaron is indisposed at the moment, and likely will be for a while. You didn’t give me a chance to explain that before you pulled back, Ruth.”

Brown eyes. “But he specifically said not to tell Libbi, to only talk to Aaron.”

“Who?” I cross the distance between us in three long strides and grasp Nicholas/Ruth’s shoulders. “Who said that? Was it Kyle? Abaddon? Is something wrong?”

“I think so,” Ruth says.

“What? What’s wrong?” My fingers dig into Nicholas’s flesh. I’m sure I’m giving him bruises, but I don’t care. “You have to tell me, Ruth. I’m all he’s got.”