Death and the Girl Next Door

“Your fly’s open too,” Cameron said.

“Man.” He turned and zipped up his pants before looking back. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“We’re ready,” Brooklyn corrected. “We can take it. We’re here for you. Lay it on us, baby.”

“Okay, here goes.” I hesitated a moment, praying they wouldn’t have me committed afterwards. “He looked like … well … a grim reaper.”

The room grew deathly quiet. All three of them sat staring at me. No movement. No expression. Maybe they didn’t hear me.

Glitch, as usual, snapped out of it first. “Pizza, anyone?” He held the pizza box out.

“Glitch,” I started, but Brooklyn interrupted me.

“That was kind of anticlimactic.” She seemed disappointed.

For some reason, I was rather offended. “Have you ever seen a grim reaper?”

“I have,” Cameron said, raising a hand. “But there’s actually only the one.”

I looked at him. “When you called him the reaper, I thought you were, you know, exaggerating. So there really is a grim reaper?”

With a shrug, he answered, “Not really. I don’t know, kind of. That’s just one of his names. And it’s the one that fits him best, if you ask me.”

“So,” Brooklyn said, “did he have a scythe? You know, like in the movies?”

“That’s funny,” Glitch said. “Pizza, anyone?”

“Glitch,” Brooklyn said, “stop trying to change the subject. But, seriously, did you see one?”

“He doesn’t actually carry a scythe,” Cameron said. “He kills just fine without one.”

Something transcendent tightened around my throat when he said that. My second impression of Jared in reaper form was very similar. He didn’t need any help doing his job. My first was just a general sense of holy crap.

“Though he does have a wicked sword I’d give my right arm for,” Cameron continued.

“That’s right.” I pulled my knees to my chest. “He had a sword in my vision.”

“But he was beautiful?” Brooke asked.

“He was,” I said. “Stunning. Mesmerizing. He was like smoke and yet solid at the same time, and strong, like he could have crushed a truck if he’d wanted to.”

“He could have,” Cameron said, regarding his pizza absently. “Trust me.” He took another bite.

Cameron really wasn’t helping.

I surveyed the room to get a sense of my audience. Brooklyn sat deep in thought. Glitch seemed to be taking it okay. He was holding the pizza box in one hand and munching pizza out of the other, his eyes squinting as though trying to envision what Jared had looked like. Cameron, on the other hand, seemed completely oblivious, like he dealt with this sort of thing every day. I guess he did. I was beginning to understand what he might have been going through his whole life. He’d clearly been desensitized.

He finished his last bite of pizza and stood to look out the window.

“Cameron?” I said, wiping my hands on a napkin.

He glanced over his shoulder then back out the window.

“How did Jared just put those men to sleep?” I asked. “I mean, he just touched them and they collapsed.”

A sigh slipped through his lips. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen that.” He reached up and wiped condensation off a pane with the sleeve of his denim jacket. “And the fact that you felt heat emanating off him has me pretty baffled as well.”

“That’s never happened before?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Least he conveniently erased all the evidence of our breaking and entering gig,” Glitch said.

“But are we absolutely positive he did?” Brooklyn asked, propping her elbows on her knees. “Those crime scene investigators were up there a long time. They don’t usually investigate that intensely unless there’s been a murder or a kidnapping or something. Who knows, the sheriff could be watching that recording as we speak.”

She wasn’t helping either. My insides were a jumble of nerves and thick, gooey sadness.

After a moment, and a couple of gulps of Dr Pepper, Cameron said all out-of-the-blue like, “Lor, there’s a fact that you’re going to have to come to terms with eventually.”

I straightened, grabbed my ragged stuffed monkey, and scooted back against my headboard. “Okay.”

He seemed hesitant, as though unsure of how to put into words what he wanted to say. When he did speak, it was with reverence, each word carefully chosen. “You need to understand that Jared is good, yes, he’s light.” He fixed his attention on me, and I knew I wasn’t going to like the rest of what he had to say. “But he’s also dark, Lor. He was created for a very specific purpose and has more power than his brothers. When a higher being says dark, what they’re talking about is the absolute absence of light. The absence of good. Do you know what that means?” When I shook my head, he continued. “The absence of good is a nice way of saying ‘evil.’ There’s a part of him that’s evil.”

“But can’t that be said about anyone?” I asked, jumping to Jared’s defense. “Doesn’t every being on earth have the capacity for evil?”

His brows slid together. “Not like this. Not to this degree. I’m not saying he has the capacity for evil, Lorelei. I’m saying he is evil. It’s just as much a part of him as auburn hair and smoky gray eyes are to you. It’s in him. In his genetic makeup. Inherent and pure.”