“But The Judge—”
“Fuck The Judge,” he snapped. “And fuck fate, too.”
“But—”
“I will come back a hundred—a thousand—times if I have to. I will stop fate every time. I don’t care anymore.”
“What… what about the plan—”
“Fuck the plan,” he barked, turning toward me.
“But what about The Few?”
“Insert predictable foulmouthed response here,” he said, which actually made me laugh—a little. Still, I was all but drowning in my own confusion.
“You came back to save… me?” I asked. “Again?”
“Of course I came back to save you,” he said. “And I always will. Until they take me out.”
“What?” I asked—borrowinghistypical response. “No. You’ll get fired. They’ll take you away. And what about Cedric?”
“I’m tired of running,” he said. “And it strikes me now that’s all this job—if you can call it that—has ever been for me. An escape. At least… until now.”
The tears returned to burn my eyes, their essence different now, infused with the happiness that came with the realization I’d had him all wrong. The truth of our situation soured that happiness, though. “Death is going to catch up to me. And The Few. They’re going to catch up to you.”
“Let them come,” he said, his voice catching with emotion, andhe swallowed, those blues searing into me. “Let all of it come. That’s what life is anyway, isn’t it? That’s what death is, too. It comes when it wants. Ultimately, there’s no stopping it. But the fucking dash that comes in between the dates on a tombstone? You made me realize, long or short, that’s the part that matters.”
“Oh, Grim.” I lifted a hand to brush away my tears. “I… I don’t know what to say. This… it all feels so impossible.”
“Because it is,” he half said, half growled. “Weare. So let’s just be impossible for as long as we can. Let the match burn down. It’s fucking going to anyway at this point.”
“I… I can’t let you do that,” I said.
“Letme?” he snarled, closing the distance between us, bringing that tattoo that, for me, dwelled right at eye level closer. “There isn’t a force on this plane of existence, or any other for that matter, that could keep me away from you. Tell me to fuck off and I will still catch you from every fall, pull you off every elevator, sweep you out from under every train, walk you out of every fire, pull you out of every ocean. Maybe The Few will find out, but maybe they won’t. When it comes down to it, I’m not going to be any worse off.”
“You will be,” I argued.
“You don’t get to say that.” He grabbed me, pulling me toward him. “Even if they send me to the depths of hell, I won’t really be there, because I’ll still have my memories of you. Aside from that, Rose was right about more than one thing. Say the worst happens and webothbite it. Get torn apart and tossed into other realms. I’ll still fucking find you. Because I’ve seen it more than once. I’ve just never believed it until now.”
“Believed what?”
“That nothing can sever love,” he said. “Not even death.”
I sucked in a sharp gasp—but that was it. No more air could reach my lungs.
Because had he just admitted to loving me?
“Being together,” I said. “It… isn’t sustainable.”
“Neither is mindlessly collecting souls for the rest of eternity.” He swung me toward the tomb, which he backed me against before leaning down, bringing his lips close to mine. “You don’t want me around? Fine. Tell me to get lost. I’ll leave you alone and just show up when I need to. You can even find somebody else, and I’ll still—”
“Somebody else?” I interjected, cutting him off by placing my palm flat to that brightly colored tattoo. “You think I’ll ever be able to love anyone else?”
“Then we’re on the same fucking page, aren’t we?”
He kissed me then, and I melted, unable to keep myself from throwing my arms around those strong shoulders.
The same page, he’d said.
