Helena, who’d slid into the booth, had already set up camp by extracting everything within the little plastic bucket, so I took the seat across from her, the one that gave me a clear view of the door we’d entered through.
I set my coffee down—dealing with the distracting light show in between monitoring the door behind her and the one behind me.
Sitting between two public entrances at a light-up table in the middle of a fast-food restaurant?
Why don’t I just send up a flare for Cedric while I’m at it?
“They respond to touch,” said Helena, poking at the circular lights with one hand while, in the other, she held aloft a golden, roughly boot-shaped chicken nugget. “That’s too neat. I wonder who makes these. This would be so much fun in the activity area of the children’s department.”
“You’renotokay,” I said. “Are you.”
“No,” she said, a tear falling out of nowhere, “I’m not. But… that’s okay.”
She crunched into the nugget and chewed while tapping the table, the lights of which flashed yellow.
Everything I’d put her through—itwasn’tokay. Nothing about this situation—our situation—was. A long beat elapsed in which I tried to figure out what to say—where to begin with how we’d gotten here. Did I even know myself?
Helena stole a sip of her milkshake and resumed poking at the table, her touch shifting the yellow lights to blue. “It’s just that… I don’t really want to die.”
No one ever does.
“But I’m starting to think I’m going to anyway.”
I come for everyone eventually.
“But I’m confused, too.”
You’re not the only one.
“Because you’re supposed to reap souls.”
I’m supposed to.
“Not save lives. And yet… you keep saving mine.Why?”
She wiped away that lone tear with the cuff of the sleeve of her jack-o’-lantern sweatshirt, then she popped the rest of the half-eaten nugget into her mouth and chewed.
I shifted, sitting back in the booth, glaring at the coffee.
Owning up to this being all my fault wasn’t the most comfortable place to start, but all things considered, it was probably as good a place as any.
“I fucked up,” I told her after a beat.
“With my life,” she said after swallowing.
“With your death,” I corrected.
Those eyes flashed up to me again, terrified—and tired. An odd and haunted hollowness emanated from them. She’d been through so much. And not just tonight. I’d brought it all down upon her. She’d asked me why, but even I wasn’t sure.
“You were there to get me that night,” she guessed. “At the party. Is… that what happened?”
“Normally people don’t see me,” I said. “You did, though. And that… complicated things.”
“You’re saying this is allmyfault?” she asked, aiming a fry at herself.
I scowled at her. Because where had she gottenthat? “Of course it’s not your fault. Ijusttold you I fucked up.”
“By saving me.” She popped the fry into her mouth.
