“It didn’t hurt,” she said. “It… was the opposite, in fact. Like a blast of air-conditioning on a hot day.”
Shehad seared me. Like a bolt of lightning to a frigid, dark wasteland that, before that instant, had never known either lightorwarmth.
My soul could have devoured hers whole, and this next taste of her was going to be brutal. But only because it was bound to be my last. And from then on, well, I’d know what hell was, wouldn’t I?
“Since you know it’s coming this time,” I said, “your soul will likely resist.”
She smirked, her inherent lightness reinfusing her mien as she put her hands on her hips. “How do you know?”
I fought the urge to tilt my head at her. The last thing I’d expected from her at this moment was playfulness. Or could the sudden shift in her demeanor be owed to… something else?
“I’ve had to loosen souls from bodies before,” I told her—a morbid truth, but a truth all the same. But then, weren’t all my truths morbid to some degree? Just like all of hers had some shade of light to them, like she truly happened to be a walking prism…
“You mean I’m not your first?” She offered me a small smile.
Fuck me. What?
No. She didn’t know what she was saying. I was reading intothings. Because there was no way in Hades’s hot hell she was flirting with me.Salaciouslyflirting with me.
She didn’t know how what she’d said sounded. Or that my dirty mind apparently wanted to read into her words.
“Typically,” I said, speaking slow, trying not to seem taken off guard, even though I was, “forcible extraction is only required with reluctant souls. Those who do not wish to abandon their vessels.”
“There’s a choice?”
“No,” I said. “But I sometimes encounter… strong attachments. My scythe will always do the trick of severing ties, but souls can cling to their bodies, or even to objects and places. Since you are alive, though, your soul will likely attempt to defend itself.”
“It… didn’t before,” she offered.
“It had never been attacked before.”
“You weren’t attacking me,” she said.
“Your soul doesn’t know that.”
She shook her head at me, her hair shifting in a way that made me long to touch it. “What if… it does?”
What was her angle? Maybe she just needed to tease and make light of the situation to feel safer in my presence. Probably she was just stalling.
“It’ll only hurt for a moment,” I said. “Then you’ll fall unconscious again.”
“Wait,” she said, “then how am I going to get home?”
“The portal will take me straight into your apartment.”
“O-oh.” She blinked, a blush creeping up her cheeks, painting them the shade of hot-pink roses. “It’s… kind of a mess in there.”
“I promise I’ve seen worse.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “I bet you have, though I don’t think I want to know in what ways.”
She was right. She didn’t want to know.
Death could be quiet. It could be peaceful. But it could be many other things, too.
“You have to promise not to judge me,” she said. “My apartment isn’t huge. It’s just me, and I rarely have company.”
Outside of the pineapple.
