Page 39 of Grim Tidings

Gabriel is still studying me intently. “It won’t happen again, Darcy.”

“Great.” I’m under no illusions he’ll start playing nice, but his guilt is a fine distraction from mine. Tonight, I’ll take it. “I’m going to—I’m going to leave, I think.”

I’m afraid if I linger any longer in this tiny space with him, I’m going to unravel across the floor. I’ll tell him everything. About Nate. About my magic. About the creeping numbness in my chest and in the tips of my fingers.

And if Gabriel knows the truth about who I’m here to claim, where does that leave me?

On the outside, looking in. I can’t have that happen.

He’s still watching me like I’m a crystal vase balanced on the very edge of a ramshackle shelf. “Are you sure you don’t—” Someone yells his name from the bar, and there’s a chorus of hoots and hollers. He turns to look over his shoulder, yells a quick Be right there, then turns back to me. “We need to figure out how this is going to work.”

“You know where to find me,” I tell him.

He nods, then pushes off the wall. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

I slip past him and move quickly down the hallway, back toward the music and the laughter and the sound of glasses clinking together. I’m almost free when he calls my name.

He’s exactly where I left him, his big body hidden in the shadows, one shoulder up against the wall. He looks tired. A portrait drawn in quick, loose lines.

“I really am sorry,” he says. “For how I talked to you.”

“I know.

He nods and there’s nothing else to say. I can’t absolve him of the truth. I am cruel. I am suited to the end of things. I just came face-to-face with the man whose life I’m meant to claim, and I didn’t say a word. I could put a stop to this with one simple confession, and yet I’m holding on to it for my own selfish gain.

Because you can fix it, Darcy, I reassure myself. Because you need to prove to yourself that you can.

I step from the shadows of the hallway to the dull, golden light of the bar. I grab my bag off my abandoned stool and swing it over my shoulder. I’m tired, and more than a little shook up. I’d like nothing more than to be bundled with borrowed blankets on my borrowed couch, Tater Tot’s big head in my lap.

In the corner, I spot Nate with a group of women. Our eyes catch, and he beams, shooting me a two-finger salute. I can’t help but smile back. My Reaper designation should make him inherently wary of me, but he’s decidedly oblivious.

Why him? Why now? What has this man done to deserve his fate? I’ve wrestled with it for decades, but I’ve found only one thing to be true. All of it is dandelion seeds in the wind.

Death comes for us all.

This time, I’d very much like to change it.

I slip my jacket over my shoulders and leave the bar. The silence is jarring after the commotion inside, and I take a moment to reca-librate.

Eyes closed. Deep breath. Dried leaves and cigarette smoke and salt water. I am fine, and so is Nate. The details aren’t right yet. It’s not time.

I still have time.

“Is all well over there?”

I startle. Standing in the halo of a streetlight is an older man with dark brown skin. His hands are shoved deep in the pockets of his flannel coat, his white hair a cloud on top of his head.

He grins at me, his chin tucked in his collar. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he offers, apologetic.

“You didn’t,” I assure him.

I am, after all, the scary thing lurking on the street right now.

He gestures toward the closed door behind me. “I like the bar for company, but I try to head out before all the young people arrive.” His smile widens and lines bracket either side of his mouth. “No one likes staring down their future hunched over the bar eating cherries while they’re having a good time.”

“I don’t know,” I muse. “Hunched over the bar eating cherries seems like a pretty good future to me.”

His answering laugh is rough from disuse, and his eyes turn shrewd as he studies me in the melting light. “This is a strange question, but have we met before?”