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“This panel will always be here?” she asked, determined not to get stuck.
“Yes.”
“And the lobby to the universe is always accessible through the incontinence supply closet?”
That sounded absolutely fucking ridiculous.
“You can access the lobby through any surface,” Death said offhandedly. “It all comes down to intent and need. But until you get used to things, coming through the closet might be the easiest for you because it’s familiar.”
He pushed the door open the rest of the way and stood aside for her to enter. Bunny was relieved the light seemed to dim a little, making it possible to make out the inside of the supply closet. It was exactly as they had left it, with boxes of incontinence pads spilling their wares out onto several shelves. She hated it when the other nurses didn’t pick up after themselves.
She nodded as she entered, a though popping into her mind once Death joined her and pulled the door closed behind him.
“What about the gates?”
He frowned lightly, his head tilting slightly to one side. “What about them?”
“Will my pass get me through them, too?” she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. She didn’t have plans to visit Purgatory anytime soon, but she reasoned that it was good to have the lay of the land anyway.
“No.”
His answer had such a note of finality to it that Bunny couldn’t help but be tempted into a follow-up. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not part of your job,” he groaned, his tone reverting to the one he’d used before when he had avoided answering her question about how he took souls. “There are rules to this existence, Bernadette. And while I know you’re not one for sticking to rules—”
“How the hell do you know that?” she challenged him, bristling. Hundreds of childhood and teenage bad choices nibbled at her conscience, begging to be dredged up from the dark recesses of her mind. Like the time she and her friends had painted the Beaufort Moss Memorial Fountain bright pink. Mr. Benson’s cow being installed in the foyer of the sheriff’s department, and the sign outside of Granny’s Diner mysteriously ending up on top of the principal’s house. Detentions, suspensions, groundings, new jobs in nursing homes. This particular bruise ran deep, and Bunny was suddenly scared he was about to press it.
“Your mom used to talk about you a lot,” was all he said in response, but the undertow of his words dragged Bunny into a riptide of cynicism.
She scoffed. “Of course she would tell you all the bad stuff.” She let her own head loll back, as she sighed. She loved her mom, but there had been tension there, too. Where Bunny had always managed to keep her father wrapped around her little finger, her mom seemed to see right through her. Learning that she was some kind of celestial being actually made a helluva lot of sense in hindsight.
“Bernadette,” he said, before trying again. “Bunny.”
The change in his voice hadn’t been enough to make her want to look at him, but hearing an immortal being use her admittedly ridiculous nickname was. She looked down the length of her nose, noticing that he had stepped closer. She could smell him… or the fresh scent she had come to associate with him, anyway. Night air, mixed with a hint of incoming rain. Was it just her imagination? Did Death even have a smell?
“What?” she asked, trying to break the growing tension.
She failed. A slow, knowing smile prized up the corner of his lips and he raised a brow as he leaned in even closer. His face was a mere inches away from hers. She could feel her breath against his face and tried not to be weirded out by the fact that she couldn’t feel his breath on her.
“No matter how much you complain,” he told her, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “No matter how many questions you have, and no matter what you might try to do to prove it isn’t the case…”
Her eyes dipped to his lips, which were well and truly within kissing range. She suddenly felt like she was in one of those cheesy rom-coms, where the heroine is holed up somewhere with a gorgeous man who she considered to be well out of her league, but who she was hot for anyway. He watched her watching him, a spark of amusement in his mysterious eyes. And then he came another few millimeters closer.
“…this is actually where you’re meant to fucking be,” he told her. There was such certainty in his voice that she could have sworn she felt it like some kind of weird affirmation right down in the depths of her soul.
She swallowed, her mouth dry and her pulse racing against her will and her own common sense.
“You didn’t answer my question about why we can’t go through the gates,” she pointed out, grasping at her stubborn streak when all the other facets of her personality seemed to have failed her.
For a moment, he simply stared at her like she was insane, and then a chuckle bubbled up out of him. It was her turn to look at him funny, as he allowed himself a good laugh over her sheer tenacity.
“It’s because you don’t have clearance,” he told her eventually, his amusement settling into a smile. “Nothing more sinister than that, I promise.”
Bunny raised a brow, glad the tension swirling around them moments ago seemed to dissipate. She placed her hand on the doorknob that would take them back out into the hallway of Arcadian Waters. “Do you have clearance?”
“No.”
“So we can only go into the lobby and out again?” she asked incredulously. “That’s it?”
“Isn’t that already more than you bargained for?”
Well shit. He had her there, and he knew it. Pressing her lips together in a tight line, Bunny turned the doorknob and stepped back into mundane reality. When she turned to ask Death another question, the closet behind her was empty.
