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“They had a weird glow when they came into the room,” Death explained with a helpless shrug. “They all crowded around me, backing me into the corner.”
“Oh no,” Bunny groaned, lifting a hand to her forehead. She felt the prickle of a headache beginning right behind her left eye. Tension. Ugh.
“After I touched them, they stopped glowing. Nothing else happened, I swear!”
“That we know of,” she added, letting her hand fall away as she took a deep, bolstering breath. She looked at him a little more closely. "You didn't see any weird wispy things coming out of them?"
"No," he replied slowly, frowning. "Should I have? I’m sorry.”
Her eyes met his. “I don't know,” she said, meaning it. “But we have to fix this. I’m gonna try and get them all back to their beds, for starters.”
“I’ll stay here,” he added.
“Good plan,” Bunny murmured. She adopted a position not unlike something a football player might use when getting ready to make a play—knees bent, arms out, hands open and ready for catching anything—or anyone—who might come her way. “Try not to touch anyone else,” she advised Death over her shoulder.
“Because that worked so well the first time,” he replied snarkily, sounding so much more like his normal self that Bunny almost smiled. That’s before she remembered she was about to tackle people who may or may not be dead on the inside of living bodies.
Getting four zombie-fied old people back to their various rooms was harder than herding cats into a fashion show. Bunny led them two at a time, one in each hand, dutifully delivering them to their rightful places. During the process, she realized they weren't themselves at all. None of them spoke, and their eyes remained dead-looking with the same eerie, blank expression.
By the time she was heading back to Mr. Grisham’s room empty-handed, Bunny could feel the hot sting of tears threatening to expose her beneath her hard exterior.
This was all so fucking unfair. Not just for Death, but for the residents, too. They didn’t deserve to be stripped of their dignity like that in their final moments, trapped inside their old husks. They deserved to be heading back to the gate, to be recycled. To have another chance at ensoulment.
She pressed her lips together grimly as she slipped back into the room where Death was waiting for her.
“Well?” he asked eagerly, glancing around to check she was alone as she closed the door behind her.
“They’re all back where they should be,” she assured him. “For now. No telling how long they’ll stay there, though.”
“I’m sorry.” He was sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes downcast. She could tell he had given himself a stern talking-to in her absence. “I tried to avoid them, but they had me cornered—”
“None of this is your fault,” she interrupted him, moving to perch next to him on the bed. “So, let’s just set that record straight right now. Neither of us asked for any of this to happen, and we have a plan to fix it. We do what we can in the way of damage control until Roberta is back from vacation, and then we get it fixed.”
“You make it sound easy,” he said with a mournful smile.
“Well, it’s not complicated,” Bunny replied, shrugging a shoulder. “We just have to keep you from touching anyone else until then.”
“Except you.” His dark gaze flicked up to meet hers, and she felt a red-hot spark of lust pop inside her belly.
“What?” she asked, taken aback by the sudden rekindling of her attraction to him. Her gaze skipped between his before dipping to glance at his lips of their own accord.
“I can touch you,” he added, lifting his hand. He traced a finger down her arm slowly, as though waiting for Fate to step in and prove him wrong. When he reached her wrist, he lifted his fingertip off her, and she looked up to notice the pride in his smile. “See? No disasters.”
Bunny drew in a breath, trying desperately to hide its shakiness from him.
“I have to go do some work,” she said, purposefully changing the subject so she could bring her head back down from the clouds. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. When I leave, I want you to push the bed up against the door, okay? That should stop anyone from being able to get in.”
He cocked his head to one side. “What about when you want to get back in?”
“I’ll do three slow knocks,” she told him.
“Okay.” His voice carried softly across the room.
“See you soon,” she said, stepping out of the room—and almost colliding with Dana.
“Bunny?” Dana blinked, stepping back to make way. She craned her neck a little, trying to see into the room before Bunny closed the door solidly behind her.
“I thought I heard voices in there. What were you doing in Mr. Grisham’s room? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
