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I wrung my hands together, wanting to stay right here, in this moment, the place where Gran was still here and everything wasn’t falling apart. “I can’t do this, Gran. I can’t lose you—I can’t beat Lilith.”
Gran moved over and sat on the bed—or at least it looked like that, since she wasn’t really there. She patted the spot next to her until I sat as well. “You can beat her. I’ve seen it—the first thing I ever saw, back when I was a kid. You’re the only one who can.” She shimmered, fading.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded.
“That isn’t up to me. In fact, I can’t believe I’m here at all.” She glanced over to the reaper who stood there, waiting. “Your buddy here tore me from another place, from wherever I was. Even I didn’t know that was possible.”
“How?”
“I think he knew you needed it.”
I thought back to when it—he?—had helped me before, back when he’d helped me understand how to save Troy, when he’d shown me my mother. “Who is he?”
She shrugged. “Even I don’t know everything, and it’s time for you to stop asking me. You don’tneedme to tell you what you need to know, what you need to do. You already know it.”
I hated how much like goodbye that sounded. “Please, don’t do this.”
“It’s done. I’ve tried to teach you this and you’ve never accepted it. Sometimes things just are. This is one of those things. You can’t lie down and stop just because you don’t like it. You’ve been pushed out of the plane, and you can’t stop it, now. You can’t stop moving, but you can decide where you’re going to go, now.” She faded again, and the reaper came forward.
He reached out, and when he made contact with Gran, she disappeared, leaving the room silent and feeling empty.
Still, the reaper remained. It waited, watching me, as if to see what I would do now.
I wanted to curl back up and fade away like she did. I wanted to give up, to make this all someone else’s problem, but the reaper stayed. It watched me. It reminded me of exactly what Gran had said, her parting words.
You can decide where you’re going to go now.
“I can’t just stop, can I?” I asked the reaper as if he would answer. “No matter how tempting it is to give up, I have to keep going.”
He remained almost deathly still other than the floating of cloth around him, as if I knew damn well what the answer was without him.
A knock on the door came, and it opened without me having to answer. Funny that I had thought I was alone, because Troy, Kase, Grant and Hunter walked in. It was written in their expressions that they’d given me a little time to myself, but they were done letting me suffer alone.
The reaper remained, and while they caught sight of it, it must have been my lack of fear that made them not react.
“So, what’s the plan?” Hunter asked.
And there was only one answer. After seeing Gran, after being given that last moment with her, after pulling my head out of my ass, I had only one direction I could go.
Lilith had better watch out, because I was coming for her, and I was going to bring hell down on her when I found her.
She’d fucked with the wrong reaper.
