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Chapter 36

Cash

I stood in the empty hallway of Lone Pine High School. It felt so small. So insignificant after everything I’d been through. I wasn’t here to go to class anymore. Now I was here for the escaped soul that wandered the halls. There was no telling how long he’d been here. But I knew he was a kid. The same kid I’d seen in the bathroom that day, back when nothing made sense. I hiked my bag up over my shoulder and looked behind me. Anaya leaned against the lockers, arms folded across her chest.

She’d traded in her white dress for a pair of jeans and a white tank top that made me want to fall to my knees. Her braids were gone, replaced by one thick, loose braid she kept pulled over her shoulder. She said it was time for a change. I was still convinced she was just trying to distract me. Next thing I knew she’d be in a bikini, then I’d never get any souls collected.

“I’m right here if you need me,” she said.

I nodded and headed down the hall, letting the prickling cold sensation guide me. It felt like a glittering rope of energy, stretched out in front of me, tugging my chest. I passed Ms. Abernathy’s AP lit class and stopped at the blue metal door that led to the men’s restroom. It was where I’d seen him before. My heart pounded in my chest and I crossed my fingers that this went down the way it was supposed to. It’s not like there was a vo-tech course for shadow walkers. Sure, Anaya had given me some tips on how to handle souls, but I still didn’t exactly feel prepared. I pushed through the door and the room exploded with cold. The energy crackled across my skin like sparks. He was definitely here. I looked up in the mirror and there he was, standing behind me. I spun around, slowly, and dropped my bag to the floor.

“Why are you here?” he asked. He was so dim; he looked like a faded image flickering in and out of existence, reminding me of the old black-and-white movies Dad used to watch late at night when he thought I was asleep.

“I’m here to help you,” I said, unsure what he would want to hear. Also, praying that what I said was true. “It can’t be fun, being here all alone all the time.”

“Is the other one here?” He peered around me looking for Noah.

“No.” I shook my head. “He’s not coming back.”

He looked unsure, but finally shook his head and dropped his gaze to the floor. “You could stay with me. We could play.” He looked up at me, hopeful. “I know some games.”

I nodded. “How about I take you somewhere you don’t ever have to be alone again. Someplace where there are other kids to hang out with. People who care about you.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn-out-looking overalls. “No shadows?”

I shook my head and extended my hand out to him. “No. No shadows, buddy. You don’t have to be scared of that anymore.”

He nodded and placed his hand into mine. A sudden jolt of energy connected us and I grabbed on to the sink to catch my balance. I looked down at our arms and a blue light swirled beneath our skin, linking us together.

“What’s that?” He sounded nervous, a tremble in his voice.

“I…I don’t know.” I grinned, trying to make him feel better. “I’m kinda new at this.”

He nodded and I tugged him along with me out into the hall where Anaya waited. We emerged and she smiled warmly, taking his other hand and whispering sweet things to him. When we passed the half-open door to the yearbook room, I stopped, tugging us all to a halt. I checked my watch. Emma had yearbook this hour. And I still hadn’t seen her. Hadn’t explained. The sudden urge to see her, knowing she was so close, wouldn’t let me take another step.

“What is it?” Anaya asked.

“It’s Em,” I said. “I need to talk to her. Can you…”

Anaya touched my arm and nodded. “I have him. Just don’t take too long.”

I kissed the corner of her mouth that lifted with a smile. “Thank you.”

I eased into the room and quietly shut the door behind me. Emma was across the room, huddled over a computer and a stack of prints, her blond hair dangling over the back of the chair. I wondered why she didn’t turn around until I saw the earbuds to her iPod hanging out of her hair. Six months ago, she never would have done that. Been that oblivious to the world around her. Six months ago she didn’t feel this safe. I smiled and rubbed my chest where it ached a little. I hadn’t thought I’d get this. A chance to talk to her again. I walked up behind her chair and listened to her humming the tune to a song from one of those indie bands she’d always liked. She stopped and I realized she must have seen my reflection in her computer monitor. Emma spun around in the chair, nearly knocking it over, and then she was in my arms, crying all over my shirt.

“I’d be crying, too, if I listened to crappy music like that,” I said into her hair. She half sobbed and laughed, then slapped my arm. I squeezed her tighter, feeling more like me than I’d felt in weeks.

“I thought you were dead.” She sounded muffled against my shoulder, holding on like she was afraid I would disappear again if she let go. I pulled away and wiped the tears off her cheeks with my thumbs.

“I’m okay. That’s all that matters.”

She got quiet and her eyes searched my face. She reached out and touched my cheek, then grabbed my hand and stared at the faint shimmer breaking through the pores of my skin.

“What happened?” A tear leaked down her cheek. “Are you…”

“Not exactly.” She looked like she was going to pass out, so I pushed her down into the chair and sat on my knees in front of her. “I’m sort of both now, Em. Alive and dead. And I work for your boyfriend’s old boss now.”

She slapped her hand over her mouth, then pulled it away long enough to whisper, “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”

“No, it’s not. This is what was supposed to happen to me.”

She shook her head, lip trembling. “You don’t believe in ‘supposed to.’”

I held her hand until she looked me in the eye. “I know it might not seem ideal to you. Hell, it probably seems like a nightmare, but it’s not. I’m happy. I have a heartbeat.” I pressed her hand to my chest to let her feel it. “I’ve got breath in my lungs. I have this moment with you, and the chance to have more. And I’m in lov—” I stopped, feeling weird telling her about it. Her brows pulled together and she looked over my shoulder to where Anaya peeked through the little window in the door, then disappeared again.

“Anaya?” She turned her attention back to me. “You’re in love with Anaya?”

I glanced over my shoulder and couldn’t hold back the dopey smile. I laughed and scratched the back of my head. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

Emma just stared at me for a minute, then laughed and hugged me. “Oh my God…you love a girl.

Cash Cooper loves one, singular, girl. And a reaper girl!”

“Hey, she’s not a reaper anymore,” I said, grinning like an idiot. “She’s sort of my guardian now.

It’s her job to watch out for me. We’re a team.”

I didn’t tell her Anaya wasn’t the first girl I ever loved, because it didn’t matter now. We were all right where we were supposed to be. It finally felt like all the pieces were in place. For the first time since all this started, I felt like I could really, truly be happy for her the way she deserved.

“So…things can go back to normal now?” She sounded too hopeful. I couldn’t let her have that kind of hope. I wrapped my hands around hers and stared at our fingers. “You’re back, right?”

“For now,” I said softly, as if the tone of my voice would soften the blow. “I’m not really alive anymore, Em. My body isn’t going to age. And I have this job now…”

She swallowed and her eyes watered. She looked away from me like she was trying to study the collage portrait of this year’s senior class on the wall. It didn’t take long to find the image of me and

Em, my arm slung around her shoulder as we both grinned like idiots. It had been taken before all of this had even begun, and it felt like a lifetime ago. “What does that mean? You’re leaving?”

“Not yet, but I don’t want you to get used to this,” I said. “I’ll still be around when I can, but it won’t be like before. I’m going to be busy. I’ve got responsibilities now. But you’ve got Finn. And he is a good guy. Like, a seriously good guy. You won’t ever be alone.”

She sniffled. “I know that. But you’re my best friend. I don’t want to say good-bye to you.”

I nudged her chin with my hand. “Hey, it won’t be a good-bye. It’ll never be a good-bye for us.

Okay?”

Emma nodded and sighed. “You realize prom is next week? It’s going to blow if you’re not there.”

I sat back on my heels and an image of Anaya in a hot prom dress, pressed up against me in all the right places as we danced, flashed behind my lids.

I cleared my throat and smiled. “I’ll be there. Besides, who’s going to spike the punch if I don’t go?”

After I explained everything to her and let her grill me, I promised I’d see her again and made my way back out into the hall. Anaya was sitting in the middle of the hall with the kid. They’d found the deck of playing cards that had been in my backpack for like a year.

Anaya smiled up at me, gathering the cards and putting them away. The kid actually looked…happy.

I decided right then and there it was impossible not to be happy around Anaya. Heaven hadn’t given

Anaya her light—she’d been born with it. She’d died with it. And now she infected any soul that she touched with it. She was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her. She stood up and grabbed my hand.

“Everything okay?”

I smiled and brushed a tendril of dark hair out of her face, tucked it behind her ear. “Perfect. Well… it’ll be perfect if you say you’ll go to prom with me next week.”

Anaya rolled her eyes and tugged me down the hall.

“Oh, come on,” I groaned. “Give me one last reckless night as a teenager, then it’s serious shadow walker time, I swear. You could wear a hot dress and I can wear a tuxedo T-shirt. We can pretend to be humans and spike the punch and dirty dance all over the gym. If Balthazar throws a hissy fit, I’ll tell him I was scoping out a soul.”

Anaya laughed and pulled me down to kiss my jaw. Heat much more powerful than the kind running though my veins throbbed in all the right places. “Now, how could I say no to that?”

“That’s just it. You can’t.” I grinned. “You love me too much.”

My gaze drifted over her face, which was overcome with emotion. Her fingers coasted over my throat and she nodded. “You’re right. I do.”

My heart thudded in my chest and I wasn’t sure if the Almighty himself could have pried me away from her side in that moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the kid watching us and figured it was probably best if I didn’t kiss her senseless right there in the hall. It made me in that much more of a hurry to get this soul to where he needed to be, so we could be alone.

“I love you, too.” I gave her a quick kiss, then held my hand out to the kid waiting beside us and guided him through the silvery light to the afterlife. I was going to give him peace. A second chance.

And for the first time in my life, I finally felt something I don’t think I’d felt in a thousand years.

I felt complete.