Blurred

Chapter 24

Cash

I sat on my bed in the dark. The laptop screen glared back at me as I trolled WebMD and Wikipedia.

There were a lot of half-ass guesses to what was wrong with me, but none of them were right. There wasn’t one article on what to do when you’re living in an expired body. My gut told me the answer to that was to give up. There was no cure. No solution. Just a question mark on the door that would open to the afterlife. Which afterlife I was going to was just another thing I didn’t know.

I slammed the laptop shut and leaned back into my pillows. The house was too quiet. Too vacant.

No Dad snoring. No muffled sounds of Seinfeld coming through the bedroom wall that connected our rooms. Just me. My breathing. The wind beating the house.

And the hissing.

I tensed and sat up, my eyes searching the dark. It was useless to even try to see them this way. The dark was their camouflage. My fingers twitched on the comforter, wanting to flip the light on, but I was afraid of what I’d see. How many were here this time? The hissing was getting closer. Louder.

Goose bumps rose across my arms. Calm. Anaya said I had to stay calm. Get control. I inhaled a deep breath and let it sit in my chest, burning my lungs. It was too cold. I finally coughed and let it out.

Another hiss echoed through the dark.

“Screw this.” I leaned over to flip on the lamp.

Light exploded across the dark, but the shadows were quick to snuff it out. My hand flinched back as one slithered up onto the nightstand.

“Youuuu commmeeee.”

I looked up at the large shadow standing at the end of my bed. It was a big black shadow of a man twice my size. It cocked its head to the side and held out a hand. Black smoke like fingers curled toward me, beckoning me to follow.

Fear closed off my throat. Where was Anaya? God, please let her come back. Now. Like right freaking now.

“What do you want?”

“Youuuuuu,” the shadow man hissed. Something dark and sludge-like dripped from the cavern of his mouth, and I jerked my legs up before it could land on my shin.

“Look,” I said, gripping the comforter. “I’m not who you want. If you had any idea how much

Jägermeister I’ve drunk in the last three years, then you’d know there’s no way I could ever taste good.”

“Come!” It shouted. That sound sent panic ripping through my chest. It was a deep growling sound that wasn’t human or animal. I needed to get out of there, but I was cornered by a wall of hungry darkness on every side. Adrenaline surged through my veins, or maybe it was something else, something that made me believe I was capable of doing what I decided to do next. My eyes scanned the room. Jeans on the floor. Keys on the dresser by the door. I could do this. Pain ripped through my chest as I dragged in a breath of air, then two. Holding the last one in, I reached out and grabbed the shadow demon between me and the exit by the throat. Sparks flew and a blue stream of vapor seeped out of my veins, latching onto the demon, binding it to my wrist. It hissed, setting off a symphony of growls all around as I slid off the bed, taking it with me. A second shadow broke away from the rest and snapped at me. I grabbed it with my left hand. I felt dizzy. Electric. The sensation almost enough to numb the burning sting developing over every inch of bare flesh that the shadow demons touched.

When I got near the door, I released them both along with the breath I’d been holding. And damn if the pain lighting up my world didn’t choose that moment to explode across the surface of my skin. I ignored it. If I didn’t, there would be so much more to follow. Instead, I grabbed my jeans off the floor and keys off the nightstand and darted out the door.

By the time I made it to Finn’s, I had finally stopped shaking. I turned the ignition off and sat in the

Bronco, staring up at his crappy little garage apartment. One window glowed with light despite it being two in the morning.

“Please don’t let Emma be in there.” I climbed out of the truck.

Wind parted the darkness and every time a gust of it touched me, I flinched. Where the hell was

Noah the freaking shadow whisperer? For someone who claimed to want to be my friend, he wasn’t very concerned with me becoming a meal. I couldn’t get Anaya’s words out of my head. She said she’d seen it. Shadow walkers delivering souls to the underworld. Straight into the hands of the things

I was running from. Is that what Noah was doing with the souls he saved? I didn’t want to believe that.

He had to be different.

Please don’t let them follow me. Please.

I looked up at the stars peeking through the wispy gray clouds in the sky and prayed that whoever it was that Anaya worked for up there heard me. I pounded up the steps to Finn’s apartment and pounded even harder on the door. It took him a minute, but when he answered he didn’t look surprised. He just looked…tired.

“Can I stay here?” I asked. “I would have gone to Emma’s, but I don’t want to lead these things over there. And…I don’t really know where else to go.”

He looked me up and down and stepped to the side for me to enter.

“Are they here now?” he asked once I was inside. I shivered and rubbed my arms.

“Not yet.”

“You’re going to have to get your emotions under control if you want to keep them at bay.” He closed the door and locked it.

“Easier said than done.”

Finn flipped on a small table lamp.

“They thrive on the emotions you’re putting out,” he said. “Fear. Anger. Depression. It attracts them like moths to a flame. That’s how they always got to reaps before we could. They could smell the dying before I ever got the call.”

“Well, I must smell like a freaking buffet then.”

Finn laughed at that.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked around the pint-size apartment. A burgundy sofa that had survived some kind of garage sale hell and a dinged-up coffee table sat in the middle of the living room. Two mismatched bar stools were pushed up against the little kitchen bar. But it was neat and clean. The only things out of place were Finn’s black-and-white Converse tennis shoes he’d kicked off on the way to the bedroom.

“It’s a rat hole. I know.” He plopped down onto the sofa and ran a hand over the cushion. “I’m saving up to get something better after graduation.”

“Hey, looks fine to me.” I sat down beside him and checked the room one more time. At least he was going to make it to graduation. “It can’t be easy starting from scratch.”

He laughed and leaned his head back. “You have no idea. It all just sounds like a fairy tale at first.

But nobody tells you what happens after ‘they lived happily ever after.’”

“Do you regret it?” I studied his face, trying to see what Emma loved so much. “Do you wish things had just stayed the same? I mean, it’s got to be easier being dead than all this.”

Part of me really believed that. Life didn’t seem very easy any more. Not that it ever really had. But when you started blurring the lines between life and death, things got…complicated. I was never very good with complicated.

“No.” Finn shook his head. “And trust me. The way things were before, being separated from her like that…I’ll take this and more any day of the week.”

I leaned up and placed my palms on the coffee table to try to stop shaking. “Well, she loves you,” I said, shivering. “I’ve never seen her love anyone the way she loves you.”

Finn smiled at that. He grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and tossed it over to me. I wrapped it around myself to try to lock in what little heat I had left.

“What about Anaya?” he said. “Don’t tell me there’s not something there. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. I’ve known Anaya for a very long time. She makes a point not to look at anyone like that.”

I shook my head and stared at the carpet. “She doesn’t love me. She thinks I’m somebody else. And to be honest I don’t think I have the energy to be some guy she’s been chasing for a thousand years.”

“Wait…somebody else?” Finn sat up with interest. “Do you mean she knew you in a past life?”

I buried my face in my hands and groaned at how ridiculous and impossible all this shit sounded.

“You know how you pointed out I must have lived lots of lives to get to where I am now?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, apparently one of those lives was Tarik,” I said. “As in Anaya’s fiancé.”

Shock showed on every inch of Finn’s face. He rubbed his chin and stared at the carpet. “Maybe she’s wrong.”

“She showed me, Finn.” I rubbed my palms together and pain throbbed under the tender red skin. “I saw her through his eyes. I felt her. He loved her. And now I don’t even know what to think. Am I him? I don’t feel like I am. I still feel like Cash, with all of my own fucked-up feelings tearing me up inside.”

Finn pinned me with his tired gaze. “Do you love her?”

“How am I supposed to answer that when I don’t even know who she’s really seeing when she looks at me now?”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it.” He laughed. “You either love her or you don’t.”

“ I…I don’t know how I feel.” I swallowed the lie easily enough. The fact was, I knew exactly how I felt about Anaya. I knew because I’d never felt that way about anyone before. And it scared the hell out me. It scared me because there wasn’t anywhere for this to go. She was dead. I was dying. The whole thing was so screwed up it made my head hurt. I wondered if this was how Emma felt when she started to fall for Finn.

Finn laughed softly. “Yeah. Whatever you say.”

When I looked up, his eyelids looked heavy. He shook his head to keep himself awake.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I asked.

Finn sat up and rubbed his face with his palms, then pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’m entertaining you, remember?”

“You’re weren’t sleeping when I showed up.” I nodded to the bedroom light on. “Don’t blame it on me.”

Finn shook his head and sighed. “I…I have dreams. Nightmares.”

“About what?”

“You can’t unsee the things I’ve seen,” he said. “You touch enough death and it’s bound to come back to haunt you.”

He sounded far away in that moment, even though he was sitting right next to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He looked surprised. “For what?”

“For being a dick.” I leaned back into the lumpy couch cushion. “You didn’t deserve that. If I’m being honest, I’m grateful Emma has you. You changed her back into a girl I’ve missed for a long time.”

Finn nodded and closed his eyes.

“If you want, we can sit here and avoid sleep together,” he finally said.

I laughed. “What, are we deciding to be friends now?”

Finn’s mouth tipped into a lopsided grin. “Hell, no.”

“You know…” I hesitated knowing this was going to come back to bite me in the ass, but in the end it felt right. There was too much shit between Finn and I that needed to be put to rest. And I was tired of being alone all of the time. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and sighed. “I’ve got two spare rooms at the house. If you don’t like this place, I could use a roommate. If you can get past the shadow demons and yappy dog across the street, it’s not a bad set up.”

Finn chuckled and nodded. “Yeah…maybe.”

I smiled and closed my eyes to the let darkness take hold of my vision. Finn might not be a reaper anymore, but maybe if I was lucky, those little bastards were still scared of him. It didn’t last long. I sat up, shaking when a flash of cold consumed the room. My breath looked like fog clinging to my lips.

“Who the hell is this?” someone growled from the other side of the living room.

Finn sighed. “Scout, give it a rest.”

Scout? My eyes opened wide when the air in front of the coffee table swirled into a smoky figure that little by little took the shape of guy. A guy who didn’t look much older than me or Finn. He jerked his head to toss a few blond curls out of his eyes.

“Wait a minute…is this the kid from the fire?”

Finn nodded.

“Well, I don’t care who he is—I want him out,” he said. “Do you have any idea how many shadow demons are lurking outside this place right now?”

Finn laughed. “I’ll tell you what. You can start kicking out guests when you start helping me with the steep-ass rent your drunk of an uncle is charging me.”

Scout rolled his eyes and kicked over a half-full Coke can on the table. Sticky liquid expanded across the table before spilling over the edge onto the carpet.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You don’t care when I have Emma over here.” Finn stood up and stomped into the kitchen. He came back with a towel and started blotting up the spilled Coke.

Scout waited until he came back and laughed. “Yeah, well, I get to see Emma in a bra when I time my entrances right. She’s better entertainment.”

Finn dropped the towel and his jaw clenched. “You son of a—”

“Wait a minute!” I stood up and stared at the two of them, trying to form words. There weren’t any.

This was…this was fucking crazy. “What the hell is going on?”

Scout scowled at me. “Better question—what are you? Because if you were just a human, we wouldn’t have a shadow infestation going on out there.”

Finn held up his hands between us. “Stop. Scout’s a reaper. As for Cash”—he looked at Scout

—“he’s a shadow walker. Anaya was supposed to take him at the fire. For whatever reason, Balthazar had her keep him here.”

“Why would he do that?” Scout folded his arms across his chest, looking me over. “The body is expired. It’s not like he’s going to be walking around for long. Look at him, for Christ’s sake.”

“Hey, fuck you too, Casper,” I snapped. Hearing that I looked like shit was the last thing I needed right now. Especially from some dead, pretty-boy asshole.

Scout snorted and walked around the table to look me over. A shiver rolled over my skin the closer he got. I stepped back until the backs of my knees hit the couch cushion.

Scout raised a brow and laughed. “I’ve seen one of these guys. Blond one a few years back. Stole a soul right out from under me. I’d thought he was another reaper at the time, but after the ass-chewing I got from Balthazar, I figured out he was something else. Although I think he was more pissed that there was one of you guys running for the other team.”

Blond one. Noah. He was talking about Noah. “Maybe he was trying to save the soul from that hellhole of nothingness you were delivering it to.”

Scout raised a brow and looked at Finn. “What hellhole? You must be thinking of Easton, kid. I don’t deliver downstairs. I don’t like to get my hands that dirty. I deal strictly with the Inbetween.”

“No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I’m talking about you. I saw what happens to those souls. You talk about how much you hate the scum lurking outside your door. Why the hell do you help turn them into that, then?”

“Cash?” Finn leaned down to catch my gaze. “They don’t all end up like that. Lots are reborn. And the ones that don’t get that opportunity are there for a reason. There’s something dark they won’t let go of.”

“What about Em?” I countered. “What could she have possibly done to deserve that?”

He seemed surprised that I knew but didn’t dwell on it. Instead, a look of guilt flashed over his face.

“She was doomed because of me. It was against the rules for us to be together, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t let her go.”

“And that’s why you did what you did to save her.”

Finn nodded and Scout spoke up. “Look, we aren’t going to tell you the system isn’t flawed. It is.

But it is what it is. There has to be some kind of order. Some kind of consequence or the world would go to shit.”

I needed to tell him about Noah. I needed to tell Anaya. I was so done with all of the secrets.

Nothing was what it seemed. And, for that matter, nothing was turning out to be the way Noah said it was. What kind of game was this guy playing with me? And if Anaya wasn’t around when my time ran out, what exactly was going to happen to me? It had been hard enough just to escape my room tonight.

And if I couldn’t trust Noah, either, I didn’t stand a chance. Damn it, I was so screwed. I wasn’t going to escape this no matter how long I hid in Finn’s apartment.

I stepped around the table and paced the room. My throat was closing up. I felt dizzy. God…was this shit ever going to end? I couldn’t take any more.

“I can’t…I can’t…” I pressed my fists into my eyes and tried to catch my breath. I couldn’t breathe.

“Hey.” Finn settled a hand on my shoulder. “Sit down before you pass out.”

I let him lead me over to the couch and fell backward into the cushions.

Scout leaned over to squint at me. “He’s losing it.”

Finn shot him a cold glare. “Leave him alone. He didn’t choose this.”

I couldn’t even form words. My tongue felt dead in my mouth. Pain blossomed in my stomach and suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room. No, no, no! I needed to warn him about Noah. Maybe

Noah wasn’t working for the shadow demons. Maybe he’d gone rogue and was some kind of vigilante for the afterlife. Even as the theories spun to life in my head, I knew they didn’t feel right. Something inside Noah was dark. I just prayed that same darkness didn’t live inside me.