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Chapter 4

Anaya

“I know you’re there.” Finn tied the laces on his tennis shoes, and a half grin carved a dimple into his cheek. “No use in hiding.”

He stood up as I stepped into sight, allowing him to see me. I hesitated a moment, not really knowing what to think of this new Finn. Gone were the plain jeans and gray T-shirt I’d seen him wear for at least the last ten years. Now he wore a pair of black running shorts and a sleeveless blue shirt.

He looked ridiculously human. Placing my hands on my hips, I surveyed the sparse living room that

Finn now called home. There weren’t any pictures hanging from the walls like I’d seen in most humans’ homes, just a picture of Emma on his nightstand. Then again, Finn hadn’t really been around long enough yet to capture any memories in frames. What he did have was life, pure and fragile, coursing through his veins, fueling his heart. It was evident in the golden glow of his skin and his flushed cheeks. The vibrant light in his eyes that I’d never seen in over seventy years of knowing him.

I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. “How did you know? Aren’t you supposed to be human now?”

Finn chuckled and raked a hand through his hair. It was lighter now, a little longer. He linked his fingers and stretched his arms behind his back. “Guess I got to keep a few tricks. I must be lucky.”

“That or I’m losing my touch,” I grumbled, following him as he made his way out the front door and into the early morning sunlight. Dew coated the grass and the light breeze smelled fresh, like rain. I’d always loved mornings. How quiet and at peace the world the seemed. Finn took off at a jog and I picked up speed to stay in step with him.

“Wow,” I breathed. “You really have gone all human on me. You even jog now.”

Finn snorted and cut down a wooded path. The soles of his shoes pounded out a rhythm on the dirt trail, but I didn’t leave a single print. “I’m not trying to fit some kind of mold here, Anaya. It just helps.”

“With what?”

“He gave me a new body,” he said. A bead of sweat glistened on his forehead and his brows pinched together. “He didn’t give me a new mind. You don’t forget. Everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve seen…”

Finn pressed his lips together and his feet pounded against the trail a little harder, picking up speed.

“I don’t want to remember. This helps.”

“Are you happy?”

Finn skidded to a stop in the middle of the trail and bent over, bracing his palms on his knees to catch his breath. My hand absently clutched my chest, wanting the burn that he was feeling. “Why did you do it, Anaya? Why didn’t you take him? I’ve tried again and again to wrap my mind around it… and I can’t. I can’t come up with one good reason why you’d deny him an afterlife.”

I lifted my chin, not knowing what else to do. I couldn’t show weakness when I was guarding

Balthazar’s secret. Not to him. Not to anyone. There was too much at stake for me here, whether I agreed with what I was doing or not. Balthazar would turn my dreams to vapor in the space of one of

Finn’s fragile heartbeats if things didn’t go his way. If I’d learned anything in my thousand years in the service of the second in command to the Almighty, it was this. “You did it to Emma.”

Finn’s head snapped up and his eyes flared with anger. “That was different. You don’t even know

Cash. What you did goes against everything we’ve ever learned. How the hell did you even get away with it?”

I hesitated, not knowing how much to reveal. Finn was a human now. Would Balthazar care if he knew? A gust of wind rustled the budding canopy of branches above us, bringing with it a burst of resolve.

“I did as I was told,” I said, feigning more confidence than I felt. “Maybe you’ve already forgotten, but that’s what we do, Finn. They command. We deliver.”

Finn leaned forward, curling his fingers around his knees, and narrowed his gaze on me. “That’s just it, though. You didn’t deliver this time.”

I raised a brow and ran my fingers over my blade out of habit. “Who said I’m finished with him?”

“He’s expired, isn’t he? That’s why the shadow demons are making his life hell,” Finn said, realization lighting his emerald eyes. “He’s so close they can smell it on him. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”

Hating the way Finn’s accusing glare made me feel, I turned away, listening to the world wake up around us. Birds chirped. In the distance the steady hum of the highway leaked through the trees.

Shadows pooled in the corners of the forest, but a glow of sunshine lit the space where I stood. “This really isn’t your business anymore, you know.”

“He’s hurting. Hell, he’s more than hurting. The kid is losing it. He’s deteriorating, slowly and painfully, a little more every day.” He sighed and came to stand beside me. “The Anaya I knew never would have aided in something like this, let alone sit back and watch it happen. Do you have any idea what will happen to him when that body gives out? What those shadows will do to him after all of the pointless suffering?”

“Nothing!” Something inside of me snapped at the image of Cash ending up in the bellies of those creatures. “Nothing will happen to him, because I will be there. I’m going to take care of him. I have orders from Balthazar, Finn. Don’t question matters you know nothing about.”

His jaw tensed. “You know what I think? I think you don’t even know what Balthazar is up to. I think he’s got his claws in you so deep, you’re not even bothering to try to get away.”

I shook my head and my braids scattered over my shoulder blades, hopefully hiding how violently I was shaking. With guilt. And fear. And a thousand other emotions I had no right to feel. “He wouldn’t be doing this unless he had a good reason.” I had to believe that. I had to because this human was starting to make me feel things no human should. I closed my eyes, trying to find peace in the warmth that ran through me, but all I found was guilt.

Finn folded his arms over his chest, and something about his silence drew my gaze to his.

“Fix this, Anaya,” he pleaded. “I know what I’m asking of you. I know it seems impossible to give, but I have to try. I have to try because I put my happiness before so many others, and he’s on that list.

It’s too late to make it up to the rest of them, but I have to believe I can make it up to him. He didn’t deserve what I did to him. Taking his body, using him to be with Emma…it was inexcusable, and I regret it every day. If I hadn’t crossed the line, maybe none of this would’ve happened.”

“Finn—”

“Let me finish.” He held his hand up. “I don’t know what Balthazar has on you, what he’s promising you, but you need to ask yourself something. Is it worth it? Is it worth losing the very things that make you worthy of that light you carry around inside of you?”

I slipped my arms around my waist and tried to calm the hollow throb of shame staining my insides.

Finn was right. Balthazar may be pulling the strings here, but I made a choice. I made a choice to put my happiness before this human’s.

“He’s confused,” Finn continued. “If nothing else, he deserves some honesty. He deserves to know what’s going to happen at the end of this.”

I nodded and Finn’s hand ghosted through my fingers. “I kept so many things from Emma. I did so many things the wrong way. Don’t make my mistakes, Anaya. Trust me when I say they will haunt you for an eternity.”

With that, Finn turned and jogged away. I didn’t follow. Instead, I closed my eyes and searched for that pull to Cash. Maybe I couldn’t stop Balthazar or the things he’d already put into motion, but Finn was right. Cash deserved answers. What he didn’t deserve was blind fear, eating away the last of his moments on this earth. Maybe Balthazar would have had a problem with me spilling what I knew to an ordinary human, but Cash was something else. If he were ordinary, Balthazar wouldn’t want him. I thought about his expired body, his soul inside, pulsing to be set free. No human should have survived more than a couple of days like that, yet Cash was still alive.

No. He was no ordinary human. If he were, he’d be dead.