Early to Death, Early to Rise

Thirteen

Sweet and tangy, the ketchup dripped from my French fries until I shoved them in my mouth and licked the salt from my fingers. “Oh, puppies from Hades, this is good,” I mumbled around the mouthful, reaching for the pop and taking a long pull on the straw. Bubbles exploded all the way down my throat, and I made a happy mmmm even as I was reaching for another fry. They were cut thick and had been cooked to perfection. I jammed another one in my mouth. I hadn’t eaten in so long, it was as if I were starving.

Suddenly I realized that no one was saying anything, and I looked up. Shoe was sitting across from me in the booth. Nakita was to his right, her red purse sitting carefully on the table beside her. Barnabas was to my left, and beside him, Ace sat in sullen silence against the wall, holding a wad of ice wrapped in brown napkins to his head.

“What?” I asked, seeing that everyone was staring at me.

Nakita glanced at Barnabas, then said softly, “I’ve never seen you eat…like that.”

My reach for another fry slowed, and I ate it in two bites instead of one. It was late, and the diner was empty but for us, the waitress counting money in the till, and the cook glowering at us through the hole in the wall, clearly wanting to go home. “I’m starving,” I said, taking a tiny sip of pop when what I wanted to do was gulp it. “And tired.” But no heartbeat. None at all.

Beside me, Barnabas leaned back in the bench seat, casual as he stirred the ice in his untouched drink. “It’s kind of gross, Madison.”

I eyed him, reading a soft envy in his carefully relaxed pose. “Jealous?” I asked tartly.

“Sort of,” he muttered, looking up and away to where Grace and her new friend were chatting on the light fixture, their wings making them into softball-size globes of light only I and my reapers could see.

Eating another fry, I grimaced when a splotch of ketchup hit my lab coat. “I think it’s from the flash forward,” I said as I dabbed at it. “I was alive again, or at least it felt like I was when I was in Ace.” I looked at him, feeling my face twist up in distaste. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

The guy sneered at me, and, wadding up my napkin, I stifled a yawn. “My mind must have remembered what it’s like to be hungry. And tired. What time is it?”

Not looking, Barnabas said, “Midnight.”

“Mmmm.” I crumpled the napkin up and dropped it on the fries. I was still hungry, but I didn’t want to look like a pig. “I gotta get home.” It wasn’t too late yet to call my mom as I had promised, school night or not. She kept hours like a vampire.

My gaze went back to Ace, scrunched up and silent in the corner of the booth. He hadn’t said anything much since waking up in his truck. As it stood, there was not going to be any problem at the hospital come six the next morning. No one would ever know. What would happen to Ace now was anyone’s guess.

Shoe, on the other hand…I smiled at him as he carefully felt his jaw, which was now turning an ugly purple. “You going to be okay?” I asked him, and he winced.

“I’m going to catch hell for trashing the school’s computers,” he said, glancing at Ace. “But I knew that before I did it. It’s staying out to midnight on a school night that I wasn’t planning on. But at this point, I don’t care.”

We all looked at Ace, who flipped us off. The waitress must have seen, because she cleared her throat loudly and went to talk to the cook in the kitchen.

I looked at the plate of fries, then ate one, feeling guilty for no reason that I could fathom. “Barnabas, maybe we can stop at Shoe’s house on the way home and make his mom and dad think he’s been tucked into bed,” I suggested.

Barnabas nodded, looking a bit too casual for my comfort. Sneaky, almost.

“That’d be great,” Shoe said nervously, edging away from Nakita as she started to mutter about wanting to just scythe the lot of them. But Shoe’s discomfort seemed to be stemming from Barnabas’s sly demeanor, not from Nakita, and I wondered if he was worried that I was going to go back on my word and change his memories as well.

Throwing his wad of damp napkins down, Ace sat straighter. “You all suck,” he said loudly. “You’re going to fix it so that no one remembers he’s even been out?”

“Quiet!” Nakita hissed, leaning across the table. “You should be dead.”

“You shut up!” he exclaimed, his brow furrowed. “Crazy chick!”

“Don’t call me that!” she said, starting to rise, but when the guardian angel set her wings to humming, Nakita sat back down with a huff. “You’re lucky, human,” she muttered. “Lucky.”

Lucky wasn’t the word I’d like to apply to Ace, but he was. He’d tried to make a name for himself by killing people and blaming Shoe for it, and the only way he’d get in trouble for it now would be if Shoe got in bigger trouble, too. I was all for being honest and taking one’s licks, but sometimes…the better part of valor and all.

Sighing, I slid to the end of the bench and stood. It was time to go home, and I dropped my head as I looked at the lab coat. I kind of liked it, even with the ketchup. Maybe I could start a new trend at school. I hadn’t done anything really kooky yet to make myself stand out. Other than being dead, that is, and no one but Josh knew that. It would have been nice for him to have helped me tonight, and I missed him.

“We have to go,” I said softly, giving my fries a last longing look.

Barnabas gathered himself, standing when Nakita did. The two of them exchanged knowing looks as they slid out of the booth. Their eyes had both gone silver, and I jumped to get in front of Shoe. “Not Shoe,” I said, hand outstretched to keep them from wiping his memory.

Barnabas rolled his eyes. “Madison…” he started, but a subtle prickling in my temple shocked through me. Barnabas felt it, too, and so did Nakita.

“There once was a keeper named Ron,” Grace said from the light fixtures, “whose karma was kind of a yawn. He showed up too late; some say it was fate. I think he’s just really stupid, myself.”

True, it didn’t rhyme, but I still kind of liked it. “Ron is coming?” I said, bothered. What does he want? It’s over!

“But I’m shielding us!” Nakita said, clearly bewildered.

“Apparently not well enough,” Barnabas said snidely, and I felt all the more tired. Swell. They were arguing again.

“I won’t let him mess with you,” Grace said, and I smiled up at her darting ball of light as she left the fixture. I knew my face still held my grateful expression when Shoe whistled and I followed his gaze to the front door, where Ron was standing just inside as if he’d been there all the time. Paul was standing beside him, and the little entry bells were not ringing.

Ron looked peeved, one hand lost in the folds of his flowing tunic as he put it on his hip and gestured at me with the other as if I were an errant child. I glared right back, shifting to hide Shoe, still sitting down. Barnabas moved to my right, Nakita to my left. Ron’s gaze lingered over her traditional white clothes of a dark reaper, and Nakita lifted her chin.

“I wouldn’t have believed it if I’d not seen it,” Ron said, his eyes taking in my lab coat and yellow sneakers with their skulls. “The scything is over. The mark is safe. Well, he’s beaten up, but he’s alive,” he added, glancing up at the two guardian angels. “I won. It’s over. You lost. Go home, Madison.”

I took a slow breath to find my words. Mark, I thought, deciding that giving people labels was degrading. “Ace has a name,” I said softly, wondering how bad I looked when I noticed Paul was staring at me.

“Hi, Ron,” I finally said loudly. “Come any closer, and I’m going to kick you right in your pendulum. What do you want? As you said, you already won.”

The small man harrumphed, squinting warily first at the two guardian angels, then at my reapers flanking me, and finally at Ace behind us. “The seraphs sent me to adjust your amulet,” he said, surprising me. “Me. Ha. Go figure. Apparently you’re touching the divine too closely.”

I’m touching the divine too closely? That was exactly what it had felt like. Maybe the hell I’d just gone through wasn’t the norm.

Seeing me looking at him like I’d taken a week’s worth of stupid pills, Ron strode forward among the empty tables with his usual quickness, halting with a comical abruptness when Barnabas flung out a hand in warning and Nakita suddenly had her sword out. The waitress made a muffled yelp, ducking into the back and babbling for the phone.

Better and better.

Ron stopped, his expression frustrated as he assessed the situation. Barnabas calmly crossed his ankles and leaned back against the table, looking good in his casual tee and black jeans. “You’re not touching her…Chronos,” the reaper said calmly, softly, his voice heavy with threat.

Ron’s wrinkles grew deeper. “Back off. Her predecessor is dead. Who else is going to tweak her amulet? You? I’m here as the superior timekeeper under seraph orders. You think I’m going to violate those? How else could I find you, shielded as you are?”

On my other side, Nakita steamed, her grip on her sword hilt tightening. “You might if you thought you could get away with it,” she said, and Paul, almost forgotten, inched forward.

“You’re not superior, Ron. You’re just older,” I said, then glanced at Paul, wondering. He’d helped me until Nakita had hit him. My guess was that he was going to have a black eye by morning. He’d never believe me again. I weighed the chances that Ron would do something sneaky against the real chance that my amulet wasn’t tuned properly. I didn’t want to go through that hell again, and I didn’t want a seraph down here to fix it instead. Ron didn’t look tired or distressed, and he had been flashing forward, too. Clearly something was wrong with me…again.

“He’s right; it’s over,” I said, taking my amulet off and tossing it to Ron.

The silver-wrapped stone smacked into Ron’s hand. Barnabas stiffened, and Nakita almost had kittens, falling to my side and finding an aggressive stance. It was a bold move on my part, but I was trying to prove to Ron that I wasn’t afraid of him. Even if I was. I’d never have done it if I didn’t have two reapers and two guardian angels standing by. I didn’t think I could bear another look at the stars, raw and unfiltered, seen through the divine. “Just fix it,” I said with a sigh, feeling naked without my amulet. “I can’t take more than two flash forwards like that.”

“Two?” Ron said, the amulet forgotten in his hands. “There was more than one?”

I smiled at him, lips closed. From the back, I could hear a frantic conversation, but at least the cook hadn’t come out with a loaded shotgun. Yet. Barnabas and Nakita exchanged a look, and, sighing dramatically, the dark reaper slunk to the kitchen door. She hesitated, then dissolved her sword. Hair tossed back, she pushed on the double door and went in. Screaming quickly ensued, and we all waited until the twin thumps came before we turned back to one another.

Looking at Barnabas, Ron inched forward and extended my amulet. “You have to be wearing it for me to adjust it,” he said.

I waited until Nakita came out before I stepped from Barnabas. A quick glance back at Shoe and I frowned. He looked scared. Breath held, I looped the simple cord around my neck, then stiffened when Ron took the stone in his fingers. I had trusted him once. Never again.

My jaw relaxed as a reddish light leaked from my amulet. The slight headache I didn’t even realize I had lifted from me, and I exhaled, no longer feeling like I needed to hold myself together.

Ron’s hand slipped from my amulet. Barnabas cleared his throat, clearly wanting me to step back near him, but I didn’t, and it was Ron who moved first, with a new wariness in his stance. “Thanks,” I said dryly. “I appreciate that.”

Looking uncomfortable, Ron glanced at Paul, then at Shoe. “I adjusted your pull on the divine,” he said gruffly. “Your predecessor was alive. You’re not. It’s going to take some tweaking.” Wiping his hands together, he backed up. “I don’t know what you had hoped to do by this. You made a bloody mess of it. How many people need their memories adjusted?”

Shoe scuffed his feet, and I shifted to hide him. “A few,” I said. “And a few more now that you’re butting in again. We can take care of it. And what do you mean, a bloody mess? It looks to me like I fixed it. No one died.”

Paul edged forward to stand beside Ron as the older man pointed rudely at me. “Your job makes you a murderer, Madison,” he said, and Barnabas stiffened. “Perhaps not with your own hands, but by your actions. Attempting to soothe your conscience by trying to save people whose souls are not even in danger only makes a mess and is an exercise in futility.”

An exercise in futility? I thought, my chin lifting as I took a step forward. “I’ve died once, and trust me, the people we just saved would have wanted it that way.” I was almost in his face, and I jumped when Barnabas pulled me back. “We saved three people’s lives,” I said from the security of his grip. “Four if you count Shoe not taking the blame for Ace’s actions. They’re all going to feel the sun on their faces tomorrow.” Crap, I was almost crying again. “That feels good to me!” I finished hotly, wiping my eyes and not caring if Ron saw it.

And I did feel good. Sure, there was the problem of the flash forwards, but I didn’t think I’d be living nightmares like tonight again. My amulet had needed adjusting. Thank you, God, for sending Ron.

“Maybe it was their time to go and you messed it up,” Ron said as he glanced past the night-blackened windows, clearly thinking about leaving.

I smiled at him, thinking that for all his years, I’d been somewhere he hadn’t. Maybe that was why I’d been fated to become the dark timekeeper. “That’s fate, Ron, and you don’t believe in fate. Or do you?”

His attention came back from the parking lot as he realized I’d basically said what a seraph had told him not two months ago. “Fine, you win,” I said. “Congratulations. That worthless pile over there in the corner is safe. Got an angel and everything. Nothing to stop you from leaving. We’ve got a lot of cleanup to do.” My thoughts went to the two people in the kitchen. “People to give memories to,” I added, and Shoe cleared his throat behind me.

“Fate is an excuse,” Ron blurted. “You don’t know what people will choose. Ace might have changed someday without all this.”

“Wrong!” I barked, and Paul’s expression became pensive. “But I’m not going to argue with you. Whether you accept it or not, I believe in choice as much as you do. But that pile of shepherd dung,” I said, pointing to Ace, who was hearing everything but ignoring us as he nursed his hurts, “wasn’t going to change without some heavy intervention. He might now, but not the way you left him, knowing he had a guardian angel and a get-out-of-death-free card.”

Paul’s ears went red. Ron turned to him with a hush of sliding fabric.

“Will you just leave?” I said, retreating to Barnabas. “And take your spying apprentice with you,” I added.

Paul’s mouth fell open at my caustic words, but I winked at him when Ron glanced away, and Grace giggled.

“You should give him more respect. He knows more than you do,” Ron said as he drew Paul closer to him, and Barnabas snorted.

“I think he knows more than you do, Ron,” I said. “Go already. And don’t let the scythe hit you on the way out.”

Nakita was fidgeting beside me, but I gave it little thought as Ron turned. “Come on, Paul,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.

Suddenly, Nakita blurted, “I’m sorry I hit you, rising timekeeper,” and both Barnabas and I jerked. She was red, and at our blank looks, she added, “What? I’m sorry. Can’t I apologize?”

Stoic and silent, Ron simply vanished. Paul, though, was still here. His sandals scuffing the tile, Paul looked at the empty space beside him where Ron had been. “Um,” he mumbled as his attention came back to us. “Thanks, Nakita. It’s okay.”

“You know I said that only to get him off your case, right?” I said, and Paul touched his nose, smiling before he vanished as well in a shining line of light.

With a heavy exhale, Shoe fell back onto the bench seat, muttering.

Barnabas took his seat as well, thoughtful. “Did you notice the rising timekeeper’s amulet is the same color as mine?” he asked.

“Really?” I said, but then the oddity of Barnabas’s question hit me, and I turned to him. “Is that important?”

Startled out of his thoughts, Barnabas looked everywhere but at me. “It should be shifting up the spectrum to red.” The reaper’s eyes landed on mine. “I bet Ron isn’t happy about that.”

My lips parted as I wondered what that might mean, but Barnabas cleared his throat and looked to the silent kitchen. “We need to go. Nakita, are the cook and the waitress set?”

Nakita was taking a picture of the dusty light fixture, holding the camera at a very odd angle. “They’re fine,” she said as she looked at the screen. “Where’s your wallet, Madison?” she asked. “Still in the truck?”

“Oh, yeah!” I said, turning back to my plate of food. “My phone is out there, too.” But when I looked at the golden, crispy fries, my reach for them hesitated. Slowly my smile evaporated, replaced by a feeling of despair.

“I’m not hungry anymore!” I wailed, and Nakita blinked at me. “Don’t you get it?” I cried, looking down at my amulet. “I was eating because my amulet wasn’t working right. Ron fixed it, and now I’m not hungry anymore!”

“Thank God for small favors,” Barnabas muttered as he pulled himself upright. “It was really gross, Madison.”

Depressed, I sank back down. “But I like eating,” I said mournfully. Darn it, it wasn’t fair! Unhappy, I fingered a French fry. Grace dropped down, warming my hand as she offered condolences the only way she could—until she thought up a poem, that was.

“There once was a girl who liked fries,” Grace started, and Barnabas made an exasperated sound.

“Your wallet, Madison?” Nakita offered.

“Yeah, right.” I muttered, and I stood.

“Sorry, Madison,” Shoe said, clearly not understanding why fries were so important to me, but knowing I was upset.

“It’s okay.” Head down, I angled toward the door, slowing as my amulet seemed to grow heavy, warm almost, but a sudden thought pulled me to a stop. How had Nakita known my wallet was in the truck?

Suspicious, I spun back to the table, my guess borne out when I saw Barnabas’s eyes had silvered.

“What…wait!” I exclaimed, lurching back to the table. “Shoe! Don’t look at him!”

Barnabas’s head swiveled to me. A drop of fear slid through me at his alien eyes, silver and glowing with a holy light. Across the table from him, Shoe gasped, breaking the grip Barnabas had on him and dropping his head. Ace was already staring vacantly, his lips parted, clearly still under Barnabas’s influence.

“Madison!” Barnabas barked, eyes still glowing as Shoe rubbed his face and blinked.

I tugged Shoe up and out of the booth. “Not Shoe,” I said. “I promised him he could remember.”

Barnabas’s jaw clenched and his brow furrowed. “Madison…” he grumbled, his eyes again a steady brown.

“Yeah, that’s my name,” I said hotly. “Mad Madison. I say Shoe can remember, and I’m your boss.”

Grace made a long oooooh sound, and the second guardian angel on the light fixture went quiet, her wings stilling to make her vanish. Barnabas’s eyes narrowed as he turned in the seat and looked me up and down. “No, you’re not,” he said, and Nakita scuffed her feet behind me. “I’m grim. Anytime I want, I’m out of here.”

He wouldn’t, I thought, panicking. “Oh, yeah?” I said, almost daring him.

“Yeah,” Barnabas said, clearly not happy.

Beside me, Shoe looked frightened. I took a slow breath, trying to find some way to keep from alienating Barnabas. He’d been there when I had died, tried to save me, believed in me. I trusted him, and he was probably the only person who might really understand me.

“Yeah,” I said more softly. “Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not your boss.” I turned to Nakita, seeing her eyes wide and frightened. “Nakita, I’m not yours, either, but this is my scythe, and I want Shoe to remember.”

“Yes, you are,” Nakita said immediately, the surety of her voice making Shoe frown. “I’m sworn to your will and your bidding.”

I was sooooo glad that Ace was out of it. It was embarrassing enough having Shoe hear this. “My being your boss is not the world I want to live in,” I said, trying to make her understand. Pleading now, I looked back to the table. “Barnabas, I told Shoe I’d let him remember tonight. Please.”

“I didn’t promise him,” he said tightly, but the anger directed toward me was gone.

“Please,” I tried again.

Barnabas seemed to grow smaller as he exhaled, hands gesturing loosely. “I can’t let him run around knowing what happened! It just isn’t done!”

“Why not?” I asked bluntly. “How are people supposed to make a change in their lives if they don’t remember? Dreams? That’s poppycock.”

“Poppycock?” Nakita echoed, clearly confused.

“I want Shoe and Ace both to remember,” I decided suddenly. “No fake memories for either of them.”

Barnabas looked at Ace, who was still blinking stupidly at nothing. “No!” he exclaimed, pointing a finger at me, which made the guardian angels above whisper among themselves, making bets as to how this was going to end. “Not going to happen,” he added loudly, glowering up at them as they giggled. “It’s the rules, Madison.”

I stared at him, the fingers of one hand making a slow roll of sound against the tabletop.

“Stare all you want,” Barnabas said, not looking at me. “I’m clearing their memories.”

Taking Shoe’s elbow, I moved him to stand behind me.

“Uh, Barnabas?” Nakita finally said. “I don’t think saying no to the dark timekeeper is a good idea, even if she’s wrong. She’s going to be able to stop time eventually.”

Behind me, Shoe said softly, “I want to remember.”

“Memory is all we have,” I said, trying to make Barnabas understand. “It’s why we make the choices we do. How do you expect anyone to change if you smother the past in a lie?”

Slowly Barnabas’s jaw unclenched, and I felt a stirring of victory. “It’s going to cause problems,” he warned, and I straightened, smiling.

“So what?” I said flippantly. “Shoe won’t say anything.” I spun to him. “Will you?”

Shoe was shaking his head, still worried. “No one would believe me. Grim reapers? Guardian angels? Timekeepers? They’d lock me up.”

From my other side, Nakita coaxed, “Timekeepers change for a reason, Barnabas. That’s all Madison seems to do. Change, change, change.”

Barnabas frowned again. “Get him out of here,” he muttered, and, elated, I grabbed Shoe’s arm, wondering if Barnabas was only pacifying me, planning on coming back later, when I wouldn’t know about it.

“What about Ace?” I asked, feeling ten feet tall.

“Out,” Barnabas said tightly. “You got Shoe. Ace is not an option.”

I took a breath to argue, then hesitated when Ace’s guardian angel circled Grace twice and flew to me, whispering, “Grace says, ‘There once was a boy in a diner, who thought no one else could be finer. He wasn’t that kind, almost lost his mind, till an angel became his reminder.’”

Oh, really?

Barnabas raised his eyebrows suspiciously, and, refusing to answer his unspoken question, I began backing up, stumbling when our locked gazes were broken. “Come on,” I breathed to Shoe. “I have to get my wallet.” Grabbing his hand, I tugged him to the door.

“What about Ace?” he asked, looking behind him until I turned his head away.

“Don’t look. I think Ace will be okay,” I said as the door jingled open and Nakita sighed loudly. “His guardian angel is going to block Barnabas.”

Shoe twisted to look through the plate-glass windows. “Are you sure?”

It was cooler out here, and I was glad for the lab coat as I held my arms around myself and waited. I wasn’t cold—but if I had been alive, I would have been.

“I’ve been told cherubs sit next to God,” I said, looking up at the stars and smiling. “I think a guardian angel can beat Barnabas’s skills with a stick.”

Shoe’s cough brought my attention down, and in the buzz of the security light, I met his startled gaze. “Really?” he stammered, glancing into the diner and then back to me. “Cherubs, eh?”

I shrugged. “Grace is. Just promise me you won’t say anything about tonight.”

Head down, he smiled as he scuffed his toe into the broken sidewalk. “You want me to lie?”

I couldn’t help my grin. “Well, I am the dark timekeeper.”

A twinge tightened across my mind, and my amulet grew warm, then cold. It was Barnabas using his amulet, and I glanced in as he leaned toward Ace. I wasn’t surprised when Ace woke up, his empty look shifting to hatred as he exclaimed, “You can go to hell, reaper!”

Barnabas looked out the window at me, cross. “Madison!” he complained.

Nakita laughed, the sound coming faintly through the glass. “I told you! Don’t mess with her.”

Smiling, I turned away. Shoe was standing in front of me, his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want to forget this,” Shoe said wistfully. “I don’t want to forget any of it.”

“You won’t,” I said confidently, and with a sudden idea, I leaned back against the brick wall of the restaurant to untie my sneaker. Shoe watched in confusion until I got the lace entirely undone, pulling it from my yellow sneaker with a rasping sound. “Here,” I said, handing it to him. “To remember everything by.” I was breathless, and I didn’t even need to breathe. What if he thought I was weird or something?

But Shoe grinned, and I exhaled in relief. “Thanks,” he said, taking it. “I, um, don’t have—Wait,” he said, digging in his pocket. “Here,” he said, handing me a coupon from the Chicken Coop. “It’s not like I expect you to use it,” he said, red-faced. “But the only other thing I’ve got on me is my driver’s license.”

I smiled, looking at it in the dim light. “Bye, Shoe,” I said as I rocked back. “Have a great life. Be good. Make good choices.” I lifted the coupon. “Thanks.”

He closed his mouth, looking embarrassed and pleased all at once. “I’ll try,” he finally said, then frowned as he looked at Ace through the glass. “It’s not going to be easy.”

I laughed as I started to walk backward to Ace’s truck, each step feeling bigger than it really was. “If being good were easy, everyone would do it.”

Shoe nodded. Waving awkwardly, he turned and began walking down the dark sidewalk, his pace slow but gaining confidence with every step until his head was high. Slowly the darkness took him until even the sound of his shoes echoing back to me faded and there was nothing.

I saw him once more in a spot of light, and then…he was gone.

Satisfaction filled me as I yanked open Ace’s truck and got my phone and wallet. The soft leather was still warm from the ride over here, and it made an uncomfortable bump when I shoved it in a back pocket. The door squeaked as I slammed it shut. In the distance, I heard a faint, “Bye, Madison!”

Happy, I leaned against the truck and stared at the plain white stars while I waited for Nakita and Barnabas to finish threatening Ace. Sure, Barnabas might be mad at me, but he’d get me home, grumbling all the way. If he didn’t, Nakita would. Even better, he’d be on my roof tomorrow to tell me what I could have done better. No one had died tonight. No one would die tomorrow—at least, not before their allotted time was up. Shoe was going to catch hell at school, but he’d known that before he trashed the school’s computers. Nakita was starting to understand—I think—even if by all accounts she had failed in her attempt to save Ace’s soul by taking it early. Ace was still an ass, but maybe he’d learned something. Paul was thinking. And I was…pleasantly tired.

Maybe it was a good night after all.