Once Dead, Twice Shy

CHAPTER 10

The smell of rubbing alcohol and adhesive drifted out from the sterile white hallway and into the brown-and-taupe emergency waiting room. It was quiet now but for a woman with a fussy baby on her lap, and I hunched over my knees and rubbed my elbow, remembering what it had felt like when I'd hit Nakita. I was tired, weary of waiting to hear something. The mom had a little boy with her too, who was busy causing trouble and probably mad that his little sister was getting all the attention.

Harried, the woman was giving me dirty looks as she filled out paperwork to get her feverish baby girl looked at. She'd been here when I'd blown in, but an unconscious person gets treatment before a colicky baby. Though some of the rush might have been caused by me yelling at the emergency people. I hadn't shut up until a cop, who had apparently been following me, had come in. I swear, I hadn't seen her in my rearview mirror. Maybe I'd been going too fast, but it had taken only eight minutes to get here.

Eight terrifying minutes in which I thought Josh was going to die.

My feet scuffed the flat carpet, and I slumped into the cushions as I glanced at the officer talking to the nurse in a pink lab coat. The young-looking cop had my license, which meant my dad was probably on his way. I'd tried to call but had been unable to bring myself to leave a message other than that I was okay and that I was at the hospital with Josh.

The sight of the nurse made my gut cramp in worry. Josh had been whisked away after I'd said he'd collapsed at the track. This woman in her pink lab coat was the first medical person I'd seen since, and she wasn't telling me anything. Stupid privacy laws.

At least Grace was with him, though the angel wasn't happy. Actually, she was royally P.O.'ed, and I think they almost checked me in for observation when I'd had a hushed argument with her until she capitulated. He was unconscious and I wasn't, so he needed her. Duh.

The cop's voice rose, and I grew nervous when they looked my way. The two women said something in parting; the nurse went down the hall, and the cop came to me. I couldn't remember the name she had given to me in our first discussion, but her badge said B Levy. B for Betty? Bea? Barbie? Nah. Not with that pistol on her hip.

Officer Levy stopped a shade too close for my comfort, her no-nonsense shoes rocking slightly on the carpet as she halted. My eyes traveled up her pressed pants, belt, weapon secured in a snapped holster, starched shirt, badge, and finally to her face. She didn't look old enough to have been a cop for long, and it irritated me that her expression was trying for parental concern. Right, like she had kids? Don't think so.

She had a nice face, though, with short, sandy-blond hair and hazel eyes, suntanned and showing only worry wrinkles. She wasn't saying anything, and when she arched her eyebrows, I looked away. She could give me a ticket for reckless driving and failure to stop, but what traffic-school, goody-two-shoes Scrooge would press charges for that when I was going to the hospital with an injured friend?

"Josh has stabilized," she said, and my gaze darted up, surprised.

"Thank you," I whispered, and my shoulders eased. I hadn't known they were tense.

"They had an ambulance at the carnival," the officer said as she took the seat beside me, sighing when the weight left her feet and she ran a hand over her hair. She looked too spunky to be a cop. I hated it when people called me spunky, but that's what she looked like: fun, energetic, and someone who'd push the limits for a little excitement.

"Why didn't you take him there instead of endangering the entire town?" she added. She wasn't anything like the cops who'd brought me home after I broke curfew during a Category 1 hurricane at my mom's house. Talk about drama.

"I didn't know there was an ambulance," I admitted, but what was I going to tell her? That a dark reaper had tried to kill Josh and he needed major medical attention?

The officer chuckled. "You drive pretty well," she said, and I gave her a sour smile.

"Thanks." I quit rubbing my elbow where I'd hit Nakita when she looked at it, clasping my hands together instead. Officer Levy sat up straighter, and I sighed. Here comes the lecture.

"I've called your parents," she said, and I turned to her, alarmed.

"You called my mom?" I asked, really worried. She would flip out.

"No. Your dad. You have a worrisome record, Madison, for someone your age."

My record didn't bother me, since it wasn't anything bad like shoplifting or armed robbery. Just breaking curfew and loitering. Whoo-hoo! Big freaking hairy deal. Relieved, I slumped into the chair. "What was I supposed to do, Officer Levy?" I asked, my expression begging for understanding. "What would you have done? So I drove a little fast to get Josh to the hospital. I was scared, okay? I thought he was dying."

The woman's eyebrows rose. "I would have called for help and stayed with the victim until it arrived. You generally don't die from heatstroke."

"If it was heatstroke, they would've let me see him by now," I said, and she made a soft noise of agreement. The silence grew, and thinking she was waiting for me to say something, I offered a hesitant, "I'll remember that next time. Call for help. Stay with the victim." But there was no one on earth who could have helped me. Maybe I shouldn't have given Grace any orders. It seemed to have wiped out whatever orders Ron had left with her, including going to get him if there was trouble she couldn't handle.

Officer Levy got to her feet so she could look stern again. "I'm hoping there won't be a next time," she said as she handed me my license. "Don't leave until I have a chance to talk to your dad."

"Okay." I took the laminated card, glad she didn't want me to go fill out a report or anything. "Thank you."

Officer Levy hesitated. "Are you sure you don't want to tell me anything else?"

Hiding my alarm, I looked steadily up at her. "No. Why?"

Her gaze remained fixed on mine. "You have grass in your hair and dirt on your tights."

My gaze wavered, and I refused to look at my legs. Damn it!

"Was there a fight?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. "Who else was involved?"

Looking away, I shrugged.

Officer Levy sighed. "I know it's hard to fit in at a new school, but if there was a fight, I need to know. You're not a snitch."

"Josh didn't get into a fight," I said. "He collapsed." I could have lied and told her I fell down and got dirty while catching him, but why bother?

She just looked at me, and I stared back. Finally she pressed her lips together, and with another one of her small noises, she walked over to the receptionist. Officer Levy would probably stay until she could talk to Josh's parents. I hoped I'd be out of here before they showed up. Josh was a good guy, and I knew they'd take one look at my purple hair and earrings and label me not good enough for their little boy, thinking someone like Amy was better.

I snorted, wondering when I had started thinking of Josh as boyfriend material. We'd spent two afternoons together. Admittedly they were fight-for-your-life afternoons—which would probably only convince him we were not couple material.

My gaze lifted to peer through the windows to Josh's truck. I'd stashed the amulet under the front seat when we'd gotten clear of the black wings. I didn't think Nakita would be coming back, but Kairos might, and if he did, he'd know Nakita's amulet's resonance. The sound of her screaming had been awful, and I stifled a shiver at the thought of the black wings heavy on me, like a blanket of cold acid eating my memories—my life.

Brow pinched, I wondered what I'd lost. The fact that they'd cleaved to Nakita instead had been a shock. It was horrifying, and I hoped she was all right—even if she'd been trying to kill me.

A familiar form in jeans and a T-shirt moving past the windows caught my attention, and I sat up, jaw dropping as Barnabas waited impatiently for the automatic door to open. "Where have you been?" I demanded when he came in with a gust of air that made his gray duster billow.

"I leave for one day—" he started, his dark eyes cross.

"And it all goes to Hades," I said as I stood, not wanting him to have the high ground. "Yeah. I was here dealing with it. I've been evading Kairos and Nakita since yesterday!" I said with hushed forcefulness.

"Nakita?" he asked, clearly not listening to everything I said.

"Yes, Nakita," I shot back, worried. She'd left in a lot of pain. Angels shouldn't be in pain, even dark reapers.

Barnabas sat on the edge of a seat across from me and ran a hand over his frizzy brown hair to tame it somewhat. For a reaper, he looked innocent. Especially in the rock-band shirt he had on. "It was you?" he said, and I sat back down beside him. "The songs between heaven and earth say that she was hurt in battle. Naturally Ron thought of you and sent me to check. He, uh, wants to talk to you."

I bet. Miserable, I sat perfectly straight in my chair. Songs between heaven and earth? I bet that beat CNN with a stick.

Barnabas looked askance at me. "What happened? I can't believe you took her amulet. Madison, you have to stop doing that. Where's your guardian angel? We never heard from her that there was trouble."

"That might be my fault," I said softly. "I told her to protect Josh, so she didn't leave to get you. Don't be mad at her. I told her to do it."

"Josh?" Barnabas jerked upright. "The guardian angel is supposed to be with you!"

He looked shocked, and I shrugged. "I'm conscious. Josh isn't. Easy choice."

"She's supposed to be with you!" he exclaimed again.

I made an exasperated noise. "I told her to watch him. She saved his life twice now. Kairos tried to kill him yesterday. What was I supposed to do? Let him? I was fine." Until the black wings found me. And Grace said I'd cracked my amulet. Freaking fantastic.

Barnabas continued to stare at me in disbelief. "She left you," he stated.

Cripes! Is he still on that? "Not by her choice," I said, hoping I hadn't gotten Grace into trouble. "She wasn't happy about it." I hesitated, looking down the long white hallway. "Nakita tried to kill Josh. I think she nicked him. Will he be okay?"

"I don't know." Barnabas glanced at the receptionist and the cop, then leaned back with his arms crossed over his chest. "What did you do to Nakita? Taking her amulet would only limit her skills and make her angry, not catatonic."

Nakita is catatonic? Barnabas was staring at me, and I was starting to think I'd done something really wrong. Sure, she was a dark reaper, but leaving black wings inside her was awful. Even if it had been an accident. "I had to get her to leave," I said, pitching my voice barely above a whisper when Officer Levy looked at us. "I did the best I could. It's not like I was able to touch your thoughts," I finished bitterly.

Barnabas's face grew darker. "Ron left you a guardian angel," he said, leaning forward to hunch over his knees. "You should have been okay."

"Yeah?" It was hard, but I managed to not yell the word. Two days of fear was coming out as anger, and I couldn't help it. "Nakita said he left me a first-sphere guardian angel. I like her and all, but she's not powerful enough to protect me against a concentrated attack, and Ron knows it."

Barnabas's anger vanished in surprise and he drew back, watching the woman and her two kids as they were escorted into a room. The nurse who'd called them told Officer Levy she could come back as well, and taking that as a good sign, I found a modicum of control. I watched Barnabas's fingers unclench, thinking they looked a shade too long for a human's.

"Josh knows you're dead?" he asked, and I nodded, unable to look from the carpet. I shouldn't have gotten him involved, but choice vanished when black wings began following him.

"I had to tell him," I said. "Black wings were tracking him, but as long as I was with him, he was okay. I made my angel stay with him last night. He wouldn't have lived through it otherwise." And now he was in the hospital. Way to go, Madison.

A jump of shadows caught my attention, and I pulled my head up to find Ron simply standing there, looking almost sad with his hands clasped before him. The sun coming in shone on his tight, graying curls, and his eyes were a grayish blue as they took in my yellow tights and purple skirt. His eyes had been brown yesterday. I didn't think gray eyes were a good sign. Every time I saw them, he was upset with me.

"Madison," he said, and the amount of weary fatigue in the sound of my name scared me.

"I'm sorry," I said, frightened.

"I know you are." He glanced at the empty reception desk before he approached, his slippers silent on the carpet. "It's been over two thousand years since an angel has returned from battle without a blade and unconscious. Do you have any idea what it takes to do that?"

Miserable, I shrank back into the thin cushions. "Black wings stuck in her?" I offered hesitantly. God help me, but it was an accident!

Ron's intake of breath was loud, and Barnabas made a surprised-sounding noise. I couldn't look up, afraid of what I might find.

"How did Nakita get black wings inside of her?" Ron asked, each word slow and precise.

My head came up and I found Ron's expression one of sadness. "I, uh, accidentally put them there?" I said, hating the way my voice went up at the end.

"Excuse me?" Ron said, the phrase sounding odd coming from him.

Barnabas was shaking his head. "That's impossible. Black wings can't hurt reapers. She must be confused as to what really happened."

That was insulting, and I made a huff of sound. "I am not. I know what happened," I said, finding the words easier to say than I thought they would be. "Grace said that when I went invisible, I was dissociating from my amulet. That's what drew the black wings in, and when Nakita fell through me, the black wings stuck to her instead."

"Grace?" Ron asked, his round face tight with worry. "Who's Grace?" His expression became pained. "You named her? Madison, you didn't name your guardian angel, did you?"

Compared to leaving black wings inside an angel to eat her from the inside out, naming Grace seemed like a small thing. "I was breaking the lines of connection to my amulet only in the present, not the ones pulling me to the future," I explained, trying to make myself sound less foolish than I felt, and I could almost see Ron switch mental gears to understand what I was saying. At least, I think that's why he suddenly looked horrified.

Barnabas, though, was less than impressed. "What does that have to do with black wings?" he asked.

"Nakita was going to reap Josh, even though she had me. I couldn't get her scythe away from her unless I went invisible. I had to find some way to protect myself, and neither of you were around," I said, pleading for understanding. "I didn't know the black wings would stick to her instead. She's a reaper! Black wings aren't supposed to hurt reapers!"

Ron's head was going back and forth in denial. "That's not how to go invisible. Madison, you weren't bending light around you; you were breaking your connection to your amulet, as if you weren't really wearing it. Dead with no connection to life. A walking soul without a body. No wonder you brought in black wings. They were…on you?"

Grace had said it was dangerous. I should've listened to her. "Nakita was going to kill Josh and take me to Kairos. I thought if I swiped her sword, she at least couldn't kill Josh. But when I went invisible to take her amulet, two black wings fell on me." Fear made me shiver. "It hurt. I think I lost something of myself." I paused as the memory of them eating my past rose anew. I unclenched my hands as I thought about Nakita and what it must be like to have two of those things inside her. "It really hurt, Ron. I went invisible again to try to get her sword away, and they sort of stuck to her when she fell through me." I looked up, my vision swimming. "I only wanted her to go away," I finished miserably. Damn it, I wasn't going to cry.

Barnabas had pulled back like I was a snake. "What about Nakita's amulet?" he asked. "How come her amulet didn't keep you grounded?"

"Because I cut those ties too," I said. "I claimed her sword, not her amulet, and it gave me enough control to break the ties without frying me."

Barnabas stood, his face pale. "Ron," he said, looking at me. "She broke the hold Nakita's amulet had on her while the reaper was still wearing it! How much proof do you need? I believe in choice, as do you, but this is wrong! Look at what's happened. Madison is—"

"Fine." Ron took up my hands and jerked my attention from Barnabas. His round face was smiling confidently, but his eyes were deathly worried. "She's fine."

"Nakita said you drew a first-sphere to watch her," Barnabas interrupted, anger coloring his face. "It's clear why. You know this is a mistake. It's wrong, and you know it!"

The older man glared at Barnabas, his grip on me tightening. "I do not have to explain myself to you. I called for a first-sphere because chances were slim anything would happen, and I didn't want to advertise that anything was wrong."

"Wrong." Barnabas faced him squarely, and Ron's expression went ugly. "You admit it, then."

"Barnabas, will you shut up!" the master of time exclaimed, and Barnabas dropped his head, frustrated. I sat there, stunned. It was the second time I'd seen Ron curtail Barnabas's words, first at the school parking lot, and then here. Something wasn't right. What had I done?

"Ron," I said, scared, "I'm sorry. I was only trying to keep Josh and myself safe. She nicked him. Is he going to be okay?"

The timekeeper seemed to notice for the first time where he was. Giving me an unhappy look, he shook his head, sending dread through me. "Nakita holds his life. She chooses if he lives or dies."

Oh God, I've killed him, I thought, the panic almost paralyzing. I had to talk to Nakita.

"There is hope," Ron soothed as my thoughts spun, but there was no comfort in his touch on my shoulder. Instead, a warning lifted in me. Behind him, Barnabas fumed. "I'm going to continue to speak on your behalf," Ron said, as if Josh's probable death was sad but trifling. "What I'm most concerned about is you. Dissociating yourself from your amulet like you did should have been impossible. That you're dead probably accounted for your ability to do it. Regardless, I'm sure you damaged your amulet. Don't do it again. Some of this is my fault. I should've looked in on your progress, but Barnabas didn't tell me you were having trouble."

He didn't care about Josh. Not really. Warning was thick in me, and I pulled out from under his grip. And why was he blaming Barnabas? Barnabas said it was my amulet that prevented me from thought-touching, not my lack of skill or lack of trying—and Ron should have known that. He was hiding something. "Grace said I cracked it," I said warily, but I wouldn't pull it from behind my shirt to show him.

Behind Ron, Barnabas stood stiff and tense. I saw a hint of the avenging angel in him as his eyes silvered. "I'm going home," he said to Ron, pain showing in his brow. "They'll let me in. They have to. I have to tell them about the black wings. They can get them out of her."

Home? I thought. As in heaven? Why wouldn't they let him in? He wasn't just earthbound, but barred from heaven? Just who were the bad guys here?

Fear slid through me like a knife, born of the sudden realization that everything I thought was true probably wasn't.

"Barnabas, shut up," Ron said as he rose between us, smaller than Barnabas but deathly serious. "I'll send word, and Nakita will be fine. They won't let you back, and I've got work to do. Stay with Madison. Try to keep her out of trouble. And keep your mouth shut!" His eyes were almost black, carrying a mix of anger, frustration, and…uncertainty. "You understand me? I can't fix this if you interfere. Keep your mouth…shut."

The image of Nakita arched in pain, white wings stretched high as she screamed, lifted through my memory. I had hurt one of heaven's angels. Who was Barnabas? Who had I been spending my nights with on my roof?

Scared, I watched Ron stride from the building, vanishing as he found the sun. I turned to Barnabas, shrinking back when he made a sound of anger and flopped into the chair next to me, his brow furrowed and his expression cross. He didn't move. Not one fidget or blink.

"She was trying to kill me," I said. "She was trying to kill Josh! She was going to—"

"Take you to Kairos. You said that," he said abruptly. There was a hint of fear in him. It wasn't fear of me, but fear for himself. He wasn't going to shut up as Ron had told him, and I shivered.

"So many religions, Madison," he said, "but only one resting place, and she was going to put you right back on that path that you skipped off when you claimed Kairos's amulet."

"Nakita's not from hell," I guessed, knowing my face was white. "You are."

Barnabas jerked straight. "Me? No," he said, coloring as if embarrassed. "Not hell. I don't even know if there is such a place other than what we make for ourselves. But I'm not from heaven…anymore. I left because I disagreed with seraph fate. They won't let me back. They won't let any of us light reapers back." Jaw tight, he exhaled, putting a hand to his head and rubbing his temples. "I should have told you, but it's embarrassing."

"But you're a light reaper!" I said, confused. "Light is good; dark is bad."

He scowled at me. "Light is for human choice, easily seen. Dark is for hidden seraph fate, no choice to glean."

"Oh! That would have been nice to know!" I shouted. "How come no one bothered to tell me that?!" I added, frustrated, scared, and a little relieved that Barnabas wasn't from hell, just kicked out of heaven. There was a difference, right?

The receptionist peeked out from a doorway, disappearing when she decided I was upset about Josh, not a little misunderstanding about light and dark.

Barnabas's thoughts were clearly somewhere else. "I don't understand what Ron is doing," he said to himself, gaze distant, and unaware that I was having a meltdown. "I believe in choice, but after what's happened, I don't know. You're a nice person, Madison, and I like you, but you put black wings in Nakita. That's…a terrible thing. Maybe the seraphs are right. Maybe you need to go where you belong. Maybe fate has a place in the world. Fighting it has only made things worse."

Where I belong? Does he mean like home with my dad, or like dead? I swallowed hard. I was not the one who'd been kicked out of heaven. "It was an accident."

"Was it an accident that you worked to learn how to go invisible?" he asked earnestly. "Was it an accident that you used that knowledge to break the hold Nakita's amulet had on you? Was it an accident that she fell through you? Or was it fate?" His head slowly shook back and forth, dark curls shifting. "I should've realized what Ron was doing sooner." His eyes narrowed. "I still don't believe it. I didn't want to believe it."

My mouth was dry. Just what was Ron doing? Barnabas knew something I didn't, and by God, I was going to find out. "Barnabas," I started, but the phone at the desk hummed and the nurse came back to answer it. She gave me an encouraging smile when she sat down, telling me that Josh was okay. Or at least not getting any worse. Distracted, I settled back in my chair, and, hearing a dry leaf crunch, I picked it out of my hair. I held it for a moment, then set it on the nearby table. Did I really want to know the truth? Yeah. I do.

I watched the line Barnabas's duster made against the dull carpet as I screwed my courage up, wondering if the coat was his wings in disguise. My mind shifted back to Ron dragging Barnabas away from me at the school's parking lot, and then just now, when Ron cautioned Barnabas to keep his mouth shut so he could fix things, the awful feeling of Ron's hand on me when he tried to comfort me. "Barnabas," I whispered, "what's Ron not telling me?"

Looking up, I saw his jaw clench. "It's not my place."

Fear made my heart give a thump, but then it stopped. "You want to tell me. You tried at the school parking lot, and I see you want to tell me now. If you believe in choice, tell me so I can make a good one."

His eyes lifted, falling first upon my amulet, then my eyes, and I shivered.

"Ron is hiding who you are from the seraphs so he can shift the balance between fate and choice by misleading you," he said flatly. "That's what I think he's doing."

"He said he was talking to them!" I argued, then hesitated. "Misleading me? Why?"

Eyes fixed on mine, Barnabas quietly said, "You're the new timekeeper, Madison. The dark one."

I blinked. "I am not," I said belligerently.

But instead of arguing with me, he smiled bitterly. "I told you there's a reason you can't touch my thoughts," he said, his gaze alighting on my amulet. "You've got a dark timekeeper amulet. If it were otherwise, our resonances would be close enough that we could talk, but they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Ron knows that. Ron knows everything. He's just not saying anything."

Reaching down, I touched the black stone, then dropped it. "Maybe it doesn't work because I'm dead."

Barnabas turned away, and his chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. "The only reason you succeeded in claiming a timekeeper's amulet is because you are one."

"No!" I exclaimed. "I was able to claim it because I was human."

He shook his head. "You could touch it because you were human, but you claimed it because of who you are. You went on to teach yourself how to dissociate yourself from it and still hold that claim. You commanded Grace, gave her a name that bound her and broke the charge that Ron put on her. You're a rising timekeeper, Madison, one of two people born to this millennium with the ability to survive the bending of time."

I stared at him, panic starting to wind its way through my spine. Me? A dark timekeeper? I didn't believe in fate. He had to be wrong. "Has Ron said so?" I whispered.

He shifted his feet in their dirty sneakers and scooted forward. Leaning over his knees, he eyed me from under his mop of curls. "No," he admitted, and I exhaled in relief. "But you are. Madison, timekeepers are mortal for a reason. The earth changes, people change, values change. To ask a human who was born in the time of the pyramids to understand someone who takes for granted that man can see the earth from space isn't reasonable, and so when change spills over itself in its rush to happen, new timekeepers take over."

He glanced at the receptionist and inched closer. "I've seen it before, like the turning of a wheel. Rising timekeepers are found and taught, learning until the amulet is passed on and the old timekeeper resumes aging, picking up where his or her life was disrupted by the divine. That you're dead complicates things, but this is who you are."

"No I'm not!" I protested. "I'm just me. And even if I was a timekeeper, I wouldn't be the dark timekeeper. I don't believe in fate. I just took Kairos's stone to stay alive!"

Frowning, Barnabas shot a look at the busy receptionist. "Taking it might have been a choice, but fate put you there to do it. If you were an innocent scything, Ron would have given you to the seraphs that first day. But he didn't." Barnabas's frown deepened. "I should have known then, but I never guessed he'd stoop so low as to keep you in the dark with lies."

"Ron said he told the seraphs about me, to ask them to let me keep the stone," I said, bewildered. "If he didn't, why do I still have it?"

"Because Kairos hasn't told them you have it, either."

"Why?" I asked. I couldn't think. I was numb. I needed an answer, and I couldn't grasp enough to guess it for myself.

Barnabas shifted in his chair, pulling his coat around himself. "I'm guessing Kairos wants you destroyed so he doesn't have to give up his place, and if the seraphs find out you exist, even dead as you are, they will force him to abide by their will. Only if you are destroyed will they be obliged to allow him to remain the dark timekeeper through the turn of another wheel."

Kairos would live forever. Immortality—a higher court. That's why he killed me, then came after me. He wanted to destroy my soul completely. Panic started up again. "No. You're wrong. I simply have the wrong amulet," I said. "I just need to give it back. I need to return Nakita's amulet, too," I babbled as Barnabas flopped back to look at the ceiling. "Tell her I'm sorry. Maybe she'll let Josh live."

"If Nakita finds you, she'll take you to Kairos," Barnabas said to the ceiling. "Being sorry isn't going to change anything. You've already claimed the dark timekeeper amulet. You're it, Madison. For Kairos to reclaim it, your soul has to be destroyed! Only one or the other of you can be the dark timekeeper."

I felt dizzy. There had to be a way out of this. "One or the other? I don't think so," I said, my head hurting. "I can dissociate from my amulet. Maybe the reason I can is because it doesn't really belong to me. You ever think of that? If I can give it fully back to Kairos, then maybe I'm the rising light timekeeper."

Barnabas's foot quit jumping up and down, and he turned to me, considering it. "Ron said not to dissociate from your amulet."

I shivered, breathless with hope. "And Ron's been lying to me—to us. I say chance it. Barnabas, I am not the rising dark timekeeper!" Thinking, I looked away from his intent expression. "I need to talk to Kairos," I muttered. "Where does he live?"

Barnabas's jaw dropped. "You are not going to talk to Kairos!" he said. "And besides, I don't know." The fallen angel turned in his chair to face me, bringing a leg up onto the cushion. "Madison, even if you are the rising light timekeeper and you can give his amulet back to him, Kairos will destroy your soul anyway to slide the balance of things his way."

I couldn't afford to think like that. "He's mortal, so he lives on earth, right?" I asked, standing and looking at the empty reception desk. "If Kairos wants his amulet, he's going to have to give me my body," I said, flicking the amulet, heavy around my neck. "I bet Nakita knows where he lives. Is she okay? Did they get the black wings out of her? You can hear the songs between heaven and earth. What are they saying?"

Barnabas remained where he was, looking up at me from under his curly hair in disbelief. "Madison," he protested.

"Is she okay?" I said loudly, hand on my hip. "Can you call someone? Come on! What's the point of being a reaper if you don't do anything?"

His eyes narrowed at me for a moment in annoyance; then a smile quirked the corners of his lips. "She's okay," he said, and a knot eased in my middle. "But this is a bad idea."

I pulled him up, surprised that he moved so easily. "Yeah, but it's an idea. And if I'm a rising timekeeper, then I'm going to be your boss someday. Come on. Help me find Nakita."

Barnabas dug in his heels, and his hand pulled from mine as I continued on a step without him. "You're not going to be anyone's boss if you're dead," he said wryly.

"I have to apologize," I said, reaching for his hand and tugging him forward another step. "And give her her amulet back. Maybe if I do, she will let Josh live. Maybe that's why she hasn't killed him. She's waiting for me."

A frown creased his forehead. "You want to give a dark reaper an amulet. Are you even hearing yourself?"

"It's hers," I said. "What is the problem?"

"Ron will freak. He'll take my amulet away," Barnabas muttered as he glanced at the parking lot in worry. "I shouldn't have told you."

I put a hand on my hip, seeing every second as one more moment that Josh's life was still hanging by a thread. "You know you did right. I'm not asking you to leave me. If Ron takes your amulet away, I'll make you another. Unless this is another lie and I'm just a poor slob who got mixed up in this and I'm not a rising timekeeper." Man, was I glad the receptionist was gone.

Still he vacillated. "Why are you listening to Ron!" I exclaimed, frustrated. "He knew what I was and didn't tell me. He told you to teach me something he knew I couldn't do. Will you just help me?! I have to try to save Josh. I have to try to save myself. I can be me again!"

Barnabas's brown eyes searched mine. "You've always been you."

I backed up, not knowing what he was going to decide. "Will you help me?"

He stood beside me, his duster shifting about his ankles as his feet scuffed. "You see a choice here?"

My head bobbed up and down. "I see a chance." And a way to get out of here before my dad or Josh's parents show up.

Barnabas looked to the parking lot and the setting sun, grimacing. "I can't believe I'm going to do this," he said.

"You'll help me?" I said breathlessly, scared and elated all at the same time.

"I am going to get in so much trouble," he said as if to himself, and together we turned to the double doors. "I can take you to a safe spot. Nakita can't hurt you there. Though I don't think it will do any good."

"Thank you," I said as we walked through the doors purposefully, my stomach fluttering.

I would convince Nakita to give me Josh's life for a lousy hunk of rock, then do the same with Kairos for my life. Just watch me.