Rachel Vincent - If I Die

My dad threw one punch, and the nurse hit the floor. In the next instant, he was at my side, and someone was yelling that he could stay, if he stayed out of the way.

“Kaylee…” Tears trailed down his face as he brushed hair back from my head. Someone pushed him aside and an oxygen mask was lowered over my face, then he was back and Tod was with him.

They watched me, tears standing in their eyes, and every time I blinked, it became a struggle to open my eyes again. I didn’t hear the questions, the slosh of liquids, or the crackle of sealed packages being opened. I didn’t feel the needles, or the sterile solution, or the pulse monitor clipped over my finger. I only saw Tod and my dad. The men who loved me. I wished I could tell them how sorry I was that I’d ruined everything.

Then I blinked, and the world dimmed. And suddenly a little redheaded boy was there, completely out of place in an E.R. operating room. He pulled Tod away from the bed and said something I couldn’t hear.

Levi .

It was time. Levi had come to reap my soul.

But instead, he handed Tod a slip of paper, watching solemnly as he read it, and Tod gaped at him. Then shook his head. Levi repeated whatever he’d said, then gestured to me with one open hand. Tod crossed his arms over his chest and held his ground. And finally I understood.

Levi wasn’t my reaper. Tod was. By bringing me to the hospital, Tod had put me on his own reaping list. And he was refusing to kill me.

I glanced up at my dad, but he was still crying, still stroking my hair, and he saw nothing else.

The boy frowned up at Tod, like he was waiting for something. For the reaper he’d recruited and trained to concede logic and give in. But Tod only shook his head, one last time.

Levi’s frown deepened, and he reached up toward Tod’s chest with one small hand. Tod’s blue eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. His soul streamed out of his body and curled around Levi’s tiny fist like a handful of incorporeal cotton. Tod glanced at me and blinked once. Then he disappeared.

He was just…gone.

No…! I screamed, but no sound came out. The pain in my heart swallowed the pain in my stomach like the ocean devours a single drop of rain. Thoughtless, wordless agony washed over me, a loss like I’d never felt before. I was hollow, empty of everything but pain, and the ghost memory of blue eyes watching me, seeing me like no one else ever had. Those eyes would never look at me again. They would never blink, or swirl, or shine. They were gone. Tod was gone.

My entire world was pain.

I couldn’t see through my tears, and when they finally fell, Levi stood next to my father, heedless of the nurses and doctors who stepped through him to get to me. “I’m so sorry, Kaylee,” he said. “He didn’t give me any choice.”

Then he placed one hand over my eyes, and the world went black.

I don’t know what happened while the world was gone, but when it came back, the light was too bright to bear, even with my eyes closed. I blinked, and that brightness intensified beyond my threshold for pain, like a bolt of lightning through my brain. I blinked again, and my eyes began to adjust.

And my brain finally caught up.

“What the hell…?” I whispered, surprised by how rough my voice sounded, until I remembered what happened.

“This isn’t hell, Kaylee. Far from it.”

I jerked in surprise, then sat up so fast my head swam. A woman stood in front of me, wearing a brown suit jacket and skirt. Her hair was short, and her nose was long. Before I had a chance to ask her anything, I realized I was naked from the waist up. And sitting on a cold, metal table.

Mortified, I grabbed the plain white sheet that had fallen when I sat up and clutched it to my chest. Then I stared at the wall of stainless-steel drawers to my left. And the three other metal gurneys on my right.

I was in the morgue.

“Did I die?” I asked, my voice virtually toneless with shock.

“Yes,” a familiar voice said from behind me, and I turned to watch Levi circle my table. “But Madeline has asked for an audience with you. Please give her your full attention.”

Before I could process that, Madeline cleared her throat, and I glanced at her automatically. “Kaylee, we’d like to offer you the opportunity to—”

“No.” I clutched the sheet tighter and stared her right in the eyes. “I don’t want to be a reaper.” Not after what had happened to Tod. How could they ever think I’d work for them after they killed him?

Her left brow arched dramatically. “That’s not what we want, either. I work for the reclamation department, and we could use your services.”

“Doing what?” I frowned, glancing from Madeline to Levi, then back to her.

“Reclaiming souls from those they don’t belong to.”

“Stolen souls? From hellions?” Shouldn’t my heart be pounding? The very thought terrified me. But my heart refused to beat. Because I was dead.

“No, you would be working here, in the human world. As a female bean sidhe, you’re uniquely suited to what we do. And frankly, we’re drastically understaffed.”

“Can you…make me alive again?”

“No, not like you were.” Madeline glanced at her hands, clasped in front of her. “Unfortunately, no one can do that. But we can do almost as well.”

“You’d exist in form similar to that of a reaper,” Levi supplied. “But with a different skill set.”

Like a reaper. Like Tod, who’d had a physical form whenever he’d wanted it. Who’d been able to stay with his family. Until I’d gotten him killed, and Nash framed for my murder.

“No,” I repeated, eyeing Madeline steadily. “I’ve seen how you reward people cursed with an afterlife. No way.”

“I don’t think you understand the opportunity you’re passing up, Kaylee.” Madeline crossed her arms over her suit jacket. “Not just for you, but for everyone you care about. As things stand now, your best friend is devastated and your father is inconsolable. And your boyfriend…”

“Ex…” Levi supplied, laying one arm on the gurney, over the sheet that covered me.

Madeline began again. “Your ex -boyfriend is sitting in a jail cell, sick with withdrawal from a very powerful substance and about to be charged with your murder.”

“But that’s not possible.” My hands clenched around the cold sheet in frustration and anger. “I killed Mr. Beck. They must have found his body. They have to know he killed me.” Yet I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the sentence I’d just spoken.

Levi watched me in what may have been sympathy. Or possibly impatience. “Kaylee, you and the incubus were stabbed with the same instrument, seconds apart, on your bed. At the moment, the police believe that Nash found you there together, and that he killed you both in a jealous rage.”

I shook my head, clinging to denial. “Fingerprints. His fingerprints aren’t there.”

Levi shrugged. “They’ll say he wiped them off. He’s a smart boy. Smart enough to wrap your dying hands around the hilt of the knife.”

“No!” My dad would know better, as would Harmony, Emma and Sabine. But no one had actually seen Beck stab me—Em and Sophie had already been asleep when he’d arrived—and thanks to her criminal record, Sabine would make the world’s worst alibi for Nash.

Nash could actually go down for this. And without Tod to break him out, he would spend the rest of his life in jail. Because I’d helped Beck frame him.

I couldn’t let that happen.

“You’re saying that if I do this thing for you, this job, you’ll help Nash?”

Madeline frowned, and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next. “It’s more than just this one job, Kaylee. It’s a commitment to work for the reclamation department. In exchange, you’ll be granted an afterlife with certain physical privileges—and a few unavoidable limitations—for as long as you remain in our employ.”