Scooping up a forkful of glop, Nick took a deep breath. If he finished his dinner soon, he could go to bed, and he was so worn out surely sleep would claim him quickly? Then it would be time for work, and he’d have plenty to keep his mind busy. Away from her.
He ate mechanically, not even picking up a taste, his mind, his damn traitorous mind, filling with thoughts of long golden hair, cornflower blue eyes, and that amazing smile. In five long years, no one had come close to replacing her in either his heart or his mind, and though Nick knew the years, and his life, was slipping away he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. It was like that night, the night he lost her, had dropped him into the deep and as hard as he tried he could not swim back to the shallows.
Not without her.
He dropped his fork. The microwave meal burning like ashes in his mouth and Nick, inexplicably, found himself wishing that he’d let her teach him how to cook, just like she’d wanted to. Of course, Nick didn’t know that soon enough he’d never need to cook anything ever again.
Chapter Three
Ripley arrived back in her office a week later panting and exhausted. She’d pulled a twenty-hour shift and felt like shit. Lucia greeted her with a cup of much needed coffee, only having just arrived herself, and Ripley sagged into her chair, hands wrapped around the mug for warmth.
“Bad one?”
Ripley nodded. “Eleven babies.”
Lucia frowned. “Yeah I had four myself. One was only three hours old. She looked up at me with these big blue eyes, and when I scooped my hand in to grab her she screamed….”
“The babies always scream the worst,” Ripley said. “They don’t know what’s happening. They’ve only just got there, and then we come and rip them back out.”
“I prefer the oldies. Sometimes they’re grateful we’ve come.”
Ripley nodded. “Yeah, sometimes. They still scream though.”
The two women sat in their chairs and warmed their hands on their coffee mugs. Neither spoke for several minutes, their minds going over the collection of the day. Ripley couldn’t help thinking about the babies, thinking and brooding, but then she’d been in a funk all week. The Christmas targets weighing heavy on her mind—one in particular.
“Enough of this,” Lucia said after a moment. “I’ve been considering the whole Ryder thing.”
Ripley’s heart gave a nasty thud. “Have you indeed.”
Lucia nodded slowly. “I think we should swap.”
It was times like this that made Ripley glad she’d been teamed with Lucia. They’d signed up for Reaping a week apart, both under the impression that the job was far different than it actually was. The two had become firm friends once reality set in and now a handful of years later they both thanked those above for throwing them together.
“You know we can’t swap. We’d be in so much trouble if we got found out,” Ripley said, her stomach flipping like a just caught fish.
“Yeah but what’s the likelihood of them actually realizing?” Lucia asked.
“They’d realize. Nothing gets past them.”
“Yeah maybe, but once we have the soul you know they’d never turn it away. If he’s on the list he’s on the list. His entry is guaranteed.”
“True….”
“So I should do this. Save you the angst and all that.”
Ripley laughed. The angst? How could she explain to Lucia that angst didn’t even come close to covering it? Or that as much as she knew it was going to hurt she had to be the one. She’s thought about it a lot over the last few days, and one thought had crystallized above all others. No matter how much it broke her heart she had to be there for Nick’s final moments. Sure, he wouldn’t know it was her but maybe in some way, even if it was subconscious, he might be comforted by her presence. Then, too, was the fact that just imagining being by him again, if only for a few moments, would be enough to keep her going for the next decade at least. She could look at him, breathe him in, and store all the memories up to see her through the long years to come. Slightly insane maybe? Yeah, probably, but how she missed him….
“I’ll make sure I get him,” Lucia added. “Your Nick.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Ripley said, ignoring the longing just thinking his name produced. “It means a lot that you’d do that for me, but….” She paused. “I need to do this.”
“You sure?”
Ripley closed her eyes and imagined Nick’s beautiful face. Her body clenched, and her heart thudded with want. The list had stated his cause of death as a massive cerebral hemorrhage—on Christmas day of all things. She couldn’t help but wonder what he’d look like when she collected him. Would his green eyes still twinkle, or would they be as dim in death as everyone else’s? Would he scream and beg, or would he accept his fate with the same courage she’d always admired in him? She hoped the fear might bypass him, that he’d shrug it off, but in reality knew that was unlikely to be the case. Everyone, including some of the bravest of people on Earth, trembled when faced with death incarnate. Which, she thought, made it even more important that she was the one there for him. The two of them together until the end, even if one didn’t realize it.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure.”
“They must know,” Lucia said after a moment, taking a swig of her coffee. “Surely they must know what Nick is to you? And I’ve been thinking about that. Why have they set it up like this, knowing what they do I mean?”
“We leave all earthly thoughts behind,” Ripley quoted. “That’s why. Besides we’re so understaffed, I doubt there was much else they could do. Everyone on my list is within my normal radius. I can tell you now that Nick’s smack bang in the middle of that circle.”
“You know that how?”
Ripley paused before answering, her heart still thudding away in her chest. “He’s still living in our house.”
Lucia’s jaw dropped, and she shot Ripley and incredulous look. “Your house? Wow, back up a little here, Rip. He stayed in your house, the one you lived in together?”
Ripley nodded jerkily, her mind skipping back to happier times when the idea of the Grim Reaper was nothing more than a fantasy. When she knew nothing about the pain of pulling people’s souls out of their bodies, having them scream and cry in her arms, or blame her for their demise. A time when the only arms she’d ever felt around her had been Nick’s. God, she missed him so damn much.
“Yeah,” she said, shaking her depressing thoughts away.
“And?” Lucia prompted, waving her hands.
“And I do not want to talk about this.”
“Fuck that,” Lucia said. “You skedaddled before I could pump you last time, and I’ve been all sensitive and thoughtful—”
Ripley snorted.
“Well I have, but enough. We’re best friends. Dish.”
Ripley knew, tired or no, Lucia would not give up until she spilled, and in a way, she wanted to. For five long years she hadn’t so much as spoke his name, hadn’t allowed herself to, but now? In a mere matter of days, she’d be seeing him again. And he’ll be dead. But at least she’d get to see him, she reassured herself. That had to be enough.
“We got together when I was twenty-four and he was twenty-six,” Ripley began. “Young love in all its glory. We got engaged a year later and married not long after. We were together until the end.”
“Until you died?”
Ripley picked up the crimson list, her gaze going straight to Nick’s entry. How she missed him. “Yes,” she said softly. “Until I died.”
“But you’ve never spoken of him,” Lucia said, the question in her voice obvious.
“We leave all earthly thoughts behind,” Ripley quoted again. “When I first heard that line I thought it was such bullshit, but you come to realize as the years pass that it’s the only way. To spend all your time thinking about those you left behind…it becomes impossible.”
Lucia nodded slowly. “I know.”
“I couldn’t think of him as mine anymore, Luce. Can you understand that?”
“Yes, of course I can.”
“I was twenty-nine when I died,” she said softly. “We had five years together, three of them married. And damn they were amazing years, Luce. I loved him so much. We had such fun together, you know? The kind of fun you know you’ll only find with someone once in your lifetime.” Ripley paused and clenched her hand around the list. Her mind filling with the old memories she tried so hard to repress. “I loved him more than I can even explain.”
“You could have spoken to me about it,” Lucia said after a moment.
Ripley placed her list back in the crimson envelope lest she crease it beyond recognition. “You remember when we first got here?”
Lucia nodded. “Who could forget?”
“We were both pretty screwed up. Explains why we got talked into this gig so easily I guess.”
“That and the fact our last boss was a shit who lied to us about what all this entailed.”
“Well, yeah. The point is that I was in so much shock,” Ripley said, ignoring Lucia’s comment on their last boss, who had indeed, been a shit. “We both were. The death thing and the loss and everything. I couldn’t even say his name, I missed him so fucking much, even in this new body it was a palpable ache. So I just pushed him to the back of my mind and brought him out when I was on my own.” She clenched her fists, the old anger building. “If not for that drunk driver I’d still be alive. We’d probably have kids now, a real family. I wouldn’t spend my time as a fucking Grim Reaper.”