Page 24 of Hot Ghoul Summer

That’s so absurd—this is all so absurd—that I start laughing. Laughter turns to sobs, and I can’t stop crying.

“Molly?”

“Aglp!” I make a noise that sounds like a goldfish stuck in a drain. “Get out of here!” I grab the body brush and hold it high.

Right, Moll. you’re going to beat an immortal to—what exactly? Or were you planning to give him a damn good exfoliation?

“I heard you crying. I feel like the worst person in the world.”

“Not a person,” I snap, stepping away from the shower curtain, arms crossed over my chest and one hand dangling down to cover what I meant to have waxed last week.

So many things I didn’t get to, that maybe I’ll never get to do because of the guy who sounds so sweet and innocent one second and who flips an SUV the next.

“Well, I’m a semi-person, and I bet you anything you like that by midnight tonight you’ll see staying here with me in this nice, comfy beach house—”

“Prison!” I correct, still huddling away from the silhouette I see on the shower curtain, as if something horrible will happen if his shadow touches me. Maybe it will.

“Make the bet, Molly.”

“No.” He’ll ask for my life or—something sick.

“You get to leave if you don’t ask me to bring you back here. Bet?”

“How do I know you’ll let me go?”

“You have to trust me.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Toby sighs, and I see his shadow grow, rising from his average human height and turning into something towering. The edges of his silhouette waver as if he’s gone reaper flambé again. “My scythe.”

Something shining and silver is glinting over the top of the shower curtain.

“God! Psycho much? Put that thing down before it falls and turns me into sushi!” I grab the shower curtain and tug it around me like the world’s worst wrap dress.

I stare at what’s in front of me. The skull-like face flickers between human features and dead white bone, but it’s not the full-on flaming thing of nightmares I saw earlier.

“Without my scythe, I can’t reap. It’s never supposed to leave my presence. It can only be handed off willingly, by me, or taken by my superiors. It’s a good bet. You should take it.”

“You can’t kill without that?”

The face shifts completely, and the body shrinks. Toby doesn’t say anything.

“Can you still kill people without that thing?” I prompt.

“I could do anything for you,” he says softly. The scythe shrinks, too, flattening and condensing, until a switchblade sits in Toby’s hand. His robes revert back to a hoodie, and the knife slips inside the kangaroo pouch pocket in the front. “This removes souls. So does a hangman’s noose or a bullet. A speeding car, a pair of hands. If anyone tried to hurt you, I wouldn’t need my scythe to stop them.”

The voice is dark and low, gritty, and giving off powerful waves of the East End. I don’t want to feel anything like interest towards this freak, but...

Shit, no man has ever even offered to defend me from a wasp. (Literally, I remember my dad running into the house and slamming the door, leaving four-year-old me outside with a nest of yellow jackets when he ran over them with the lawnmower.) This dude thinks there are human traffickers or mafia hitmen after me, or something. Loser One and Loser Two would have thrown me in their path or used me as a human shield.

Damn it. That’s just what Toby said Gary did.

He’s probably still just playing you, Molly.

Take the bet. Yeah, he’ll probably go back on it, but if he doesn’t, you’re free. You’ll just make sure that you ask to leave instead of stay. Simple.

“Bet.” I point to the door and pretend that I don’t notice how badly my hand shakes from dehydration and stress. “But you leave. I shower alone.”

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