Page 69 of Death is My BFF

“Oh my God.”

Death had staged my sleeping spot on the couch!

Which meant he’d wiped the blood off me. I hurried into my bathroom and flipped on the light. The noxious scent of bleach hit my nostrils as I approached the tub. Suddenly there were phantom hands washing away the blood and grime on my bare skin, rolling a fresh shirt over my head. A shudder rippled through me. I remembered Death’s silken voice in my ear, strangely asking me to invite him into my house, and my weak response,yes. Why did he care to cover up the tracks of this night?

My cheeks pinked in the mirror at the embarrassing thought that the Grim Reaper had seen me in my bra and underwear. Up close and personal.Better than having to explain a gallon of bloodsplattered on someone else’s clothes to my parents.

I wandered back into my room and peered around, soaking in the bedroom as if I were Death seeing it for the first time. Stuffed animals and old pictures from my childhood lined the top shelf beside my bed, trophies from softball and a few art competitions.

What did the seven-foot-tall Grinch in a cloak think of my band posters, my fluffy body pillow, or my old teddy bear, Mr. Wiggles?

Not to mention, my latest additions to the family: Boggy the Froggy and Maddox the Penguin. Did he analyze my paintings lining the walls, or did he overlook it all?

Why did I care what Death thought of me? I had nothing to prove to him. He wasn’t exactly shooting trust vibes out of his deadly pores, and the guy had wiped out an entire species of bird in five seconds. The Grim Reaper didn’t care about my little universe.

Especially after what happened in the warehouse.

Removing the rest of my clothes, I stepped under the hot spray of the shower and lathered my skin with my favorite watermelon and blue raspberry body washes.

The angel crashing through the office, the alleyway, the raven demigod, and the warehouse were real. So was the vision with the boy with the mismatched eyes and the willow tree, where that deceptive creature, Ahrimad, had tricked young Death.

. . . you would be far greater than loved. You would be feared. Fearedby all.

Ahrimad had been forced to offer Alexandru an equal exchange to saving his life, an opportunity to have all his dark power. Because of a balance. A balance between good and evil.

All of the fantastical happenings in my life were turning out to not be so fantastical, after all.

And I still had to go to school on Monday.

My shower thoughts jumped to David. Everything seemed to circle back to him in my mind. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been restraining that angel in his office and told me to run. An angel, which David hadn’t even seemed that surprised to see!

Then, a little too conveniently, Death showed up to save me. I drew comparisons between David and Death. The way they stood.

Their personalities. Their mannerisms. They were so different.

Where David’s voice was deep and masculine, like a normal human man’s, Death’s was deep and masculine in a profoundly enchanting inhuman way. In an instant, his voice had the ability to switch from a menacing growl to a velvety purr.

Based on the apparent younger Death I’d seen glimpses of the two men had vastly different appearances too.

The water ran cold. Quickly washing the rest of my body, I slipped on another oversized cotton shirt and anxiously reorganized my makeup on my vanity. I wished I had my phone to text David. I couldn’t shake his interest in me, and I was starting to think it wasn’t just poor self-esteem. How had he restrained that angel in his office without breaking a sweat? He always dodged every personal question about himself and didn’t have one picture of his family in his office.

There was no way in hell I was going to get any sleep. I decided to write down my thoughts, so I wouldn’t forget them, which I hadn’t done since freshman year of high school. I slid out an untouched journal from under my bed that my grandma had given me for Christmas and armed myself with a purple gel pen.

I began to write, staining the pages in hectic sentences, when I felt eyes at the back of my head. Skittles jumped up onto the vanity and hissed at something behind me. I caught a large shadow in the mirror and whirled around with a gasp. Empty. The room was empty, but a trace ofhimremained. Cherries.

My cell phone. My cell phone was now on my bed. It had suffered further damage. Prying my feet from the ground, I crossed the room and picked up the device with a trembling hand. Beneath it was a note.

Tick-tock.

—D

A cold breeze turned my blood to ice. The window was open.

I hurried to yank the panel down, staring out into the night with a thrashing heart.

I felt it stare back.

XIII

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