Page 55 of Death is My Ride or Die

My fingers rolled into fists.Jerk. “Einstein’s brain was the size of a cantaloupe, you know!”

Growling, I turned on my heel and stalked toward the punching bag to whale on it.

When I got back to my bedroom later, I was a sweaty, sore mess and horribly moody. I couldn’t sit on my bed, considering the fact that I probably smelled as bad as I looked. So I sat down on the floor, leaned my back against the wall, and had a proper pity party by crying my eyes out.

Afterward, I unwrapped the pre-wrap from my hands. My knuckles were split and had blisters underneath. I winced as I removed the final strip of cloth and flexed my fingers. As I stared down at my hands, I attempted to trigger the healing trick I had done before. After a few minutes of concentrating and letting out frustrated breaths, I gave it a rest.

“This is so hopeless,” I said.

But I wouldn’t give up. No, I had a point to prove, and a prophecy that I couldn’t forget. I wouldn’t stay behind while Death retrieved his scythe. I needed to be strong enough to fight alongside him and stop Ahrimad and Malphas.

That way, when the time came, I would be strong enough to do the same to Death and Lucifer.

After a nightmare-infested four hours of rest, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. In the silence of the dark room, low vibrations of music shook my headboard. At two in the morning, I kicked off my blanket and slipped a sweatshirt over my camisole to find out where it was coming from.

The hard rock grew louder as I approached the gym, and when I peered inside, I saw what all the commotion was about.

A pile of mauled practice dummies were heaped in the corner, and a shirtless Death stood in the center of the room. He had his back to me, and when he rolled back his shoulders, corded muscle shifted massive, jagged scars that came together at his lower spine in a V. He wore obscenely low-riding sweatpants and held what appeared to be a black bo staff in his right hand. I had to remember to duck behind the doorway as he rotated in my direction and twisted the staff with him.

I watched him methodically set up six new dummies around the room. His skin glistened from exertion, painting a portrait of a Fallen angel in the rain. Locked in concentration, his chin pointed down slightly, he circled one of the practice dummies. He snapped out his staff like a whip, striking hard and fast, slamming his first target to the ground. Shadow poured off him, pooling across the floor as he kept up the momentum and rotated the weapon around his body. Flashes of the gruesome battle in the alleyway came to mind. How he’d torn and sliced apart Malphas’s underlings in a matter of minutes.

He executed like a trained killer. As Death methodically defeated his imaginary enemies, suddenly a surge of emotion overcame me so intensely that it was hard to breathe. I wasanger. I waschaos. I wasgrief.

I was Death.

Death stalked across the floor, consumed by darkness. It pooled in the mismatched greens of his eyes, poured off his shoulders in the form of shadows like weeping branches. He glided with the grace of a panther between the remaining practice dummies, weaved and bowed, shuffled and blocked.Strike.Strike.Strike.

Snap. His staff broke in two, and he discarded it. He flexed his talons, working his neck. Muscles shifted in his immense frame as he lashed out with his talons and his legs in unrelenting swipes, punches, and kicks.

Anger.Chaos.Grief.

Punishment.

He was punishing himself, but why?

Perspiration dripped down the sides of his face. It curled his black faux-hawk into a wet mess, slipped down the edges of his chiseled physique to the dusting of dark hair that trailed down his ripped abs. Hair like an arrow on a map, pointing toward those godforsaken pants and the treasure outlined underneath.

“Get back to bed, mouse,” Death barked.

I startled. He was glaring right at me.

I scurried to my room like the scared little mouse that peep show had made me.

The next morning, I hid in the gym closet and wrapped and rewrapped my hands exactly twenty-two times.

“Playing hide-and-seek, are we?”

His deep voice trailed down my spine like a caress. I slowly turned around, praying I wasn’t acting as awkward as I felt. Death towered over me, blocking the light from the gym. He stood with his arms folded over his chest and wore a cold, menacing expression that I’d learned was his resting face. For someone who had slept even less than me—ornot at all, for all I knew­—Death looked frustratingly sexy in black sweatpants and black pullover with—plot twist—a forest-green collar.

A splash of color today, I see.

A small, nervous man with spectacles peered around Death to look at me. He held a clipboard in his hands, and there was a stopwatch dangling from his wrist.

“Glenn,” Death said, still glaring down at me with those catlike eyes, “once Faith stops cowering in here, remind her of the drills she’s scheduled to complete today.” Then he pivoted on his heel, vanishing into a black mist.

“He thinks he’s so cool with that exit,” I muttered, walking out of the supply closet.

“It is rather cool, though,” Glenn commented, “how the shadows embrace him like he’s a part of their ‘squad,’ as the kids say . . . ” The demon noticed my sharp stare and coughed into his fist. “Anyway, Ms. Williams, I’ll be timing you through the Graveyard today.”

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