Page 16 of Finders Reapers

“No, honey.” He smiled genteelly. “Demon all the way through.”

I remained fixed to the spot.

“See?” Ollie chuckled and flicked his hair out of his eyes. “If you had any connection to your emotions right now, I’d be seeing the shock and awe that I deserve, but nope. Nada. Zip.”

I had nothing to say to that.

Ollie reached back and into one of the drawers of his desk. He pushed his tongue between his teeth as he searched for something. Eventually finding it a moment later with a hallelujah—a word I never expected a demon to say. He pulled out something that looked like a folded leather blanket and placed it on the desk.

I looked down at it, startling when a hand appeared over my shoulder and reached for it. I hadn’t noticed that Rome and Fletcher had approached.

Ollie slapped Fletcher’s hand away. “No touchy!”

“What is that?” I wrinkled my nose as I studied the leather blanket.

“That’s your new skin,” Ollie told me as he reached forward and unfolded the leather with a snap. “Should we put it on?”

I didn’t have a chance to answer as Ollie snapped the skin again until it took flight, like a maid changing the sheets at a hotel. One moment I was staring at the man behind the desk, and the next, my vision was obscured by darkness.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

Memories began to flood my mind. Overflowing my brain and pouring out until I felt like I had been placed in a blender.

When I finally managed to unlock my jaw, a scream punched its way out of my mouth, so shrill, and filled with pain, that I wondered when I would ever live in a world where I wasn’t in pain.

I sank to my knees. The concrete bit into my skin as I lifted my hands to my face and felt my nails score down either side of my cheeks.

It was too much.

The light was too bright. The air was too stale. Everything was too loud even though no one was saying a word, and I realized that the sounds were coming fromme.

My heartbeat roared in my ears. My breathing was hard and fast.

The veil that had cocooned me and kept me in a placid state had been torn away like a blanket being yanked away by my father on a cold winters morning before high school.

I was dead.

Dead?

Another scream filled the air. Ragged and filled with pain and frustration.

I was twenty-one years old. I was about to enter into a deal with E! for a reality TV show about Cody and me, as I went to the Esports championships this year.

I was too young to die.

It wasn’t fair.

“I need a phone!” I shrieked. “I need my phone this second!” I patted down my legs even though I knew I wouldn’t find anything. My phone was my comfort item. My safe space.

I needed to post a Story and ask my followers what to do. I needed to go live and rant. I needed to tweet and tell everyone about the afterlife. I needed to check my Snapchat.

Cody would be beside himself.

I needed to dosomething.

None of the men moved. None of them reached into their pockets or did much more than watch me with a cold kind of sympathy that came from experience.

Another wave of emotion rolled over me and choked me. My eyes burned, and my nostrils stung. The lump in my throat was so large it was hard to breathe.