Page 4 of Finders Reapers

I had never done hard drugs, but I wondered if it felt the way I did at that moment. Separate. Incorporeal. Confused.

The doors to the boxy building, pristine glass, and shining steel swished open as Rome flicked his cigarette butt to the side before striding through.

I growled in frustration, standing on my tiptoes as I called out to his retreating form. “It’s rude to litter!” I told him. “Be part of the solution, not the pollution!”

He didn’t turn back.

I exhaled a breath and marched over to the cigarette butt lying in the sand. After a moment, I realized that I couldn’t pick it up. I couldn’t pickanythingup.

This was getting old, fast.

Head hung until my chin rested against my collarbone; I trudged into the building. The A/C hummed, but I didn’t feel it as I passed through the closed doors.

A desk made of brushed steel extended from one end of the room to another, with TVs behind the reception all playing a loop of the same thing. A commercial for numerous vacations spots. Places that didn’t look like they existed on earth. Burning flames, a dried river bed, the banks over a hundred feet tall, with prison cells carved walls like the open pores of a lotus seed pod.

Urgh. The image triggered my Trypophobia.

Occasionally, a logo flashed on the screen.

Quietus.

Rome stood in front of the desk in front of the lone receptionist. A woman in her mid-twenties with golden hair to her waist and golden honey eyes to match—so vivid they could only be contacts.

The receptionist threw her head back and let out a tinkling laugh at something Mr. Tall, Dark, and Rude had said.

Whatever the joke was, I wasn’t privy. She shot me a glance and turned back to Rome, edging her shoulder as if forming a shield against me.

Even though the beautiful blonde looked pleased as punch at Rome’s presence, Mr. Sunshine looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.

“Who’s the wisp?” The Receptionist fluttered her eyelashes.

Rome waved a hand over his shoulder. “Just some soul.”

The receptionist turned to me. Her golden eyes raced over my body. Surprise fluttered over her face.

“Is that—?”

Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by the Grump.

“Don’t know,” Rome grumbled. “Don’t care. She died on the strip at some roof party. Somehow she ended up on the Mojave Road. Fucking wisps.”

My hand fluttered to my chest. “I’mdead?”

Even though I had suspected, what with being unable to touch or feel anything, hearing the stranger say it out loud hit me like a hammer to a gong.

The receptionist rolled her eyes, and both of them gave me their backs. She turned to her computer, and her eyes traced over the screen as she searched for something.

“This one isn’t in the system.” She frowned.

“Valentina Rossi.” Rome supplied.

I wanted to ask how he knew my name.

I didn’t.

“Valentina Rossi?” She repeated, frowning. “Go through door three. Third on the left. You’re not on the list, but they’ll know what to do with you in there.”

I turned to Rome, questioning her orders, but the dark stranger stifled a yawn and turned his back to me as he reached over the receptionist's desk and stole a handful of the suckers from the fishbowl on the edge. He stuffed them in his jacket. When he turned back and saw I was still there, he gave me a look that made me feel an inch tall.

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