Page 145 of Finders Reapers

I remembered everything.

I remembered the party. I remembered meeting Oriax, just another stranger that wanted a selfie withValentineXOfor their Instagram feed. I remembered how it felt walking up to the diving board, my legs moving as if I had no control over them. Someone else had taken over my body.

I watched like the audience at a death row execution, banging on the glass as I screamed.

The cheering and whooping.

The cool splash of the water.

The bubbles rising.

My body was made of lead.

Rome...

Rome has dived into the water after me.

I hadn’t even known him then, but he was the only person to jump into the water in a crowd of hundreds.

Not even Cody had jumped in after me when I hadn’t surfaced.

Darkness.

Death—not a cool and skeletal hand but a warm embrace, dark-skinned and tattooed.

Rome had been the last thing I had seen before I had died and the first thing when I had woken up.

It felt like a dream as I watched on the sidelines.

I was standing amongst the stars, but the darkness around me was alive. Its heartbeat was in time with the cosmos as they glowed. Somehow, I knew that I could reach out and grab them if I really wanted to.

Had I died again?” I wondered out loud. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

A husky laugh rang out, but it didn’t seem like anyone else could hear it.

“Who’s there?” I stepped back, searching for the sound.

Come play.

Over here.

No here.

Chapter 20

I slammed back to reality with the force of being struck by a moving train; the momentum stole my breath and jarred my body into an upright position. Immediately, my head slammed into something, and when I heard a grunt, I realized that that something was Maddox.

It took a moment for my body to catch up to my mind and remember how Maddox had discarded me like trash and believed the worst of me. It also didn’t occur to ask why we were in a car together. Instead, I was powerless as the memories of my death and almost dying at the hands of a fallen angel caught up with me..

I felt something rise up inside of me, like a sleeping wolf unfurling and blinking open an eye in question.

Demon magic.

I unlocked my jaw and screamed in Maddox’s face as I tried to scramble away, unable to control the soup of adrenaline and my rage at his stupid face, as my body rushed to get as far away from him as possible.

Maddox reached out and hooked my chin, squishing my cheeks together. “Calm down. Now.” He barked, punctuating every word.

I wasn’t going to deny it; his bossy words did make my woman parts tingle—but only because I knew I had no intention of following his orders.

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