Page 21 of Death Trap

“Is yours an angel mark, then, too?”

Eli glanced down at the tattoo on his skin. “Yes. It is.”

Wow, a real man of many words here. Guess I was going to have to pry the answers out of this one.

“Why are ours different?” I asked.

“I bear the mark of the Guardians. Meaning, I have never spent time on earth in a living body.”

That explained his lack of emotion, unfamiliarity with his human form, and turned-up nose at typical living habits, like a little bit of mess.

“My soul was created for the purpose of protecting you and helping you.”

Was that what the hovering light orb was all about? He was following me to protect me? I guessed that made sense. Hehadsaved my life twice during my fight with Xaver and the Halflings.

Maybe I could trust him…

But I told myself to keep my guard up. Just in case.

Suddenly, Eli’s face scrunched up and his lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Um… Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m supposed to help you…” Again, his sentence trailed off into silence. His mouth moved with difficulty, like there was an invisible force working against him.

Or maybe he was just having a stroke. Could Guardians—or whatever the heck he was—have strokes?

When he finally gave up, he ran a hand over his lips. “Something’s wrong,” he said. “Something is blocking me from telling you.”

“What? No way? Like a censor?”

His brows knitted in confusion. “But the censor shouldn’t be limiting me. It should only be activated when exchanging certain information with the living.”

“Well, before that whole thing went down with Xaver, the censor wasn’t working properly. Maybe someone has been tinkering with it and made a mistake?”

The censor had been completely shut off at one point, allowing me to reveal to my friend Kay, Laurence, Cole, and the rest of them that I was a reaper and what my job entailed. Which was a big no-no normally. It had stayed that way until a couple of weeks ago, when it had been turned back on, and I was back to talking to Kay in gibberish whenever referencing anything to do with the afterlife.

Could it be possible someone had twisted the censor knob a little too far and made it too strong?

Eli, though, didn’t seem convinced. “Or someone doesn’t want you know what you really are.”

Why would that matter so much? Change the rules of everything as we knew it just to make sure I didn’t find out who I was before I died?

Azrael had wanted Cole to keep me distracted for some reason I still didn’t understand. Could he be behind this, too?

“You are the one who matters,” Eli said, staring at me with such intensity, it was as if he were trying to send me the information telepathically. “You and the others like you.”

So, there were more like me. That was a relief. I wasn’t alone.

It was obvious he was choosing his words super carefully and trying to avoid the censor. It’s what I tried to do many times when talking to Kay. But it seemed like instead of the words being skewed or changed into other words, the censor was making Eli mute at the important parts.

“Keep asking me questions,” Eli encouraged me. “I will tell you all I can.”

“So, I’m assuming you won’t be able to tell me what I am or what my angel mark means, if yours means Guardian?”

Eli’s lips parted, and after a moment, he said, “I’m afraid not.”

I moved across the kitchen. “Can you tell me what the white light power is I suddenly have? You saw it, right? With Xaver?”

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