Page 30 of Death Trap

I reached out my own hand but paused before touching the doors. What if I placed my palm on the doors and they opened for me? What ifIwas an angel?

It was an absurd concept, I knew, and I had already thrown that idea out the window before, but the resemblance between our marks and the symbol above the other elevators was undeniable. And eerie.

It got me thinking. If Eli was a Guardian, then it could be possible I was a different kind of angel…

No way.

Maybe?

I just didn’t know, and Ihatednot knowing. But I had nothing else to go on.

The one thing that could tell me for certain was me touching these doors. Whether they opened or remained closed, both would give me the answer I needed. Simon had said only an angel could operate the elevators, so if it worked for me, well…

Only one way to find out, right? But was I ready for the answer?

Eli was staring at me questioningly. I must have looked like a loon standing there with my hand outstretched but frozen in place.

Who was Jade Blackwell really? An angel? A reaper? A cracked-up girl with a vivid imagination, who was about to be in some serious shit for tricking her Guardian Angel into bringing her to Hell? Yeah, that last one sounded about right.

Looked like it was now or never.

I took a deep breath and slapped my palm against the cool metal of the elevator’s doors.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a shudder on the other side of the doors.

I blew out a sigh of relief. Nope. Definitely no angel here. Whatever my tattoo represented, it wasn’t like Eli’s. I wasn’t part of the high-flying club like him. What I was, though, was still a mystery.

“All right. Your turn,” I said to him, my voice trembling a little. “Just touch the door.”

He lifted his hand and placed it near mine, our pinkies touching. I fought the urge to move mine, but once Eli’s palm made contact with the doors, they rolled open, making a terrible creaking sound.

I laughed nervously. “Gotta tell Simon to oil that damn thing.”

Eli and I stepped inside. It was eerily silent inside the box, and when the doors closed again, I instantly got hit with an uneasy feeling. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

I glanced at Eli, who was standing completely calm and poised next to me. His much larger frame filled up most of the space. He had his hands folded in front of him, blissfully unaware that this elevator was really leading us into Hell and not Simon’s office.

There were no buttons on the inside. No way to stop this thing and go back up.

God, please don’t let this be a one-way trip.

No going back now. Besides, this was my chance to finally get the answers I needed. To find out who I was. And how I played into this war and the pending apocalypse.

Not only that but Wyatt’s wife was there, and I could bet money she wasn’t meant to be. I had to get her back to the afterlife where she really belonged. I owed Wyatt that much after all his help during the Xaver fiasco. He deserved to be happy in death.

Just like my trips in the golden elevator, there was no feeling of movement either up or down, but it did take a bit longer before the door creaked open again. I flinched back, expecting the worst. Like flames. Demons rushing at us. Halflings crawling up the walls, their limbs all twisted at odd angles.

But there was none of that. Instead, we stared into a long, dimly lit hallway. It resembled more of a company’s abandoned office building instead of the pits of Hell. It had papers scattered on the carpet and motivational posters that hung upside down or crooked on the walls.

The lights flickered a few times, changing my mind from closed office building to haunted office building. Still not the terror and chaos I expected, but definitely creepy enough to make the hairs stand up on my arms.

I touched the gun nestled in my waistband. How many bullets did I have left in the chamber? I hadn’t been keeping count. Three? Two? Shit. That meant I’d have to be selective with my shots. Hopefully Eli had some kind of hidden powers I didn’t know about that we could use if things took a turn for the worse.

I could only pray it never came to that.

Eli stepped out first, his gaze sweeping along the slender hallway. The moment I did the same, the doors squealed to a close behind me. I whipped around just in time to see the elevator dissolving into the solid wall, and a “Hang in there” poster with a cat holding on to a branch hung in its place.

Panic crawled up my throat, and I hastily touched the poster, searching for any hint of the elevator hiding underneath. I even knocked on it, only to find it made of plaster and completely solid.

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