Page 94 of Death Trap

However, he was the only other person I’d found here. So, no matter what, I had to see if there was any way he could help me find the emergency exit.

“That obvious, huh?” I replied with a short laugh. “I have a guess, but what is this place?”

“It doesn’t have a name,” he said.

I pursed my lips. “Well, I’m going to call it the Void, then. Seems appropriate since there’s absolutelynothinghere.”

“It fits.” He nodded slowly. “This is where all special souls go after their jobs are done.”

“By special souls, I’m assuming you mean angels, demons, and such.”

“Reapers. Yes.”

A thought struck me suddenly, and my body tensed. “And what were you?”

He blinked, as if considering my words, and then when they hit him, he began laughing. Hard, too. Head thrown back and spit flying from his lips.

I clenched my fists, just in case he was a demon and I had to knock him back a step.

When he finished, he wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand. “It makes sense for you to think I am something evil, but believe me. I’m not.”

But I couldn’t justbelievehim. Could I?

“I was like you,” I said.

“A reaper?”

He only stared at me, his warm, brown eyes examining my face.

That weird zap of familiarity shot through me, and I wondered if I somehow knew this homeless-looking man. I tried to look past his wild hair and dirt-smeared face. But nothing to trigger anything else in my memory besides that annoying twinge in the back of my head where Azrael had wiped my mind.

“Do Iknowyou by any chance?” I asked.

“We have met before, yes,” he replied.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything really. I was thrown into the reaper cycle to stop my—” I chuckled. “Too much information.” Shaking my head, I tried again. “They wiped my memory,” I settled with.

As a reaper, they must have done the same to him, too. So that would mean we had met after his death and before my last one. Maybe in one of my past lives? Or had I been here before?

Damn. This was just too hard to keep up with.

“It’s all right. I know how it works.” He offered me another smile, and despite the ugly dental work, it was a kind smile.

I felt myself relaxing a bit. “I’m Jade by the way. Oh, but you knew that, too.”

He chuckled.

Awkwardness really was a curse of mine.

“You’ll have to tell me yours again,” I said.

“You can call me Hank.”

Hank. Really? Hank?

Talk about not looking like your name.

“So, Hank,” I began, still a bit perplexed by his name. “Who are you exactly? A keeper of this place or something?”

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