Page 29 of Death Deals

“So then why are you here?”

He walked across the room and took a seat in one of the armchairs across from the bed. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his legs and touched his mouth in thought. His eyes flicked between me and Ricky. “I want to understand,” he said. “Who is this person to you?”

Taking the rag from Ricky’s forehead, I stood. “It’s as I said before. He’s a friend.”

“From your childhood,” he finished, his tone hinting he didn’t believe me.

I paused. “Honestly, I don’t know.” I walked toward the bathroom and raised my voice so he could hear me as I rung out the towel and then ran it under the cold tap again. “But he was part of the last moments of my life—a big part—and I couldn’t let him just die.”

“He’s important to you,” he replied.

“He is,” I said, coming back into the room. “Very.”

“Then you need to tell me everything you know about him, aboutThe Angel, and about the Knights.”

I sat on the bedside again and draped the wet rag across Ricky’s sweaty forehead.

“You took me off guard before, and that’s something we can’t have happen again. We have to be together in this,” he went on.

I glanced at him. My hesitation surprised me. Why couldn’t I tell him about my past? Why was it tripping me up so much?

I was still processing my last living memory, yes. That was true. I’d learned so much about myself in those few hours before my death, it was a lingering haze in my head. I hadn’t sorted through it yet.

Maybe my apprehension came from embarrassment. That was another good possibility. I’d been poor. I’d danced for money. I’d been abused. None of it had been the life I’d imagined for myself so many times. And now that I was in a ritzy hotel, surrounded by money I probably could never imagine when alive, it was a bit mindboggling.

It made me feel… like an imposter. Even to myself.

Did that make sense?

Probably not.

If I couldn’t sort out my own thoughts and feelings about my past, how was I going to lay it out for a very wealthy, very powerful vampire to see?

“There they are again,” Andre said with a short laugh. “Those two dreaded wrinkles between your brows.”

I sighed and rubbed that place he spoke of. “After beating the Archangel Trials in Heaven, I was able to see my last living memory. Everything else has been stripped from me. I don’t know who I am beyond that. I was supposed to get every life restored to me, but Monnie’s deal screwed that up. All I know is that I worked with Ricky. He was the closest friend I had. He knew…” I stopped myself as Ed’s name formed on my tongue, bringing nausea along with it. “He knew my struggles. He tried to help. And when he joined the Knights, he wanted me to join too, for protection. I refused. Then I died before I could get him to leave it.”

“What ofThe Angel? How do you know him?”

“Meeting him had been a mistake,” I said. “I was dancing for extra money…”

Andre’s brow shot up at that, but his expression remained emotionless. It was enough for heat to flare across my cheeks.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped and looked back to Ricky.

A hand pressed between my shoulder blades. I found Andre standing there. I hadn’t even heard or seen him leave his chair.

“You hold a lot of regret,” he whispered. “A lot of guilt.”

How could I not?

I snorted. “It’s a good thing I’m already dead, right? The stress would’ve taken me out a long time ago.”

“And you use humor to avoid talking about deeper things.”

I shrugged off his touch, unable to look him in the eyes anymore.

Geez. How was I supposed to respond to that?

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