Page 66 of Death Deals

For the first time since I hopped on this afterlife train to crazy town, I didn’t feel so…alone.

It was a relief.

Kay appeared at my side right then. “You must be freezing out here,” she said.

Of course, I’d changed out of the dress and took the many pins out of my hair as soon as we’d arrived, but my tank and jeans combo wasn’t really winter approved. She wrapped something around my shoulders—a knitted shawl of hers—and tied it in the middle.

As always, her overabundance of kindness was refreshing. It was just one of the many things I admired about her. But when her presence usually soothed me, this time it only reminded me of witnessing her death in my Trial and the immeasurable pain that had consumed me afterward. Seeing the realization on her face that she’d have to die to save her child and the serene expression as she let go of my hand and fell through the mist of the ravine. Her being here offering me her shawl, alive and well, didn’t lessen the stabbing between my ribs. I wasn’t sure anything ever would. That image would haunt me forever.

I didn’t want to put that on her, though, so I stuffed the memories away for another time and flapped my arms under the shawl. “Thanks,” I said.

Following my gaze to the harbor, she smiled. “It is quite a view, isn’t it?”

“Mhm.”

“Jade, are you okay?” she asked, her concerned gaze roaming over me. “I know you’ve been through a lot… And I haven’t been there like I should’ve been. I can’t even imagine what you’ve seen and done, but I’m here now. I hope you know you can talk to me about anything.”

Dismissive words formed on my tongue, ready to jump out on reflex, but I held them back. Kay had joined Eli in the search for me, putting aside her business and her family. If anyone was genuine about wanting to hear my problems, it was her.

I had to stop pushing people away at some point. Better to start now than never.

I let out a long sigh, the last of my reservations leaving with my breath. “My Archangel Trials… They… changed me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Eli told me they were meant to challenge me, but I didn’t know just how much.” Wrapping the shawl tighter around myself, I went on. “For one of them, I had to choose between saving your life… and saving Zach’s.”

She gasped, horrified.

“It felt so real. All of it. You wanted me to save him and then you let go. I watched you fall…”

She only stared at me, eyes wide in shock.

“I got Zach out. That’s what you’d asked me to do, and I did it. But… But… it killed me.” My throat tightened as the agony of that Trial surged again. “It was meant to show me my greatest fear and teach me a lesson—that I can’t save everyone. Death is inevitable. But Ineverwant to lose you. Never. Any of you.”

I paused, the tears I’d been fighting suddenly blurring my vision. “I-I can’t do it.”

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. “Oh, Jade,” she sniffed.

Not caring about my usual dislike of the gesture anymore, I hugged her back, somehow missing her fiercely even though she was right there. My heart ached. Part of me was afraid to let go, afraid that if I did, she might fade away.

She held me like that for a long time, sniffing back her own tears. I didn’t know where her grief came from, but she must have had her reasons, too.

When we separated, she wiped her eyes and managed to choke out with a forced laugh, “I’ve missed you.”

In those three words, I heard something deeper. Something had happened to her, too, while I was gone, and she had been holding on to it alone.

“What happened?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “It’s nothing compared to you,” she said. “I don’t want—”

“Don’t give me that shit. Just spill it.”

This time, when she spoke, everything tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. “A poltergeist attached itself to me. A dark spirit of a serial killer named Marc Anders. Arianna helped us fight it off, even found a necromancer—Rhys—to help us. Jade, I dug upa grave.” She emphasized the last part. “Me, of all people. There was a fight at Divine Magic. Rhys got hurt. Bad. He almost died. But then I found out I am one, too.”

“One, what?”

“A necromancer.”

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