Page 41 of The Reluctant Reaper
She didn’t used to cut off her own sentences like that. If anything, she’d babble until I got tired and gave in. Is there something she’s holding back? Or is it just stress?
And, again: NOT NOW, MIGRAINE.
ChapterTwenty
Three-point-two million people die in the United States every year.
“The good news is, I only have to worry about the Midwest. Fifty-two thousand in Minnesota, thirty thousand in Iowa, one hundred and eighteen thousand in Michigan, a mere five thousand in North Dakota... then there’s Nebraska, parts of Kentucky...”
“But that’s still... what?” Gray narrowed his eyes. “At least five hundred fifty a day.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Amara said, pretending she hadn’t been reaching for the calculator on her phone. “So I’d best get started.”
“Shall you take the crown, dear?”
“No.” Amara cleared her throat. “Was that loud? I think it may have been loud. I won’t touch that thing, Mother.”Not today. Not any day.“I’m surprised La Croix touched it. He hates crowns. And things that aren’t purple.”Shouldn’t have said his name. Now watch him reappear and irritate the shit out of me, like Beetlejuice. Or a Kardashian.
“Well.” Her mother had the look of someone about to argue, then shrugged. “It’s not like youneedit, per se. It’s just a symbol. That’s all we have, in the end. I thought you might—never mind.”
How can someone who made me—half of me—still not understand me? It has to be willful.
“Crown stays here, got it. Okay, here we go.” To her horror, Gray was flipping through the paperwork with an expression she knew well. It was hiswell, this’ll suck but let’s get it over withlook. “Ha! Amara, look. It’s not just a fax machine, it’s one of the first fax machines. The kind that used thermal paper.” He held up the curly printouts. “I’m barely old enough to remember the rolls that always curled up the second the machine spat ’em out, doncha love it? Remember how fax paper used to be in those big rolls?”
“Put the curly printout down and back away, Gray.”
“Yeah, right. Who’s first? Do we do it alphabetically or logistically? Do we rock, paper, scissors this thing?”
“What? No.Wearen’t doing anything.I’mbarely doing anything. This is only temporary until we figure out how to make my father well.”
“Amara, at some point you’re going to have to?—”
“Don’t presume to tell me what I will and will not have to do, Graham Gray,” she snapped. “You are a guest.Myguest.”
“Ours, technically,” Hilly put in.
“Not an apprentice. Not an intern. A guest. And guests do not accompany Death on Reaps. You will stay here. Have some pastries, catch up on whatever graphic novel series you’re currently obsessed with, eat lefse until butter and brown sugar are swimming in your veins, and stay put.”
He laughed at her. “I’ll bet that works better on people who don’t know you. And I can eat lefse on the way to... to wherever we’re going. The first one is at Trinity Homes; sounds like a hospital.”
Amara reached past him, opened the breadbox, and withdrew two cinnamon knots, each as wide as her outspread hand. “Here, Mother. Slap these over your ears like you’re cosplaying Midwestern Princess Leia.”
“Amara, I really don’t think?—”
“Slap them on!” Amara seized a fistful of Gray’s shirt and pulled him close. “Understanding the process of death intellectually is not the same as viewing a Reap.”It’ll change you.“It willfuck you up, Gray, are you hearing me?”You’ll never see me the same way.“For that, and a thousand other reasons?—”
We might remain friends, but you’ll be terrified of me.
And that’s how you’ll spend your last few months in this world. Terrified. Of me.
“—I’m going alone.” When he made no response, she repeated herself. “Are you listening to me?”
With mingled despair and admiration, she observed Gray’s eyebrows rush together as his jaw tightened. “I’m aware we’re not going on a joyride. But this is your literal worst fear. The thing you’ve been having nightmares about for years.”
“I never told you about the?—”
“You talk in your sleep. Scream, sometimes.”
Oh. How mortifying.
