NIKO WALKED OUT OF HIS BATHROOM in unbuttoned jeans and nothing else. A long, languorous shower was just what the doctor ordered after the night he’d been through. For fifteen minutes, he had his forehead plastered to the tile in front of him. He let the heavy stream rain down his back to ease the corded muscles before he did anything else. An hour later, he dried his hair with a towel, not acknowledging the figure that stood by his four-poster in a crisp, navy suit.
Even at sixty, the current incarnation of the Reaper of California still looked younger than most men in their early forties. Vitality and power oozed out of him. It befitted Death’s right hand in the United States. The other Reapers of RUSA acknowledged Tomas as their superior. He’d been around longer than any of them—one of the first created by their master.
“How long are you going to ignore me?” Tomas asked.
“For as long as I can. I have a feeling I’m in trouble,” Niko answered. He knew quite well he held the status of favorite younger brother with the Reaper of California. When Niko was created, he’d been assigned to Tomas’s tutelage. Everything he knew, everything he believed in, even his work ethic and sense of duty came from Tomas. He recalled Arianne mentioning something about a Mr. and Mrs. Clark. If he considered anyone his parent, it would have to be Tomas.
“Wipe that loony smile off your face, boy. Of course you’re in trouble!” Tomas shoved his hands into his pockets. “Do you have any idea how much distress your little stunt in the basement caused?”
Niko dropped the towel and draped himself on a bedside chair he used for reading. He covered his face with one hand and peeked at Tomas through his fingers. “I’m guessing that’s why you’re here.”
“Damn right I am! You let yourself get so weak that you pretty much drained all the energy from the souls you had in your basement,” he rumbled like boulders bumping together down a mountain. “It’s called residual energy because you only take enough to replenish what you’ve lost!”
“I did take just enough.”
“I looked at those souls, Nikolas! They were emaciated when you brought them in. Some barely made it through processing. Why did you let yourself get so weak anyway?”
“I don’t know.” He pushed deeper into his chair, unwilling to lift his gaze.
“You don’t know?” Tomas paced in front of him. “What kind of a response is that?”
“I’m a teen, remember?”
Tomas cursed like a dockworker. “Do not give me lip, boy!”
Niko sobered. He’d never seen Tomas so upset. Prickling energy radiated from the old Reaper, stinging everything it touched. Niko eyed the shirt on his bed. Sitting bare-chested near an incensed Reaper was far from comfortable.
“I apologize, Tomas.” He stood and reached for the other Reaper’s right hand and touched its knuckles to his forehead.
“Oh, my boy—” Tomas softened “—you need to be more careful. I’d like to think that I taught you better.” He pulled his hand away from the younger Reaper’s grip and ruffled his wet hair. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Sit down.” Tomas nudged Niko.
He tumbled back into the chair, feet planted firmly on the floor. “I don’t think—”
“How long have you been depressed?” Tomas interrupted. His voice took on a fatherly tone that he rarely used. It caused Niko to gape for a full minute.
Suddenly, Niko found himself feeling like a newborn Reaper again. The way Tomas searched his face for answers always called to bonds of family they only shared in private, and not as of late. He tried to recall the last time Tomas had actually sounded like a father to him. The civil war had still been raging, the North and the South locked in a bare-knuckle battle.
“Since when, Nikolas?” Tomas urged.
Heart melted, composure close to non-existent, Niko choked up when he said, “Three, maybe four lifetimes ago. I can’t really be sure.” His head fell into his hands. He watched dark dots scatter over the carpet directly below. “Everything just seemed the same. No matter how many times I’m reborn. No matter the time I’m born into. Nothing really changed. Yes, the people changed, but everything remained the same. Slowly, so slowly…” His voice hitched. He had to swallow to continue. “I began to lose sight of what I was living for.”
“The job—”
“Yes, I had my job. I reaped souls, escorted them to the Crossroads. But what was I living for?” He laughed, straightening from his position to stare Tomas in the face.
In a blur of movement, the older Reaper wrapped Niko in firm, solid arms. A fatherly embrace. Niko used Tomas’s shoulder to cover his eyes, dried the river that refused to stay inside him. He knew Tomas wouldn’t care if his suit was ruined. He probably had a thousand more just like it hanging in a huge closet in a mansion somewhere in California.
“Tell me the rest,” Tomas said. “Finish your story.”
A deep breath later, Niko said to Tomas’s now soaked jacket, “Without really knowing it, I’d let myself fade. I stopped taking in residual energy. Sickleton saw it, was worried about me, but I ignored him. Played the tough guy. Snapping at Janika gave me an out. If she killed me, I would have the perfect excuse. But the bitch wouldn’t. So, I tried to go home, but the last of my powers took me to a bench by a hospital instead. I didn’t know why until my angel came down from the heavens and saved me.”
Tomas held Niko at arm’s length to lock gazes with him. “Angel?”
“Arianne.” Niko swiped the back of his hand under his nose and sniffed. “Would you believe she quoted Kofi Annan at me?” The facial expression on Tomas told Niko his father-figure didn’t quite get what he meant, so he said with a half-sigh, half-laugh, “To live is to choose. There’s more to it, but that’s the part I like the best. She said, to live is to choose. So, I choose to live.” He stood up, walked to the towel he’d dropped on the floor, and dried his face with it.
Under Tomas’s watchful gaze, he exchanged the towel for the button-down shirt Sickleton had laid out for him and put it on. “Why are you here?” he asked as if he hadn’t shared a moment with Tomas. “I don’t believe the master sent you just to tell me what a mess I’m in.”
Tomas returned his hands to the safety of his pockets. His lips disappeared into a thin line. “I’m sorry, Nikolas, but you’ve been placed under observation.”
Niko ignored the hand of dread that closed around his neck. “What does that entail?”
“That I’ll be watching you.”
“Well, thank you, Big Brother.”
“Nikolas, you know what I mean. And I agree with our master’s decision. You need to be watched.”
“I won’t repeat what happened yesterday. You have my word on it.”
Tomas squeezed his charge’s shoulder. “I believe in your word. But I would also like to see for myself that you’re all right. What happened to me all those years ago is nothing compared to what you did. You let yourself get to the point where you were actually in the process of the Fade. I will not allow that to ever happen again, even if I have to siphon energy for you.”
“You can do that?”
“You won’t believe what I can do.”
“How long are you babysitting?”
“Until the master and I agree it won’t happen again.”
“I have to go.” Niko moved toward the door and picked up his backpack.
“Where?”
“Uh, school?”
Tomas smiled before he disappeared.
At the street corner, Niko shifted his weight from one foot to the other, waiting for the approaching bus to come to a stop. He wanted to see Arianne again. He owed her his life. If she hadn’t held herself together, he wouldn’t be standing in broad daylight. And after admitting to Tomas what he’d been through all those years, the slow decline into nothingness, his chest rose and fell easier. Every breath he took in reminded him how good the act of breathing felt. Like a recharged battery, he zinged with energy and life. No longer did he want to return to that downward spiral.
Once the doors parted, he hopped on with a spring in his step. But before he could move forward, he caught a glimpse of Arianne seated by the window two rows from the back. The morning sun brought out golden highlights in her hair. Even in a plain blue top, jeans, and ratty sneakers, she looked like a movie star. She rested her chin on her palm and the pout she sported made him want to take her bottom lip between his teeth and nibble until she sighed.
The bus’s forward momentum pulled his mind away from racier thoughts as he slid in beside her.
“You’re sitting beside me,” she gasped.
He liked her surprise.
“I see that you don’t have your BF by your side today,” he teased. “What’s his name?”
“Ben. He’s not my boyfriend.”
A pinch of jealousy brought mischief into his eyes. “I didn’t mean boyfriend. I meant best friend. Why is that, by the way? I assume you’ve been friends for years.”
“He’s at baseball practice. Coach Simmons has him filling in again. Important game and all that. And I don’t think of Ben that way. He’s like a brother to me.” Her cheeks moved into a deeper shade of pink with each word. “And, anyway, he likes my sister.”
Niko couldn’t believe how happy that admission made him—like he’d been given a gift he hadn’t expected to get but always wanted.
“You look better,” she said.
“I owe you my life.”
She switched from surprised to guarded. “I haven’t seen anything like that in my life. You were—”
“Shhh,” Niko cut her off. “Lower your voice, please.”
The gifts kept on coming.
Arianne ducked closer to him until their heads were only inches apart. The warmth in his chest smoldered. All he had to do was tilt his head to the side and tip his chin closer toward—
“You have to tell me what happened yesterday,” she insisted in hushed tones, shredding his thoughts like a steak knife.
“Not here, not now.” He caught her gaze in his. “You have to at least understand that.”
“But you’ll tell me.”
“When the time is right.”
“When will that be?”
“You’re a selfish little thing.” A corner of his lips quirked up.
She twisted away from him. “I resent that. I’m just curious. You almost died. Or whatever it was that was happening.”
“Is that concern I hear?” He found himself hopeful. Morbidly so.
She faced him again, losing some of the stubbornness on her chin. “What do you think? I wouldn’t have helped you if I wasn’t worried. Niko, you were gray. Then you started to disappear. And to make matters worse, you have dead people in your basement and a butler that isn’t a ghost. He’s something else.”
His eyes widened. “You knew what was in my basement?”
Arianne paled. “I…uh…I—”
“It seems you have something to tell me as well,” he said, low and deep, eliciting a different kind of flush on her face.
The bus lumbered into the school parking lot. Niko strode to the door along with a line of other students and stepped onto the pavement. Arianne’s admission both confused and frustrated him, which did a good job of bringing up his defenses. He shut her out by leaving. A part of him felt sick to his core because of it. But what could he do? She admitted to having seen the souls.
“Surely, she couldn’t be a threat,” he murmured to himself.
“Hey, man, what are you standing there for?” Desmond called.
Darla, in her usual cardigan and skirt, stood with him, but her attention lay elsewhere.
Niko climbed the steps, but before he could say anything, Darla said, “Why were you seated with Arianne Wilson?” Her eyes narrowed—intent on watching Arianne alight from the bus.
He glanced over his shoulder and his stomach crumpled. Arianne’s expression was one of sad confusion. The culprit? Him.
He returned his attention to Darla and asked, “How’s the dance planning going? Two weeks away, right?”
“Oh man! Why do you have to open the floodgates so early?” Desmond said in mock annoyance.
Darla’s face shone like the noon day sun. “The decorations have been ordered and are coming at the end of the week. We’ve cleared the use of the gym.” She spotted a classmate and waved. “Patty, a moment. Patty!”
Niko and Desmond watched Darla follow the blonde like a bloodhound on a scent.
“What was that all about?” Niko asked, still staring after a quick moving Darla. The crowd seemed to part for her.
Desmond clucked his tongue several times. “I told that girl to do her job. She refuses to listen to Darla about the sound system for the dance. Why won’t anyone listen to me?”
“Maybe because you’re a dog.” Niko adjusted his schoolbag and joined the current.
“A shame, really.” Desmond scrambled to catch up. “I’d hate to be the one to clean up the mess Darla will leave behind after she’s done with Patty.”
“If it means you can score with Patty, I think you’d offer your shoulder to cry on.”
“If only.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Niko approached his locker and fiddled with the combination on his lock.
Leaning on another locker, Desmond tapped a beat on his jean-clad thighs. “Patty’s not interested.”
“In you?” Niko opened the door and proceeded with the book exchange. “Impossible.”
“No, man, I mean, she’s not interested. She’s a muff diver, if you catch my drift.”
More terms he had to get out his dictionary of slang for. “And you know this because…?”
“I’m hurt.” Desmond frowned. “You know I check out potential hook-ups before I move in for the kill.”
Niko closed his locker and regarded Desmond with amusement. “If you ask me, you’re just fielding so you don’t get rejected.”
“Oooo, low blow, dude. Seriously.” He grimaced then swung his arm around Niko’s shoulders. “What were you doing with Arianne on the bus anyway?”
“You saw that too?”
“I should have known. A girl that fine…” He nodded his approval. “Took you long enough.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“That’s my point. You’ve never done anything you didn’t want to. Sitting with Arianne on the bus isn’t just nothing.” Desmond shook Niko. “You animal! You have to give me details.”
“And that’s your business because?”
“Come on, give a guy a break.”
“Why don’t you go after her then, if you’re so interested?”
“And risk Darla’s wrath?”
The bell rang before Niko could ask Desmond what he’d meant. He stood there somewhat worried and just a little unnerved. What connected Darla to Arianne that even Desmond stayed away?