“If Nakita finds you, she’ll take you to Kairos,” Barnabas said to the ceiling. “Being sorry isn’t going to change anything. You’ve already claimed the dark timekeeper amulet. You’re it, Madison. For Kairos to reclaim it, your soul has to be destroyed! Only one or the other of you can be the dark timekeeper.”
I felt dizzy. There had to be a way out of this. “One or the other? I don’t think so,” I said, my head hurting. “I can dissociate from my amulet. Maybe the reason I can is because it doesn’t really belong to me. You ever think of that? If I can give it fully back to Kairos, then maybe I’m the rising light timekeeper.”
Barnabas’s foot quit jumping up and down, and he turned to me, considering it. “Ron said not to dissociate from your amulet.”
I shivered, breathless with hope. “And Ron’s been lying to me—to us. I say chance it. Barnabas, I am not the rising dark timekeeper!” Thinking, I looked away from his intent expression. “I need to talk to Kairos,” I muttered. “Where does he live?”
Barnabas’s jaw dropped. “You are not going to talk to Kairos!” he said. “And besides, I don’t know.”
The fallen angel turned in his chair to face me, bringing a leg up onto the cushion. “Madison, even if you are the rising light timekeeper and you can give his amulet back to him, Kairos will destroy your soul anyway to slide the balance of things his way.”
I couldn’t afford to think like that. “He’s mortal, so he lives on earth, right?” I asked, standing and looking at the empty reception desk. “If Kairos wants his amulet, he’s going to have to give me my body,” I said, flicking the amulet, heavy around my neck. “I bet Nakita knows where he lives. Is she okay? Did they get the black wings out of her? You can hear the songs between heaven and earth. What are they saying?”
Barnabas remained where he was, looking up at me from under his curly hair in disbelief. “Madison,” he protested.
“Is she okay?” I said loudly, hand on my hip. “Can you call someone? Come on! What’s the point of being a reaper if you don’t do anything?”
His eyes narrowed at me for a moment in annoyance; then a smile quirked the corners of his lips. “She’s okay,” he said, and a knot eased in my middle. “But this is a bad idea.”
I pulled him up, surprised that he moved so easily. “Yeah, but it’s an idea. And if I’m a rising timekeeper, then I’m going to be your boss someday. Come on. Help me find Nakita.”
Barnabas dug in his heels, and his hand pulled from mine as I continued on a step without him. “You’re not going to be anyone’s boss if you’re dead,” he said wryly.
“I have to apologize,” I said, reaching for his hand and tugging him forward another step. “And give her her amulet back. Maybe if I do, she will let Josh live. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t killed him. She’s waiting for me.”
A frown creased his forehead. “You want to give a dark reaper an amulet. Are you even hearing yourself?”
“It’s hers,” I said. “What is theproblem ?”
“Ron will freak. He’ll take my amulet away,” Barnabas muttered as he glanced at the parking lot in worry. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
I put a hand on my hip, seeing every second as one more moment that Josh’s life was still hanging by a thread. “You know you did right. I’m not asking you to leave me. If Ron takes your amulet away, I’ll make you another. Unless this is another lie and I’m just a poor slob who got mixed up in this and I’m not a rising timekeeper.” Man, was I glad the receptionist was gone.
Still he vacillated. “Why are you listening to Ron!” I exclaimed, frustrated. “He knew what I was and didn’t tell me. He told you to teach me something he knew I couldn’t do. Will you just help me?! I have to try to save Josh. I have to try to save myself. I can be me again!”
Barnabas’s brown eyes searched mine. “You’ve always been you.”
I backed up, not knowing what he was going to decide. “Will you help me?”
He stood beside me, his duster shifting about his ankles as his feet scuffed. “You see a choice here?”
My head bobbed up and down. “I see a chance.”And a way to get out of here before my dad or Josh’s parents show up.
Barnabas looked to the parking lot and the setting sun, grimacing. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this,”
he said.
“You’ll help me?” I said breathlessly, scared and elated all at the same time.
“I am going to get in so much trouble,” he said as if to himself, and together we turned to the double doors. “I can take you to a safe spot. Nakita can’t hurt you there. Though I don’t think it will do any good.”
“Thank you,” I said as we walked through the doors purposefully, my stomach fluttering.
I would convince Nakita to give me Josh’s life for a lousy hunk of rock, then do the same with Kairos formy life. Just watch me.