Deadly Kisses

Nineteen





The Ancients dropped me off at the end of the dirt road that led to Bee’s house and disappeared into the night. The fog was clearing, but it stayed low to the ground, rolling off the river. I walked slowly up the driveway. I had saved Bee, but it would cost Jaleb.

My scythe felt heavy in my hands and weighed down my body, as if it wanted to drag me to the ground. I tried to prepare mentally to see Bee. I knew when I flagged down the hearse and opened the door I was condemning myself to an eternity of servitude. It would be worth it to keep Bee alive. It was the least I could do, since I was the one who killed her cousin.

I walked past Sabrina’s house until I was on the path to the cemetery. Shadows cast off the stones in the light of the full moon. Once I passed the oak tree, I could see Bee’s house. The light was off in her room.

Bee’s soul stirred the closer I got to her. Life flushed through me again, warm, vibrant, and free. I picked up my cloak and stepped over the knee-high stone wall at the edge of the woods. The curtain was open, but I didn’t see her in there.

I walked in, following the stream of emotions that were anxious and un-nerving. I knocked on the door to her brother’s room.

“Come in,” Bee said.

She sat next to Jaleb. His face was pale but not blue. Bee had given him the herbs. He slept, and I wondered what Marlin had put in it to calm him.

Bee stood and approached me. She jabbed me in the chest, pure fury on her face. “What’s your excuse for going in the Ancient’s car? I saw you before I turned the corner. Are you outing us to them?”

I tilted my head to see into the depths of her soul while holding my scythe tight. It was as if a barn caught fire, spreading to the hay. I couldn’t help but chuckle, but she wasn’t amused. “The last thing I’m doing is outing you.” I took my pointer finger, brushing it down the center of her nose.

She swatted my hand away and stepped forward so her shoes bumped into mine. “Should I believe you?”

I tilted down until we were nose to nose. “Yes, you should. I’ve done nothing but keep my word.” As I breathed in her air, my icy breath mingled with her warm, creating puffs of fog. If I leaned in, our lips would touch.

“You’re right. I think you were trying to help, but what could you possibly do?” Bee put her hand over my heart.

“I was helping. How’s Jaleb?” Our souls were taking advantage of the close contact. Mine warmed and the fog breath stopped.

“I had to tell him that you’re my Grim Reaper so he would take the herbal tonic. Once he knew it was you, he drank half the vial.”

I twirled her hair around my fingers. “I knew it would work.”

“You were always a good friend to all of us—and me.”

“I would have done anything for you.” Little did she know I gave up my afterlife for her, and I didn’t regret it.

“Why, why would you do anything for me? We weren’t that good of friends after middle school anymore.” I pulled back, but she wouldn’t let me. When she came forward, I grabbed her elbows so she wouldn’t lean into me too far. I didn’t want her to know the mortal wound where the tree impaled me was still there, and it hurt. It would probably gross her out, the way the wound blackened around the edges. A wound the size of an orange would never heal, even with Bee’s gift.

“Stop retreating from me, Aiden. Please,” she begged.

“You’re so damn annoying. Do you know that?”

“You are, too. You drive me nuts with all those secrets bottled up with no one to share them with.”

My mouth twitched.

“In different ways we’re the same.” I leaned into her rainbow of energy. My lips brushed her cheek and she stood still. The licorice flavor came into my mouth. I shook my head and fisted my hands.

“I keep forgetting your kiss is deadly, because you haven’t changed. It’s like you never died.” She went to her brother who slept peacefully on the bed, and put her hand to his forehead.

I was irritated and pulled at my hair. “We can’t! My kiss will kill you. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I know, I know . . . I can’t help it.”

“You’re so frustrating. I mean, the stuff you do. You’re so impulsive, think it through.”

“And you think too much. Go with the flow, except the kissing part. You stopped me from committing Grim Reaper suicide.” She went to her brother’s drawers and looked through them.

“You won’t find drugs in there. Marlin helped him.” She took out a shirt and sized it up.

“I know everything. Jaleb told me, and I know that’s what kept us from being together. That, and the two-year-age thing.” Bee chuckled. “Tell me about Marlin. Jaleb never mentioned her.”

“She’s a powerful psychic and a whiz with herbs. The legal kind, of course. She knew about you.”

“Jaleb’s fever is breaking. Her tonic worked, but she’s really weird.”

“She wasn’t always like that. She gets images and messages from other people and it stresses her out. Her mother had her committed when she was younger, not understanding her psychic abilities. She hates when they take her over, but she means well.”

“That’s kind of sad.” Bee found a pair of jeans at the bottom of the drawer and checked the tag before pulling them out. “Come here.”

“Fine, but don’t put those lips near me again. My will power isn’t that good. You have to know the way our souls feel inside each other.”

Bee placed the jeans against me, eyeing if they fit.

“I can feel that you’re holding things back from me, but don’t worry I’m going to find out what big regret you think you have for not wanting to ascend. You can’t want this for eternity.” She went to the closet and found a jacket.

“Don’t your parents keep tabs on you?”

Bee let out a breath of frustration. “Not really. We were a close family until Sabrina died. I told them about the Grim Reaper following her. It gave us closure, but the whole family became withdrawn. I think they became afraid of what I can see. My mom helps me with schoolwork, we spend the afternoons with the twins, and I’m free after that. My dad drowns himself in work, and I don’t see him until late.”

She picked up the clothes and walked to her room. “I gave Jaleb one of my mom’s sleeping pills. He’ll be out for a while. We have a date. Just you, me, and lots of old stuff.”

She closed the door to her room and threw the clothes at me. “Lose the cloak and get dressed, Aiden.”

“But it’s after midnight.”

“What do you care? Do you sleep? Anyway, I’m not tired and I want the fun promised to me.”

“Yes, I sleep, and pee too, if I drink. I’m a dead human, life goes on, except I’m invisible and I’m an assassin for a living.”

“How appealing. I would ascend, no questions asked.” She sat on the bed. “Can bad people become Grim Reapers?”

I slipped the cloak over my head and threw it to her. She caught it, making a face at the drab thing. I kept my back to her and faced the poster.

“No, but once you’re a Grim Reaper you can go as bad as you want. That’s what has become a huge problem. My boss, Abe, is on a crusade to stop the Ancients. There needs to be order on my plane.” I turned and she stared at my bare backside. I thanked her continuous flow of energy that skin grew back not just on my hands, but my whole body—well, except the one spot on my chest.

I slid up the jeans. They sat low on my hips, but it felt good to have pants on again. Her soft hand on my back sent my heart racing. She opened her hand so her fingers lay across my shoulder blade. My eyes closed and it felt good to be touched—especially by her. “Please don’t.” It pained me to urge her away.

“I have something to give you.”

“After I put on the shirt.” I clutched the black tee against my chest because she had her hand wrapped around my bicep. I turned against better judgment, holding the shirt to my wound.

She looked to the shirt and then back to my eyes. She could feel out my emotions. My calm and cool were lost somewhere down the River of Lost Souls when her hand trailed from my arm to my chest.

Her fingers pulled at the edge of the shirt and I clutched it more. “Don’t be scared, Aiden. Let me see what you’re hiding.” I let go of the shirt, hearing her velvet voice soothe me.

She gasped and stepped back.

“I tried to spare you.” I hurried and put the shirt on. It clung to my cold skin. Her eyes seared through it. “Nasty wound, huh? It’s my fatal wound where the tree got me.”

She took a step forward, and I backed up. I couldn’t let her touch me. I was damaged and would never be what she deserved. I was dead, and Bee was everything life should be.

I bumped into the wall and my back was flat against a poster of a pony in a field.

“I want to hear your version about that night. I’ve told you mine already.”

“No.”

“I need to hear it. Please!”

“If this is your attempt to make me ascend, it’s too late.” I put my head down and blonde strands fell into my face.

She lifted my chin. “Please Aiden, for me, for Sabrina. I beg you.”

I fought to hold on to my guilt because I deserved to be miserable. “Your brother was supposed to bring Sabrina home, but he ditched us for some chick after the concert. I drove her instead. I think she was going to tell me everything—about you—about her.”

I paused, taking a deep breath, and continued. “It was hard to see that night because it was raining hard. It was the fifth day straight and unrelenting. Anyways, Sabrina and I were still hyped up from the concert and goofing off. I drove that road every day and didn’t give it much thought.

“I . . . I had plenty enough time to stop if I had paid attention to the road as I should’ve been. I should’ve seen the large crack, the collapsed bridge. I slammed on my brakes, but it was too late and we went over. The windshield cracked and a tree impaled my chest. It didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t move. The car was somehow teetering on a boulder and the fallen tree. Then water rushed at us. It tore the door open and Sabrina lost consciousness. She started to lean toward the open door. I tried grabbing for her hand, but it slipped out of mine. I couldn’t move to grasp it again. I realized if I didn’t do something it would be too late, so I managed to pull the tree branch out of my chest. Blood poured out, and the last thing I remember is seeing Sabrina open her eyes and reach for me, screaming.” Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my face. I struggled to breathe.

Bee took me in her arms and cradled my head in the crook of her neck.

“I tried to save her. I tried! I really, really tried! I remember darkness and then I was on a river with a dead president. Reina rowed next to us in her gondola. Abe was going to take me to a better place, and he soothed me. I was so scared. I begged him to tell me what happened. It was Reina who told me Sabrina had drowned, and I had crashed the car. I refused to ascend.”

She grasped my face in her hands, forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Look at me, Aiden Grant. It. Is. Not. Your. Fault. At first I thought it was my fault, Jaleb thinks it’s his fault. You think it’s your fault, and its fate. Stay still so I can get rid of that nasty wound.”