LITMIR.BIZ

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my waist. I leaned into his chest, and his heart beat against my back. When he spoke, his breath stirred the hair over my ear, softly soothing me, though I knew that part was meant for Emma. Just in case.

      “So you swear?” he asked, and she nodded. “You know how Kaylee can tell when someone’s going to die?” Emma nodded again, her eyes narrowed now, fresh curiosity shining in them, edged with fear she probably didn’t want us to see. “Well, sometimes, under certain circumstances …she can bring them back.”

      “With his help,” I added hoarsely, then immediately wondered if his own involvement was one of the parts Nash wanted to keep to himself. But he kissed the back of my head to tell me it was okay.

      “Yes, with my help.” His fingers curled around mine, where my hand lay in my lap. “Together, we … woke you up. Sort of. You’ll be fine now. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, and the doctor will probably decide you passed out from stress, or grief, or something. Just like the EMT did.”

      For nearly a minute, Emma was silent, taking it all in. I was afraid that even under Nash’s careful Influence, she might freak out, or start laughing at us. But she only blinked and shook her head. “I died?” she asked again. “And you guys brought me back. I knew I should have had that little digital health meter installed over my head, so I know when I’m about to drop.”

      I smiled, relieved that she could see the humor in the situation, and Nash laughed out loud, his whole body quaking against my back. “Well, with any luck, we’ve unlocked infinite health for you,” he said.

      Emma smiled back briefly, then her face grew serious. “Was it like the others? I just collapsed?”

      “Yeah.” I hated having to tell her about her own death. “In midsentence.”

      “Why?”

      “We don’t know,” Nash said before I could answer. I let his response stand, because technically it was the truth, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. And because I didn’t want Emma mixed up in anything that involved a psychotic, extra-grim, female reaper.

      She thought for a moment, her fingers skimming the white hospital blanket. When her hand bumped the bed’s controlter, she picked it up, glancing at the buttons briefly before meeting my gaze again. “How did you do it?”

      “That’s …complicated.” I searched for the right words, but they wouldn’t come. “I don’t know how to explain it, and it’s not really important.” At least as far as Emma was concerned. “What matters is that you’re okay.”

      She pressed a button on the controller, and the head of the bed rose several inches beneath her. “So what happened with Julie?”

      That was the question I’d been dreading. I glanced at my lap, where my fingers were twisting one another into knots. Then I shifted to look at Nash, hoping he had a better, less traumatizing way to explain it than simply “She died for you.”

      But evidently he did not. “We saved your life, and we’d do it again if we had to. But death is just like life in some ways, Em. Everything has a price.”

      “A price?” Emma flinched, and her hand clenched the controlfer. The bed lowered beneath her, but she didn’t even notice. “You killed Julie to save me?”

      “No!” I reached out for Emma, but she scooted backward into the pillow, horrified. “We had nothing to do with Julie dying! But when we brought you back, we created a sort of vacuum, and something had to fill it.” Which wasn’t exactly true. But I couldn’t explain that there shouldn’t have been a price for her life without telling her about bean sidhes, and reapers, and other, darker things I didn’t even understand yet myself.

      Emma relaxed a little but didn’t move any closer to us. “Did you know that when you saved me?” she asked, and again I was surprised by how insightful her questions were. She’d probably make a much better bean sidhe than I will.

      Nash cleared his throat behind me, ready to field the question. “We knew it was a possibility. But your case was an exception, of sorts, so we hoped it wouldn’t happen. And we had no idea who would go instead.”

      Emma frowned. “So you didn’t get a premonition about her death?”

      “No, I.” Didn’t. I hadn’t even thought about it until she asked. “Why didn’t I know about her?” I asked, twisting to look at Nash.

      “Because the reason for her death—” meaning the reaper’s decision to take her “—didn’t exist until we brought Emma back. Which proves Julie wasn’t supposed to die either.”

      “She wasn’t supposed to die?” Emma hugged a hospital pillow to her chest.

      “No.” I leaned into Nash’s embrace and immediately felt guilty because she’d just died, yet had no one to lean on. So I sat up again, but couldn’t bring myself to let go of his hand. “Something’s wrong. We’re trying to figure it out, but we’re not really sure where to start.”

      “Was I supposed to die?” Her gaze burned into me. I’d never seen my best friend look so vulnerable and scared.

      Nash shook his head firmly on the edge of my vision. “That’s why we brought you back. I wish we could have helped Julie.”

      Emma frowned. “Why couldn’t you?”

      “We … weren’t fast enough.” I grimaced as frustration and anger over my own failure twisted at my gut. “And I sort of used it all up on you.”

      “What does that mean—” But before she could finish the question, the door opened, and a middle-aged woman in scrubs and a lab coat entered. She carried a clipboard and led a very flustered Ms. Marshall.

      “Emma, I believe this woman belongs to you?” The doctor tucked her clipboard under one arm, and Ms. Marshall brushed past her and rushed to the bed, where she nearly crushed her youngest daughter in a hug.

      Suddenly the bed lurched beneath us, and Nash and I jumped off the mattress, startled. “Sorry.” Emma dug the controll er from beneath her leg, where it had fallen.

      “Um, we’re gonna go,” I said, backing toward the door. “My dad’s supposed to get in tonight, and I really need to talk to him.”

      “Your dad’s coming home?” Still tight within the embrace, Emma pushed a poof of her mother’s hair aside so she could see me, and I nodded.

      “I’ll call you tomorrow. ‘Kay?”

      Emma frowned as her mother settled onto the bed, but nodded when the doctor held the door open for us. She would be fine. For better or worse, we’d saved her life, at least for now. And with any luck, she wouldn’t catch another reaper’s eye for a very, very long time.

      Ms. Marshall waved to me as the door closed in front of us, and the last thing I heard was Emma insisting that she would have called, if she still had her phone.

      Our footsteps clomped on the dingy vinyl tile as we passed the nurses’ station, heading for the heavy double doors leading into the ER waiting room. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, and I was exhausted. And the tickle in my throat reminded me that I still sounded like a bullfrog.

      I’d barely finished that thought when a familiar voice called my name from the broad, white corridor behind us. I froze in midstep, but Nash only stopped when he noticed I had.

      “I thought you might want something warm for your throat. Sounds like you really wore it out today.”

      I turned to find Tod holding a steaming paper cup, his other hand wrapped around an empty IV stand.

      Nash tensed at my side. “What’s wrong?” he asked. But he was looking at me rather than at Tod.

      I glanced at the reaper with my brows raised. Tod shrugged and grinned. “He can’t see me. Or hear me unless I want him to.” Then he turned to Nash, and I understood

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