Charmed (Death Escorts #2)(52)
Author: Cambria Hebert

She came willingly, fitting herself against my side and resting her cheek on my shoulder. The toes on her right foot found their way between my calves and I smiled up at the ceiling.

“You’re the first person I’ve ever told my real name since I’ve been dead.”

“How did you die?” she asked quietly.

This was something I’d never told anyone either.

“I was a boxer. I died in a dirty fight.”

“Did it hurt?” she asked, sorrow lacing her voice.

“I don’t really remember,” I lied, but I was tired of lying so I told her the truth. “Yeah, for a moment, but it didn’t hurt very long.”

“And then what happened? He came for you?”

He being the Grim Reaper.

I nodded. The movement of my head caused a couple strands of her blond hair to stick in my stubble and tickle my chin. I reached up to untangle the silky strands and smooth my palm over them. “Next thing I knew I was in his office. Nothing but a cloud of red—basically just a soul—and he was offering me a job as an Escort.”

“Did you know what an Escort was when you took the job?”

I knew eventually she would ask me this. It was a natural question—did you know you were going to be a killer? Did you actually choose it?

“Yes,” I answered. “He told me what I would be doing.”

We both lay there for long moments, quiet. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking, if the realization—the knowledge that I actually chose this life—would be something she could ever accept.

And if she didn’t? my brain asked me.

But I think the real question was What if she did?

Because if she didn’t, I would understand. I could go on exactly as I had been before. Okay, not exactly as before because this had changed me—she had changed me. But I would go on, and I would continue to do exactly what I’d been doing for over ninety years.

But if she did… if she somehow found a way to accept me, I knew things—life—as it was now would have to change. Irrevocably and forever.

She lifted her head off my shoulder and propped her arm and chin on top my chest. Her blue eyes studied me and her wild hair was tangled around her chin. “So how come you agreed? Why do any of you agree?”

“I can’t say for sure about the others, but I do know that when you’ve just suffered some kind of violent or sudden death, you’re in shock. You find yourself basically a cloud of color standing in a room with a man and his closets full of bodies.” At this she lifted both her eyebrows and stared at me in disbelief, but she said nothing else as I continued.

“It isn’t really much of a choice. You can stay dead and be tossed into some kind of void that is a fate worse than hell for all of eternity, or you can take his offer, get a new body, a new life, and a shit-ton of money. Considering most people are still shocked that they’re actually dead, choosing to live isn’t that hard.”

“But it’s not living,” she said softly.

“No. It’s not.” I took a minute to brush some of the wayward hair out her face. “But usually by the time you realize that, it’s much too late. Once you make the deal, once you take on the title of Death Escort, there is no getting out.”

“Like Dex,” she whispered.

“Yeah, like Dex. You do the job or get Recalled, sent off to a place worse than hell.”

“When did you realize you weren’t really living?”

I brushed my thumb along the bare skin of her collarbone, back and forth, back and forth. Goosebumps broke out along her skin and I smiled. “Today.”

I caught the skepticism in her eyes. “Don’t try that charm on me,” she warned.

“Are you saying you’re immune to my charm?” I lifted a single brow.

“Oh yes,” she said, her lips curving secretly. “It’s your other, shall I say, gifts that I’m partial too.” As she spoke her finger trailed across my chest and down my stomach.

I laughed. But then I sobered up. I wanted her to know this stuff. “For several months now I’ve been feeling restless. I always completed the jobs I was assigned, but sometimes things fell through the cracks.”

“Money, you mean,” she replied.

“Mostly,” I rasped and rubbed a hand over my face. “It gets old… working for a man who can be as ruthless and cunning as he wants. He can play with your life, make threats, and withhold things that are rightfully yours.” I paused and glanced at her. She nodded and so I went on. “And then Dex came along… He figured out a way to get around G.R.’s game. I did nothing to stop him.”

“You helped Dex?” she said, her eyes going wide and her shoulders straightening.

“I didn’t save your friend.” I could see in her eyes that she was trying to make me into the hero. I wasn’t a hero. I never would be. I was the bad guy. The killer. “All I did was look the other way and maybe keep G.R. busy while Dex did his thing.”

She shivered.

“Are you cold?”

“A little.”

“Come on,” I said, starting to rise, but she made a sound deep in her throat.

“In a minute.” She pushed me back down and pressed herself closer against me. “There’s something else I want to know.”

“Hmmm?” I asked, paying more attention to the way her body felt against mine than what she was saying.

“Did you take the job because you were angry you died?”

“You ask the hard questions,” I murmured.

“Because those are the ones that tell me the most.”

“Does it really matter?” I asked then. “The reason I became what I am? The reason I became a killer? Because it won’t change the fact that I’ve killed over and over again for over ninety years.”

“It matters to me.”

I hesitated again. Was I really ready after all these years to tell my story to someone?

“Olly,” she whispered.

I wasn’t sure that I would ever get used to hearing her call me that. It brought a rush of emotion every single time she said it. “My sister used to call me that.”

“Tell me about her.”

I nodded. “Her name was Sarah.” It was another name, another emotion… another blast from the past.

And then it was like I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The words, the past came tumbling out of me.

“I died in nineteen twenty. The world was different back then. It wasn’t as free—as liberal as it is now. Women’s rights were on their way, but even still, women weren’t regarded the way they are now. They still needed the protection of a man, the income of a man. They were vulnerable, easily exploited and taken advantage of.”