Reaper's Fall

My life had sucked before I moved in with London, but she gave me a second chance. I’d busted ass, working constantly to build a life for myself. It wasn’t perfect, but it was damned good—I had a full ride to college and all the potential on earth, yet here I sat, eating chocolate.

Fuck this.

I grabbed my phone, shooting a text off to Jessica.

ME: What are you doing right now?

JESS: Working on stuff for the carnival tomorrow. You still volunteering, right? Kit’s still around and she said she’d help, but I’ll need more than just her.

Oh shit. I’d totally forgotten in the midst of my Painter-induced haze. Oops.

ME: Of course I’m still volunteering—can’t wait. What did you want me to do?

JESS: Face paint.

ME: Um, you remember how artistic I’m not?

JESS: I want you painting little duckies and ladybugs and lizards and stuff. You know, on the kids cheeks. How hard can it be?

ME: I suck at painting

JESS: I have a book you can use with directions. Super easy

ME: Can’t I run the popcorn machine or something?

JESS: Chicken

ME: Yes I’m chicken. I can acknowledge that

JESS: Stop being such a giant pussy. I’ll give you paint tonight and you can practice. Easy

I glared down at the phone, because it was just like her to stick me with something hard and uncomfortable that I didn’t want to do. Hateful girl.

ME: Ok but you owe me

JESS: Put it on my tab ?

Fucking winkie face, taunting me . . . I sighed and finished my brownie. I wouldn’t let myself get all pathetic again, I’d already decided that. But I couldn’t just walk away from a brownie midway through a sad eating binge. In all fairness, there wasn’t even enough to wrap up and take home.

ME: If I get all fat we r blaming Painter

JESS: Your insane. I love you butthead.

And just like that, I was smiling again. Grabbing my phone and bag, I started walking down to the college. Class didn’t start for another hour, but I could get some work done on my paper at the library if I hurried.

No more letting Painter get in my way. Life was too damned short.

• • •

It was eleven p.m. that same Friday night, and I was all alone (in the dark) getting my ass kicked by a ladybug.

Wasn’t even a real ladybug.

I stared down at the little instruction booklet, trying to figure out how something so allegedly simple—painting a harmless insect in six easy steps—was completely beyond me. I’d been trying for forty-five minutes now, dabbing unattractive, runny gloops of red, black, and white over and over each other in an endless cycle of incompetence. Some looked like aliens and others looked like mutant trolls, but not one of them could possibly be mistaken for a ladybug.

Not even a ladybug that’d been squished. (And maybe run over a few times, just for good measure.)

Jess was going to give me so much shit over this, I just knew it, because the instructions were so fucking simple that any idiot should be able to follow them. Crap. I dropped the paintbrush, walking into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. In the distance I heard a faint knocking sound outside followed by a weird, serial killer–esque wheeze from the fridge. I spun around, convinced I was about to be murdered.

Nothing.

I tiptoed slowly back into the dining room, where the corpses of my botched ladybugs waited in accusing silence.

Then I heard the knock again, more clearly this time. Someone was at the door . . . Of course I was here by myself, because Jessica would be out visiting Taz when I needed her most, leaving me to be murdered. The same Taz who—after not calling all week—suddenly had urgent “shit to deal with” at the Armory. Shit so easy to deal with that it only took about an hour, giving him plenty of time to take Jess out for the night. Right. I didn’t buy that for an instant, and I told her so. Obviously he was up to something. But she insisted that she was a big girl, and that she knew what she was doing.

I walked over to the door, wishing for the thousandth time that we had a peephole. Instead we had to peer through the window to see people outside, which Jess had helpfully pointed out gave them an easy target if they wanted to shoot us or bash us with a hockey stick. Bracing myself, I twitched the curtain to the side to see him.

Painter.

For an instant I got stupidly excited, then I remembered that I’d stopped liking him this past week. We might not be a couple, but we were good enough friends that I thought I deserved at least some acknowledgement or contact. Were his fingers broken, that he couldn’t return a friendly text message?

“What’s up?” I asked coldly, opening the door.

He stared at me, eyes tracing my face in silence long enough to be uncomfortable. A part of me wanted to babble nervously, fill the air, but I managed to shut it down—from now on, I set the rules.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,” he said.

“Seems to be a pattern with you,” I pointed out, trying to act tough. “I know we’re just friends, but you dropped off the face of the earth. What gives?”

He shrugged and then offered a smile so sweet and charming it almost got me. Almost. But not quite.

“My phone broke,” he said. “I was off on club business, so I just picked up a burner to use. Didn’t even have real texting, and I didn’t have your number anyway.”

Ah . . . See, he had a good explanation! The stupidest, most gullible part of my brain was totally ready to fall for his excuses. No. No no no no.

“Don’t you have Picnic’s number?” I asked reasonably. “He knows how to get in touch with me.”