Recalled (Death Escorts #1)(43)
Author: Cambria Hebert

I turned my head to watch her. She was completely enthralled by the lights, and the colors of the sky reflected onto her skin, giving her a neon glow.

She was so beautiful.

How could you hurt something so beautiful? a part of me asked myself, and in that moment I wouldn’t have been able to come up with the answer to save my life.

“Dex?” Piper turned her head to look at me. “You’re missing it!” she said, her hand tightening on my arm.

“No, I’m not missing anything,” I replied, my voice the same hushed tone as hers.

She smiled and even though it was dark, I saw her eyes soften. The pull between us was so great in that moment I felt like I was in the sky and the ribbons of light were what stretched between us, shimmering and dancing, holding us together, yet still keeping us apart.

“You know,” Piper began, tilting her head back toward the sky, “the guide book in the cabin said there’s a legend saying some people believe the lights are actually flaming torches carried by departed souls who guide travelers into the afterlife.”

I liked that. I looked back up at the sky at the twisting and turning patterns of color and I thought how they reminded me of the way I looked without a body. I was nothing but color without form, a mist that floated in the air. I wasn’t green or yellow, but my color had been neon and vibrant. When I died, where was my guide? Maybe if someone would’ve been there to show me the way, I wouldn’t have ended up working for the Grim Reaper.

I looked back at Piper and realized that maybe where I was now wasn’t so bad.

“So what do you think?” I asked her. “About the legend?”

“I don’t know what to think,” she said, her gaze colliding with mine.

From the tone of her voice I knew we were no longer talking about the northern lights and the legends behind it. We were talking about something else. Something deeper.

“Can you feel it?” she asked, turning her body so she was lying on her side in the snow, facing me. Her hand released my arm so she could bring it up to pillow beneath her cheek.

“Feel what?”

“There’s something between us, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Maybe you think I’m hot,” I said, flashing a grin.

She burst out laughing, disrupting the quiet of the night. She broke it off abruptly but continued to giggle lightly. “It’s those glasses. Men with glasses are hot.”

“You knocking my glasses?” I asked, smiling.

“No!” She gasped. “I was telling the truth.”

Without thought I reached toward her. Noting the thick glove on my hand, I used my teeth to pull it off, then reached toward her again to brush my fingers across her cheek.

“You’re fingers are warm,” she said with a sigh.

I got a little bolder and cupped my palm around her jaw. Her eyes closed, but she didn’t jerk away so I left my hand against her skin.

Moments later, through the dark, she whispered, “Sometimes you’re like two different people.”

I stilled. “What do you mean?”

She was quiet a moment and I felt her shake her head beneath my hand. “Never mind.”

“Tell me,” I said, ignoring the way my heart beat faster.

“I can’t explain it. Sometimes I just feel two different people when I’m around you.”

“And yet the two people you feel in me can’t compete with the one you lost.”

Her eyes opened and she looked at me. If she was shocked, she didn’t show it. “You feel like you’re competing for me?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted, turning my body so I was also on my side, facing her. In more ways than she knew. I was competing against my old body, the guy she viewed as a hero. I was competing against this new body as it tried to carry out my job… and then there was the other side of me… the side that didn’t want to hurt her at all.

That was the side I tried to hide from most of all. I couldn’t understand that part of me. I mean, really, what did I care if this one girl lived or died?

I pulled my hand away from her cheek and the frigid air immediately blew away the warmth that was left behind on my palm.

“I never meant to make you feel that way,” she said, still looking at me. “I never really meant to get close to you at all. I just…” Her voice fell away.

“Just what?” I urged.

“I just couldn’t figure you out. You’re the one person in my life that I’ve never been able to figure out.”

“You got everybody else’s number, huh?” I said, trying to lighten the conversation and ignore the way my stomach flopped.

“Their addresses too,” she quipped.

“And how do you manage that?” I asked, wondering if this had to do with whatever ability Charming wanted.

She paused and then said, “It’s not that hard, if you really pay attention.”

“I don’t think that’s it.” I pressed. “What’s your secret?”

“My secret?” she asked, and I felt her retreat ever so slightly.

“Yeah.” I flashed a grin, trying to pull her back in. “You’re secret to reading people.” Before she responded, I quickly added, “Or you can just tell me any of your other secrets.”

She laughed lightly. “Who says I have secrets?”

“Everyone has secrets.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe. Most likely.”

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” she sang lightly.

“I like to sleep naked,” I lied.

She laughed. “Not tonight you don’t.”

“Oh come on. I’ll be on the couch; you won’t have to see.”

“You are so wrong,” she said, turning her face away to look back up at the sky.

I only joked because I felt like she was getting too close, because part of me wanted to tell her my secrets, but I knew I couldn’t. I hadn’t wanted to lose the moment.

“Hey,” I said, reaching out my hand to her. She caught it in hers and fit our fingers together. Her gloved hand against my bare one.

“Look,” she said quietly. “They’re fading.”

I glanced up at the sky at the vanishing northern lights. We both rolled so we were once again on our backs, staring up at the endless sky. Except this time our bodies were closer; this time we were pressed together and our hands intertwined. We watched the colors until they were barely a memory, until they were almost completely faded away.