Recalled (Death Escorts #1)(66)
Author: Cambria Hebert

He smiled. “No, but being your butler was highly amusing.”

“Then why?” I asked, wanting to understand. I stepped closer because the warmth around him was so inviting.

“Because you were lost and you needed a guide. You were really never meant for hell, and it was my duty to make sure you stayed that way.”

“But I’ve done horrible things.”

“Most of earth’s population does horrible things. God is very forgiving and he forgives you.”

His words washed over me and something inside me that I hadn’t known was broken and began to heal. It felt wonderful and I felt something I never felt in all my life … peace.

“I don’t know if I deserve it,” I whispered, desperately wanting it anyway.

“That’s exactly why you have it. You have been tempted—tempted with promises and riches and infinite lives to live. Yet you resisted. And you loved.”

He held out his hand.

“Come. Your eternity will not be of torment. It will be of light and peace.”

I looked at his hand and once more at the yellow glow around him. I reached out slowly, afraid what little form I had would evaporate and hold me back. But that didn’t happen. An outline of electric purple formed around me and held me together.

My hand slid into his and instead of going right through him, our hands caught and held.

“Welcome, my friend,” Hobbs whispered and then together we stepped into the brightest part of the light, and it wrapped itself around me. For once, I didn’t feel cold and I didn’t look back, not once. I didn’t think about what I was leaving behind. I only thought about where I was going.

Finally, there was somewhere I truly belonged. Finally, I was home.

Yes, I always thought I was going to hell…

I was wrong.

Epilogue

“Impossible – Incapable of having existence or of occurring.”

Piper

I wrapped my hands around a steaming cup of coffee and shivered against the cold. It was the coldest morning yet this year. Dex hated the cold. I hoped he was warm wherever he was.

I felt the rush of tears to my eyes and I didn’t bother to blink them back. It had been a week since he was recalled. A week since I watched his spirit pulled from his body. I kept hoping he would come back, that he would find a way back to me.

I looked for him everywhere I went—in faces of everyone on the street, in the clinic, and in the diner. I searched stranger’s eyes for just a glimpse of someone I knew. I would take him in any body, but the more days that passed, the more I realized he really was gone.

He died so I could live. He did so more than once. And I was so very afraid that death would not be his only punishment. I didn’t want him to suffer.

I loved him.

I probably always would.

I knew being with him wasn’t our destiny, but I would’ve at least liked to know wherever he was, he was happy.

I walked to the window to look out at the snow-covered street, but my eyes never made it that far. They zeroed in on the frozen flower box that decorated my windowsill. It was iced over and mounded with a white cap of snow. Yet, in the center something grew…

It grew impossibly—wonderfully—right out of the snow and ice.

Its green stem was sturdy and it stretched up toward the morning rays of sun. Its petals, wide and smooth, were completely open and welcoming. It was the most perfect daisy I’d ever seen and it was growing in the middle of winter.

It wasn’t lost on me that this was mine and Dex’s flower. It represented so much.

And it was an answer.

I sat my coffee aside and opened the window, laughing when snow fell onto my slippers. I ignored the harsh biting wind to reach out and tug the perfect flower from the ice. It wasn’t cold like it should be.

It was warm.

It radiated heat in the center of my palm.

I knew then without a doubt that Dex was okay. He was better than okay. He wasn’t being punished for the things he did.

A single tear fell from my eye and landed on one of the perfectly formed petals. When the moisture touched, it shimmered purple and then soaked in.

Dex was in heaven. He was safe and warm… He was at peace.

I knew someday I would meet him again and whenever that was, it wouldn’t matter what form either of us took because…

We would be together.

The End