front
of me. I’d read the assigned chapter three times, but it still hadn’t sunk in,
so I’d moved on to staring at the not-a-locket Madeline had given me, which I’d
found lying on my dresser when I got home.
It didn’t look like anything important. But it was the
difference between final rest and eternal torture to anyone unlucky enough to
have his or her soul stolen at death. Madeline had called it an amphora. I’d
looked the word up. An amphora was an ancient Greek style of vase with a skinny
neck and two handles.
My heart-thing looked nothing like an amphora. Yet the name
seemed oddly appropriate, because like an old jar, my amphora was made to hold
things. Specifically, souls.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I dropped the necklace into
the crack between the pages of the open book, then dug my phone from my pocket.
The screen showed a text from Tod.
Incoming in five…four…three…two…
“One,” he said, and I looked up to find the reaper standing in
the middle of the rug at the end of my bed.
“Cute.” I rolled over to make room for him, and Tod stretched
out on the bed next to me.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” he asked, glancing at the Cinemark
uniform draped over my desk chair.
“Probably,” I admitted. “But what’s the point? Scooping popcorn
and selling tickets for minimum wage feels like a waste of time now.”
Tod’s brows rose. “It’s not like either of us is short on
time.”
“I know, but I don’t want to spend eternity wearing red
polyester and smelling like fake butter.” Too late, I realized he was doing that
very thing, only his uniform shirt was blue and he finished his shifts at the
pizza place smelling like grease and pepperoni. Because the reaper gig didn’t
pay in human currency and without cash, he couldn’t pay for his cell phone, or
food and clothes he didn’t technically need, or the in-public date we kept
promising ourselves.
“You obviously don’t want to spend eternity doing chemistry
homework, either.” Tod slid the necklace onto the comforter between us, then
flipped the textbook closed and set it on the floor. “I take it your return to
class was less than triumphant?”
I rolled onto my back with a sigh. “Today sucked. No way around
it. Between the stares, the gossip, and the inappropriate questions, school felt
more like a three-ring circus than an institute of learning. Three different
people actually asked to see my scar. Can you believe that?”
“Can’t say I blame them. As scars go, it’s pretty damn sexy.”
Tod grinned and pushed the hem of my shirt up to expose the straight, pinkish
line of raised tissue on my stomach. His fingers traced it slowly and chills
gathered just below my navel. Then he lowered his head and followed that line
again with a series of soft kisses. I closed my eyes and gripped handfuls of my
comforter, and those chills at my center became a fire that burned deep inside
me.
Suddenly that scar was my very favorite part of my body.
“No fair,” I moaned. “Only you could make me love the wound
that killed me.”
“Never underestimate the therapeutic power of a few well-placed
kisses,” he mumbled against my skin.
I laughed and pulled him up until our mouths met. “Mmm… If I’d
known the afterlife could be this yummy, I might have tried to expedite the
process.”
Tod pulled away, frowning. “That’s not funny.”
“What, you can make death jokes, but I can’t?” His morbid sense
of humor used to worry me, but now I understood it. Eternity is hard to face
when you can’t find anything to laugh about. Yet jokes couldn’t hide the truth.
I was conscious, and warm, and…preserved. But I wasn’t alive, and I never would
be again. Faking it was the best I could do. He and I had that in common.
“I would have done anything to keep you from dying.” Tod slid
one hand slowly down my arm, leaving a trail of chills in its wake. “This would
have been just as amazing while you were
of me. I’d read the assigned chapter three times, but it still hadn’t sunk in,
so I’d moved on to staring at the not-a-locket Madeline had given me, which I’d
found lying on my dresser when I got home.
It didn’t look like anything important. But it was the
difference between final rest and eternal torture to anyone unlucky enough to
have his or her soul stolen at death. Madeline had called it an amphora. I’d
looked the word up. An amphora was an ancient Greek style of vase with a skinny
neck and two handles.
My heart-thing looked nothing like an amphora. Yet the name
seemed oddly appropriate, because like an old jar, my amphora was made to hold
things. Specifically, souls.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I dropped the necklace into
the crack between the pages of the open book, then dug my phone from my pocket.
The screen showed a text from Tod.
Incoming in five…four…three…two…
“One,” he said, and I looked up to find the reaper standing in
the middle of the rug at the end of my bed.
“Cute.” I rolled over to make room for him, and Tod stretched
out on the bed next to me.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” he asked, glancing at the Cinemark
uniform draped over my desk chair.
“Probably,” I admitted. “But what’s the point? Scooping popcorn
and selling tickets for minimum wage feels like a waste of time now.”
Tod’s brows rose. “It’s not like either of us is short on
time.”
“I know, but I don’t want to spend eternity wearing red
polyester and smelling like fake butter.” Too late, I realized he was doing that
very thing, only his uniform shirt was blue and he finished his shifts at the
pizza place smelling like grease and pepperoni. Because the reaper gig didn’t
pay in human currency and without cash, he couldn’t pay for his cell phone, or
food and clothes he didn’t technically need, or the in-public date we kept
promising ourselves.
“You obviously don’t want to spend eternity doing chemistry
homework, either.” Tod slid the necklace onto the comforter between us, then
flipped the textbook closed and set it on the floor. “I take it your return to
class was less than triumphant?”
I rolled onto my back with a sigh. “Today sucked. No way around
it. Between the stares, the gossip, and the inappropriate questions, school felt
more like a three-ring circus than an institute of learning. Three different
people actually asked to see my scar. Can you believe that?”
“Can’t say I blame them. As scars go, it’s pretty damn sexy.”
Tod grinned and pushed the hem of my shirt up to expose the straight, pinkish
line of raised tissue on my stomach. His fingers traced it slowly and chills
gathered just below my navel. Then he lowered his head and followed that line
again with a series of soft kisses. I closed my eyes and gripped handfuls of my
comforter, and those chills at my center became a fire that burned deep inside
me.
Suddenly that scar was my very favorite part of my body.
“No fair,” I moaned. “Only you could make me love the wound
that killed me.”
“Never underestimate the therapeutic power of a few well-placed
kisses,” he mumbled against my skin.
I laughed and pulled him up until our mouths met. “Mmm… If I’d
known the afterlife could be this yummy, I might have tried to expedite the
process.”
Tod pulled away, frowning. “That’s not funny.”
“What, you can make death jokes, but I can’t?” His morbid sense
of humor used to worry me, but now I understood it. Eternity is hard to face
when you can’t find anything to laugh about. Yet jokes couldn’t hide the truth.
I was conscious, and warm, and…preserved. But I wasn’t alive, and I never would
be again. Faking it was the best I could do. He and I had that in common.
“I would have done anything to keep you from dying.” Tod slid
one hand slowly down my arm, leaving a trail of chills in its wake. “This would
have been just as amazing while you were
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