Settling back against the pillows, I dive into a world where the good guys have a choice in whether or not they take down the bad guys.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEA
“Lisa, you bitch! How could you cheat on José with José’s twin brother? And José! How could you impregnate Lisa’s mother?” I scream at the television screen—some sappy Spanish soap opera centering around a dysfunctional, and a slightly incestuous, family.
It’s been an entire hour since I’ve been called away to reap a soul. My last one was a ninety-five-year-old woman on death’s bed. I’d been gentle with her, offering her my hand and pulling her into my embrace. I didn’t want her to see the dagger, so I quite literally stabbed her in the back.
“José! Don’t do it! Don’t you dare do it!” I jump up and down on the couch.
Well, float up and down on the couch. I don’t need to sit if I don’t want to. Actually, I don’t really know how it works. I float normally and can drift through walls, ceilings, and floors. However, this room, and the items in it, are different.
For one, I can’t leave. The walls are completely solid.
For two, I can actually touch the furniture in my prison. Lie on the bed. Recline on the couch. Flick through the channels on the television. Hold a paintbrush.
Yet, if I choose to, I can float in the area or pass through the television.
Whatever magic keeps me contained here is fucking outrageous.
“José! I swear to fuck—” I begin, then curse when, on the screen, José pulls a beautiful woman into a passionate embrace.
Anna, Lisa’s sister.
So now José—the horny fuck—has slept with every woman in the family.
“You’re going to regret this decision,” I tell José seriously, as if he can actually hear and respond.
Sometimes, I like to imagine the characters can.
And sometimes, they actually do. This usually occurs after I reaped multiple souls back-to-back and haven’t had time to return the dagger to the pedestal. My hallucinations will create a life-sized José and Lisa and Anna and Mary and Fernando.
A sudden pain bursts through my chest, setting every nerve ending aflame, and I gasp.
Fuck.
Not again.
The dagger flies off the pedestal and into my waiting hand, the runes already aglow with that strange, heady magic.
“Wait!” I beg to whomever is listening. “Let me finish this episode. I need to know if Lisa is going to take him back!”
Of course, no one listens to my desperate pleas. No one ever does.
Bright light seeps across my vision, like a fresh ink blob getting doused in water. The world around me changes and distorts.
Tall, spindly trees poke through the forest floor, and a blazing sun bears down, with wispy, feather-like clouds cloaking the lower half.
“Who’s the lucky contestant today?” I murmur, pivoting on my heel to take in my surroundings.
Forest…
Daytime…
And no people.
No one.
