Page 33

I look at him deadpan. “You killed over twenty people, including children.”

“Who hasn’t made mistakes?”

Aiden and I look at each other, then to him. Aiden replies sarcastically, “I have never killed twenty people by mistake.”

Robert doesn’t reply. A calculating look crosses his face for a split second, then he disappears.

I swivel my head around. “Where’d he go?”

“He couldn’t have gone far. Split up. Remember just use the scythe and cut it through him, it will suck him in,” Aiden says. We run outside and veer off in separate directions. I walk a couple of houses down when I spot Robert hiding in one of the neighbor’s cars.

I walk up and stare at him. “Get out.”

“No.”

“I can see why Aiden asks why people think they have a choice, because why do you think you have a choice?”

I open the car door, surprised to find it is unlocked. He isn’t the smartest cookie. His eyes widen and he teleports out of the car. Before I can turn, I feel a kick in my butt, propelling me awkwardly inside the car. I push myself back out to see the soul in a fighting stance.

“Let’s tussle!” he yells. “I’m not going back.”

“Oh yes, you are.” I pull out the pen sized scythe and command. “Extend.” I crack my neck and shake my shoulders.

“What the hell is that?” he asks.

I smile. “The weapon of your ending.” I swipe out the scythe to hit him, but he teleports back to dodge it. Damn. This is going to be hard. At least he can’t teleport more than fifteen feet. I run towards him, waving the scythe in the air, but he keeps avoiding it. He teleports behind me and yanks my hair, hard. I’m getting angrier with every second that passes. He pops up and kicks me from behind again, causing me to fall to the ground on my hands and knees. I use the scythe to help me stand up.

He is pissing me the hell off.

I keep trying to swipe him while at the same time studying his teleporting habits. He’s not that smart. He teleports the same way depending on which side I’m coming from. If I swipe left, he teleports right and vice versa.

This time, I fake as if I am going to come from the left, but switch directions at the last second. Surprised by my change, he doesn’t have enough time to teleport. My scythe goes through his body, and I watch as his soul gets sucked inside.

“Retract.” I command, then I let out a deep breath. That was harder than expected. But, like I always do, I get the job done.

I hear clapping and turn around to see Aiden leaning against a tree with a smile on his face.

I bristle. “You were watching the whole time?”

“Yes, I was. My favorite part was when he kept teleporting and messing with you. That kick in the back looked like it hurt.” It most definitely did. While we were fighting, I hadn’t had time to stop and feel the pain. But now it is radiating all over my body.

“Why didn’t you help?” I seethe.

He grins. “I prefer watching you get your ass handed to you by a soul.” I would like to hand his ass to him at this moment.

“You’re an asshole.”

His grin widens. “So, I’ve heard.” He points to his shoulder. “Let’s go collect some more souls.” I begrudgingly place my hand on him.

Aiden and I spend the next couple of hours finding and collecting souls. Sometimes they come willingly, realizing there is nothing left for them here. However, a lot of them run away, throwing any object they can at us.

It is surprisingly fun.

I enjoy the rush of chasing after the souls and seeing what crazy things they will do to get away. I always try to talk to them first, of course. But alas, why would they want to voluntarily go back to Hell?

We teleport around the world searching for the loose souls, stopping in Brazil for some mouthwatering food. By the time we finish, five hours have passed. As I sweep the scythe through the last soul, Aiden announces, “That is it. We collected half the souls.”

“Half?” I ask, in awe of our own abilities. There are a bunch of reapers searching for souls and we did half the job with one percent of the manpower. We are a good team.