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On my other side, I felt more than saw Barnabas shrug. “I don’t know. Ron never said. How about Kairos? Did he ever look this tired to you?”
Nakita shook her head, her expression worried. Sighing, I leaned heavily on them. It was over, but there was still a lot to do. I’d gotten rid of my file, but there was probably something upstairs. And the guy in the closet. And Shoe…
“I’m really hungry,” I said, the memory of being inside Ace making me feel ill. “Can we go get a burger?”
Nakita turned to me, her surprise mirrored by Barnabas’s. Sighing, I sent my gaze to Shoe and Ace. “All of us?” I added. “I’m starving,” I said, shocked to realize I was. “Besides,” I said softly so Shoe couldn’t hear, “we can take care of their memories there and leave them maybe as friends or something.”
Instead of answering me, Barnabas looked over the morgue. “Is the patch in place?” he asked Shoe.
Shoe rolled his chair over to the computer. His expression was relieved, and he pocketed the disc. “Yes.”
Barnabas straightened, gesturing for Nakita to get Ace. “Burgers sound good to me,” he said with a startling amount of enthusiasm. We’d probably have no problem getting out of the hospital even with letting the guy out of the closet. Not with two reapers and two guardian angels.
Thoughts of salty fries and cold pop made my mouth water as I followed Barnabas, Ace, and Shoe out into the empty hallway. I was tired and depressed…and hungry. This wasn’t the ending I had expected. Had I won? I really didn’t know.
Time would tell, I supposed.
Thirteen
Sweet and tangy, the ketchup dripped from my French fries until I shoved them in my mouth and licked the salt from my fingers. “Oh, puppies from Hades, this is good,” I mumbled around the mouthful, reaching for the pop and taking a long pull on the straw. Bubbles exploded all the way down my throat, and I made a happy mmmm even as I was reaching for another fry. They were cut thick and had been cooked to perfection. I jammed another one in my mouth. I hadn’t eaten in so long, it was as if I were starving.
Suddenly I realized that no one was saying anything, and I looked up. Shoe was sitting across from me in the booth. Nakita was to his right, her red purse sitting carefully on the table beside her. Barnabas was to my left, and beside him, Ace sat in sullen silence against the wall, holding a wad of ice wrapped in brown napkins to his head.
“What?” I asked, seeing that everyone was staring at me.
Nakita glanced at Barnabas, then said softly, “I’ve never seen you eat…like that.”
My reach for another fry slowed, and I ate it in two bites instead of one. It was late, and the diner was empty but for us, the waitress counting money in the till, and the cook glowering at us through the hole in the wall, clearly wanting to go home. “I’m starving,” I said, taking a tiny sip of pop when what I wanted to do was gulp it. “And tired.” But no heartbeat. None at all.
Beside me, Barnabas leaned back in the bench seat, casual as he stirred the ice in his untouched drink. “It’s kind of gross, Madison.”
I eyed him, reading a soft envy in his carefully relaxed pose. “Jealous?” I asked tartly.
“Sort of,” he muttered, looking up and away to where Grace and her new friend were chatting on the light fixture, their wings making them into softball-size globes of light only I and my reapers could see.
Eating another fry, I grimaced when a splotch of ketchup hit my lab coat. “I think it’s from the flash forward,” I said as I dabbed at it. “I was alive again, or at least it felt like I was when I was in Ace.” I looked at him, feeling my face twist up in distaste. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
The guy sneered at me, and, wadding up my napkin, I stifled a yawn. “My mind must have remembered what it’s like to be hungry. And tired. What time is it?”
Not looking, Barnabas said, “Midnight.”
“Mmmm.” I crumpled the napkin up and dropped it on the fries. I was still hungry, but I didn’t want to look like a pig. “I gotta get home.” It wasn’t too late yet to call my mom as I had promised, school night or not. She kept hours like a vampire.
My gaze went back to Ace, scrunched up and silent in the corner of the booth. He hadn’t said anything much since waking up in his truck. As it stood, there was not going to be any problem at the hospital come six the next morning. No one would ever know. What would happen to Ace now was anyone’s guess.
Shoe, on the other hand…I smiled at him as he carefully felt his jaw, which was now turning an ugly purple. “You going to be okay?” I asked him, and he winced.
“I’m going to catch hell for trashing the school’s computers,” he said, glancing at Ace. “But I knew that before I did it. It’s staying out to midnight on a school night that I wasn’t pla
We all looked at Ace, who flipped us off. The waitress must have seen, because she cleared her throat loudly and went to talk to the cook in the kitchen.
I looked at the plate of fries, then ate one, feeling guilty for no reason that I could fathom. “Barnabas, maybe we can stop at Shoe’s house on the way home and make his mom and dad think he’s been tucked into bed,” I suggested.
Barnabas nodded, looking a bit too casual for my comfort. Sneaky, almost.
“That’d be great,” Shoe said nervously, edging away from Nakita as she started to mutter about wanting to just scythe the lot of them. But Shoe’s discomfort seemed to be stemming from Barnabas’s sly demeanor, not from Nakita, and I wondered if he was worried that I was going to go back on my word and change his memories as well.
Throwing his wad of damp napkins down, Ace sat straighter. “You all suck,” he said loudly. “You’re going to fix it so that no one remembers he’s even been out?”
“Quiet!” Nakita hissed, leaning across the table. “You should be dead.”
“You shut up!” he exclaimed, his brow furrowed. “Crazy chick!”
“Don’t call me that!” she said, starting to rise, but when the guardian angel set her wings to humming, Nakita sat back down with a huff. “You’re lucky, human,” she muttered. “Lucky.”
Lucky wasn’t the word I’d like to apply to Ace, but he was. He’d tried to make a name for himself by killing people and blaming Shoe for it, and the only way he’d get in trouble for it now would be if Shoe got in bigger trouble, too. I was all for being honest and taking one’s licks, but sometimes…the better part of valor and all.
Sighing, I slid to the end of the bench and stood. It was time to go home, and I dropped my head as I looked at the lab coat. I kind of liked it, even with the ketchup. Maybe I could start a new trend at school. I hadn’t done anything really kooky yet to make myself stand out. Other than being dead, that is, and no one but Josh knew that. It would have been nice for him to have helped me tonight, and I missed him.
“We have to go,” I said softly, giving my fries a last longing look.
Barnabas gathered himself, standing when Nakita did. The two of them exchanged knowing looks as they slid out of the booth. Their eyes had both gone silver, and I jumped to get in front of Shoe. “Not Shoe,” I said, hand outstretched to keep them from wiping his memory.
Barnabas rolled his eyes. “Madison…” he started, but a subtle prickling in my temple shocked through me. Barnabas felt it, too, and so did Nakita.
“There once was a keeper named Ron,” Grace said from the light fixtures, “whose karma was kind of a yawn. He showed up too late; some say it was fate. I think he’s just really stupid, myself.”
True, it didn’t rhyme, but I still kind of liked it. “Ron is coming?” I said, bothered. What does he want? It’s over!
“But I’m shielding us!” Nakita said, clearly bewildered.