Spark X

  “I’ll be fine,” I chime in, shocking both of them. When Asher gives me a baffled look, I add, “He won’t hurt me.”

  “I know he won’t hurt you, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try to mess with your head still.”

  “My head’s not so easy to mess with anymore.”

  “Ember…” Asher starts with worry written all over his face.

  I elevate my hand in front of me, silencing him. “Asher, I pretty much realized who I am in the park.” Who I’m in love with.

  I’m not ready to say it aloud, though. Not ready to admit that Asher’s death has been sealed if I end up having to make the sacrifice.

  Asher and I stare at each other until Cameron gives an over-exaggerated sigh, breaking the moment.

  Then Asher shoves the knife into his boot, backs toward the nightstand, and picks up a pen. “There’s a phone here.” He grabs my hand and jots down a number on my palm. “Don’t go anywhere, and if you need anything at all, call me, okay?”

  I nod, closing my hand and lowering it to my side. “Are you going to be okay with going to see her alone?”

  Reluctantly, Asher nods then points a finger in Cameron’s direction. “If you do anything to risk her life—”

  “You’ll kill me.” Cameron rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard that speech enough. I get it.” He opens the door, and with a swish of his hand, signals Asher to leave.

  Still looking torn, Asher kisses me on the cheek then steps out of the room.

  “And tell our mother I wish I could have come, but unfortunately, I had more important things to do,” Cameron says in a haughty tone before slamming the door shut. Then he grins at me. “So, princess, are you ready to make our plan.”

  My expression plummets. “What plan?”

  When his grin expands, I wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

  Chapter 12

  Ember

  Cameron doesn’t go straight into his plan. Instead, he drags the tension out for as long as possible to try to get a rise out of me. Refusing to give him what he wants, I lie down in bed and jot my thoughts into a notebook.

  Ember and charcoal

  Spark to life,

  Scorch and burn

  Against the night.

  Fire erupts

  Blinding light.

  A raging storm

  Of smoke and fight

  No longer restricted

  By life.

  “I always did enjoy your work,” Cameron remarks, peering over my shoulder. “You and I, we could have written amazing things together if you wouldn’t have been so stubborn.”

  I turn the notebook over, scoot to the opposite side of the bed, and open my mouth to spit something rude, but pause.

  “Did you really mean what you said?” I sit up in the bed and pull my knees to my chest. “About using your soul to free everyone else’s?”

  He plops down on the bed and stretches out his legs. “If I said yes, would you think more of me?”

  I rest my chin on my knee. “That all depends on what motive is behind your yes.”

  He slumps against the headboard, staring dazedly at the bottom of the bed. “You know, I never actually wanted to be evil. There was a time when you would have met me and thought I was a good person.”

  “Then why’d you choose to become a Reaper?”

  “I didn’t.” His gaze flicks to me. “It chose me.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean?”

  “And you don’t need to know what I mean. I just need you to know that I wasn’t always bad.” He shifts forward, the mattress concaving with his weight as he scoots closer. “Now it’s time for me to take my fee for what I’m going to do.”

  I freeze as his lips near mine. Part of me screams to run away, but the other part keeps me put, telling me to let him have this. If he is going to give up his soul to free Hollows Grove, it’s the least I can do.

  Then, instead of kissing me, Cameron reaches around and unclasps the maroon pendant dangling around my neck—the necklace my grandmother gave me and that Cameron insists belongs to his family.

  The chain falls from my neck, and he scoops it up in his hand. “My fee.” He dazzles me with a charming grin, but his ease is a façade, and behind his mask is fear.

  “Cameron … What’s going to happen to you after you free the souls?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “Yeah … It really does.”

  “Are you sure about that?” he asks. “If I told you something terrible, would you try to stop me?”

  I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I feel like the worst person ever.

  He smiles, but his eyes convey sadness. “Then I guess it really doesn’t matter.”

  I try to tell myself that, whatever he has coming, he deserves it for all the bad he has done. But not everything he has done is terrible. He saved me, saved my dad’s soul and Asher’s.

  Good and evil.

  Right and wrong.

  I think, in a way, Cameron might be both.

  With nothing else to say, I do the only thing I can do. I hug him. He remains stiff in my arms, but when I pull back, warmth flickers in his eyes.

  I run my hands across the wrinkles in my shirt. “I have to ask you another question … about my mother.” When his mouth sinks to a frown, I have my answer. “She’s dead, isn’t she? And the Reapers have her soul.”

  “It wasn’t me who collected it.” His eyes beg me to understand. “If it was, then I’d have hidden hers in the Shadow Realm, too.”

  “I know,” I tell him truthfully. “Thank you.”

  His forehead creases. “For what?”

  “For helping me in your own, weird way.”

  His lips quirk as he stares silently at me. When the stillness between us becomes too uncomfortable, I clear my throat.

  “Now, will you tell me your plan?” I ask.

  He examines me a beat or two longer then pushes to his feet. “It’s actually pretty simple.”

  “Okay.” I wait for him to explain further but he only smiles as his body thins and shifts into his skeletal form that’s mostly concealed by a floor-length cloak.

  “Cameron…” I spring for the bed, bounding toward him.

  “Goodbye, Ember Edward Rose,” he says with a swish of his cape.

  A dense mist circles the air and sweeps him away into thin air. Just like that, he’s gone, and I have the strangest feeling it’s the last time I’ll ever see him.

  Chapter 13

  Asher

  When I enter the quaint, corner coffee shop, I instantly spot my mother sitting at a table in the middle of the room. Tall with back-length, black hair; grayish-blue eyes; pale, blue lips; and an eccentrically gothic taste in clothing, she stands out like a sore thumb in a place filled with humans.

  The air smells like coffee and buzzes with chaos as people stand in line to place their orders. I almost join the line to give myself a chance to assess my mother before going over, see if I can get a read on her. She never was the easiest person to trust nor was she a fantastic mother. The fact that I’m here shows just how desperate I’m to know what the hell is going on. Plus, there’s the fact that she entered Ember’s dream. She wouldn’t do that without a reason.

  It has been so long since the last time I saw her, I’m certain she won’t recognize me. To my surprise, she smiles the moment she sees me in the entrance.

  She waves me over, and I begrudgingly take a seat across from her. Neither of us speaks, and silence settles between us. She examines me while I pretend to be less nervous than I am. Not just because I’m sitting here with her, but there are so many people around that I don’t feel particularly safe. What if one of them is part of the Anamotti or possessed by them?

  Finally, Mother sighs and breaks the tension. “Do you want a cup of coffee? I could order you one.” She starts to stand up, but I signal for her to sit back down.

  “I’m good.” I overlap my hands on the table. “I didn’t co
me here to just chat nor do I have time to. I just want some questions answered.”

  “I know why you’re here.” She grabs two sugar packets out of the bowl on the table. “And I’ll tell you right up front that anything I tell you isn’t going to help the situation, only make it worse.”

  “How could you possibly know why I’m here?”

  She tears the sugar packets open and dumps them in her coffee. “Because I got a phone call from Casandria the other day, and she informed me that she let some information slip out about your father.” Her features harden as she stirs the coffee. “Although, it wasn’t accidental, more like her way of getting back at me.”

  “For what?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I really want to know. My mother has a knack for manipulating situations and pissing people off.

  “For letting her take the fall for my banishment.” She raises the brim of the mug to her lips and takes a sip.

  “Yeah, she told me that wasn’t her fault. I’d say I was surprised, but I don’t want to lie,” I tell her bluntly.

  A smile touches her lips as she sets the mug down on the table. “It’s good to see you’re still the same good, kind, caring son I left behind.”

  “I’m not good. Or haven’t you heard of my own banishment?” I ask. When she doesn’t so much as blink, I say, “You knew already, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I knew. I still have quite a lot of connections in the Angel world.”

  “And yet you still think I’m good?”

  “Well, there’s a rumor going around that you did it for love, so who am I to judge?”

  A cold chill crawls up my spin. Something’s off.

  “You didn’t get banished for love … You were banished because you broke the rules and had me and Cameron.”

  “That was part of it.” Her eyes skim the tables around us, causing me to grow even tenser. “But there was more to it.”

  “I don’t understand…” I trail off as I spot several people strategically placed around the room near the exits and windows. All of them are watching us.

  I dig my fingers into the tabletop and lean closer to my mother, keeping my voice low. “You tricked me into coming here, didn’t you?” I ask. When she doesn’t respond, I sit back and shake my head in disgust. “I should have known. You probably worked this into place the moment you entered Ember’s dream.”

  “Yes, you should have.” She sips her coffee calmly. “But, like I said, you’re good, Asher, and therefore, trusting. Too trusting sometimes.” She reaches down toward her lace-up boot and collects a small knife that looks an awful lot like the one the Reaper stabbed me with in the park. “But, just so you know, I entered Ember’s dream for more reasons than to get you to come see me.” She lifts the knife and inspects the shining blade in the light. “She needed to hear what I said.”

  The Angels around must have put an enchantment over the building, because the customers seem oblivious to what’s going on, even when the Angels close in on us with their black, feathered wings flipping out from their backs.

  “You were banished because you were in love with my father,” I say in a harsh tone. “That’s what really happened, isn’t it? It’s what this is all about. My father is Altarius, and you’ve come here for my soul to help him gain power and break the curse.” I don’t really believe what I’m saying, since there are Angels here. I’m just hoping to push the truth out of her.

  She places the knife down on the table between us. “That’s not what this is about at all, and I think you know that, considering there are Angels everywhere and not Reapers.” She crosses her legs, sits back in the chair, and holds up her hand, indicating for the Angels to stay put. “Although, I’ll admit, you did get one thing right. Your father is Altarius. But I never loved him. My time with him was more of a”—her eyes float to the ceiling as she ponders—“fling based on lust.”

  “If that’s true, no wonder you never loved Cameron and me.” My voice is composed and controlled, but inside, I’m a fucking wreck, battling my hurt and rage.

  I think part of me was in denial that Altarius was my father. But now that she admitted it aloud, I can’t deny that the essence of evil helped create me.

  “Don’t hate yourself, Asher,” she says with an ounce of kindness in her eyes. “You’re nothing like him. Your brother, on the other hand…” She bobs her head from side to side, wavering. “That’s a little different. He always showed signs of being like his father from the day he was born.”

  “Yes, and you made sure that he knew it,” I growl, balling my hands into fists.

  “I was only facing the inevitable, like you should be doing right now.”

  I cast a fleeting glance around the room, searching for an exit, but the Angels have every place covered, as if they anticipate me trying to run.

  “Asher, there’s no use running, which is the main reason I came here.” She pauses, waiting for me to look at her. “There are no shortcuts in this. The Grim Angel … She’s in love with you, and I don’t think I have to tell you what that means.”

  “You don’t,” I tell her numbly, my mind desperately trying to grasp onto everything being piled on me at once.

  “The problem is,” my mother continues, “love is a tricky concept. It makes us incapable of thinking things through.”

  “You act like you’re speaking from experience,” I state with a hard expression.

  She impatiently thrums her fingers on the table. “My banishment was based on me making a choice I might not have made if I wasn’t blinded by the love of my sons.”

  “I don’t understand … You made the choice to be banished because of us? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” she says. “It was either I be banished so my sons could pick what side they wanted to be on, or you two could be banished to the Reapers.”

  I gape at her. “Michael wanted to give us to the Reapers?”

  “He didn’t trust you, and I don’t blame him. As good as you are, you still have evil inside you.” She reaches for my hand, but I pull back, and she sighs tiredly. “I know Michael might not always seem like he’s always doing what’s right, but being the leader of the Angels puts him in a tough position, and he has to make unpleasant choices all the time.”

  “If he’s so good, why isn’t he choosing to end the battle now?” I snap. “Why let it drag on and make people suffer and risk Altarius getting what he wants?”

  “Michael was unaware of what Altarius was planning until a few days ago. Now that he knows, he’s ready to end this. Mostly, though, he was waiting for the Grim Angel to be ready.”

  “She’ll never be ready, and she shouldn’t have to be. It’s unfair that all our sins were put on her.”

  “It’s why she was created.”

  “Well, it’s still wrong.”

  “Wrong or right, it doesn’t change anything. She has to make the choice and sacrifice the one she loves; otherwise, every soul out there will be lost.”

  My chest aches, like a knife in my heart. “You don’t know for sure that she’s in love yet.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” she questions, her brow arching in speculation. “I think you knew the moment she gave you some of her life that she’d made her choice.”

  Deep down, I know she’s right. I felt Ember’s love for me the moment her lips breathed life back into my soul. “She’s still conflicted. She’s been talking about bringing me back to life after she makes the sacrifice.”

  “You can’t let her do that,” she presses. “It’ll defeat the whole purpose, which is what I tried to explain to her in the dream.”

  “I know that, but convincing her is another story.” I fiddle with a leather band on my wrist. “And I get where she’s coming from. If it was me having to kill her, I couldn’t do it.”

  “You need to make her understand that she has to let you go in order for the world to be saved.” She reaches for her cup of coffee and grasps the handle. “Tell he
r what it was like before the battle happened. If you have to, make her see just how bad things will be.”

  “We’re not supposed to do that on humans, and unlike you, I won’t break that rule,” I say, mainly because I don’t want to show Ember what it was like. In the midst of the bloodshed, I was there, playing a part in it. “I’m not interfering with her choice.”