“How are you feeling?”

I shrugged. “Just another night on the job. I’ll live.”

“You had quite a fall.”

“Well, you caught me, didn’t you?”

He was silent after that. When he pulled into my driveway, I knew that in a moment he’d slip into the Grim and be gone. He was my secret, but he wasn’t mine.

It was the last week of January, and I was finally off the hook after my mom had grounded me for almost two months when she’d discovered I’d lied to her. I was forced to confess to her that instead of going up north with Kate for Thanksgiving weekend, I’d been with Will the whole time, though I left out the “flying to Puerto Rico with a fake I.D.” thing. As far as she knew, Will was my boyfriend, but since he’d tried to distance himself emotionally from me after our trip, she thought we were broken up. It was best to leave it at that.

“See you tomorrow?” I asked him. “We can train after my homework is done and hunt at dusk.”

“Perfect. I’ll meet you at Nathaniel’s, then.”

After I’d destroyed the old warehouse where we used to train (incidentally, in the process of avenging Marshmallow), Nathaniel had set up a full workout room in the basement of his house for us. If we wanted to spar and take it up a notch, he made us go outside. We didn’t need what happened to that warehouse to be repeated in Nathaniel’s house.

I sneaked into my house through the back door by traveling invisibly through the Grim. Will returned to his post on my roof, where he always stayed until dawn, keeping a lookout. Demonic reapers tended to come out only at night. They were sensitive to daylight, and while they didn’t burst into flames from anything but my angelfire, they smoked like chimneys under the bright sun, and direct sunlight was extremely painful. Will spent his days hanging out at Nathaniel’s so he could eat and shower and relax while I was in school. It was good for him, and school was good for me too. I needed my friends, and while school threatened to eat me alive, it helped to feel like a normal high school senior on occasion.

Except on exam days. I’d rather face Bastian than an econ test any day.

3

THE NEXT DAY, MY BODY WAS STILL SORE AND I WAS still shaken up. I never thought I’d have a fear of heights, but I guess falling a thousand feet was enough to ignite that fear. At one point after homeroom this morning, I stood up too fast and had a swirling bout of vertigo and nearly fell to my knees. My class right after lunch was psychology, and it was my favorite. There were only thirteen students in the class, including my friends Kate and Chris. Landon had tried to get into the class with us, but enrollment was closed before he signed up. Served him right for sitting on his ass about scheduling. Today we were working in groups of mostly three on a learning-and-conditioning project. Instead of focusing, I flipped through my book absently as Kate and Chris argued about what to do our project on.

“We could just stick Ellie in a Skinner box,” Chris offered.

That got my attention. I glared at him from over the top of my textbook. “Or not.”

“Just think, Ell,” Kate chimed. “Solve a puzzle, get a cookie? Easy A for sure. Plus, you get cookies.”

“Or not.”

They laughed, but I knew they were serious about locking me inside a box. I’d like to see them try to overpower me, since I could throw them both through a wall with a flick of my wrist. My powers were scary, but at least I didn’t have to worry about anyone hurting me—unless they were winged reapers who ate people and dragged their souls to Hell. Yeah, they were a lot scarier than any human killers I’d ever heard of. Jeffrey Dahmer was a buttercup compared to some of the things I’d faced and defeated.

I needed to use the restroom, so I stood up from our table and asked for permission from the teacher. With the hall pass in hand, I walked toward the classroom door.

“Okay, everybody who’s not cool, leave the room.”

I’d already walked out the door when Chris’s words sank in, and I spun on my heels. Poking my head back in the door, I flipped him off, and pretty much the entire class laughed their asses off. “You are such a jerk,” I growled, and continued on my way.

My friends considered teasing me an Olympic sport, but when it really came down to it, I knew they had my back. Especially Kate. She was my best friend and had defended me on countless occasions.

The hallways were empty. As I passed by the windows on my way to the restroom, a figure standing out in the courtyard made my heart stop dead.

A demonic reaper stood in the sunlight, steaming like dry ice in a bucket of water. I didn’t stop to stare, but I registered that it was a he and a vir reaper. Gray feathered wings sprouted high from his shoulders, as if he’d landed just a moment ago. And then he was gone, disappearing into the Grim before anyone else noticed him. He wanted me to see him. Fear shuddered through me and I bolted. I wasn’t ready to face a vir reaper on my own. Their human guises were clever, but I knew they were the most powerful of all reapers.

“Ellie,” called a careful voice.

The reaper suddenly appeared right in front of me, wings folding and disappearing, and I couldn’t help the cry that escaped my lips. Adrenaline pounded through me, and I could barely hear anything above my own wild pulse. I swung a fist without a thought, but he grabbed my wrist and held my arm tight, away from his face.

“I’m not here to fight,” he said.

“Yeah, right.” I yanked my arm down and shot a knee into his gut. He let out a whoosh of air, and I slammed a palm into his chest, shoving his back into the wall. Tiles cracked and he doubled over.