“It is possible, all you have to do is say yes.” Keeping his body sealed to mine, he grabs my arms and pins them above my head, rendering me helpless. When he looks me in the eyes again, something’s different. I feel weightless, free, like I can finally breathe. “Give me permission.” His lips touch my cheek, then the corner of my mouth as his free hand slips down the front of my shirt and his knee slides up between my legs. “Please, give me permission.”
My eyes shut and my lips part open as I feel my willpower crumble to dust. I realize it might be easier to give in. “You have permission to do what you—”
“Ember, don’t.” Asher’s voice jerks me back to earth—to life—and my eyelids shoot open. “Don’t promise him anything.”
I can’t see him, but the sound of his voice brings me comfort from the madness.
A grin spans Cameron’s face. “Asher, my dear friend, you’re just in time for the feast.”
My eyes widen. “You guys know each other?”
“Get away from her,” Asher demands and I can hear his footsteps nearing. “You have no right to be touching her like that.”
“And neither do you.” Cameron looks like he’s enjoying himself, smoking as he watches my excited reaction to the sound of Asher’s voice.
I need to see him—need to know he really exists. I force my gaze sideways and spot Asher storming across the cemetery ground with his hands clenched into fists. His face is bruised, his knuckles are scraped raw, and the scar beneath his eyebrow ring is more defined and dominant.
“What’s… what’s.” My lips hitch shut.
“Get off of her.” He’s so close, but still so far away. “Or I swear to God I’ll—”
Bending his knees, Cameron leaps off me, leaving me paralyzed on the ground. He turns his back on me and marches across the cemetery lawn, meeting Asher in the middle of the tombstones. “Or you’ll what?”
“You’ve broken rules,” Asher growls, balling his fists. “A lot of them.”
Wrath thunders in both their eyes as they charge for each other, their boots scrapping at the dirt. The sky rumbles and the ground quakes as they reach one another. Like mist rising from a lake, a black cloak forms around Cameron and swallows him up as he swishes it around his body. Asher lets out a derailing screech, springing on his toes, pushing into the air as wings trimmed with black feathers snap out from his back, shredding his shirt into pieces. They slam into one another and the collision of their bodies deafens the night.
Suddenly, my legs and arms return to my control and I jump to my feet as a tornado of feathers and mist swarm the cemetery. Cameron and Asher move like lightning, moving so swiftly I can barely detect them.
An Angel and a Grim Reaper? An Angel and a Grim Reaper?
“Ember!” Raven’s voice draws me back to my other problem.
She’s back in the shadows of the cemetery, curled up next to the Angel statue, clutching her head. I run across the grass toward her, waving for her to run the other way. “Raven, we have to get out of here—” I fall face-first into an open grave and land hard. Cold skin touches mine and my insides quiver as I push up and blink down at Mackenzie Baker. Her blonde hair is covered in dirt and red lines track her neck and wrists. It hits me like a shove off a cliff as my mind races back to Cameron’s house, the bands on her neck and wrists.
“Oh my God,” I breathe. “You were dead the whole time… I can see the dead.”
Dirt sprinkles down on me and I flip over to my back. Raven leans over the shallow hole, with blood in her hair, blankness in her eyes, and a handful of dirt in her hand.
“I love you, Em, I really do,” she says, sprinkling more dirt down on me. “But you can’t save me anymore. I have to give in.”
Shielding my eyes, I struggle to my feet and press my fingertips into the dirt.
“Please don’t make this harder than it already is, Em.” Raven disappears for a moment and when she returns, she has a shovel in her hand. “If you would have just given up back at the fire, I wouldn’t have to do this to you. You could have saved me from this burden.” She scoops up another shovel full of dirt and drops it down on my head. “But now you’re going to be buried alive, and remain there until you break.”
“Raven.” I hurdle onto the side of the grave, burrowing my boots into the moist dirt. “Think about what you’re doing for just a second. You don’t want to do this.”
She plucks out a twig from her hair and drops it down into the hole, watching it fall all the way to the bottom. “Of course I don’t. What I want is a happy life, with a mother who isn’t crazy and a friend who can be near people. What I want is to go back in time and never leave that party with Laden, so I could erase what it felt like when he had me pinned down to the ground… erase the feeling of his filthy hands on me…” she trails off, staring up at the sky.
Extending my arm as far as it will go, I reach for the edge of the hole, but my feet slip out from under me and I collapse back onto Mackenzie’s body. Forcing myself not to lose it, I push off of her and stand back against the wall. I clumsily claw my way upward and finally, I heave myself over the lip and roll onto my back on the grass.
Raven bounds on top of me, kneeing me in the gut, and she pins my arms down to the side. I bring up my knees and vault her off by shoving my feet into her stomach. She slams against the Angel statue, her head hitting the stone hard, and she lets out a groan. “What’s happening to me?”
“Nothing. Just stay here, okay?” I race through the headstones toward the Reaper and the Angel of Death still battling each other in the middle of the grass.
Cameron has Asher restrained on the grass, kneeling on him, and his fingers are wrapped around his throat. “Tell me, what’s it been like being alone all this time? Apparently, pretty bad for you to be breaking the rules.” He presses his fingers tighter around Asher, who slides his hands up Cameron’s arms, desperate to escape.