Reaper

“Charlie,” a voice whispers, carried on the wind that bites at my face.

I whirl around, trying to find the person who said my name. My breath comes out in puffs in front of my face, frozen in its tracks. Everything is white, blinding white with snow – and I feel like I’m frozen solid. My limbs are heavy, sluggish. It’s then that I realize that I’m only in a thin white dress, hardly suited for the weather.

“Hello?”

I hear whispers. They hiss quietly, almost too quiet to hear, but in the silence I can hear them loud and clear. I’m surrounded by trees, massive trees, covered in white snow and ice. And I’m incredibly alone.

I keep turning, but I see nothing. No one.

I can feel the fear rising in my chest. I try to choke it down, but the panic surges in my throat, making me clench my jaw and shiver. I’m shaking now, almost uncontrollably, mostly due to the cold but also the fear. Where’s Sawyer?

“Sawyer?”

I hear the voice speak my name again. I freeze, just for a moment, before turning around again, hopeless. I’m surrounded by white, it’s all I can see. I keep searching for color but I don’t see any, only white, bare, frozen. I can feel the cold nipping at my skin, icy needles pricking my exposed face. I breathe into my hands to try to warm myself up, but it doesn’t help.

I can hear footsteps in the distance. They are light, barely audible over the wind – but I hear them. Oh, I hear them. Each one echoes in my head, stirring up the fear that lay coiled up in my chest. I can’t move. My body has betrayed me to the cold, frozen with fear and chill.

“Charlie…”

A chill runs down my spine. The word is carried on the wind, the ghost of a woman’s voice coming from somewhere out of sight. I can’t tell which direction – since it’s from no direction, it’s from all of them. All around me. The voice keeps saying my name over and over, with the pounding of my heart, and it’s all I can do to keep from screaming. Where is Sawyer?

“Think you can escape, can you?”

The voice is directly behind me. I scream.

“Charlie!”

I sat up bolt upright in bed, chest heaving. I could feel the adrenaline in my veins, rushing around for no real, tangible reason. I was struggling to catch my breath when I realized that Sawyer was sitting in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, searching my eyes desperately for a sign that I was alright.

I sighed heavily and ran my hand through my hair. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, still feeling a little winded. “It’s that dream again. Was it bad?”

“It’s fine.” Sawyer’s face told me all I needed to know. Yeah, it was bad.

I was suddenly hit with a massive pain in my head. I groaned and put my head in my hands, hoping to relieve the pain under my fingers, but I knew it would be of no use. I closed my eyes and pulled myself into a ball under the covers, willing the little bit of light in the room to go away. I could clearly see that it wasn’t yet morning, but Sawyer had a lamp on, and even that made me feel nauseous.

Sawyer chuckled. “Hangover?” I grunted in response. “I should’ve known. You weren’t completely yourself last night,” he said dismissively, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

I suddenly felt a little bubble of annoyance rise up in my chest. Was he really going to act like what had happened last night – or, I guess, a few hours ago – hadn’t happened? I may have been tipsy, but I certainly remembered that he had dragged me from my good time with Jesse to a cabin in the woods so he could protect me. And, fine, I had accepted the protection, it calmed me a little, especially with the knowledge that Isis was looking for me, but surely he had been affected by what had happened before he went to hunt. I mean, it couldn’t just be me, could it? That bubble wasn’t enough to act on, though.

So I just pulled the blankets tighter over my head.

“Perhaps you’d like something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.” As if on cue, my stomach let out the loudest growl I’d ever heard.

I felt my cheeks heat up with embarrassment, thankful that Sawyer couldn’t see them. I heard him laugh again, placing a hand on my hip. “Alright. There’s a diner up the street that’s open 24 hours. I’ll run and get you some food. Meanwhile, I have some aspirin and some water for you.” With that, I felt his weight shift on the bed as he stood up, leaving me alone.

I popped my head out from underneath. “But I want to go with you.”

A look passed over his face before he could stop it. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it seemed to me a little like remorse. He seemed to be weighing something over in his mind. Of course. He never verbalized his concerns – instead, he preferred to do that in his head and watch me squirm.

Finally, he shook his head. “It’s safer for you here. Saphira is in the living room, and your friend in the next room if you need them.” He took a step toward me. I blinked in surprise when he leaned down, and ever so gently placed a kiss on my forehead. “I will be back in half an hour. Stay here and rest until I return.”

A little disappointed, I nodded and curled up a little more into a ball, feeling the warmth of Sawyer’s kiss still radiating in me. It was such a kind, supportive gesture that it gave me butterflies. Maybe this thing wasn’t as far out of reach as I had initially imagined – as Sawyer seemed to think it was. He thought he couldn’t feel, and maybe he couldn’t, but… that’s not what it seemed like to me.

I lay there as I heard him walk out the door. I wanted nothing more than to spend some time alone with Sawyer, but is that what he wanted? It was so hard to tell. He didn’t give any sign that he felt the same way I did, all warm and fuzzy and nervous when he was around. It was frustrating – I couldn’t figure out how he felt about anything. Maybe that was for the best, given the fact that all of my thoughts were laid out for him like a map. Polar opposites.

I sighed and sat up, regretting the massive pounding in my head. I took the pills and downed the glass of water, feeling a little better after realizing how dry my mouth had been. I felt a little warm inside, knowing that Sawyer was watching out for me, thinking of solutions before I even knew what the problems were.

I smiled to myself, just a little. I inhaled deeply, and then promptly realized that I needed a shower.

I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed and headed out into the hallway, coming face-to-face with the open door to the other bedroom. Inside, I saw Jesse passed out on the bed, his arms sprawled out and hanging over the side. I laughed a little to myself and made a mental note to tease him about it later.

“Charlie?” a quiet voice asked from the living room.

I jumped, putting a hand over my chest. “Oh!” I blew out a breath. “Sorry, I forgot you were in here.”

I glanced over to where Saphira was laying on the couch, the television illuminating her face with a pale blue glow. It really was incredible how beautiful she was. Her face was perfectly sculpted, inhumanly beautiful. Girls would kill to look like her. And those eyes – they were piercing, crystal blue. The eyes must be a Reaper thing, because surely normal human eyes don’t look like those.

She grinned. “It’s fine. Sawyer said earlier that you were asleep – I figured it was best to be quiet.”

I nodded, now somewhat awkwardly aware that neither of us really knew what to say to one another. We were from two different worlds, two different parts of Sawyer’s life that were never intended to collide. What was I supposed to say to that?

I didn’t have a chance to come up with an answer. After a pause, Saphira sat up on the couch and looked me straight in the eyes, a concerned look on her face. “Look, Charlie, there’s something that I have to tell you while I have the chance.”

I felt my heart speed up. “What’s that?”

She folded her hands in her lap calmly, contemplating how she was going to say what came next. “Having lived with Sawyer for a long time, I know how difficult it can be to tell what he’s thinking.” Well isn’t that the truth? “But I do know this: he really, really cares for you.”

I couldn’t help the blush that crept up to my face when she said that. He cared about me? Of course I knew that he at least cared, since he always seemed to be there when I needed him. But was it the way I wanted him to care?

“Oh,” I breathed, a little surprised. I wasn’t sure what to say.

Saphira played with her hair, obviously needing something to do with her hands. “I’ve never seen him act this way before. He has stood up for your safety so many times to our leader, Hunter. It’s put a wedge between them – even though they’ve been with each other for a long, long time. Longer than I’ve been around. He believes that you’re special, Charlie. And not just because you’re an enigma to us.” She looked up at me, her eyes questioning. “I’m telling you this because Sawyer’s like my brother. All I want is for him to be happy. As long as you don’t break his heart, I’m sure you will be able to do that.”

I let my mouth open and close a few times, trying in vain to make it form words. But nothing came. It never occurred to me just how much of a problem I was causing in Sawyer’s life. He had a pack to attend to, one with much more loyalty to him than I had displayed, especially after he tracked me down all the way to Atlantic City just to make sure I was safe. I was hit with a wave of guilt all of a sudden. Sawyer had mentioned that one of his pack members had been attacked because the leader of the Alpha pack wanted to send a message. He was attacked because of me. I was the problem in Sawyer’s life.

That idea was hard for me to accept. I wanted nothing more than to make him happy, to spend time with him and to do whatever he wanted. Though it scared me, I was undoubtedly attracted to him. He was off-limits, inhuman, and yet so alluring that I couldn’t forget the way his eyes stared into mine when he was waiting for me to say something, or the way his nose scrunched when he laughed, or the way he said “Charlotte” in public because “Charlie” was reserved for the height of passion, something only I was meant to hear. But I wasn’t good for him. All I had done was cause problems. Hell, he even had to Feed last night because of me, because of what I was doing. He had been starving himself so that he wouldn’t scare me away.

Saphira seemed to sense my inner conflict. “Oh, please don’t be upset. It’s not your fault, not at all. Sawyer is protecting you because he wants to be with you. He wants you to be safe, with him.” In a moment, her eyes were suddenly sad. “He feels guilty that he dragged you into our world. You remember that the first time he communicated with you was to warn you about the subway. He knew you were special, even then.”

I stared at her for a moment, my thoughts rushing around in my head. I couldn’t pin any of them down long enough to voice it. It was mostly guilt, but there was a little bit of pride that I had captured Sawyer’s attention like that. Me. Plain old Charlie.

“I’m special?” I repeated, dumbfounded.

“Yeah. No one’s ever seen anything like you.”

Suddenly, all of the lights in the cabin shut off. The television went black, plunging the house into silent darkness.

I looked hastily into the bedroom where Jesse was beginning to wake up, and back to Saphira, who looked as though all the blood had drained from her face. I knew then that whatever this was, it wasn’t going to be good if the Reaper in the house was afraid.

There was a knock at the door.

I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but despite Saphira’s protests and my own inner conscience screaming at me not to do so, I crossed the room to the front door to answer it. Wish shaky hands, I turned the knob to open the heavy wooden door that cut us off from the world.

And came face-to-face with the glowing eyes of someone who wanted me dead.