Reaper

I like to think that normally, I’m pretty reserved when it comes to showing my emotions. This could be because of years of “shy-kid” syndrome – unwilling to make a peep in front of people I don’t trust – but I was never one really for dramatic reactions, crying in public, that sort of thing.

So I’m not exactly sure what happened to me. One minute I was staring at my brothers, and the next…

“Charlie?” Noah was staring down at me, concerned.

And I was disoriented. Why was he above me? Why was I staring at the ceiling? And why was it – was it spinning?

“Noah, she’s fine, she just fainted,” Mason reassured him, pressing what felt like a cool, damp cloth to my forehead.

I was suddenly more alert. Right. Fainting. That happened to people sometimes, right? I realized after a few seconds that I was sitting in an armchair, but this wasn’t the room I had been in before. This was really weird, it’s not like they moved me, right?

And then my head started to spin faster than a carnival ride.

“Ow…” I clutched my forehead, moaning.

Mason chuckled. “That scotch on an empty stomach wasn’t such a good idea, kiddo,” he mused, picking up the cloth from my lap. “Can you go grab her some food?” he said to Noah, who promptly nodded and stood up. “She looks pretty fatigued, so I’d imagine something to eat might help perk her up a little. Stop the dizziness.”

I was suddenly amazed that Mason could go from dickhead to doctor in 3.5 seconds.

It was then that I realized that they had moved me to Sawyer’s room. I noticed that he was unconscious on the bed across the room. He was hooked up to all sorts of medical devices I’d seen in the hospital, plus a few I didn’t recognize, but I wasn’t sure what any of them did. His skin was pale, but he looked so calm that I almost forgot he had been injured.

That is, except for the giant wad of gauze covering his entire left shoulder. Gauze that was stained bright red with blood. I felt sick to my stomach.

Mason, following my gaze, placed a soft hand on my shoulder in support. I quickly glanced up at him, startled, and he gave me a sad smile.

I turned back to Sawyer, and noticed for the first time a woman sitting on Sawyer’s bed. She was a small Asian lady, about Mason’s age, who also wore a white coat and a stethoscope. I raised an eyebrow, confused, as she stood up quickly and made her way over to me.

Mason stood up straight as she approached.

“Ah, right,” he said, clearing his throat. “You’ve been away in New York so long that I’m not sure you know yet.” He casually put his arm around her. “Charlie, this is Lily. She’s our expert on Reaper lore and physiology.” He smiled. “She’s also my fiancée.”

Lilly blushed a light shade of pink before adjusting the purple glasses that were daintily perched on her nose. She really was pretty, with big hazel eyes and long, shiny black hair that would give the twins’ a run for their money. She was much shorter than Mason, but she had a tiny waist and full hips that made her look very feminine, even under her bulky coat. She smiled a bright white smile and held out her hand, presumably for me to shake, but also to show off the massive ring on her finger.

I couldn’t really manage to do anything except stare at it blankly. At least she wasn’t hitting on Sawyer.

She cleared her throat nervously. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she told me, pulling her hand back as if she was scared I was going to bite it. “Because you’re Mason’s sister, I mean, not because of… well…” She motioned to Sawyer.

“Yeah…” I replied, distracted.

Then it hit me. The reason I had fainted, the reason I had been overwhelmed in the first place.

“Is someone going to tell me how the heck Sawyer is half human?” I demanded, trying to sound forceful without letting them know that I was disappointed that he wasn’t awake yet.

The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop down the hallway. Noah shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. Mason looked pale, and turned to Lily for an explanation. She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, and then shrugged.

I stood up. I could feel the blood rising to my face in anger. “Well?”

Mason and Lily both tried to talk at the same time.

“Charlotte, I’m more interested in how you came to find out about the Reaper half –“

“Well, because of the way Sawyer reacted to the poison from the bullet, it’s clear that he’s not a pureblood –“

I held up my hand. Two conversations at once was too much for the tilt-a-whirl in my head. The two of them stopped talking immediately.

I glanced at Mason. “I’ll deal with you later,” I said, towards him. Then I cradled my head in my hands. “Lily, can you please explain some things to me? This is all so… confusing…” I was searching for some other words to describe what I was feeling, but the truth was that I couldn’t really come up with any.

She smiled at me warmly and knelt down in front of me so that I was looking at her. “What do you want to know?”

There were so many things I wanted to ask her. Thousands of questions swarmed around my brain, and I fished for the right one to ask first, but it was like there was a gap between my brain and my mouth. This felt a lot like Old Charlie – the one with too many thoughts and not enough guts to say them. Then I thought about seeing Isis, and how I felt getting the better of her, and it was like the haze had begun to clear.

I took a shaky breath, ignoring the steady beating of the heart monitor. “The bullet?” I said softly, folding my hands in my lap.

She nodded. “The weapons aren’t exactly my area of expertise – that’d be Noah – but, yes, the, uh, bullet that hit Sawyer was… not typical.” She was obviously choosing her words carefully so as not to upset me, and I was silently thankful that Lily seemed to read my emotional state better than my older brothers. “They’re laced with a certain compound that our organization has invented. We call it CS-22.” She glanced nervously at Sawyer, who looked uncomfortable. “If it makes contact with a Reaper, Vampire, or Werewolf’s bloodstream, it will kill them in a matter of minutes.”

I blinked at her, trying to process the information. I suddenly flashed back to the vampire compound, where Simon had injected Jesse with my blood. It all sounded similar, but I’m sure they had nothing to do with each other, I guess. I shuddered.

“So,” I said slowly, testing out my theory, “Sawyer should be dead, then.” The thought weighed heavy in my chest as I said it. I felt like a chill was spreading though my body. No, he couldn’t die, not now! But then I thought about the horrible, horrible pain I had felt when the bullet went through him – what was that? I made a mental note to ask her later.

Lily bit her lip, and Mason blanched. “Well, in theory, yes.” She glanced back at him again, narrowing her eyes and adjusting her glasses. “But you can see, he’s clearly alive. His vitals are showing signs of stability.” She looked back at me. “The thing is, Charlie, we’re not exactly sure if the poison doesn’t work on him, or if it simply works slower on him. Half-human, half-Reaper is a very rare combination, and we’ve never studied the effects of CS-22 on someone like Sawyer before. We’re guessing here.”

That was far from encouraging. “Oh.”

She still looked uncomfortable. “You should also probably realize that most of the time, people in Sawyer’s situation don’t even realize they’re half human because the supernatural half is so dominant. He would have been completely at the mercy of his Reaper half, he might never have known he was human at all.” She placed a hand on my knee, and I jumped at the sudden gesture.

“Is there anything else I can answer for you?”

I stared at her. Yes, actually. How do I know if I’m Sawyer’s mate? Why did I feel that massive pain in my own chest when he was shot? How long exactly do Reapers live? Why am I immune to everything? Why is my family somehow part of the underground Hunting mafia? Where exactly do you get a degree in medicine on Reapers?

I shook the questions off. Except for one.

“Yeah, I…” I bit my lip, trying not to look in Sawyer’s direction. “When Sawyer was… shot,” my mouth stumbled over the word, “I felt this… this pain, right here.” I placed my hand lightly over my chest, over the epicenter of the pain. It was just above my left breast, and while it didn’t hurt anymore, I felt this tingling echo there when I ran my fingers over it. “Where it hit him. Can… Do you know why that could happen?”

Suddenly, both Lily and Mason became very, very pale.

Mason looked back and forth between Sawyer and me at least seven times before he finally huffed out of the room, his shoulders tensed up to his ears. I jumped as he slammed the door, hard, and blinked as the gust of wind hit me in the face.

Lily and I were both clearly shaken by the outburst. What did that mean?

She let out a rattled breath and stood up, patting me on the knee again. “Charlotte, that is indicative of some things,” she said quickly, adjusting her purple glasses. “But I need to do some more research before I can tell you for sure. I don’t want to misinform you, especially in such a difficult time.” She looked back at the machines Sawyer was hooked up to, reading the information. “Sawyer should be awake soon. Please come find Mason or me when he does.”

And with that, she left, quietly shutting the door behind her.

I’m not sure exactly how long I stared at the plain beige walls in that room. I didn’t even move from my sitting position. I listened to the sound of the heart monitor softly beeping in the corner and the dull hum of the fluorescent lights, grateful for some white noise to keep my brain occupied.

So many of my questions were still unanswered. I mean, obviously from the way Mason reacted, the pain I had felt, that connection with Sawyer was significant, I just knew it. Part of me had no clue why it happened, but from what I had learned from Sawyer’s pack, a deep part of me had a theory. I didn’t want to think about that too much because that meant… well, that meant that I was Sawyer’s mate, and part of me wasn’t ready to accept that for sure just yet.

Truth be told, I was scared. I had had plenty of opportunity to be scared these last few weeks, and I had felt my fair share of it, but this was a whole new type of fear. This wasn’t the fight-or-flight type of fear that flows through your veins and makes you prepared to take on the world – this was crippling, oh-my-god-I-might-actually-belong-to-someone fear. The I-may-have-found-my-soul-mate fear.

The I-hope-I-don’t-do-anything-to-mess-this-up fear.

I was terrified that I was Sawyer’s mate. What if I wasn’t all that he seemed to think I was? What if I did end up with him, forever? What if he suddenly got bored with me and moved on? I wasn’t sure I could ever do that. I had spent the last month or so as a shadow of myself without him. Losing him for good might actually break me. I wasn’t ready for that type of commitment yet, not by a long shot. I was only 22, and a virgin at that – how was I supposed to promise to be with someone for the rest of my life when I had barely even lived it yet?

Some rustling from Sawyer’s bed pulled me out of my thoughts. Had he Sensed the anxiety in my head? He probably had. He used to be sensitive to my thoughts, even the slightest mood swing could send him into a carnal hunger.

He blinked a few times, looking around the room, confused. When his bright green eyes met my scared brown ones, he offered me the biggest smile he could manage. For the record, it wasn’t a big one, but it made my heart relax just a little bit.

I rushed over to his bed and sat down softly so I wouldn’t disturb his bandages. Man, up close, I realized how badly Sawyer’s body had taken a beating. I realized with a sickening feeling that those scars weren’t from the bullet, but from his time with Isis. She had tortured him, with what looked like whips and branding irons, all up and down his chest and across what I could see of his shoulders. I could only assume the red, irritated scratches and scars stretched down his back, too. My heart was suddenly overcome with guilt – I had accused him of wanting to work with Isis, and yet he had been tortured into doing so.

“Hey,” he managed, his pale face full of happiness as he looked up at me. His voice was hoarse and sounded raw, but he offered me his full-watt smile to make up for it.

I smiled back at him. “Hey,” I said back softly. I carefully brushed some hair away from his forehead and back up into the unruly mess that sat on top of his head.

He closed his eyes, as if he was savoring the contact. “Charlie, look, I –“

I pressed my finger to his lips. “Hey, Sawyer, you’re fine, okay? We’re safe now.” I wasn’t sure if that was entirely true – Noah and Mason wanted to kill him simply for having any romantic interest in me – but that was a conversation I didn’t want to have right now. “How do you feel?”

He shifted a little, grunting at the effort. “Shot, come to think of it,” he retorted. Then he winced as he moved the wrong way. “I’m a little thirsty, actually, could you grab me some water?”

I nodded and grabbed a glass from a nearby table, handing it to the hand on his good side. He shakily took a few gulps, and I took it back from him once he was done. He looked visibly better after that – such a simple thing could do so much.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, leaning his head back against the pillow. “Charlie, what you said to Isis was idiotic, and you nearly scared me to death.”

I was so shocked by his words that I nearly dropped the glass that I was putting back on the table. “Sawyer, I –“

He opened his eyes and put his hand up to stop me. “Let me finish.” Those emerald eyes burned into mine, so I shut my mouth. “It was stupid of you to act like that.” He paused for a moment, and then he smiled wide. “I’ve never been so proud of you.”

“What?”

“You stood up for yourself. All this time I’ve been protecting you, I’ve been too busy to realize that you were perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.” He took the raised hand and gently stroked my cheek. I felt the warmth tingle against my skin and I leaned into it. “I’m sorry I almost had to lose you to realize how strong you really are.”

I felt warm all over. “I’m sorry, too.” I placed my hand over his and laced our fingers together, placing them in my lap. I stared down at them for a moment, going over everything that happened over the last twenty-four hours, but I found myself willing my brain to be in the moment. I had wanted Sawyer to be awake with everything that I had, and here he was. I almost couldn’t believe it.

I wanted to have the conversation right there – the one about the pain, the mating, the being half-human, everything – but a lump formed in my throat before I could get it out. No, I would save that for later, after Lily told me about everything. That would help me feel better, I think.

Speaking of which. “I need to go find someone really fast,” I told him, standing up with our hands still together. “Lily told me to come get her once you woke up.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Who’s Lily?”

I sighed. “It’s a long story. I’ll explain later.”

I wasn’t sure what came over me. Maybe it was all the emotion from the last few days, or the relief that he was actually awake and alright, but I wanted to let him know I cared about him. I slowly lowered myself down and placed a light, gentle kiss on his forehead, directly on the spot that I had brushed away his hair.

When I pulled away, his lips were slack and his eyes were peacefully shut. Suddenly he opened them, and I was hit full-force with the realization that he was incredibly breathtaking.

He gently lifted his good hand and placed it on the back of my neck, pulling my face down to his once more so that he could kiss me on the lips. His lips were soft, gentle. It was so unlike many of the other kisses Sawyer and I had shared. They were usually rough, passionate, and took my breath away. This one was completely different – it was soft, delicate, and I knew exactly what he was trying to convey to me that his words couldn’t. That kiss told me just how much he cared about me.

I pulled away, a smile dancing on my lips. “I’ll be right back.”

As I reached the door, I heard him say something softly. “I love you, Charlie.”

I froze in my tracks, my hand on the doorknob, my back towards him. I turned to face him halfway, trying to fight the smile that broke out and took up all of my face. “I love you, too, Sawyer.”

And I left the room in search of my brother’s fiancée.

So much had happened to Sawyer. Hell, so much had happened to me. And maybe I didn’t know if I could promise Sawyer the rest of my life, not right now. But I knew, deep down, that there wasn’t going to be ay contest. I really was in love with him, I realized. The I’d-follow-you-to-the-ends-of-the-earth type of love. I also knew that we were both scared of what that could mean, but the truth was that we were going to have to find a way to push that aside so that both of us could be happy.

At least, I was damn sure going to try.