Something about that knowledge sends an electric spark through me. A part of me revels in it, knowing I have more control than even he might suspect, and yet another part of me is intimidated by it. I can stand and face the cold, commanding side of him, but I almost don’t know how to respond to the glimpses of vulnerability I’m getting now.

“Tell me . . .” My voice comes out huskier than I intend. I’m not trying to seduce the man—I don’t think. “Why did you save me, that night in the lake?”

He doesn’t look away, doesn’t try to avoid the question. A thousand unspoken thoughts deepen his gaze, darken his expression. It takes him a minute to respond, but I don’t mind. I’ll be patient. I know he’s going to answer this time. Something about that green glimmer; it thaws the ice of his usually frigid stare. It adds warmth and fire, hinting at the kind of secrets I suddenly feel a burning ache to unravel.

“I needed to.” It’s a murmur, almost quiet enough to be a soothing whisper. “I recognized something about you. Your eyes, your soul. I don’t—I don’t know what it was. It felt like . . . I owed it to you.”

“Owed me my life? W-why would you owe me anything?”

He lets out a deep sigh, like he’s exhausted, and scrubs a hand over his face. “I’ve been asking myself the same damn thing.”

Neither of us speak for a long, drawn-out minute. I don’t know what to say. He recognized me? He owed me? How’s that possible? Surprising me further is the knowledge that Death would even care about such a thing. Maybe I’m too judgmental, but even if it were true—if he did owe me somehow—I wouldn’t have taken someone with his title or demeanor as the type to readily return favors.

He’s still lost in thought when he leans back against the seat, stretching his long legs out before him. His shoes almost brush my bare feet. “I got myself into this mess,” he mutters, though it’s more like a groan. “Both of us. I crossed a line that night. Did something that isn’t done—ever. Now the universe is confused, crossing more lines that aren’t meant to be crossed. Blurring them altogether. Blurring you and me together.”

His words hit me with surprising force. I never considered what that night might have resulted in for him. The consequences of such an act. How it’s affecting him, his world, everything he knows. Everything he’s a part of. It’s like a thread that’s come loose, slowly unraveling and taking everything he knows with it.

“And that . . . is that how this all started?” I whisper. “That first time in my bathroom, I heard you. The second time I felt you, when you touched me.” He swallows at the mention of that moment, the act drawing my gaze to his throat. “And now, usually, I can see you.”

There’s a hard edge to his voice. “I didn’t have enough control in the beginning to cross over fully. I was both here, in your world, and in mine.”

“Your world,” I say quickly, remembering what happened with my hand. “I think I felt it—”

“Where I come from,” he growls, the strong reaction taking me by surprise, “is not someplace you will ever know. Do you understand?”

I swallow the lump in my throat. He looks impossibly threatening for someone lounging in a loveseat. “You’re learning everything about me and my world firsthand. It only makes sense I’d want to know a little bit about yours. About the person who’s stuck inside my room with me. I should get to know something about you, shouldn’t I? What it’s like being you?”

At that, he turns his gaze to the window, letting the silence build. When he responds, it’s quiet. Low. Dangerous. “You shouldn’t ask questions you don’t really want the answers to.”

“What makes you think you know what I do or don’t want?”

His eyebrow arches, and he leans forward. Closer. And closer. There’s something daunting about his movements, subtle as they are. Challenging. He doesn’t stop until our faces are inches apart. His heat pours over me from head to toe at the close proximity. So much for me being the one in control.

“You want to know what it’s like being me? What it’s like to steal a person’s soul?” he murmurs. The black in his eyes dances with the grey like wicked flames for a moment, until all that’s left is a cold, dark void staring into me. When I don’t respond, he continues, “To watch people die, every single second I’m in my world. See their fear when they look at me, when they feel my call. That moment they realize they will do anything, anything, I tell them to. Is that,” he says slowly, “what you want from me?”

My pulse is racing, my chest rising and falling. He’s so close that our uneven breaths tangle together.

I’m struck silent for a beat, frozen in place by his words, by his stare, by his essence. “Yes,” I finally whisper back, “that’s what I want.” His gaze drops to my lips, following each movement as I speak. “I want to know the person the universe has me so confused with. I want to know who’s sitting in front of me. That means all of it, the good and the bad.”

His eyes close, and he draws a long breath. When they open again, they’re colder than ever. “And that’s where you’d be disappointed, Lou. There is no good to be found in Death.”

Slowly, he backs away from me, until he’s pressed against the loveseat. He turns his head so he’s facing the window to his left.

“Maybe not in death,” I answer hesitantly, “but there is good to be found in you.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t indicate he’s heard me at all. Still, I continue, “I know there is, because I’ve seen it. It takes good to save a person’s life. And it takes selflessness to do it when you know you shouldn’t. When you don’t know what the outcome for you will be. That night . . . it was the scariest moment of my life. I really thought that was it, that I’d never wake up to see the sun again.”

Finally, he shifts his head just enough to look at me. And I mean really look at me. His eyes roam freely, lingering on every part they touch. They burn into my eyes, warm my neck, pierce my lips. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I take strange comfort in seeing that the green glint is back again. “Anyway, I didn’t realize what it might be costing you. Just—thank you.”

His silence torments me in the oddest way. Say something, I inwardly beg. Anything.

“Are there more of you?” I ask. It’s a desperate, scrambling attempt to fill the void, and it works—my voice snapping his eyes back to mine, holding his gaze there. Unfortunately, it takes the green with it, swirls of black-grey eating up any hint of warmth and replacing his stare with that deadly black ice.

“Yes.” He stands so gracefully it doesn’t make a sound and distances himself until he reaches the window. He doesn’t turn his back to me this time. Instead, he leans the side of his frame casually against the wall, in a way that looks almost unnatural for his sturdy build.

“Are they like you?”

“Our paths never cross.”

“So how do you know they exist?”

One dark eyebrow quirks. “Death is an endless game. It takes more than one individual to keep up with the demand.”

A cold, hard chill slides down my spine. I think back to the night I died. The first time I saw him. So firmly ingrained into my mind, I can remember every detail like I’m still there. Coming closer, floating, steadily closing the gap of blue-black water between us. The edges of his large frame are blurred, almost convincing enough to be a dream.

“And what—what exactly do you do? When someone dies?”

If voices had colors, his would be ash—black, smoky remnants of all that’s been lost. “I collect them.”

I can feel my life wasting away with each second, disconnecting me from my frozen heart. Something’s tugging at me, calling my name. A magnetic force trying to yank me away from my body.

My heart pounds against my chest, a dull thump ringing through my ears. “Do they always come with you?”

The closer he gets, the stronger the pull.

The way he’s looking at me, it’s like he sees the images playing out in my head. He’s right there with me in that ice-cold lake, flashes of lightening striking down above the water.

He knows as well as I do what I felt that night—that I already know the answer to my question.

And I know I will follow him anywhere.

He answers anyway. “Always.”

He’s too strong; I’m a tiny puff of smoke going up against a wall of stone.

I’m barely whispering, barely breathing, when I say, “And then what? What happens to them?”

His stare stays latched onto mine, an empty void gripping me tight and sucking me dry. Words clear as day yet dark as night, he says, “That’s not my concern.”

I’m whipped out of the hypnotic memory like a cold bucket of water has been poured over my head. “What?”

“I unlock the door, summon them through. Take their present, their past. What happens beyond that—like I said, not my concern.”

“Take their past?” Before he can respond to that, my brows furrow, spine straightening as I sit up in the rocking chair. Grams, Mom, Dad . . . their faces surface, haunting my mind whether I want them to or not. “Wait, aren’t you at least curious? Don’t you want to know where people end up, after everything? If they’re going to be okay?”

“No.”

“How . . . How could you not care?”

“Care?” It’s so subtle, I might not have noticed the way his eyes narrowed if I weren’t paying such close attention. But I am. I don’t miss the clench of his jaw, either. “You forget who I am,” he says quietly, a dangerous hum sailing from his lips to my ears.

“Don’t ever forget who I am.”