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The television was still droning about the explosion when I stepped back in the family room. Julia sobbed in my mother’s arms and my heart dropped to my stomach, wrapping me in the pain she felt. I crossed and dropped to my knees next to her. I reached for her, and when my hand touched her knee, she jumped, jerking away from both my mother and me.
Her eyes darted around the room, searching for Isabel.
“She went to look for something,” I said to ease her panic and it worked. Her teary gaze met mine and her chin started to quiver. I took this as my cue and pulled her into my arms. “I’m sorry about your parents,” I whispered in her ear and shut everything else from my mind. Julia needed me and I owed it to her to be there.
When she stopped shaking, she pulled away and wiped her face with a Kleenex. “Why is Isabel here?”
“She’s trying to help,” I said.
“Nick,” my mother said, shooting the same warning look she gave me before she left me in Father Michael’s office.
“Mom, she deserves to know,” I said, and did something I would never have dreamed of doing twenty-four hours ago. I glared at my mother. “She deserves the choice you never had.”
My mother’s lips thinned and she stood. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“You mean to tell me if you knew what you were getting into, what you were bringing me into, you still would have married him?”
“Yes.” The answer came without a blink of hesitation and I didn’t care. Julia deserved more.
I turned away from my mother. “The way I understand it, I’m not going to live beyond twenty-five and when I die, I take over my father’s job.”
Julia pulled out of my arms and stepped back, putting distance between us. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m not doing anything, Julia, I’m just trying to tell you who I am.”
“I already know who you are.”
“Do you know who my father is?” I didn’t mean to, but my voice rose under the stress racking my bones. “He scared the crap out of you, Julia. Tell me who you thought he was?”
“Nick, don’t...”
I swiveled my gaze to my mother and she stopped. “Tell her who my father is.”
My mother didn’t answer fast enough and I turned back to Julia. “My father is Death in the flesh.” The absence of noise that followed reminded me of how the air stilled before a big thunderstorm and the room even flashed that funky green hue for a moment in my mind’s eye.
Julia’s mouth hung open and she just stared in silence, her gaze jumping from me to my mother and back. My mother studied the floor, unable to meet her fluttering gaze and she turned, leaving Julia and I alone in the room to work this out.
My aggravation melted away with the purge of the truth and I sighed. “Are you going to say something?”
“Your father’s responsible for my parents’ death?”
I should have guessed that’s where her mind would land and I shook my head. “No. My father’s been kidnapped.”
Surprise layered over the grief and a crease appeared between her eyes. With a cock of her head she repeated the word like she tasted something sour. “Kidnapped?”
“Yes. And a few rogue reapers have waged war. That’s why your parents died.”
“Why? What does that have to do with the explosion on the highway?”
“Because my father was trying to fix a mistake I made and the reapers didn’t want him to. So if you want to go and get technical on me, all those people died because I ordered the reaper taking my grandmother to stop. That’s what started this and now I’ve got to figure out how to stop them before they destroy our world.”