The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,5
alarming way, but her voice remained steady. “How?”
Grif’s gaze automatically slid to the paper, but he just shrugged.
And that infuriated her.
“Don’t you care?” Her voice, no longer steady, held accusation and disbelief. Because one thing about Kit, she always cared.
Grif leaned back, like that could keep the situation from escalating. “Look, when you’ve logged as many hours as I have ferrying souls into the Everlast, you get immune to the cause of death. My job is to help this guy cross into the Everlast, once deceased. That’s all.”
“But he’s not deceased yet.”
“Kit.”
Kit shoved back from the kitchen table and crossed to the coffee machine. She slammed the mug unnecessarily hard upon the Formica, then sloshed coffee over the rim as she lifted it.
Grif waited.
Cleaning the counter gave her an excuse to rattle around some more, but when she’d finished stirring in sugar, she turned and leaned against the counter, glaring.
“Done?” Grif asked.
Kit bared her teeth, then sipped.
He sighed. “I know what you’re thinking, but I can’t stop it.”
“So don’t even ask, right?” She tilted her head. “Don’t even try to save another person’s life? I don’t know if you noticed, Shaw, but it’s my nature to at least try.”
Grif shoved his own chair back, and took his mug to the sink. She edged over slightly and when he’d set the mug down—none too gently, either—he turned to her for a long stare-off. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he said, “I need you to trust that I know what I’m doing. This is the job, and yeah, it rubs that some kid’s head got so jammed up that he’s not going to know what he’s lost until it’s too late. But that’s the human condition, and this death is preordained. Don’t fight me on this.”
Kit’s shoulders slumped, but she placed her coffee on the counter and squared on him, too. “I don’t want to fight at all, Grif. But this man is in pain right now, and we’re just sitting here talking . . . drinking, like—like it has nothing to do with us.”
“It doesn’t.”
“It does,” she implored, leaning forward, forcing his gaze. “It did the minute we learned about it. If you know someone is in pain and you don’t try to help, then you’re culpable. You’re complicit!”
“No.” He must have realized how cold it sounded, because he shook his head. “Look, you gotta think of it like the Pures do. Sarge always says, ‘Death isn’t a barrier to be knocked down. It’s just a threshold everyone needs to cross.’ ”
“Tell that to the guy whose throat is about to get slit.”
“I will,” he said. “Right after it happens.” And because that also must have come out harsher than intended, he added, “And it’s not a murder this time. It’s a drug overdose.”
“So it’s preventable!” Kit said.
“You ever try saving a man from himself? It’d be easier to force a river to flow in the opposite direction.” Striding back to the table, Grif jammed a finger at the paper. “I wouldn’t be carrying around this file if it were preventable.”
“I was once in a file,” she pointed out.
But Grif shook his head. “I’m just doing my job. And I can’t screw this one up.”
Kit set her jaw. Beyond him, she saw her reflection in the sliding glass door; her pin curls had gone loose, flowing over her shoulders like black ribbons. The silk kimono she used for a robe flared as she strode back to the table, matching the color rising in her cheeks. Setting down her mug, she glanced at the photo on the front page, and though it made her heart bump to see Grif’s image splayed there along with another woman’s, Evelyn Shaw’s, what Kit was looking for was inside.
She opened to the center pages, and felt horror roll across her face like a shallow wave. Jeap Yang. Only nineteen. His stats were all there, including the place, date, and time of his death. Whirling, she held the paper up. “He’s just a kid!”
Grif paced back to the sink.
“That is someone’s child! Someone loved him enough to birth him and raise him and release him into the world!”
Grif shifted. “Yeah, and he threw all that good work into the world’s Dumpster, then shoved that into a needle in his veins.”
“I agree that it’s a bad choice! But so is just letting him die!” And before she knew she’d moved, Kit’s mug shattered against the sink’s backsplash, sending coffee splattering. Grif just looked down at his previously