The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) - By Vicki Pettersson Page 0,6
white undershirt and sighed.
“I need to wash up,” he said, and headed toward the living room.
“Make sure you straighten that halo,” Kit snapped back, throwing the paper back on the table, then immediately held up her hand when he turned to stare. “I’m sorry.” She sighed. “I am. You don’t deserve that.”
Grif hesitated a moment, then returned to her side. “Let me ask you something. What happened to your left knee?”
Frowning, she wrapped her vintage kimono more tightly across her chest.
“Your left knee,” he said again, then reached down and uncovered the skin in question. She tried, futilely, to slap his hand away. “There’s a mark to the left of the kneecap that’s smoother and shinier than the rest of the skin.”
“I fell when I was six,” she said, finally edging away from him. “My dad was teaching me to ride my bike, but I hit a pothole and had to get twelve stitches.”
“And why’s it raised like that?”
“Because it’s a scar, Grif,” she said, impatience brimming in her voice.
“Because that’s what happens when you injure your body,” he countered. “Want to know what happens when you scar your soul? You can’t feel anything outside your own pain, not for what it really is. The internal anguish is so great that it cripples you. And that scar tissue dulls your senses to the point where you find yourself wondering if you’ll ever be able to feel anything again.”
For the briefest of moments, Kit wondered if he was talking about himself. Then he picked up Jeap Yang’s photo, and this time he showed it to her. “This man—”
“Boy,” she corrected.
“Soul,” Grif retorted sharply. “This Jeap Yang is already that injured. Something big and crippling scarred him in his past and each breath he takes adds new injury to the old. By now, he likely feels nothing at all, and that’s no way to live.”
Kit studied the photo for a long moment, but finally shook her head. “I lived. You saved me.”
“You were different. You were slated to die because I put you in harm’s way, not because you were scarred.”
And because that was true, because their meeting had been accidental and not predestined, Kit finally looked away.
“I don’t know why things like this happen,” Grif finally said softly. “I wish it was different, but you can’t make decisions for other people. They have to choose good things for themselves.”
“You have scar tissue, too, you know.” She wasn’t angry anymore, just making an observation as she looked back up at him. He couldn’t argue. He wouldn’t be on the Surface if he didn’t.
“Maybe I need it to do this job.”
Kit nodded. Then she tilted her head. “So will it hurt?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never died of a drug overdose.” When she winced, he quickly added, “But my guess is that his greatest pain is already behind him.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“I can promise you this much, though,” Grif said, and waited until her gaze arrowed up. “Once his soul has been freed from that tired, drug-addled body, he’s going to be fine. I’ll take care of him.”
She studied him for a long time, and gradually the fight slipped from her shoulders. “Just . . . hold on.”
Edging past him, she disappeared into the living room, returning seconds later with a hatbox in her hands. It was vintage, of course, which meant it was from his lifetime, though she’d had it artfully restored with black silk and a matching ribbed bow.
Their fingers touched as she handed over the box. “I was going to wait to give this to you for your birthday, but—”
“How do you know when my birthday is?”
“I read it in your obituary,” she said. Maybe she should’ve found that more disturbing than she did, but she shrugged. “Open it.”
But he only stared. “I can’t remember the last time anyone gave me a gift,” he said at last, then busied himself—and hid his pleasure, Kit thought, smiling—by pulling loose the onyx ribbon and lifting the lid. Parting the layers of crackling tissue paper, he stared again.
“It’s a hat,” Kit finally said.
Grif looked up. “I have a hat.”
Not only that, no matter where he was in relation to that hat, come four-ten every morning, the exact time of his death, the thing would reappear atop his head. It was true for everything he’d died in—the loose-fitting suit, the crooked skinny tie. A watch. A loaded gun in his ankle strap, along with four bullets he’d never gotten a chance to use.