Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

She glanced toward the hallway, where music—something heavily melodic and moody—blared from Nash’s room, then tugged me past the swinging door into the kitchen. “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

      “Uh, yeah, I do. The scythe was a little tricky at first, but—much like golf—turns out it’s all in the swing.” I mimed swinging a golf club, but she didn’t even crack a smile.

      “I’m not kidding.” My mother pulled a chair away from the table and sank into it, her frown deepening by the second. “If you’ve signed on with the reapers, then you’re not really here. You’re not alive. I’m not even supposed to see you. They have rules against this kind of thing.”

      I shrugged. “Yeah, but as you might recall, I’ve never been much for rules….”

      “This isn’t funny! Reapers don’t really die, but they don’t truly live either. You can’t possibly understand what that will do to you.”

      I sighed and sank into the chair next to her, folding her hand in both of mine. “Mom.” I leaned forward, peering straight into her eyes. “I’m dead, not stupid. I know what I signed on for. Eternity in solitude. Gradual loss of humanity. General indifference toward the living, and a skewed perspective on both life and death.”

      “Yes, and—”

      “And…there’s the daily extermination of life. Which sucks. It all sucks. It’s not like I’m looking forward to spending the next thousand years alone, disconnected from the rest of the Earth’s population. But at least I’m here. I’m in your kitchen, solid and warm. I still have all my memories, and my own body, and…”

      “It’s not the same,” she said. “You can’t just pick up where you left off. You’re here, but you can’t go back to school. You can’t graduate, or go to college, or get married. You can’t have a career, or a family. You’re just going to linger between life and death, sending other people on, but unable to follow them,” she finished, shoulders slumped like I’d somehow added to her burden instead of lifting it. “Reapers either fade from life or start to enjoy taking it. They don’t get happy endings, Tod.”

      “I know. I know all of that, Mom.”

      Her tears were back, and I couldn’t understand that. Where was the joy? The relief? Could it possibly hurt her worse to think of me as alone and slightly less than human than to think of me as dead and gone? “Then why would you do this?”

      “Because the alternative sucks!” I stood fast enough that my chair skidded several inches behind me. “I thought you’d be happy. I’m still here, and I’m still me. Would you rather I crawl back into my coffin? Because I can, if that’s what you want.”

      “No…” She stood and reached for me, but I backed away, and she looked bruised. “I’m sorry. I’m grateful for the chance to see you again. To get to touch you and talk to you. But honestly, the circumstances scare me. You may still be yourself now, but death changes you, Tod. There’s no escaping that. If you’re lucky, you can slow the process, but you can’t stop it. And I don’t want to see you change.”

      “You won’t have to,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “As long as I have you and Nash, I’ll still be me. And after you’re gone, none of that will matter anyway. So why can’t you just be happy for me? This was the only way I’d get a chance to…” I stopped before I could say it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I wanted to tell her calmly, not on the tail end of a fight about my afterlife, which oddly mirrored every fight we’d ever had about my future—back when I’d still had one.

      “A chance to what?” She waited expectantly, and suddenly I wished I could just tell her that I didn’t want my death to hurt her like my dad’s did.

      That was true. But it wasn’t the reason I’d come, and I hadn’t signed up to ferry souls for all of eternity just to punk out on the most important truth I’d ever possessed.

      “A chance to tell you that it’s not Nash’s fault. What happened…it wasn’t his fault, and you both have to stop blaming him.”

      “I don’t blame him.” Guilt lined her face, though her irises held stubbornly still.

      “You don’t blame my actual death on him, I know. But you both blame him for the circumstances. But you don’t understand what really happened. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.”

      “What does that mean? What happened that night, Tod?” she asked, sinking back into her chair, and I could tell from the dark thread of trepidation in her voice that she was starting to get the picture, even if it hadn’t come into focus for her yet.

      I sat across from her, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, bracing myself for what had to be said, and for the possibility that she’d never look at me the same way again. “First, promise you won’t tell Nash. You have to make him understand that it wasn’t his fault, but you can’t tell him what really happened. It wouldn’t be fair to him.”

      Knowing that he lived because I’d died—even if it was my choice—would lead to survivor’s guilt thick enough to haunt him for the rest of his life.

      “Okay…” Mom said, but I knew without asking that if she thought it was in his best interest to know, she’d tell him, no matter what she’d promised me. There was nothing more she could do for me, but he was still alive, and still her responsibility. Nash had to come first now. And I understood that.

      “I’m not sure how much you know about Grim Reapers. Do you know what it takes to qualify…?” I asked, and the sudden startling comprehension in her eyes was answer enough.

      “Oh Tod…”

      “It’s okay, Mom. It was my choice.”

      “It was supposed to be Nash?” She sounded stunned. Numb.

      “Yeah.” I frowned when I could see where her thoughts were headed. “But you’re thinking about this all wrong. As much as I’d love to be remembered as a martyr—I’m sure that’d lead to some serious play in the afterlife—that’s not how it happened.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “I wasn’t watching him that night. I left to pick up my girlfriend, and I didn’t even check on him when I got back. Or at all. I don’t even really know when he snuck out. Then, when he called, I bitched about having to pick him up. I yelled at him on the ride home, telling him what a worthless pain in the ass he was.” I took a deep breath, then spit out the rest of it, to get the bitter taste off my tongue. “That’s the last thing he heard before that asshole slammed into us. The truth is that if I’d been watching him, he wouldn’t have been on that road in the first place.”

      At first, she could only stare at me, trying to process everything. “So you…?”

      “So when the reaper spelled it out for me, I had to do it. I couldn’t let me yelling at him be the last thing he ever heard.”

      “I can’t believe you did that….” She scrubbed her face with both hands, and stray curls tumbled over them, effectively blocking me out. I had no idea what she was thinking or feeling.

      My heart dropped into my stomach, and the tone of my entire afterlife suddenly seemed to depend on what she said next. On the judgment I would surely see in her eyes. Her hands fell from her face slowly and my mother stared at me through layers of pain and regret I couldn’t imagine. “I don’t think you even understand what you gave up for him. I don’t think you will, until we’re both long gone.”

      “I don’t think you understand.” My own guilt was a strong, steady pressure on my chest, slowly compressing my lungs, sending an ache through my heart. “This wasn’t some noble gesture, Mom. I wouldn’t have had to save him if I hadn’t put him in the path of that car in the first place. I just needed you both to know that it wasn’t his fault. I made the call.”

      Finally she nodded, though she looked like she wanted