“Ma’am?”
Nova jumped and started towards the door to her right, but the female officer harrumphed loudly.
“Your bag.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She set down her bag and the officer upended it. A glance at the clock showed two minutes to noon. Nova didn’t have to show up while Weston was still breathing. Her work started after his heart stopped.
And no Soul-bringer had better beat her to it, either.
Yes, please, beat me there. Stop this thief before she sins again.
Oh, hell, Nova, you are the one in the wrong. You take away the judgment owed all men. And you will be judged yourself.
The officer shoved her empty bag towards Nova. “Stay right here.”
Nova glanced at the wall. The clock’s long hand clicked across the twelve at the same time the short hand did. She eyed the fluorescent lights. Would there be a power surge?
No, silly, that was only in movies. Besides, they gave lethal injections nowadays.
“You can enter the waiting room, Miss Fleetwood. The decedent will be brought in shortly.”
Dead bodies did not bother her. She ate the sins. Nothing bizarre happened. She didn’t feel the sin go into her with a thud or shock. It was a non-event. Until she puked it up later. Nova ate the last bits of salted bread from the plate she had set upon the unmoving chest. The corpse was dressed in a white cotton jumpsuit and no shoes. Scott Weston didn’t look as she remembered him fifteen years ago. As always, the decedent merely looked asleep, caught in reverie.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She’d never allowed emotion to contaminate an eating. Nor had she allowed conflicting thoughts to interfere.
This is your last meal, kept pinging the surface of her brain. And then — Blackthorn didn’t get here first.
She dropped her arms to her sides and glanced to the guard standing inside the small room. A nod from him and she collected her bag from the floor beside her feet, and walked out.
Simple as that. Salt the bread. Eat it. Think pure thoughts (or try to). Leave.
Her footsteps quickened as she anticipated the inevitable violent purge.
Once outside, she ran towards her car, bag clutched to her chest and tears spattering the air. Slamming her hands to the trunk of her yellow VW Bug, she huffed and panted. She’d learned Weston had murdered eighteen women after raping them. This was not going to be pretty.
How dare she steal those sins? Was a promise so much grander than theft? Than murder?
Closing her eyes, Nova bent her knees and sank against the wheel well, the tyre digging into her hip. She should have parked at the back of the lot, next to the line of weeds under the chain-link fence. Towers dotted the high brick walls, capped with curled razor wire. Guards would see no matter where she positioned herself.
Soon the heat would rise through her muscles and skin and bring up her bile.
“I’m not ready,” she said in sniffling sobs. “I can’t die here. Alone. I’ve made a mistake.”
The smell of hot tarmac should have dizzied her, yet the scent reminded her of summer. Gasoline fumes fixed her to real time, the now.
Thoughts were too clear. She did not feel out of sorts, as if her stomach billowed up to her throat. She did not feel. . anything.
A pair of legs materialized beside her. Nova followed the elegant black trousers up to the snazzy vest.
She jumped up to face Blackthorn and clutched his jacket. “You stole from me!”
“I stole nothing,” he said calmly. “I heard the soul shout and arrived to collect it.”
“Before I was allowed in to eat the sins. You were waiting for it.”
“Not at all. I cannot know when a soul is ready until the actual death. Nor am I aware who has, or has not, visited the body before my arrival. Nova, I am sorry. Had you actually eaten Weston’s sins, you would be the real thief.”
“Don’t touch me.” She stepped away from his touch. “I don’t want to be a thief! I hate you!”
Scrambling around to the driver’s side, she hopped in and fired up the engine. Blackthorn no longer stood in the parking lot when she drove out.
So he had lost the girl. And had he ever even wanted her?
“Yes,” Blackthorn whispered.
He sat on the flat, pebble-frosted rooftop of a building across the street from Nova’s apartment complex. Considering her emotional temperament, he’d been worried about her getting home safely.
Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
He hadn’t stolen Weston’s soul from her. He’d been doing his job. He had pleased the Receiver — and life went on.
Yet had he stolen Nova’s integrity?
He knew he had not, but did she?
A shadow passed before the picture window fronting her apartment. No lights on inside. She’d packed all her things, had been prepared for death because she believed in her heart that her way was the right way. A woman like her stood alone. She could do so many great things if she stepped away from the abysmal darkness of sin-eating.
But who was he to judge? Without adversity life would be dull. If he had not the sin-eater’s challenge he would not now be pondering his own heart. She had made him suddenly. . not nothing.
Had he the capacity to love? At the very least, to care about a mortal soul still firmly affixed within a body? And not just a body. A simple, beautiful woman who required nothing more than a kiss — and trust.
He wanted to know things about her. Like, what was her favourite book on the shelf full of many? How had her grandmother smiled as she’d taught her granddaughter a craft? Had Nova known how great was that love?
Something lighted on his shoulder. Blackthorn started, and turned to find Nova beside him. Dressed in jeans and a soft blue sweater, she sat close, her arm hugging his and drew her knees up and propped her chin there.
“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t hate you.”
“You’ve every right—”
“No, I don’t. You were doing your job. I wanted it to happen that way, but denied the truth when it was granted. I’ve had a good talk with myself. I have no right to make judgments. I can’t worry about what happens with my soul when it leaves this world. I want to live, Blackthorn. Right now. Tomorrow. The next day. What are you doing today?”
“Me?” Blackthorn drew her hand up to his mouth. Fragile fingers capable of caressing his hardened heart closed about his. “I think there’s a deal I have to pay up on. Something about a kiss?”
“I was hoping you hadn’t forgotten. But let me.”
“Let you?”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
He turned his body towards her. “I have never been warned about a kiss before.”
“It’s not a warning — well, maybe it is. You look the sort who will be surprised.”
“Nothing surprises me, Nova. I have lived and experienced far too long.”
Nova pushed her fingers through his hair and leaned to touch his mouth with hers. Yet she didn’t connect immediately. Instead, the two of them lingered there, face-to-face, breaths blending, hearts pounding.
Becoming. Two learning.
She was the first to move forward and brush his mouth with hers. Warmth burnished more than her lips, perhaps her very soul. She wanted him to have a soul, to know this exquisite connection.
His touch drew her into the dark, sweet glimmer of alluring passion.
Want. It was a simple thing, laced with yearning and desire.
Sinful? That all depended on who was doing the judging. Nova didn’t want to judge; she simply wanted to live. To take what life offered her.
When she pulled back, his eyelids flickered and his dark irises gleamed.
“You’re surprised,” she said.