“Got it, I’ll get it set up,” I say.
“Thanks, brother,” Gabriel says and hangs up.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.
Michael. Another fallen. He would have been in the circle.
Warm hands gently take mine and pull me back from the dark well I feel my mind wanting to throw itself into.
“I’m so sorry, James,” Sophia says as she scoots closer to me, her hands pulling mine into her lap.
This right here.
This is why I love her.
She’s lost so much in the last week and had so many things forced on her… Yet here she is trying to give me solace and comfort.
Opening my eyes, I stare into her eyes. Stare into those depths of humanity.
She’s all that is right in my world.
I’m the ferryman though, I guess. I’ve taken so many lives… and helped my brothers cross the final river of death.
She’s the purity for my corrupted soul.
“James?” Sophia prods me.
“I need to make a phone call, Sophia,” I say quietly as I stand up from the couch and grab my phone.
“Is it the secret type?” she asks quietly.
I shake my head. “No, just the arrangements and rituals.”
Flipping through my contacts, I push on Father Coss’s name and wait as the phone rings.
“James, my boy,” he says cheerily into the phone.
“Coss,” I say, not bothering with any of the banter he loves to engage me in. “I need to make arrangements for a funeral.”
“Ah,” he says with a long quiet sigh. “Which of God’s children?”
“We’re not his children, Coss. We all fell out of his favor so long ago, we’re erased from the book of names. Michael will need the same arrangements as Peter and Paul,” I say with enough force that anger seeps into my words.
“It’s never too late,” he snarls at me. “And you know I detest these pagan rituals you force on me.”
“You’ll do it, you stupid old fuck,” I yell and spit flies out of my mouth. “You’ll cremate him and you’ll make sure the rites are said as you place the coins over his eyes. Don’t fucking tempt me, Coss. I’ll fucking end you.”
Pushing the disconnect button, I want to whip my phone across the house and let it shatter against the wall. I want to scream as I rip the furniture up from my living room and break apart every single thing I own.
I hate that man.
I hate when we die.
Taking a deep breath, I swallow the hatred that threatens to engulf and consume my world.
Arms wrap around me from behind, and my heavy, angry breathing slows as I feel Sophia’s head rest against my back.
Her slow, calming breaths gives me the anchor point I need to stop me from completely losing my mind.
Much of last night was a blur of emotions for me. Each death does that to me. I don’t know why. I should be used to them by now. But it’s as if every one of them hits me in a different way.
Each one hurts and enrages me.
I talked to Peter about it once. He was drunk as shit that night I picked his ass up so he didn’t get in a car wreck.
I remember the words that fucking broke my damn brain for days.
“You’re my brother, you’re my best friend, and you’re the Ferryman Charon. That’s why Matthew’s brought you into this part of the family. You’re going to make sure we’re all sent across the River Styx. He’s got you doing it because you grieve for all of us. Bart the Betrayer, Thomas the Watcher, Paul the Protector. All of us eventually. It’s because we can’t grieve for the fallen like you do.”
His words were slurred from his drinking, but he was clear of thought.
That was the last time I got to talk to him.
Sophia held me through the night. She wrapped her body around mine. She forced her presence into my very being. She stopped the walls from crumbling in around me.
I would have killed again last night.
I would have murdered someone, somewhere.
I would have ended a life just so they would have been forced to accompany my brother as his eternal slave when he reaches his end.
But she kept me bound to the earthly world.
Rolling over to be face to face with her in the early morning lights, I push my forehead against hers.
“Thank you,” I murmur to her slowly waking eyes. “I… I love you, Sophia.”
“James,” she says quietly.
Shaking my head, I say, “In your own time. You feel it now, I know you do. You just can’t admit it to yourself yet. Kinda like how you already know my dick has ruined you for all other men.”
“Ugh.” She scrunches up her nose at me. “You’re such a douchey frat boy.”
She doesn’t pull away though, and I think we both know what that means.
She fucking loves me and my douchiness.
The phone rings on my nightstand and I wait to see if I feel my stomach drop.
When the feeling doesn’t arrive, I flop to my back and pull Sophia close to my chest.
Hitting the speakerphone, I say, “John.”
“Me, Beth, Charlie, and Amanda are stopping by for breakfast in a couple hours,” Johnathan snickers before disconnecting the call.
“Motherfucker,” I growl.
“I don’t have any clothes,” Sophia says with a groan.
“I’ll call Uriel,” I grumble.
14
Sophia
James thinks he loves me.
Fuck, he thinks he loves me.
And I’m pretty sure, after all the stuff he said yesterday, he’s wants to knock me up to keep me with him.
Digging through the bag of stuff Uriel dropped off for me, I search desperately for my birth control pills. Deep down, I know James would never instruct or give Uriel permission to pack them for me.
Despite how much I begged and begged.
But there’s still a tiny irrational part of me that hopes that when Uriel was packing my stuff up, he may have accidentally included them too.
After all, he’s packed all my toiletries and makeup.
Sorting quickly through everything, I find my hair dryer, my curling iron, and even my tampons and panty liners. There’s also some Midol and my daily vitamins.
But there’s no birth control pills to be found.
Or a single bra, for that matter…
“What the fuck?” I mutter as I rip through the clothes Uriel packed for me.
“Something wrong?” James asks from behind me, and I don’t even have to look at him to see the smirk on his face.
I hear it in his voice.
Last night was a strange night for me.
After James received the news about his friend, I watched him completely break down. His pain, his anger, so raw, so visceral and real, it called to my own grief.
And… I don’t know why… I know he’s sick and I should put as much distance as possible between us, dammit, but all I wanted to do was comfort him.
Comfort him so he didn’t have to hurt like I hurt.
Like I’m still hurting.
I couldn’t stand to see what he was going through. I couldn’t bear the thought of him aching with the same ache I wake up with and feel every day.