I felt my chest rise, but there was no air. There was no sound. There was no light.
There was just nothing.
And I fell into it.
Gone.
34
“Trinnie, wake up.”
I turned my head from the voice, wanting to return to the dream. Or at least I thought I was dreaming, because I’d been in Zayne’s arms and he’d been so warm as he held me close to him. And that had to be a dream, because we’d been fighting Gabriel. Lucifer had killed him, and God... God had done something glorious, and I...
“Trinnie,” came the voice again. One I realized I recognized. “I’m staring at you. Watching you.”
Peanut.
What did I tell him about watching me while I slept?
But that didn’t make sense. Peanut hadn’t been there, and I couldn’t be asleep. Not technically. Maybe figuratively. Semantics didn’t really matter right now.
I died.
I freaking died.
Anger pounded through my body. That bastard, psychotic archangel had actually managed to kill me. I was dead and Zayne was alive—oh my God, Zayne. Pressure clamped down on my chest, strangling me. He’d been there, holding me so I wasn’t alone, and now he was there and I was...well, I was wherever I was. I was dead.
“Trinity!” Peanut shouted.
My eyes flew open, and a strangled gasp left me. Peanut’s freaking transparent face was right there, mere inches from mine.
“What the Hell?” I exclaimed, starting to sit up. I pushed my hands down, planting them in...in something soft and dry. Not damp grass.
I blinked several times as Peanut drifted out of the line of my sight. Confusion swirled through me as I realized I was staring up at the muted glow of the Constellation of Zayne.
I was lying in our bed.
The corners of my lips turned down. “Peanut?” I said hoarsely.
“Yes,” he answered from wherever he was.
“Am I in our apartment?”
“You are.”
What in the what?
Sitting up, I looked around our bedroom. Peanut hovered to the left, in midair, his legs crossed. To the right of me, the bedside lamp was on. The worn, tattered copy of my mother’s favorite book sat on the nightstand. I reached over, running my fingers over the soft cover. Was I...was I a ghost? Was that why I was here? That sort of made sense. I sure as Hell wasn’t ready to move on, and the recently...departed often returned to places they were comfortable. My heart skipped in my chest—
Wait.
I pressed the same hand against my chest, feeling my heart beat unsteadily. If I died and was now a ghost, would I feel my heartbeat? Would I be able to feel anything?
My head swung toward Peanut.
He waved at me.
“I can feel the bed. I felt the book,” I told him, and then thumped my hand off my chest. I winced. That hurt my boob—that actually hurt. Ghosts felt pain? Oh God, if so, how in the Hell did Peanut let himself float through ceiling fans and stuff? “I can feel my heart.”
His brows lifted. “I would hope so.”
I stared at him. “Can you feel your heart?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
“How is that a stupid question?” I demanded. “I’m dead. I died, Peanut. I’m superdead, and if I’m a ghost, how can I feel my—”
“You’re not a ghost,” he cut me off. “You’re not dead.”
I stared at him.
He stared back at me.
I stared at him some more. Probably for a good full minute before I could even process what he’d just said, and even then, I didn’t understand. At all. “How?” I whispered. “How am I not dead?” I looked around the room again, just to make sure it was still the bedroom. It was. “How am I here?”
“Well, it’s kind of a convoluted story,” he said.
I scrambled to my knees. “Try to make sense of the story, then.” Zayne’s face suddenly filled my mind, and I started for the edge of the bed. “You know what. It doesn’t matter. I need to find Zayne. He has to be—”
“Beside himself?” Peanut suggested. “His heart so broken that he demanded that Lucifer bring you back?”
I froze as my eye shot to where he floated.
“And when Lucifer explained to him that giving life was beyond him, that he is not the keeper of souls, he demanded that Azreal himself answer to him,” Peanut continued, but there...there was something a whole lot wrong with his voice, and not just the fact that he’d referred to Grim by his angelic name, which was weird all on its own. It had...strengthened, becoming less airy. Gone was the singsongy way he normally spoke.
“Azreal didn’t answer, because he knew there was no reason to. There was nothing he could do. You were beyond him.”
The tiny hairs all over my body rose. “You’re starting to creep me out, Peanut.”
His head tilted to the side. “I think you’re going to be way more creeped out by the time this conversation is finished.”
Skin pimpling, I stood so that the bed separated us. “What’s going on?”
It could’ve just been my wacky eyes, but the window behind him seemed less visible through his head. “You know what people get so wrong about God? That He is an absentee father. That He doesn’t care for His children, watch over them meticulously, day in and day out. That He doesn’t interfere in small ways—ways often and easily overlooked. That random choice to turn left instead of right on the way to work? The unexpected decision to stay home or stay out late? The unplanned trip or phone call, purchase or gift? None of that is random or unknown. That is God, doing what a good parent does. Stepping in when they can and knowing when there is nothing they can do. I never really understood how God could do all of that—be willing to do anything and everything to be near His children and yet be able to walk away.” His shoulders seemed to lift in a sigh. “There are always so many rules, Trinity, so many expectations, even for God, and most assuredly for a chief prince.”
A shiver skated over my skin. No. There was no way—
Peanut looked over at me, and yep, his face was definitely more solid. “You were right, you know? When you said there had to be signs that something had gone terribly wrong with Gabriel. That there had to be signs.”
I stepped back, bumping into the wall.
“And there were. You were also right when you said you were a loophole. A weapon that could be snuck past the oath to harm none. At least in the beginning that was all that you were, but then I learned just how and why God could and would do anything for His children.” A smile formed. “That sometimes even God bent the rules.”