Free Dead Girl Walking by Ruth Silver

was her job and she owed it to him.
    “We can sneak into the asylum and borrow the scythe. It can transfer the assignment from one scroll to another.”
    Leila's head tilted up. “Borrow?” she asked and raised a curious eye. The words sneak and borrow didn't belong together. It sounded more like stealing.
    “I told you I tend to bend the rules. You've been a reaper for a week. Give it a month, and you'll see all the crazy trouble we can get in together.”
    “Let me get dressed and then let's go.” Leila shooed him out the bedroom and locked the door behind him. It was going to be a long and exhausting day.
     
    Leila stared up at the beige and red bricks of the asylum. The shuttered windows and shaded front disturbed her. “Can't you go in, get what we need, and bring it out?”
    “We're doing this because you want to reap Larkin's soul. You're coming in with me,” Wynter said.
    Together, they walked in through the main doors and toward the back stairwell. Walking past locked wooden doors, Leila's heart skipped a beat. Were people being held hostage inside the rooms? She slowed as she passed, jumping out of her skin when a loud tapping sound came from the other side of the locked door.
    “Hurry up,” Wynter said. “You don't want to be around if they get out.”
    “Who are they? What's in there?” Leila walked past another door and could hear a faint whimpering inside.
    Wynter gripped her arm and led her forcefully toward the back stairwell. “Come on.” Glass windows lit the path up to the third floor. “Edon’s office shouldn't be occupied. He's only in there twice a month.”
    “One day a month is too much for me.” Leila followed Wynter out into the hall. The door slammed shut behind them. Leila jumped and let out a slow heavy breath. She needed to calm down.
    “Come on.” Wynter walked to the end of the hall and turned the knob. It was unlocked.
    Leila was surprised, but then again who would have the courage to come into this place? She was already dead, and it frightened her to no end. “What does the scythe look like?” She'd heard stories about grim reapers when she was a child; none of them were even close to true.
    Wynter rummaged along the desk, pushing papers aside. He opened the drawers, digging around until he found something the size of a pen, the scythe.
    “That's what you were looking for?” She'd expected it to be bigger, scarier.
    “It has the power to assign reaps and reassign them. Bring me your scroll,” Wynter said.
    Leila carried her scroll over to Wynter and unrolled it.
    Wynter removed the scroll from his pocket and uncurled it, laying the paper out onto the desk. “Hold both open.”
    Leila held the top of the scrolls with one hand and the bottom with the other. Wynter struck a line through the name Larkin Alis on his scroll and repeated the motion on Leila's scroll. After a minute, the words began to disappear from Wynter's scroll and reappear on Leila's.
    “It worked!” Wynter exclaimed.
    “You sound surprised.”
    “I am. I've heard stories, but never saw it put to action.” Wynter shoved the scythe back into the drawer, doing his best to make it appear untouched. Then he rolled up his scroll and shoved it into his pocket. “Let's get out of here.”
    Leila grabbed her scroll and closed it up, shoving it in her stocking. The burn had disappeared from her first reap. Hopefully, she'd never experience that horrible sensation again.
    Together, they rushed down the stairs and out of the asylum toward the front lawn. Thunder clapped overhead. They mounted their horses and rode toward Leila's old home.
     
    The storm clouds grew thick, and the sky darkened like night. Leila felt as if the whole world were mourning for what was about to occur—Larkin's death. A flash of lightening illuminated the sky. Leila coaxed the horse to keep going.
    Approaching the town, Wynter slowed his horse and climbed down. “Stay here, girl.” He tied her to a post and patted her back,