Free Grim Tidings by Caitlin Kittredge Page B

None of us can, except you.”
    I knew that wasn’t true, and I also thought this was prettymuch the worst idea I’d heard in at least twenty years, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to volunteer that in the midst of their little club meeting. Just because Viv had gotten us away from Owen didn’t mean this group was any more stable than the suits at Headquarters.
    â€œThat’s a good idea,” I said to Leo, trying to put enough gravity in my voice that he’d play along for now.
    â€œFine.” Leo stood, straightening his jacket. “Set it up,” he told Raina. “And show me a place where I can bathe, get some clean underwear, and sleep.”
    She nodded and withdrew, and Viv jerked her thumb at the stairs. “Bathroom’s on the left. There’s a bedroom for you at the end of the hall.” When I started to follow Leo she pulled me back. “Uh-uh. We may not be a servant class here, but reapers need their privacy. Didn’t Gary teach you anything ?”
    â€œHe taught me lots,” I said, staring into her golden eyes. “Mostly how to take a beating, and how to prey on people so desperate they lose their grip on rationality and let you turn them out with shitty deals that only benefit you and your Hellspawn bosses. He was a very effective teacher.”
    Viv’s skin nostrils flared, but she let got of me, and that was all I cared about.
    Leo was running a bath into a rusty, stained tub. The water was almost as brown as the stains, and pipes shuddered from somewhere deep in the bowels of the house, groaning like a herd of dying cattle. “Classy place,” he said, stripping out of his jacket and tie. I shut the door behind me and slid down to the floor, too exhausted to stand upright anymore.
    â€œLeo,” I whispered. “These people are cracked.”
    â€œâ€™Course they are,” he said, adding his pants and shirt to the pile and slipping out of his boxers. He lowered himself into the bathwater with a groan. “They’ve all been living like you were for a hundred goddamn years, some a lot longer. It’s no small wonder they all belong in the padded room.”
    â€œWe should never have come here,” I said, pressing a hand over my eyes. I felt the first tears slither down my face and didn’t even bother swiping at them. That was how exhausted I was. “We should have just run and not looked back.”
    â€œAva.” Leo’s voice made me look at him. He smiled at me, one arm hooked over the edge of the tub. His tattoos covered every square inch of skin, all the way down to his first knuckle. He wriggled his fingers at me and I scooted across the tile and hooked mine with his.
    â€œI never imagined I’d die at home surrounded by thirteen grandkids,” Leo said. “I know when you got brought in you didn’t really want it, and what Gary did to you was a violation, but it wasn’t like that for me. When I got this chance, I wasn’t upset. I’m glad I get more time, even if it is in a shitty farmhouse in the middle of a frozen wasteland.”
    â€œWe can’t do this if you take over,” I said in a rush, letting out the thought that had been slowly crystallizing, since before we flipped the car over on the snowy road. “Nobody will accept a reaper and a hound. It’ll make the other reapers not trust you, it’ll make me have to watch my back constantly . . .”
    â€œThe other reapers are pawnbrokers from Hades who dupe assholes out of their immortal souls with a little magic talent and a copy of a necromancy text, Ava,” Leo said. “Same as any other small-timer in any other syndicate. Nobody trusts anybody andeveryone always has a knife aimed at the next guy’s back.” He leaned his head back and slid down in the water, closing his eyes in the steam. “You want the truth, being a reaper is just like when I was alive, except instead of