Free Just a Little Death (Children of the Apocalypse Book 1) by A.L. Kessler

to come back.”
    “What?” The other two stared at me.
    I crossed my arms. “Has anyone considered they didn’t want to do this anymore? Fight a constant war between good and evil to keep things in balance? Maybe they wanted a vacation or something.”
    Neither one of them said anything for a few minutes. They ignored my statement and went back to their books. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through social media, finding nothing that could keep my attention. “What are you two studying?”
    “Whether or not you can reap souls in Death’s place in case he gets locked away.” Ruthie looked up. “You can summon a scythe now; your abilities are coming through.”
    I didn’t know if I wanted the job of reaping souls. What I wanted was one night where I didn’t have to worry about demons and horsemen. Now I didn’t get that since my mother knew about everything.
    Kaleb closed his book. “We’re just trying to cover our bases. None of us can take our fathers’ jobs. We were hoping you would be different. So far, the answer is no. Which means we need to make sure Death stays safe.”
    “He’s avoided them. Have we narrowed down anywhere to look for the seals? Or the horsemen?”
    Ruthie nodded. “We’re going to take a trip to Devil’s Playground over Thanksgiving.” The Devil’s Playground was a rock formation in the mountains where you could see the lightning dance between the rocks. It had a campsite at a safe distance, but I had a feeling we weren’t going to stay at a safe distance. 
    “I promised my mom I’d come home for Thanksgiving.” I muttered. “But I suppose now she’ll understand if I tell her I want to take a trip.” Though I doubted it. She wanted me to turn my back on all of this. “It’s a shorter trip from my side of the mountain.”
    Ruthie nodded. “You’ll go home and we’ll take an overnight trip. Your mother is right, you’re still young so you should get to experience life. That means going home for the holidays. We’ll all have to study for midterms. For the next few weeks we’ll keep doing what we are doing. Research and fighting demons.”
    “What if we move our trip up?” I asked. “We skip a Friday class and take a three-day weekend. Worse comes to worse we skip a Monday.”
    They exchanged looks. “The mountains are easier to travel now. We go, take a look, rule it out if we can’t find a seal, and move to the next one. The sooner the better, right?”
    “She’s right, if we can start ruling out local places then we can move on to those that are not local.” Kaleb tapped his knuckles against the cover of the book he’d been reading. “We’ll go next weekend.”
    Ruthie frowned. “Do you think we can make it back in time? We don’t want to tip any of the Devil’s demons off. I’m sure Gypsy and Princeton will be suspicious if we’re all gone.”
    “Pete hasn’t run into any of the Sins in his dorm, so I think we’ll be okay.” Kaleb smiled. “It’s a good plan, Sammy.”
    A little bit of pride swelled in me at his words. Ruthie looked at her watch. “Okay, time for you to go and for us to get to sleep. Long day tomorrow and all that.”
    Kaleb stood and gathered the books. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the festival since the cat’s out of the bag.” He let himself out and I fell back against my mattress.
    “I know it’s not how you expected the weekend to go.” Ruthie went to her bed. “But it might be better now that your mother knows. She might be able to help us.”
    I snorted. “Don’t hold your breath on that. She wants me to turn away from all this and go on the run with her.”
    “You can’t outrun what you are, Sammy. It never works and there are consequences for such actions.” She chuckled. “Your mother should know that. You don’t just run from your responsibilities. Besides, I’m not going to let you get killed. It’s my job.”
    I rolled over and faced her. “Because it’s your job…”
    “Well, I’m fond of