Free Catch Me When I Fall by Vicki Leigh

yet, but with Hendrik’s death…” He paused to collect himself.
    I must have underestimated how close he and Hendrik were.
    He continued, “I feel it more important than ever to determine their cause for such interest. Continue to report to me daily. I want to know everything about this girl. Understood?”
    “Yes, sir.” I stood from my chair and left his office, unable to tell him I couldn’t do this anymore. Samantha and Seth followed me out the door.

    Seth wasted no time bombarding me as soon as we got back to our apartment.
    “Are you tryin’ to get killed?”
    “I don’t want to talk about it.” Tossing the pain meds on the counter, I plopped down on the couch, covering my eyes with my arm.
    “Well, that’s too bad because I’m fed up with your brooding shit. You gotta wake up and face the facts, man. You can’t stay away from her, but she needs you. You’re the best Giovanni’s got. If you died or asked to be benched or whatever, Giovanni will pull her protection, and she’ll be a Nightmare feast.”
    My chest tightened. Twice now I’d seen her thrashing about as Nightmares fed off her deepest fears. I couldn’t leave her to that fate. Damn it. Why after all these years had I developed feelings for
her
?
    Seth continued, “I also think you deserve a chance at happiness.”
    I dropped my arm. “What?”
    “Kayla. Screw the first Law. You broke it anyway.”
    “You
want
me to pursue her? You’re insane. Giovanni would have me ‘terminated.’” Which was a nice way of saying he’d end my afterlife.
    “I’m your best friend, and I’m looking out for you because I know you’ll wish you
were
dead if you have to spend the next forty or fifty years watching her with some other dude. So, do you wanna take a chance at somethin’ real?”
    Something real? It’d never be real. Eventually she’d want something more—someone to grow old with, to start a family with. But Seth had a point. I
wouldn’t
be able to stay away forever. Tonight had made that painfully obvious.
    “Did I ever tell you how I died?” Seth asked.
    “No. You said you were from Alabama. That’s all.”
    “Yeah. I was at the bank. My girl worked there as a teller, and I was visiting before work. The bank got held up and the bastard put a gun at my girl’s head. She starts crying, filling the bags with money and starin’ at me like she wished I wasn’t there to see this. But there I stood, watching her, knowing I couldn’t stand by and see her be treated like that. I jumped him. Took a bullet to the chest, but damn it, I took him down. I wasn’t letting him hurt the one girl I cared about most in the world.”
    To be a Catcher, one must have sacrificed his life for the sake of others. Seth’s story made my chest tighten. He died to save the woman he loved. There was no sacrifice greater.
    “Look, I know you ain’t ‘in love’ yet or whatever, but you could be. And then all this”—he opened his dark arms wide—“would have meaning again.”
    For seconds I stared at him, lost for words. I doubted Kayla would do anything but scream her head off when she saw me again. Was she worth dying for?
    I sighed. “What’s the plan?”

    This was a stupid plan.
    Dressed in dark jeans and a blue dress shirt, I evaporated into Kayla’s room. She lay on her bed, a book propped against her knees. After taking a deep breath, I walked through the wall to stand outside her room. Then I snuck down the hall, corporeal, and grabbed a “visitor” badge off the nurses’ station when they weren’t looking. I clipped the I.D. to the pocket of my shirt and returned to Kayla’s doorway, letting out a deep sigh.
    “I should never have let Seth talk me into this.” I knocked once like the nurses did and opened the door.
    Kayla jumped off her bed with a yelp, holding her pencil out toward me like a sword. “You! I thought I imagined you!”
    I held my hands up. “My name’s Daniel Graham. I’m not going to hurt