Free Reaper by Katrina Monroe Page A

panties and changed before going to
find him. It wasn’t as though anyone would notice.
    “While I appreciate your concern,” she
dragged the last syllable, “I’m perfectly capable of getting
shit-faced and finding my way home without Daddy-Reaper’s
help.”
    “Oh yeah?” He smirked.
    The bastard was enjoying this. “The one you
should be concerned about is Oz,” she replied.
    Bard struggled to keep the smirk on his face.
The corner of his mouth dipped slightly.
    He’d seen it, too. So why the secrecy?
    “There’s nothing wrong with Oz other than
that he’s a dipshit. He’ll be fine,” he said.
    “You don’t even believe that.”
    Bard turned his back to her and lit a
cigarette. “You’re drunk.”
    “And you’re just afraid that what happened
with you—”
    “Shut. The fuck. Up.”
    He spoke so abruptly his cigarette fell out
of his mouth. It smoldered against the stone walkway.
    Cora took a few deep breaths to steady her
nerves before speaking. He had a way of getting her worked up; of
speaking to her in a way that made her want to claw his eyes from
their sockets. “I’m just saying you should keep an eye on him.”
    A grunt.
    “I’ll see you later. Drink water,” Bard
said.
    No matter what she did, he’d always try to
father her.
    That night, she refilled and drained a glass
of water three times before climbing into her bed with Oz on her
mind and a bad feeling in her gut. Her eyelids grew heavy and she
welcomed sleep like she’d welcomed death.
    * * *
    Oz woke on the roof. His back ached and his
limbs tingled as he moved. His mouth tasted like burnt cotton. The
digital clock on the bank building a few blocks from where Oz stood
read “10:00.” A scrap of paper stuffed under his shirt collar
scratched his chest. Scribbled across it was, “Lady of Perpetual
Hope Catholic Church. Noon.” Oz knew the place. He had exactly two
hours to shower away the hangover, dress, and walk eight miles to
Mark’s funeral.
    Oz staggered across the roof while the sun
pierced through his retinas and into the back of his pounding
skull. He blamed this new body. It’d been born forty-something
years old but without a decade of binge drinking behind it to
soften the hangover.
    He cranked the shower and waited for the room
to fill with steam. His clothes adhered to his body in the places
that blood had dried overnight. Patches of hair came out when he
peeled the shirt from his chest. Palming the wall, Oz stepped under
the stream.
    The water pooling at the bottom of the shower
turned brown. He stuck his face under the stream. The scalding
water stung his torn lips.
    I’m that guy now. I’m an
asshole.
    He winced against the pain as he allowed the
water to pound into his wound.
    Oz turned off the shower and contorted his
body out of the tiny stall. Picking his clothes off the floor, he
examined his sweaty, blood stained shirt and contemplated turning
it inside out before heading to the funeral. Sighing, he entered
the bedroom, his gaze resting on the open closet next to his bed.
Oz frowned.
    It was filled with clothes. New clothes. He
pulled a shirt from the hanger and lifted it to his face. They
smelled faintly like Cora. He leaned into the clothes and let her
scent envelop him.
    “You, Oz, are the scum of the fucking earth.
The air is contaminated for having been near you,” he said aloud
and grabbed a dark blue button-down shirt and black slacks. The
shirt was a little snug around his neck, but otherwise they were a
perfect fit. He left the top button undone.
    * * *
    There should’ve been rain. There should’ve
been clouds. There should’ve been a shroud of darkness choking out
the sun and the sky and everything good. But the sun shone
rebelliously bright and hot and burned Oz’s neck as he walked, one
foot in front of the other, oblivious to anything but the next
step. It was surreal; his life as the real Oz was over, but it was
like he’d been dragged from The Department to pick up where