Slaying Year Two (Grim Reaper Academy 2)

He turned to me, and his silver eyes shined with unshed tears. He shook his head slowly. I was taken aback. I’d never seen Sariel Gracewing so lost and desperate. He didn’t want to do it. Okay, I could understand that. I didn’t want to do it, either. Being VDC was no walk in the park. But this was what we did. The dirty jobs the other Reapers couldn’t stomach. In the desert, if Valentine had told me to take over and cut that woman’s string of life, I would have died a little inside, but I would have done it. And the scenario in which I took the man’s knife and drove it through his chest? A daydream. It would’ve stayed that way. Because I knew now. I knew who I was. I’d reaped my first souls, and I knew I was a Violent Reaper.

Sariel knew who he was, too. He wasn’t this.

He shook his head again, then took a step back. And another. He didn’t even look at the others. His eyes were fixed on me, as if he was waiting for me to save him. To grab him and take him out of there, away from the man who was breathing heavily and crying weakly behind the dumpster, the man who’d given up and accepted his imminent death. Except… that imminent death was taking his sweet time figuring out if he was going to keep playing the stupid game he himself had started, or run for his life.

He ran for his life.

Sariel simply turned on his heels and started down the alley at a brisk pace.

“What the hell is he doing?!” Merrit yelled after him.

“Merrit, take over,” Valentine commanded.

The mage shrugged, stepped behind the dumpster, and a moment later, I saw the man’s soul rise to the night sky.

Morningstar marched after Sariel. He grabbed him by the left wing, and pulled him back, almost slamming him into the building. I covered my mouth with my hands and moved to Francis’s side. Francis shot me a confused glance, then stepped closer to me, as if he wanted to shield me from whatever was about to happen between the archangel and the nephilim. If he weren’t so shy, he would have put his arm around my shoulders. But he was shy, and a textbook introvert. He had no problem watching me have sex with GC and Paz, but when I was within arm’s reach, he wouldn’t dare touch me.

“What’s wrong with you?” Morningstar demanded. “You froze. You got a perfect score on the finals, you’re right after Mila on the worth scoreboard, and you froze. Why?”

Sariel looked down at his feet. His lips were clenched. It was heartbreaking to see him like this. Where was the proud, cocky bastard who’d given me grief in year one? I almost missed him. Because it was easier to deal with Sariel being a mean motherfucking jerk, than with him being this poor soul who was in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. We were living our dreams here. Grim Reaper Academy had been a dream come true for me, a mere human who couldn’t do shit. For Sariel, it had been a nightmare. Every day, he had to pretend he was someone else to make it. I wondered if all the extreme bullying he’d pulled on me had been the same. Play pretend, fake it till you make it. I was doing the same most of the time, but in a direction that was right for me. In my own way, I was following my heart and my destiny. What had he been following all this time?

“Speak!” Valentine was losing his patience big time. I’d never seen him so angry. His blue eyes had turned dark, a strand of hair escaped his low ponytail and fell on his shoulder, and he didn’t immediately stop what he was doing to fix it. Which was unlike him. He went to great lengths to look perfect, and a loose strand of hair was just not acceptable.

Sariel finally gathered his courage and looked him in the eye.

“I’m not a Violent Reaper, sir.”

“What?” He was confused. He’d never had to deal with such a situation before.

“I’m not supposed to be in the VDC. I’m a Merciful Reaper. I knew it since day one, but I cheated on the entry test and got into the VDC.”

Morningstar stepped back. He looked at Sariel with wide eyes. He wanted to say something at first, changed his mind, thought for another minute, then finally spoke.

“This is Colin’s fault.” He shook his head in a mix of disbelief and contempt. “Colin has ruined the Academy. A headmaster doing his job wouldn’t have let this slip past him.”

Then, he did the last thing I expected. He threw his cloak over Sariel, and teleported.

“Where did they go?” My heart was beating wildly. It was so strange, but I felt scared for Sariel. I grabbed Francis by the cloak. “Where did they go? Can we… can we follow the glow?”

“What glow?” Merrit asked. “There’s no glow.”

“No, no, no.” I was freaking out. “We have to follow them!”

“Why?”

Francis took over. I was still holding onto him. The moment I touched him, I felt him grow tense. “Merrit, I believe you can use your powers to track them.”

The mage rolled his eyes.

“If we don’t follow them, then what do we do? Go back to the Academy?”

Merrit sighed but agreed. It took him a couple of minutes to draw a circle around the place where Valentine and Sariel had stood last, mumble some words under his breath, and perform a complicated spell with gestures and more mumbled words. He wasn’t as powerful as Lorna, but he was all we had. When he was finally done, he declared that Valentine had taken Sariel to the Supernatural Council.

“What?! Are you sure? Why would he do that?” Now I was freaking out even harder. “Where is that? We have to go.”

“We can’t just show up at the Council,” Merrit protested. “I know you’re Mila Morningstar and all that, but seriously. Not a good idea. Not even for you.”

I didn’t like Merrit much, but when he said “no” to me, I liked him even less. I turned to Francis.