The Reaper's Touch

21. Your Ass Isn't A Hat .

Of all places, which was the very last place I found him, Ezra sat in my bedroom at the foot of my bed.

For a moment, I lingered in the doorway. Seeing him there was almost surreal, so out of place. He seemed almost like a normal man, sitting there.

"Did I.. do something to upset you?"

"Do you understand what you've done?"

Not a clue.

"That's what I'm sort of asking." I said.

"I'm referring to the mort- the woman."

"The mortal woman." I put together for him.

"Possibly, and if so, she will be hanging in the balance. That, or an Earthdweller, as we once were. Do you understand what that means?"

Not exactly.

My silence confirmed that for him.

"When she wakes, she'll either be a dimensional or a dweller. Someone who is neither dead or alive, until they figure out their life's purpose. Or someone like us, who will forget everything that they were, their death, who will need guidance to find their new purpose, no longer needing to fulfill the old."

"Why can't she wake up as she was before?"

"Nothing is ever that simple, Ember. I believe that will be your greatest downfall. I see that I cannot get you to understand that. It's something you will have to do for yourself. Unteachable, until a situation happens personally to you that you'll hate having absolutely no control over."

"What's your problem? You don't think I'll be able to help her? Is that why you're so upset about all of this?"

"You're forever bound to this woman. This job is meant for no one else but you now, however you still have yet to finish your own training."

"I don't understand why.."

..she would be bound to me. I finished in mind.

"Of course you don't, because you're still so impulsive you went on and made a decision without educating yourself on it first."

"Watch it." I narrowed my eyes, "She was dying."

"Your ass isn't a hat, Emberly. If you haven't realized it by now, we all die."

"Excuse me?" I snapped.

Did he just call me an asshat? Or tell me to get my head out of my ass? ..Or both?

"This woman needed a solid reason to come back. You, somehow, were purposeful enough for her to be able to come back."

"I still don't see how this is a problem for Ezra."

He stood, walked over to me, and brought his face leveled to mine. I held my best tough look. Hey, I was learning it from the best, might as well test it out.

"You're a pain in my ass. In my work. And in my world."

I held my ground, keeping my face as poker as possible. Even though his words more than stung like hell.

"Better go pray about it." I rose one white-blonde brow, "I'm sure at least the Scribe listens to your problems."

Ezra vanished in the blink of an eye, his black haze the only thing left in his absence. And just as quickly as he vanished, he appeared back in front of me.

This time, an unpleasant look was plastered across his sculpted face. And that was saying something because Ezra almost always had the most unpleasant of faces.