The Reaper's Curse #1 - Complete

The Reaper's Arms

Alicia kicks and screams, she cries and curses, tears streaming in the mud on her face, showing the colourful bruises beneath.

The man—Jeramiah—grabs her around the throat and squeezes, her eyes bulging as blood rushes to her head and she claws at his hands.

"You fucked up," he sneers. His lips continue moving, but Alicia doesn't hear him, her heartbeat like a drum in her ear as he presses her head into the mud. Air is a distant memory as her fingers tremble, numbness spreading through them as her fight ceases.

Where are they? Alicia remembers begging her ma as the woman settled a hand between her shoulder-blades, one of the few comforting touches she would ever offer Alicia throughout her life. Ma, I don't see them.

She remembers too clearly when she had spotted her brothers and pa, remembers the cry that had left her as she'd launched herself towards them, right into her pa's broad chest where he squeezed her so tight she thought he might never let go. She hoped he would never let go.

His breath was in her hair, the rattling of a sob in his chest, and then the stone platform wasn't beneath her feet because he had lifted her right up to swing her around, like she was just a little girl with scraped knees and a wooden toy gun tucked into her sagging pants. Not a woman of twenty with her ma's expensive coat around her shoulders and pins in her hair that could have fed them for a month when they were younger. Not a woman who had fought her own war while they were away.

She remembers looking at her brothers—looking at them all—and finally seeing them for the men they had become. They'd always been bigger boys, bodies accustomed to the weight of stacks of hay and the churn of crops on the fields Kathryn owned. But she noticed on that train platform with shouts of happiness and the cries of grieving surrounding them that her boys looked almost small. Wiry features gaunt and shadowed in the dull light.

She remembers looking upon their once smiling faces and finally seeing the scars of war written upon them, and a part of her wished she could share with them what had become of her so they didn't look so alone, so hollow in their grief. But her actions were only for the Reaper. She couldn't live with herself if she had to face her brothers' judgement too.

Thinking of this now, remembering the happiness she felt about being reunited with her family, being whole again, is just another knife in her gut. Her pa is dead. He's dead because of her actions and her ma's betrayal. Her brothers will never forgive her.

They're not waiting for her to return home as she waited for them.

The urge rises in her to cry in relief as death inches towards her and offers her a gentle hand. She wants to accept. After everything, she wants so desperately to enfold herself into the Reaper's darkness and forget the burning in her chest that isn't from lack of air.

Hands reach around Jeramiah, seeming to come from the shadows around him. His eyes widen as an arm encircles his throat, dragging him off Alicia with a startled choke.

Alicia cries as she breathes, sobbing relentlessly as the weight of his body is pulled away from her.

But the relief doesn't come as it should. There's no relief to be found for someone like her.

"Get the woman," someone demands, but Alicia is scrambling back with rasping breaths, flames clawing at her throat, bones weary as she watches with wide eyes.

Jeramiah is shoved against a tree, throwing a fist that is swiftly dodged by the man. There's a knife in his grip and Alicia gags on her breath as the man slices through Jeramiah's thigh, blood quick to soak through his pants.

"That was the main artery in your leg," the man says roughly, Jeramiah's screams muffled behind his clenched teeth. "If you tell me what I want to know, then I might be able to save you. Where is Warren?"