Blurred by Tara Fuller Read Free Book Online Page B

call me Anaya if you want to.” She sat down against the stack, motioning for me to do the same, and wrapped her arms around her legs. She rested her chin on her knees and looked me over.
    “Anaya?” The memory came flooding back. Finn had mentioned an Anaya. Hesitantly, I crossed over to where my bag sat on the floor and sank down across from her.
    “What…what are you?” I stopped and inhaled as big a breath as my lungs could hold. They ached and protested before forcing me to cough it all back up.
    She cocked her head to the side, studying me, as if she were trying to decide what to say. “I’m a reaper,” she finally admitted. “You should be familiar with that term by now.”
    I swallowed, pressing back until the shelf dug into my back. “Like Finn.”
    She simply nodded, so eerily calm, it made my skin crawl. How could she be so calm? I felt like my brain was about to explode, questions filling up my head so fast they pressed against my skull. “Are you here to take me?”
    Anaya stood up, but she wouldn’t look at me. Instead she focused those amazing starlit eyes on the floor. “No. Not yet.”
    “Yet? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She said it like there would be a later.
    “I’m here to watch over you, Cash,” she said, exasperated. “No need to look at me like I’m some kind of villain. I think we both know there are things much worse than me out there to fear.”
    “You mean them.” I pushed myself up to stand, nodding to the book. “The shadow demons?”
    Anaya raised a brow and walked a circle around the books I’d discarded on the floor. “Maybe those books had some answers after all.”
    “I had to look somewhere. It’s not like anybody else will give me answers.” I tried to concentrate on breathing. It was hard not to feel dizzy in the presence of her warmth. It made part of me long for her to come closer. The other, more sane, part of me screamed for her to stay the hell away. “Why are these things following me? What do they want?”
    “I’m not exactly sure, but I imagine it has something to do with the fact that you’re in an expired body,” she said.
    “Expired?”
    “You’re not dead, but you’re not exactly alive right now, either. You’re balancing on this tightrope between life and death, a side effect of putting you back in your body at the fire. These shadows are attracted to the scent of death and the emotions that accompany it. The closer you get to death, the more appealing you seem. It’s the only reason I can come up with. I’ve never seen them go after one of the living this way.”
    Thoughts spun around in my head fast enough to make me dizzy, or maybe that was just the fact that I was breathing too fast. I grabbed the shelf beside me for support and felt my brows pull together. “Wait a second…what do you mean the closer I get to death ?”
    At that moment the pain in my chest spread and burned through me. I pushed against the spot with my fingers. No. That was from the fire. Right? I just needed my inhaler.
    A sad look passed over Anaya’s face as she watched me collapse on the inside. “You’re dying, Cash. Can’t you feel it?”
    My fingers hovered over my heart, feeling it pound against my ribs with fear. She was lying. She had to be. I mean, yeah, I knew I was fucked up, but dying ? I wasn’t even eighteen yet. I hadn’t even graduated. I couldn’t be dying. I retreated until my back slammed into the stacks, knocking a few books onto the floor.
    “You’re lying,” I whispered, wishing it were true.
    “I’m not.” She took a step closer. “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”
    I forced my gaze to meet hers and swallowed. God, she was pretty. I should have realized that somebody that pretty was dangerous. She was like a freaking walking Venus flytrap. “Why? Why am I dying now? They released me from the hospital. I could go back—”
    “It won’t matter.” She cut me off. “You were meant to die in that