By the time the cops arrived back at the apartment building, Jason was gone. He knew better than to stick around. He had needed to leave a location on short notice before, though never quite like this. After knocking on his door and leaving a door hanging instructing him to give them a call, the police officers who had responded to Kiera's call turned back across the hall to look at Kiera who was standing nervously in the doorway, now dressed in "day time" clothes rather than in a nightgown and robe.
"So what now?" Kiera asked.
"Without more to go on, there's not much to be done until we can make contact with him," the taller cop, who appeared to be in charge, told her. "We left a note for him to call us."
Kiera scoffed. "And how often do they actually do that?" she asked.
"More often than you might think," the cop said. "Especially if they think it was just a misunderstanding."
Kiera shook her head. "No way was that a misunderstanding," she told them. "The creep claimed to be a reaper, and said I was going to die. Plus, Mrs. Chase."
The shorter cop stepped forward and felt compelled to say, "We know you've been through an ordeal, ma'am, but preliminary examination indicates that Mrs. Chase died of natural causes."
Kiera wanted to say, "Natural causes my ass," but instead she just stood there awkwardly and uncomfortably. There was a moment of silence and then she asked, "So what am I supposed to do?"
The tall cop spoke up again and said, "If it will make you feel safer, you may want to stay at a friend's house or have a friend come stay with you. Other than that, if you ever feel unsafe or threatened again, don't hesitate to call us."
"Though you won't believe me," Kiera muttered.
"What was that ma'am?" the shorter cop asked.
Kiera frowned and shook her head. "Nothing. Thank you for your time."
As she closed the door behind her, she considered what she should do about work today. Call in sick? Be honest with her boss about what had happened? Suck it up and try to go to work? At least if she went to work, she wouldn't be here. And although Jason knew what she did, he didn't know where she worked. Unless he really was a stalker. She shook her head and shuddered. She just couldn't believe it. And even more, she couldn't believe that she had wanted to believe his ridiculous story.
Kiera did decide to go to work after all. Most of her co-workers got a simple, "No, I'm fine," when they noticed that she seemed a bit distracted, but one of her better friends, Monica, got more of an explanation. In a secluded break room, Kiera broke down and told Monica all about what had happened.
"Wasn't that guy even at your party the other week?" asked Monica, who had also been at the party.
Kiera nodded. "Yeah," she said. "And he was the last one to leave."
Monica shuddered. "Creepy," she said. "To think he was so crazy."
Kiera shook her head. "That's the worst part," she admitted. "He didn't seem crazy. Even while he was claiming to be a reaper, he didn't seem creepy or crazy. It wasn't until he threatened me directly that it was like a veil was lifted and I realized what was really going on."
"You didn't want it to be true - that he was crazy," Monica suggested.
Kiera just nodded and wiped a tear away.
"Well if it will help, you're welcome to stay at my place for as long as you need," Monica said.
Kiera smiled gently. "That would be nice, thanks," she said.
"Sure," Monica said, reaching out and gently touching Kiera's arm. "What are friends for?"
Kiera forced another smile, feeling a little better, but still not feeling like she could fully explain how she felt to her friend. What are friends for? She had thought she and Jason were friends, maybe even had the potential to be something more. And now? What had she been thinking?
Jason checked into the motel using one of his other identities just after 11:30pm that night. He wasn't sure what to think about what had happened. Why had he done what he had done? Why had he told her the truth? He'd even had time to think, to come up with something else. Or he could have just flat out denied everything to her and if the cops somehow got involved anyway, he could have made her look like the crazy one. After all, Mrs. Chase had died of natural causes. He had just been there to help her in the moment of her passing. What he did was beyond nature, beyond observation. No one would have ever known he had been there, had Kiera not been there to see him. And even then, he could have fixed it, he could have made everything right, if only he hadn't chosen to tell her the truth.
What had he been thinking? What had Kiera Jones done to him?
Nothing. She hadn't done a thing. She had just been herself.
Jason took out the sheet of paper with his instructions on it. Most of this particular sheet was blank, the mention of his previous souls having faded when their life energy left this plane of existence. But the next name was still there, plain as day: Kiera Jones. With a date of the coming Friday night/Saturday morning, a time of 12:47 am, and a location just outside of downtown. Jason's notes from the grim reaper never told him how the person was going to die, but given the time and location, Jason was fairly certain a drunk driver was going to be to blame.
Going to be to blame. He could still stop it, he could. He had never even considered that before. It had been so instilled with him not to mess with death, not to interrupt, that he had never even considered an alternative. Ironic considering his parents had opted to cheat death to get him this gig, but it had been made very clear to him that this life he had now was the only way to avoid an untimely demise.
For his parents, it had been a direct deal that was made. They hadn't realized what they were doing. They had acted in love, though he sometimes wished they hadn't acted at all. Now that he realized all that a life as a reaper meant: seeing so much loss, never being able to stay in one place for too long, having to deal with tough passings that nearly pushed the merciful ones out of existence in his mind, he didn't want to put someone else through that, especially someone he cared about.
But he didn't want her to be just another one of those tough passings either. He was sure she would go to heaven, so it wouldn't be that kind of tough, it would be more tough due to thinking of those she would leave behind. And if he was being entirely honest, he would count himself in the list of those she would be leaving behind. Even though there was no way he could say he really knew Kiera or could even be considered a friend of hers, yet somehow she had touched him in a way no one else ever had. She had cared, and that made him care, too.
Kiera stayed with Monica until Friday evening, at which point she decided to try returning to her apartment. She had heard nothing from or about Jason, though she wasn't sure how he could contact her short of finding her at work. When he returned home, she was somewhat relieved to see that the "contact us" hanger the cops had put on Jason's door was still there, indicating he hadn't been home. "Or," she thought immediately after, "he just left it there to make me think he hasn't been home." She decided to shake that thought out of her mind and gave Monica a call after getting back into her apartment.
"Yeah, I think I'll be okay," Kiera said over the phone. "No, I don't think he's been here." She listened to Monica's response and laughed nervously. "I don't know if I'd quite say a celebration is in order, but... oh what the heck. Sure, why not."
And thus, Kiera made plans with her friend Monica to begin the night that would end in her death.
Jason was back, not at his apartment, but at the intersection where Kiera was scheduled to die. He had scoped it out earlier that day, trying to figure out exactly how things might go down, but there was really no way to know until the moment it happened. He checked his phone. 12:44am. He felt his pulse quicken. He still didn't know exactly what he was going to do. He supposed he wouldn't know until the moment it happened. He checked his phone again. 12:44am still. These three minutes were going to feel like an eternity.
"I really should go home," Kiera was saying on their way out of the bar. "I'm getting tired."
"Oh come on!" Monica whined, leaning on her friend. "Just one more stop!"
Kiera laughed. "What happened to you being the designated driver?" she asked.
"Pffft, I knew you wouldn't drink that much," Monica said with a dismissive hand gesture. "After that first drink when you looked over with me in sympathy... You said we could switch!"
Kiera laughed again. "And you agreed," she pointed out. "Some friend you are."
Monica draped her arm over her sober friend. "Yeah, yeah," she said. "Now take me home!"
"Shhhh," Kiera urged.
It was the shout of "take me home", that caught Jason's attention. It wasn't Kiera's voice, but he looked that way anyway and saw two women walking towards the intersection where Kiera was scheduled to die. One of them was Kiera. She hadn't seen him yet. If he wanted to do his job, he would hide now, get out of the way, let what was about to happen happen. He glanced back down the street and saw the woman who wasn't Kiera run on ahead, Kiera still following behind at a normal pace. He glanced at his phone: 12:46am. One minute. He knew now what was going to happen. Kiera's friend was going to run across the street ahead of her, missing the oncoming car, only to have Kiera follow slowly behind her and be struck dead.
Heart pounding, he ducked behind the corner. He watched the other woman run on down the street, actually glancing both ways before crossing the road, perhaps not as drunk as she had seemed. As soon as this other woman was safely across the street, Jason stepped out, running directly into Kiera. "Jason!" she screamed.
"Kiera, I..." Jason began.
He didn't know what else to say, and fortunately for him, he didn't have to. From behind him, he heard the squeal of tires as someone slammed on their breaks and the other woman screeched, "Kiera!"
Jason didn't take his eyes of Kiera, as her eyes grew wide. "Jason," she managed to whisper.
He heard shouting behind him and finally turned around. Kiera stepped around him to look into the road where she would have been had Jason not stopped her. There, she saw a bright red car, stopped halfway down the road from where the red light it had just run had been, and Monica banging on the side of said car shouting, "You could have killed someone!"
"But I didn't!" an angry voice shouted back.
Without saying another word, Jason took a sheet of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and looked at it in surprise as a thin red line was drawn through the text that said: "Kiera Jones, 12:46am." That was new. That had never happened before. He looked up just in time to see the red car drive away, hoping against all hope that he hadn't just traded one life for another.
"What the hell?" he heard Kiera say beside him. He looked over, and saw Kiera staring down at the piece of paper he held in his hand. Apparently she had also seen that ghostly line drawn out of nothingness. Then she repeated a bit louder, "What the hell!?"
She looked up at him. He felt tears welling up in his eyes. She was alive. She was still alive, and grim hadn't come. Was this really... was this really going to be okay? "You're alive," he said softly, barely above a whisper. "Kiera Jones, you're alive."
As they walked across the street extremely cautiously, there seemed to be no words to say, but Monica certainly had a lot to contribute. "That's the creeper!" she exclaimed pointing at Jason as soon as he appeared before her. "He said he was going to kill you!"
"I misunderstood," Kiera said simply, as she looked over at Jason. That look. That look of... could it be trust? Even after what had happened, how could she possibly believe him? Yet, apparently she did. All it had taken was a thin red line.
"But... but..."
"I'd really like to go home now," Kiera said with a sigh. "But I don't know if I can..."
"I can drive," Jason offered.
"Oh hell..." Monica began.
"Thank you," Kiera said. "That would be very sweet of you."
"What the..." Monica tried for another sentence, but didn't get all the way through that one either as Kiera and Jason had already started walking on down the street. Monica protested with grunts and half sentences the whole way, but once it became clear she had no living clue what was going on, she quieted down and apparently decided to keep a very close eye on the two of them from the back seat.
Monica protested again when Kiera had Jason drop her off at her house. "You call me the second you get home to let me know this creep hasn't gotten to you," she said.
Kiera laughed despite herself. "Yeah, of course I will," she promised.
With Monica out of the car, they drove on in silence. What was there to say to the man who had just saved your life? What was there to say to the woman who had just led you to defy death itself? Neither of them had anything to say.
When they got back to the apartment building, the first thing Jason noticed was the hanger on his door. He gave a little snort as he took it off the handle.
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," Kiera said.
He turned to look at her, not realizing how close she still was to him. "It's okay," he said. "You thought I was crazy."
Kiera nodded. "I did."
"And now?" Jason asked.
She shook her head. "I just... I mean..."
Jason reached out and touched her hand lightly. He wasn't good with people, he knew, but somehow he was starting to feel good with Kiera. "Let me show you something," he suggested.
She looked at him suspiciously. "Okay..."
He handed her the door hanger, then turned away towards his front door. He glanced around quickly to make sure no one else was watching. It was after 1am by now. He was pretty sure no one else was watching, but he just had to be sure. Then he took a deep breath and walked right through his front door without opening the door.
On the other side of the door, he learned that those doors were not nearly thick enough to block out a pretty woman shouting, "What the hell?"
He unlocked the door from the inside and opened it. "You're going to wake everyone up," he said, remarkable calm.
"You just... you...."
"It goes with the job," he noted, stepping back into his apartment.
She followed him in, shuddering. He closed the door behind her.
"Why on earth did you not just do that Tuesday morning, when I came over here before?" she asked.
He frowned. "Honestly, I don't really know," he admitted. "I was already going against all the rules I'm supposed to tell you by telling me what I really am. I guess I just couldn't bring myself to really prove any of it."
"Are you... are you dead?" Kiera asked, eyes darting about nervously.
Jason shook his head. "No," he assured her. "But I should have been. Over a decade ago, I should have died, but my parents made a deal to save me."
"Like, like you just saved me?" Kiera asked, walking over and sitting down on the couch.
Jason sat down beside her. "Not exactly," he said. "They made a deal. I didn't even ask permission."
Kiera nodded, though she didn't really understand what he was saying. How could she understand anything right now. She had just watched this man walk through a solid door. "I think I'm going to need some time to process this," she said.
"Yeah, I get that," Jason said. "This is new for me, too." She looked at him in confusion, and he explained, "Saving someone I was supposed to reap. I've never done that before. I don't really know what happens next."
"Is... is someone else going to come for me?" Kiera asked, eyes widening.
"I don't know," Jason admitted.
"Are they going to come for you, like punish you or something?"
"I don't know that either," Jason said. "There have been threats about what happens to reapers who step out of line, but I don't have any first hand knowledge. I'd think that whatever was going to happen would have happened by now, but I really don't know."
There was a long pause after that and then, "If this is your job, what you have to do, then why... why did you save me?" Kiera finally asked.
Jason sighed. "I didn't even know if I was going to," he admitted, "but now that I have, I think I know the reason why."
Apparently Kiera knew, too, because before he could make a move, she had leaned over and was kissing him.
And then she was pulling back. "I'm, I'm sorry," she stammered.
"Don't be," Jason urged, "that was..."
"Amazing," she finished.
He nodded. "But maybe..."
"Maybe we should wait until it's been more than an hour since you saved my life?" she suggested with a hint of a smile.
Jason nodded again. "I hear circumstances like this can do strange things to people's emotions."
"Don't want to do something we'll regret," Kiera noted.
"Besides, weren't you supposed to call your friend when you got home?" Jason asked.
Kiera jumped up from the couch at that, a genuine look of worry on her face. "Oh shoot, I was!" she exclaimed, her expression softening a bit.
Jason laughed awkwardly. "Well you'd better go home and do that," he suggested. Standing up as well.
"I will," Kiera agreed. Then she stepped forward and gave him a hug. "Thank you," she whispered in his ear.
"You're welcome," he whispered back. And then they parted ways, both hoping that this wasn't yet to be the death of them.
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