No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1) Read Free Page A

was suddenly
exhausted, depleted of my fury, spent. I stumbled back, leaned against the
foyer wall, the framed print behind me shifting sideways beneath my back.
    “I’m not done, I wasn’t done,” I said to
him simply. No loathing or wrath left in my voice, only sorrow, as I began to
slide down the wall.
    “Rarely is anyone.” He stepped closer,
slid his arms around me, pulling me up and away from the wall, and to him. I
collapsed against him, something inside me waning at the same moment. I could
actually feel something different about him. He wasn’t normal. He felt like he had something extra about him. Perhaps this was what
preternatural felt like, I was always describing it in books, reading it in
books, was this it…in the flesh…in my foyer?
    “I can’t just give up, give it all up,
walk away. I just got really happy again. Life just got fun again,” I spoke
softly, forlornly.
    “Come on, let’s go. Everything will be ok
again.” He replied, spoken gently, with a reassuring quality.
    And that voice, soothing…and that
accent…I felt myself wanting to go with him.
    This was truly insane. I was in the arms
of Death. Death was holding me. And he was really cute. And he felt really
good. Both ridiculously absurd observations.
     But he was. And I felt no
inclination to move out of his arms. It felt good there, protected, safe, and
warm. And I was so cold and so scared. And so very angry. Wait! Yes! There was
still that. I was angry. Infuriated. I raised my head from his shoulder and
looked at him, at his face—the look on his face, was that remorse?—before
thrusting him away again.
    “No,” I spat out.
    “Please be reasonable, there are things
I need to tell you,” he entreated.
    Reasonable? Really? Was he serious? Did
he genuinely expect that?  “I don’t want to hear anything else.” I strode
away from him, to the living room.
    “You’re to be a Coimhdeacht,” he blurted
out.
    I froze where I was.
     “So you are dead, but
you’re still alive too.” Trying to give me hope and repair this situation?
“Merely a new you now.”
    “A Kuhv …what?”
    “Hold on.” He grabbed up a pen and a
scrap of paper from my nearby desk and scrawled out a word. Coimhdeacht. It
looked nothing like it sounded. “It’s said kuhv-juhkt .”
He said it slowly and I repeated it.
    “Coimhdeacht.” I breathed out, barely
more than a whisper. It was a strange word, felt odd in my mouth…but at the
same time felt familiar, comfortable. It teased at something in my mind. But
what exactly? I couldn’t quite pin it down.
    “Yes. Perfect. Now, can we please get
going? We can’t be here much longer.” He looked apprehensive, as if expecting
someone to burst through the front door any moment.
    “A Coimhdeacht,” I murmured. His words
seeping into my brain. “I’m still alive?”
    “Yes. Sort of. I mean, yes, definitely,”
he paused, seemed to be pondering something that baffled him. “You shouldn’t be
yet. You should still be all flimsy and murky.” He waggled his fingers in the
air in front of him, then tapped them on his forehead, obviously mulling this
over. “If you can already hang onto things, touch things, then that means that
you can be seen. Seen by live people, mortals, not only me.” He looked around
my place, taking it all in, his eyebrows rising in admiration, his head nodding
in approval, seemingly considering my possessions. He picked up my mail from
the side table, ruffled through the bills and catalogs.
    A vague idea planted itself unexpectedly
in my mind. “I should stay here; be a Coimhdeacht from here.” I glanced around,
hopefully. Why go anywhere? I had a great place. I shrugged at him. “Makes
sense to me.”
    Liam shook his head. He looked paler
than just a moment before. He looked at me and then back down at the papers in
his hand. “You’re going to Seattle. Your job is in Seattle. I was sent here to
retrieve you,” he stammered.
    My response was to frown, to