Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(16)

She tugged on Rowan’s sleeve, bringing the unsavories to his attention but not to Scythe Faraday’s.

“Why do you think they’re following us?”

“They probably think there’s going to be a gleaning and they want to watch,” suggested Rowan, which seemed a likely theory. As it turned out, however, they had other motives.

As the three of them waited in the checkout line, one of the unsavories grabbed Scythe Faraday’s hand and kissed his ring before he could stop him. The ring began to glow red, indicating his immunity.

“Ha!” said the unsavory, puffing up at his strategic triumph. “I’ve got immunity for a year—and you can’t undo it! I know the rules!”

Scythe Faraday was unfazed. “Yes, good for you,” he said. “You have three hundred sixty-five days of immunity.” And then, looking him in the eye, said, “And I’ll be seeing you on day three hundred sixty-six.”

Suddenly the teen’s smug expression dropped, as if all the muscles that held up his face failed. He stuttered a bit, and his friend pulled him away. They ran out of the store as fast as they could.

“Well played,” said another man in line. He offered to pay for the scythe’s groceries—which was pointless, because scythes got their groceries for free anyway.

“Will you really track him down a year from now?” Rowan asked.

The scythe grabbed a roll of breath mints from the rack. “Not worth my time. Besides, I’ve already meted out his punishment. He’ll be worried about being gleaned all year. A lesson for both of you: A scythe doesn’t have to follow through on a threat for it to be effective.”

Then, a few minutes later, as they were loading the grocery bags into a publicar, the scythe looked across the parking lot.

“There,” he said, “you see that woman? The one who just dropped her purse?”

“Yeah,” said Rowan.

Scythe Faraday pulled out his phone, aimed the camera at the woman, and in an instant information about her began to scroll on screen. Naturally ninety-six years of age, physically thirty-four. Mother of nine. Data management technician for a small shipping company. “She’s off to work after she puts away her groceries,” the scythe told them. “This afternoon we will go to her place of business and glean her.”

Citra drew in an audible breath. Not quite a gasp, but close. Rowan focused on his own breathing so he didn’t telegraph his emotions the way Citra had.

“Why?” he asked. “Why her?”

The scythe gave him a cool look. “Why not her?”

“You had a reason for gleaning Kohl Whitlock. . . .”

“Who?” Citra asked.

“A kid I knew at school. When I first met our honorable scythe, here.”

Faraday sighed. “Fatalities in parking lots made up 1.25 percent of all accidental deaths during the last days of the Age of Mortality. Last night I decided I would choose today’s subject from a parking lot.”

“So all this time while we were shopping, you knew it would end with this?” Rowan said.

“I feel bad for you,” said Citra. “Even when you’re food shopping, death is hiding right behind the milk.”

“It never hides,” the scythe told them with a world-weariness that was hard to describe. “Nor does it sleep. You’ll learn that soon enough.”

But it wasn’t something either of them was eager to learn.

? ? ?

That afternoon, ?just as the scythe had said, they went to the shipping company where the woman worked, and they watched—just as Rowan had watched Kohl’s gleaning. But today it was a little more than mere observation.

“I have chosen for you a life-terminating pill,” Scythe Faraday told the speechless, tremulous woman. He reached into his robe and produced a small pill in a little glass vial.

“It will not activate until you bite it, so you can choose the moment. You need not swallow it, just bite it. Death will be instantaneous and painless.”

Her head shook like a bobblehead doll. “May I . . . may I call my children? Scythe Faraday sadly shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. But we shall pass on any message you have to them.”

“What would it hurt to allow her to say good-bye?” Citra asked.

He put up his hand to silence her, and handed the woman a pen and piece of paper.

“Say all you need to say in a letter. I promise we shall deliver it.”

They waited outside of her office. Scythe Faraday seemed to have infinite patience.

“What if she opens a window and decides to splat?” Rowan asked.

“Then her life will end on schedule. It would be a more unpleasant choice, but the ultimate result is the same.”

The woman didn’t choose to splat. Instead, she let them back into the room, politely handed the envelope to Scythe Faraday, and sat down at her desk.

“I’m ready.”

Then Scythe Faraday did something they didn’t expect. He turned to Rowan and handed him the vial. “Please place the pill in Mrs. Becker’s mouth.”

“Who, me?”

Scythe Faraday didn’t answer. He simply held the vial out, waiting for Rowan to take it. Rowan knew he wasn’t officially performing the gleaning, but to be an intermediary . . . the thought was debilitating. He swallowed, tasting bitterness as if the pill were in his own mouth. He refused to take it.