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smirk imaginable. “Easy, once you step into the portal you cannot be summoned anywhere.”
    I watched as the tendrils of blackness snaked their way up my body, creating the signature cloak of a Reaper Council member, and thought of the freedom I would feel once I crossed through the Purgatory Portal. Another fear swam fast to the surface of my mind, and I struggled to voice my newest concern before we both gave in to the tugging of our souls.
    “What about the others? What will happen once they figure out I’m gone?”
    “I don’t know.” She smiled. “I guess this will be a lesson for our souls as well.”
    Blackness slipped across my neck and over my head, forming the hood of my long, traditional Reaper cloak. “Why are you helping me?” I asked quickly, before we vanished from where we stood to be placed somewhere else side by side with the others.
    “I wouldn’t say I’m helping you; I’d say I’m opening your eyes.”
    “And why would you do that?” I questioned.
    “Why not?”
    I couldn’t respond because in the blink of an eye we were no longer standing in front of a hospital, but instead standing side by side with Damaris and William, gazing at a horrible car accident.
     
     

 
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    I stood at Jet’s and my spot, watching the sun set over the edge of the ocean as I waited for him. It had been two whole days since I’d last seen him. The emptiness I felt when he wasn’t with me echoed through my soul as if it were nothing but an empty shell.
    Long after the final shades of oranges and purples had disappeared, I still stood alone. Allowing the water to slip across the tops of my bare feet without feeling it, I replayed my conversation with Evelyn from earlier. As her words churned through my mind, I felt both nervous and hopeful.
    I knew nothing about Purgatory. I couldn’t even remember anything I’d learned about it while I had been alive. A sinking feeling that it was going to be difficult to find my mother smothered any thoughts of hope.
    I waited for what seemed like another hour before finally giving up on the thought of meeting with Jet and left to check on my father.
     
    Nothing seemed to have changed. Boxes were still stacked throughout the house, and my father was still a broken fragment of the man he used to be. The only difference was, now my room matched the rest of the house.
    My bookshelf was empty. My dresser was bare. My bed was now nothing but a metal frame, box springs, and a mattress. The same hollowness that had echoed in every room besides my own had finally made its way inside. The sight was almost too much to bear. It tugged at the edges of my soul and threatened to rip it apart. Seeing my things packed away made everything that much more real.
    I was gone to him. Gone to everyone.
    I moved to sit at the edge of what used to be my bed. The mattress didn’t indent, nor did the springs squeak beneath me. It was as if I had never sat down at all. I didn’t know why this bothered me; it wasn’t like I didn’t already know I had to concentrate hard on things in order to affect them. Maybe it was more proof of my reality, proof I didn’t need at the moment.
    A shuffling of feet bounced off the barren walls in the hall as my dad stumbled toward my room. He paused in the doorframe to finish off the remnants of the whiskey bottle he held in his hand, and then he chucked it at my opened closet door. It shattered on impact and fell to the floor in glittering, wet pieces.
    I watched as he moved to lean against my dresser, but missed and instead fell to the floor with a thud. I gasped and stood out of reflex before realizing there was nothing I could do. There was no way I could help him up, no way I could console him, no way for him to understand that I was here, not with the alcohol drowning his mind. He struggled to sit up and then slouched against my dresser.
    I went and sat directly beside him, the yearning to help ease his pain pulling at the strings of