Carmichael felt relieved because Lady Death didn't know anything about the note and nobody had informed her about the scam yet. But the doubt still remained, who had written that note?

Everything continued as usual in death. The line kept moving, the door as unstable as always, the waiting room as disturbing as usual. Even Scarlett remained just as sharp with him, not acting any different, and if she didn't know anything, then her boss didn't either.

"So, who was it?" he thought, taking a sip of the strong coffee he ordered.

When they returned to the mortal world, they headed to a 24-hour diner to discuss what came next. Technically, they didn't need to eat, but food was one of the greatest human pleasures, and he always had the strange perception that food had the ability to ease tension.

"In summary, we have no idea who sent the note," said Andrew, tapping the table with his fingertips.

Carmichael shook his head and sat with his legs crossed, resting an elbow on the booth's backrest.

"Not yet," he replied, looking at Nina sitting across from them. He had ordered her a plate of curly fries and a bottle of ketchup to indulge in. She hadn't touched a single one. "Why aren't you eating?"

Nina had her gaze fixed on the window, looking at the parking lot with a hint of sadness.

"We don't need to eat," she said.

Carmichael frowned. Nina had been acting strange since they finished talking to Lady Death, tearing up the whole way back.

"Just because you don't need to doesn't mean you can't enjoy it," he replied, pushing the plate of fries towards her. "Have at least one."

Nina ignored him and leaned on the table with her arms crossed, letting out a sigh.

Carmichael exchanged a bewildered look with Andrew. Neither had any idea what was going on with her, and they didn't know how to ask. To their eyes, she was a teenager who could have hundreds of reasons to feel bad, and they had few ways to make her feel better.

Fortunately, Andrew took charge this time and leaned forward, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Did Lady Death tell you anything?" he asked.

Nina bit her lip. Carmichael knew they weren't far enough away and leaned in as well, reaching out a hand.

"Let me see your phone," he requested.

Nina was alarmed by this.

"No way," she replied, looking at him angrily. "I'm not letting you get into my private life."

"Then tell us what Lady Death said to you."

"No."

Carmichael frowned.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to!" she exclaimed, hitting the table. "You can't make me!"

"I'm not making you, I'm asking you," he retorted.

"Carmichael." Andrew shook his head. He was always more cautious.

"Do you really want to know that badly?" Nina asked, annoyed. "Is your need to be the center of attention that strong?"

"I never said anything like that," he replied, also starting to get annoyed. "I just want to know what's going on with you."

"Nothing." She slid back in her seat.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing!"

"You're lying," he pointed out. "We're all on this boat together, Nina, and if something happens to you, it affects all of us."

That just made her angrier.

"Of course, it's always you and then you, isn't it?" she asked. "Idiot."

"Hey!"

"Nina," Andrew intervened. "Carmichael is right. We still don't know who sent that note, the three of us are involved in this, we know the secret and, therefore, the consequences will affect us all."

Nina shook her head.

"Lady Death didn't tell me anything about it," she simply stated. "I'm just not in the mood, is that so hard to understand?"

"Then talk and let it out," added Carmichael. "Do you think problems get solved by sitting there with an angry face and offending others? Don't act like a child."

Nina tensed.

"I am a child!"

"A girl who's been through more than any other," replied Carmichael. "You should be mature, even more than many adults. Don't you understand? You're living a second chance."

For some reason, that made tears well up in Nina's eyes. Carmichael almost instantly regretted speaking to her that way. He was a selfish person, someone who looked out for himself first and then himself again, didn't care what happened to others, just as his parents never cared for him, and never allowed anyone else to worry about him. It was a flaw, his flaw.

"Nina," he said then. "I'm sorry, I..."

Nina interrupted him by standing up and pulling her pink cell phone out of her pocket. She threw it on the table, almost dropping it off the edge if Carmichael hadn't caught it in time.

"There's the messages, interpret what you want from them," she pointed out coldly and turned her back on them. "I'm out of here."

Carmichael immediately stood up with the phone in hand.

"Nina!" he called out, but she was already leaving the restaurant.

"She won't go anywhere," Andrew assured and pulled the plate of french fries towards him, taking one. "Leave her alone for a while."

"How are you so sure she won't just leave?" he asked. "Or tell Lady Death about the note?"

"What, did the bullet from earlier make you lose brain cells?" Andrew asked and pointed to the cell phone. "She can't do anything without one of those. She needs it and she needs us. She's not just going to leave. She wants something, remember?"

Carmichael sat down again with a sigh.

"I was a jerk, wasn't I?"

"You always are."

"I value your honesty, Cornelius," he said.

"Not everyone can handle your selfishness like I can, Carmichael," he added. "Nina is a fourteen-year-old girl who was murdered. What did you expect? Flowers and rainbows? I wonder who's more mature between the two of you."

Carmichael widened his eyes.

"Murdered?" he asked. "Do you know how she died? Did she tell you?"

Andrew ate another fry and then shook his head.

"It wasn't hard to deduce. It was enough to see her reaction when you pointed the gun at her," he explained and shrugged. "But that's just my theory."

"Did someone shoot her?" Carmichael thought, feeling a new level of guilt and understanding for Nina. A sudden death, one that a girl her age should've never suffered.

"Shit..." he muttered.

"Precisely," Andrew agreed and snatched the cell phone from his hands. "Do you want to feel worse?"

Carmichael sighed.

"There's more?"

Andrew showed him the screen of the cell phone and the latest message from Lady Death on it.

"Good luck, my brave Nina," he read aloud and looked at Andrew with confusion. "What's wrong with it?"

"Why do you think it affected her so much?"

"It's just a message."

"With a maternal tone," he pointed out. "That's how we all feel about Lady Death, right?"

Carmichael remained silent. He really didn't know how to describe what he felt for Lady Death beyond adoration. He had never had a mother or a proper maternal figure, that kind of affection was unknown to him, but if he put himself in Nina's place, he could understand her a little, understand that her anger from earlier was more like a deep and disguised sadness.

He looked out the window, towards the same spot that Nina had been looking at a while ago. There was a family eating at one of the outside tables. A father, a mother, and two little girls. The parents smiled, the girls played with each other and laughed. It was an almost commercial-like image because of how perfect it seemed from a distance.

"Melancholy," he concluded then and turned his gaze towards Andrew. "Have you ever felt melancholy for your past life?"

Andrew stopped eating for a moment.

"Every now and then," he admitted, "but then I remember that my death was my fault and it goes away."

Andrew didn't like to talk about how he died because, like Carmichael, he considered it ridiculous, the culmination of a wasted life. Andrew died on a rainy afternoon when he went for a walk on a mountain trail. According to him, he was stressed out from his poorly paid job, so distracted that he stepped wrong, slipped on the mud and fell. He died instantly when he broke his neck.

"Dying isn't your fault," Carmichael assured him. "It's something that simply comes when and how it should."

"Even for Nina," Andrew added.

"Even for Nina," he repeated.

"It reminds me of you," his partner pointed out. "Do you notice it?"

Carmichael made a face. Andrew knew how he died and the differences were irrefutable.

"I don't want to compare it," he confessed. He really didn't want to do it, because he knew that the reasons for their deaths must be very different.

"I'm beginning to think that whoever sent the note is related to Nina," Andrew said then, changing the subject.

Carmichael frowned.

"How?"

"I don't know that yet, but I think whoever this person is, wants us to help Nina with whatever she's trying to get from this extra time as a Death Deceiver."

Carmichael sighed.

"In that case, if you're right, I think I owe her an apology, don't I?"

"And even if you weren't right. Don't be a jerk."

Carmichael chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he agreed and stood up. "I'll go look for her."

"Give her the cellphone back." Andrew threw it to him.

Carmichael went outside the restaurant. He had to walk further than he expected to find Nina. She was sitting at a bus stop a block away from the diner.

"You couldn't even ride one even if you wanted to," he said, stopping next to her.

Nina furrowed her brow.

"Because I'm dead?"

"No, because you don't have any money, kid," he mocked, then sat down next to her. "I could give you some if you want. You can leave."

"As if you'd let me go."

"Do you really think I could stop you?" he asked. "Even if I tied you to this bench, I couldn't stop you."

"You could. You're stronger."

"Not even all the strength in the world can stop a fervent desire," he asserted. Nina widened her eyes slightly at his words and deigned to glance at him sideways. "If what you really want is to leave, you'll get it, Nina."

Nina lifted her feet onto the bench and hugged her knees to her chest. Suddenly, Carmichael felt like she was even younger, more innocent, and vulnerable.

"That's not what I really want," she confessed.

"I know," he assured her.

They fell silent, watching the cars pass by them. Even a bus stopped, but neither of them moved to get on it. Carmichael sighed and looked at Nina with a certain sadness.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I said before," he apologized. "Dying isn't... pleasant. You're so young. Your life was just beginning."

Nina shook her head.

"Dying isn't what bothers me," she admitted quietly.

Carmichael smiled, as if that would break the tension in the air.

"Then Lady Death was right to call you brave," he handed her the phone. "Do you want it back?"

Nina looked at him, then took it with her fingertips and examined the reaper's pendant up close. That was Lady Death, with a different facet for each person.

"So you did read the message," Nina said.

"Before you yell at me, it was Andrew, not me," Carmichael explained.

Nina chuckled quietly.

"It doesn't bother me. It's not shameful or bad."

"But it's yours."

Nina shrugged.

"Does it really matter?"

Carmichael exhaled.

"I know how you feel. It's like if you were suffering some kind of hangover."

"I've never drunk in my life."

"Okay, then... let's say it's like the day after a sleepless night," he explained, "you feel tired, so bad that it feels that nothing is worth it."

"A little bit, yes."

"But believe me, it's ridiculous to waste your second chance feeling like this," he continued. "That note that was left to you, Andrew and I believe that whoever send it, they want to help you. They guided you to me and led you to this second chance."

That caught Nina's attention.

"And who could it be?"

"Maybe someone from beyond?" he theorized. "That's not what matters now. Right now, I just want to help you, and this time it's for real."

Nina lowered her feet from the bench and looked at Carmichael with a mix of confusion and joy.

"Really?"

"Really," he assured with a smile, "but for me to be able to do that, I need you to answer one thing."

"What?"

"What do you want, Nina?" he asked. "What is your biggest desire?"

Nina didn't answer and Carmichael thought she would shut down again and refuse to talk, preferring secrecy over admitting something so simple to him, the only one who could help her achieve it.

But, to his surprise, she did speak this time:

"I want to save my family."