"Thought you would've been earlier," a woman said the moment Death opened the door. I couldn't see her, aside from a long white sleeve. A drawer slammed shut, and she moved from my sight.

"I'm always early. You're not dead yet." Death leaned against the doorframe. He looked around. "This is a nice setup you've got here, Ivy."

There was a loud groan. "I don't have time for this!" Ivy came into full view. She stood a good foot shorter than me, definitely placing her under the five foot marker. It shouldn't have surprised me. Her features were soft and round, her body looked like a plank of wood; she was a child. Dirty blonde hair hung to her shoulders with hairs sticking in random directions. Small strands escaped the ponytail Ivy pulled it into. She took a piece of white cloth and wrapped it around her head. The moment she finished, she picked up a compact and makeup. Ivy continued talking.
"I have a full schedule today," she said while drawing wrinkles and fine lines with expert precision. "I have to go down the well, and then I need to help build a new clinic and-" She snapped her compact shut. "Do you see my keys anywhere?"

Death looked around and leaned to the side. Metal jingled. He held up a key ring by its soccer ball keychain. "Is this them?" he asked; Ivy nodded, and he tossed them to her.

"Thank you." The keys disappeared into the pocket of Ivy's pant. She pulled the strap of a canteen over her neck, before shrugging on a backpack.

"Since we helped you out--" Death messed with his sleeve, watching as Ivy struggled with the weight of her bag. "--I think you can do something for us in return."

"You found my keys and tossed them to me. That doesn't equal letting you kill me."

"Well, lucky for me, we're actually looking for a key ourselves."

"We?" Ivy asked, no longer slouching under the weight of her pack.

I leaned around Death and waved. "Hi."

"Wow." A lopsided smile appeared on Ivy's face and a small laugh broke from her throat. "Who's the mom?"

"No idea. Kid, what's your mom's name?" Death looked back at me. I pressed my lips together, moving my gaze to the chipped paint. I shrugged.

"I don't know," I said.

"You don't know who your mom is?" He raised an eyebrow. I shook my head, despite knowing exactly who my mom was. A deadbeat who decided to leave her husband and daughter in one of the worst parts of our lives. In all honesty, I don't know why he didn't know that. He said one of his abilities was to know everything about a person. Why wouldn't he use that power on me? The answer to that question turned out to be the same as to who would give a nine year old a license, I don't know. The possibility of it only working on living beings popped into my mind, but I didn't know enough to say if that was it or not.

"Nope."

"How? It's not like she couldn't show up for your birth."

"It''s none of your business."

Death's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth, but Ivy beat him to speaking.

"Even if I did have one of those keys, which I don't, I wouldn't give it to you." She moved towards Death.

"I know you have one. You used to wear it around your neck."

Ivy shook her head. "Life did a key buyback a couple of years ago. I gave her mine in exchange for being able to do my makeup like this. I know someone didn't sell it back to her, or did she just leave it with them? I can't remember, too much information gets jumbled around and it's hard to read her handwriting."

"Who'd she leave it with?"

"No idea. Can you move? I wasn't kidding about being busy today."

"I think I'll just stand here."

"I will climb out of this window so fast," Ivy said, moving towards the closed window. Death pressed himself to the doorframe, and I pressed myself to the railing. The wood dug into my back. Ivy squeezed past us, careful not to touch us and to keep an eye on Death. "Thanks." The half-rotted steps creaked under her sneakers. She walked towards the Jeep, almost falling when her foor caught on a rock. Death looked down at me, grabbed my sleeve, and followed after her, dragging me with no ceremony behind him.

Ivy stood on her toes, leaning to check something in the back of her vehicle. Death released my sleeve, leaving me to rub at were the fabric pinched.

"The others didn't have keys, so that means Jacob and Clara are the only ones left, right?" Death leaned against the side of the Jeep like a tired giraffe. The heels he wore made the height difference between him and Ivy almost comical.

"If the others really didn't have a key on them, then yeah. Those two are the only other immortals that I know of."

"Why are you telling us this?" I asked. It made no sense. An immortal shouldn't have been telling us that stuff. Especially Ivy. Kai and Death were friends at some point in history, and he didn't tell us, so why would she?

Ivy snorted. "I've been avoiding this joker since Xerxes died. I change my name every few decades, but it's not that hard to find me. I wrestled a lion once, until someone could shoot it. I ended up on the news and expected him to show up. This is the first I've seen him in seven centuries. Besides-" she waved a hand. "-it's not like I'm telling him anything he could use against us. He's going to keep going after us until he kills us anyway. Though he hasn't been doing that good of a job of it."

"Oh, so are we ignoring the parts where you guys burn everything you make or own? Because that makes it really hard to track you guys down." Death sighed. "Ivy, do you know where Clara is?"

Ivy's face scrunched up. "No." She shook her head. "I don't get along with her, none of us do. We all accepted immortality for a reason, even Kai did. She's the only one out of us who isn't trying to help the world. I mean, I did a lot of messed up stuff when I was younger, but I'm trying to make up for it. She's not," she said, slamming the door shut. She moved to the driver's door, opened it, and climbed in.

Death moved his arms so they folded over the rolled down window. He tapped the toe of his shoe against the ground. "So, you have no idea, whatsoever? Not even a tiny notion?"

The Jeep whirred, refusing to start. Ivy mumbled. "Come on, girl. You've got this." The engine turned over and she responded to Death. "Why would I? The only time I get ahold of the others is if I need something from them.  Clara doesn't do helping others, at least so long as there's nothing in it for her."

"What about Jacob?"

"You've met the guy. He's harder to track down than my brother was when he was supposed to milk the goats. Life can't do it half the time, and she has a direct connection to him." She shook her head. "Are you guys going to ride in with me? I need to meet up with some others so I can make sure we have all of the materials we need. And before they do anything stupid."

"Sure. Come on, kid," Death said. He walked around to the passenger door.

"Is this really smart?" I opened the back door and clambered in. I sat on top of supplies, and I didn't bother putting on my seatbelt. For once,  it wasn't because I was dead; it was because I couldn't find it.

"Probably not, but I don't feel like walking. My feet are killing me."

"You could take the heels off," I suggested.

"You're just made that I'm more secure in my femininity than you are." A loud laugh burst from Death's lips.

"No, I'm upset because I can barely walk in wedges, much less heels half of the height of the Empire State Building."

After that, the ride grew awkward and the air tense. Ivy tapped her fingers against the worn steering wheel. Occasionally, I'd catch her eyes flicking to stare at me in the mirror. A half hour on the road later, four vehicles came into view. Ivy pulled off the side of the road and turned on the radio, before unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Those are the people I need to talk to before we head into the village. I'll be right over there. Don't touch anything." Her last words were aimed at Death. She hopped out of the Jeep. I lifted myself up enough to see the wooden blocks strapped to the pedals. That answered one of my questions.

Death rolled down the window. "I have gloves on!" he yelled after her. He sighed and sank in his seat.

I watched her walk away. When she was far enough away from us, I looked at Death. "Why would she be helping us?"

"I dont think this really counts as helping, kid."

I crossed my arms. I leaned back and tried to make myself more comfortable on the mound of stuff I was sitting on. "She hasn't tried to choke or stab me, she hasn't thrown holy water in your face, and she's actually telling us stuff about the keys. This is a lot closer to helpful than the others have been."

"She might've realized how bad of an idea it is to have people like her around. Immortals, I mean, not humanitarians." Kicking his feet onto the dash, he let out a loud exhale.

"You think so?"

"No. Not in the slightest," Death said. "She's probably getting tired of living. There's only so much to do, even when you have a longer life. At some point your existence gets boring. For you guys at least. As long as I have sone mortal to entertain me, I won't get bored."

"So Faye is like a plaything to you?" I know I said Faye, but I really meant me. Would he eventually get bored of me? Destroy me and use the energy from my soul to right the balance?

"When you say it like that, it makes me sound like I'm a horrible person. Kid, I'm not supposed to get attached. I'm Death. There's a certain level of emotions mortals have that I'm not supposed to. Grief and meaningful attachments are just a part of that spectrum. It doesn't make sense for a reaper to be able to feel those things. It doesn't make sense for me to be able to feel those things."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh," he said. He straightened in his seat. "What's taking her so long?"

"Maybe she ditched us?" It was a dumb suggestion. None of the cars had left.

Death shook his head. "She might be immortal, but that wouldn't make walking through the heart of Africa without water any better of an idea. I'm going to see what's going on." He opened the door. "Stay here."

"No."

"Kid." He looked back at me with a stern expression on his face.

"I am not sitting here and waiting for a kid to come back and possibly destroy me." I pushed my door open. "You can boss me around all you want, but I'm going to follow you anyway. Might as well have me come with you in the first place."

"Don't go complaining about the heat."

" I can't feel heat remember so you're not going to hear me complaining. Come on, we don't want to lose track of her, right?" I slid out of the Jeep, grabbing Ivy's canteen on the way out.

"Remind me why I put up with you," Death said.

"Because you forced me to be your apprentice and now you're stuck with me."

"Right." Death exhaled through his teeth. He clapped his hands. "Well, let's go. This way."

I stayed hot on his heels as we walked, not anxious to end up being dragged or with the kiddie harness again. We rounded the vehicles and found Ivy chatting with a group of middle-aged people. One of the women looked up at us, her eyes a dark brown.

"Hey, Ivy, who are these guys?"

"Remember those people I said were threatening to kill everyone in the village?" Ivy looked at the group. "These are them. I've met the man before, he's infinitely more dangerous than-"

"The one wearing high heels?" A red-head with burnt peeling skin asked.

"Yes, the one wearing heels. He's stronger and faster than he looks. He can kill you with a stiletto."

Death grinned. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Aren't you going to introduce us to your friends?"

"No."

"Fair enough." He looked back at me, before pulling up his hood. "Kid, I'll take Ivy, you keep these guys busy."

"How exactly?" I asked. As Death's attention fixated on me, Ivy took the opportunity to sprint away. She moved surprisingly fast for someone with legs as short as hers.

"Know any magic tricks?"

"Why is that what you're asking me?"

Groaning, Death turned away from me. "Just keep them busy." He waved a hand. "If you can't find me later I'm probably at the bottom of a ravine. Or a well. Or anything that's hard to climb out of."

"Thanks." Sarcasm dripped from my words.

"You're welcome."

"I wasn't being serious!" It didn't matter what I said, because Death was already sprinting after Ivy, his cloak billowing behind him.

A deep chuckle drifted from the group, coming from a dark haired man with a receding hairline. "She's a cute little thing, isn't she? Wonder what-"

"Jake, stop being a pervert for two seconds!" One of the women yelled. I stopped caring what they looked like, knowing if it came down to it I wouldn have to kill them. My fingers ached, wanting to close around the wood of my scythe, the same one Death took with him. "Ivy said to detain her or kill her. Zach, follow after that guy."

The redhead nodded and ran off after Death.

"Can we not kill them?" A different girl asked. "I don't want to go back to jail."

"Who's going to see us? We're twelve miles from the nearest village. It's not like it would be hard to dump her body somewhere for animals to get to it."

"Uh, can I get a say in this?" I asked.

"Do you want to surrender?" Jake asked.

"No?"

"Then you get to die. Get her."

"Uh, who are you talking to?" The first woman asked?

"All of you!"

A couple of them rushed at me, with knives drawn. The other hung back. I ducked and dodged the strikes. Metal sliced against my skin, leaving burning pain in its wake. My hand flew to my side. My foot slammed into the side of Jake's head and he crumpled to the ground. I dropped under the next strike. I grabbed the knife, tripped the girl, and smashed the hand against her head. When that didn't knock her out, I slammed my hand against her jaw.

That's when the gunfire started.

Two bullets lodged themselves in me, one in my arm one in my shoulder. My body shook. Next thing I knew, the fire and ribbons had flared around my arms. And the next thing after that, my hands were wrapped around the neck of the woman, while the final guy laid with a gaping hole in his chest. I pried my fingers away from her neck, moments before she would've died.

I scrambled backwards with my eyes wide. The flames and ribbons disappeared as quick as they appeared. My hand flew to my shoulder.

Black blood welled between my fingers, trailing down my arm. I gritted my teeth, pain flowing in a constant torrent. It didn't ebb and flow, but only increased in intensity. I sat on the bumper of one of the vehicles, watching the heat shimmers. A dot appeared in the distance, slowly growing into Death. At some point he had taken off his cloak and tied it around his waist; the heels dangled from his left hand, broken and scuffed. Golden blood dripped from his toned arms. He looked at the slumped bodies and raised an eyebrow.

"Should I ask what happened or do you just want me to hug you now and get it over with?" he asked.

"Only one of them is dead. Did you get Ivy?"

"She backed herself into a corner, quite literally. She kept running until she reached a dead end. My arms got sliced up, but it's not the worst I've had." His eyes locked onto my shoulder and traveled down my arm. Concern flashed over his features. "You okay?"

"I'm kinda bleeding. What do you think?"

Death frowned, taking off a glove. He held it above the wound. My skin tingled but didn't heal. He sighed "Okay, on a scale of one to ten how capable are you of not taking a break? I am not taking a bullet out, much less two."

"Right now I'm fine." It was a lie, but he didn't need to know it. "I don't know what it's going to be like once the adrenaline wears off."

"Good enough for me. Ready for some reading?

"Don't tell me I'm going to an English class."

"Even better, you get to help me look through a few millennias worth of records." Even before Death finished his sentence, I looked around the area, making no attempt to be subtle. "What are you looking for?"

"A bridge," I said.

"Why?"

"Cause I'd rather die again than do that."

Chapter: 3,006

Book: 48,946

Finally got this done

How'd you like it?

And I'm gonna go eat and then sleep.

See yah