I didn't think.

A wave of panic sent my body flying toward the door. My hands felt through the darkness, until I grabbed hold of something— a chair, I think— and pushed it at him, hoping to block his path. Everything within me screamed as I heard shouting, followed by a loud bang.

-Get out, get out, get out!

I flung myself at the door, fingers frantically searching for the handle. A jolt of static electricity coursed through me when I felt the metal touch my skin, and I wrenched it open with full force. I was about to step out when I felt cold flesh dig into my hair. I screamed, as Logan's body slammed into me, pinning me to the door, simultaneously shutting it. The world got sucked into the scarlet river raging in my veins. I trashed helplessly, his cold, cold flesh pressing against me.

"No, no, wait, please, please, don't!"

He wasn't supposed to hurt me, he couldn't hurt me.

-Couldn't. Not anymore.

He wasn't a ghost, wasn't my reap, bound to my influence. He wasn't anything I was familiar with.

"Shut up!" he growled repeatedly, slamming me once into the door. Static rang in my ears, as warmth blossomed at the back of my skull.

-I'm going to die. Again.

Was he powerful enough to end a reaper?

"What is going on?!" He hissed into my face, his breath an acid bite. "Where am I, who the hell are you?!"

I gasped, the world pulsing in synch with my heartbeat. I was seeing white. Did this mean I was going to pass out? I had to stop him. There was a way to do it, I just couldn't think of...

"Answer me!" He shrieked, shaking me. A gust of molten fear sparked in my veins, and the world came back into focus.

"Logan, calm down! Please!"

"Don't tell me to calm down! What is going on?! Where am I?!"

His voice cracked, caving under the weight of the pain. His eyes were so wide and so alert, they were all I could see, dark planets of swirling blue and sickening grey.

"You're safe, you're safe! We brought you into a warehouse to help you. Please!"

"What?! Who are you?! What did you DO TO ME?!"

I whimpered when his hands wrapped around the scarf on my neck. When he started squeezing, I felt something snap in my gut again.

-I'm going to die.

"Logan... please," I gasped, heat rushing to my face.

"What did you do? What did you do? What did you DO?!"

White tufts exploded before my eyes.

"Logan... please..." I coughed, my hands running up and down his forearms frantically.

"You're... hurting me... you're..." I breathed, my hand digging under the sleeve of his hoody, wrapping around his cold wrists.

My skin was set on fire.

I gasped hungrily, when the pressure around my throat vanished. I sucked in breath after breath, my neck and chest prickling up with a thousand needles . I felt my legs give out under me, but before I could fall, I collided with something solid. I blinked, my face inches away from Logan, as he held me firmly pressed to his chest. A distant flashlight beam cast a weak light on his face.

-What? What just happened?

Logan must have wondered the same thing. He blinked at me as if he'd suddenly become aware of what he was doing. White shock shattered the grey ice in his eyes, and he quickly released me, staggering backward, his mouth hanging open.

"I'm sorry..." he murmured, shaking his head, "I'm..."

I coughed, my head pounding, as I leaned against the door for support.

"I didn't mean..." He mumbled, staring at his hands.

I felt my cheeks grow hot, and I pushed myself off the wall, scalding fury coloring the world red.

"You di..." I began, a torrent of curse words ready to fly out of my mouth. But just as quickly as they had appeared, they vanished, and I found myself unable to force them out.

When I finally did speak, all that came out of my mouth was a: "Iit's... it's okay."

I think we both stood there for a solid minute, stunned into silence.

-Are you crazy? The guy just choked you! What are you saying?

Again, I tried to scream at him. Yet my vocal chords refused to do their job. I was left  glaring at him with my mouth parted slightly open. It took me a while to realize that it was the same buzzing feeling that I'd felt when I'd touched him at the morgue that was keeping me from going off on him. The same feeling I got only moments ago when he was choking me.

-Ugh, what is going on?

It was like I couldn't bring myself to feel angry at him, whatever weird bond we had forcing me to see him only as a confused and terrified reap I had to comfort and guide. Not an out of control Frankenstein monster who killed two people, and would have killed me.

"It's okay," I repeated and rose, my throat still throbbing. The buzzing was growing more intense now, and it made me feel like my entire body was on vibrate.

Logan balked when I drew nearer, his hands shivering.

"It's okay," This stranger within me repeated and kept drawing closer to Logan, though every rational thought was screaming to stay away.

Those thoughts went silent when we touched. I took his shivering hands into mine, and a tingle of electricity surged through me, making the hairs on my skin stand up. Logan noticed it too because he stood up straighter and blinked at me, a tinge of color blossoming in his cheeks.

-What is this?

I'd never felt anything like this before, not with my reaps at least. The odd, electrifying feelings were reserved only for those extra special moments when my Ledger decided it was Death Time once more.

But Logan wasn't just any other reap. He was... different.

"Why don't you sit down?" I said and gestured toward the couch.

"I don't..." he shakily exhaled, his eyes darting toward our intertwined hands. It took me a moment to realize he didn't want to let go.

"Trust me, we'll both feel better if we sit."

After a brief moment of hesitation, he nodded and I carefully led him toward the futon, not once letting go of his hand. We sat there, our hands entwined, illuminated by the flashlight I'd picked up earlier, for what seemed like an eternity. The silence got unbearable then, and I forced myself to speak.

"Logan, what happened?" I tentatively inquired, keeping my tone even and soft.

He shook his head, his brows furrowing.

"I don't know, I... I woke up and everything was so hazy... and I couldn't figure out where I was... it made me so angry and..." he groaned and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "Where am I?"

I blinked. "At a warehouse. We brought you here, to keep you safe."

"We?" He arched his brows. "Who's we?"

Now it was my turn to be confused. "Mason and I. Don't you remember? We met at the funeral parlor. We spoke there, you told me about the cold place?"

He stared at me blankly. "What? I don't know what you're talking about."

I swallowed hard.

-Could it be... could it be that he really doesn't remember?

"Okay, okay... um, what's the last thing you remember?"

He groaned. "Ugh, getting to work? Going to the back room to put on my uniform, and... that's it. Why? What happened after that?"

"Umm..."

I told him everything, start to finish, the words gushing out of me so quickly, he was having a hard time keeping up. I started with us getting to the club, then with me chatting him up at the bar, before moving on to the gas leak and how the explosion collapsed the ceiling, crushing him beneath it. At first, his face was scrunched up in confusion, but as my story progressed, it grew grimmer and grimmer, before going completely deadpanned just as I neared the end and his actual death. I stopped then, not wanting to force too much on him.

"So..." he mumbled, his eyes glazed over. "I... I... died."

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "Yes, the ceiling collapsed, crushing you."

Though from the look of him, I never would've guessed that he was supposed to have been crushed by several tons of concrete and metal piping. The guy looked surprisingly intact—minus the ghastly incisions hidden safely under his clothes. Mr. Kowalski sure had done one hell of a job stitching him back together.

I was convinced he hadn't heard me when his gaze abruptly focused on my face. And he started doing the last thing I would expect someone to do after they'd just learned they had died.

He started laughing.

It was a slow, quiet laugh that reverberated disturbingly off the decrepit walls. He laughed for what seemed like hours, his chalk-white face contorting frightfully into grimaces that betrayed the true horror of what he was feeling. I jerked, back nausea churning in my gut.

-What is wrong with him?

Maybe this whole un-dying thing had messed him up more than I thought it had.

Just when I thought I would have to go and search for the syringe I'd dropped to tranquilize him again, he abruptly stopped, and his expression became pained.

"Am I dreaming? Is this even real?"

I sighed, a hint of pity trickling into the whirlpool of uneasiness, "Logan..."

"Ah, I know, I know. Rudy slipped me something, didn't he? I'm tripping right now, and none of this is real."

"Logan no, I'm sorry, but... you're not on drugs. This is real."

"No!" I jumped back, when he shot up without warning, his breathing speeding up. His eyes bulged, and red splotches dotted his pale cheeks. The tinge of color on his otherwise bloodless face seemed grotesque somehow.

-If he freaks out again...

I subtly gave the black room a look over, searching for the syringe. I cursed myself for not making Mason install some lights before leaving.

"This can't be real. It can't."

I nodded. "Okay, okay."

"It's not my time yet. It's not. It can't be. That's not fair."

I drew a deep breath, a hint of relief washing over me. Denial was good, denial I could deal with.

"I know. And you can't even begin to imagine how sorry I am."

I moved to grasp his hands once more, but he wrenched away, his lips pressed into a thin, hard line. I swallowed the burning hurt.

"Sorry? You're sorry? You were the one who killed me!"

I shook my head, warmth deserting my fingers. "No, no, no, that's not true."

"You said you reaped me, whatever the hell that means! What, you get off on killing random people?! You psycho! What gave you the right to take the time I had left?!"

I staggered back when he started inching closer.

"I didn't! I'm not the one who decides, none of us do! I'm just clean up."

"Then who?! Who do I have to thank for this happening to me? For taking what little I had?!"

His face collapsed and he hissed into the empty air. He turned away from me and began furiously pacing, his hands tangled into his hair. I opened my mouth, eager to let the comforting words pour into the air, yet I was shocked to find that nothing was coming out. Just cold, hard, silence.

-Maybe I have no comfort to give.

I'd probably run out the moment I found Logan alive and kicking at the morgue and realized how screwed everything was.

I tried drawing closer once more, to do the one thing that seemed to work, but Logan viciously swatted me away before I even had the chance to lay my hands on him.

"No!" he growled. "No, no, this can't be happening, this isn't real. I'm dreaming. I'm in my bed, asleep, and I'm going to wake up any second now, and all of this, all of it will disappear."

"Logan..."

"No! You're not real." He said, his eyes shimmering with tears. "You're not real."

I shut my eyes, a deep sense of dread washing over me. When I opened them, I knew what I had to do.

"Logan lift up your shirt."

He frowned, his mouth slightly agape. "What? No."

"Please? You want to know what's going on, lift up your shirt."

He glared at me, his lower lip quivering before he finally nodded and grabbed the hem of the oversized hoody Mason and I had dressed him in. He pulled it up tentatively, revealing the tail of the blackened Y incision carved into his flesh. I expected him to scream in horror and fall all over himself, yet to my surprise, all he did was stare. When his fingers hovered over the stitched up gash uncertainly, it dawned on me that he probably thought he was imagining it. His fingers shook when he touched the gash, gingerly tracing it up his abdomen, all the way to his chest where it branched off. He stopped, just short of his sternum, his entire body going still.

Then, he screamed.

"What the fuck?!" he roared, digging his nails into the stitches and jerking away with a hiss of pain.

He screamed and pushed the shirt down, his face twisting in agony.

I rushed to him, just in time to catch him into my arms, as he began falling.

"It's okay, it's okay!" I whispered into his hair, as he screamed.

He wailed inconsolably, thrashing in my arms for what seemed like hours. He wiped at the front of his hoodie with his palms, as if somehow trying to erase the gash, trying to make it disappear, from both his mind and body. There was so much pain vibrating from his body, it made me physically ill.

-Your fault, all your fault.

I wanted to scream with him, tell him how sorry I was, how none of this was supposed to happen. But I feared that if I opened my mouth, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from coming completely undone.

Instead, I clutched him tighter, holding back tears, until the strength finally left him and he collapsed in my arms, sobbing.

"It's okay, it's okay..." I kept on repeating until his sobs died down, and he buried his face into my chest.

-Your fault...

"It's gonna be okay..." I repeated again, as his arms wrapped around my waist and he pulled me in a crushing hug. I swallowed another gulp of air, trying to resist the burning in my eyes.

-Your fault...

"It's going to be okay," I breathed, crumpling a fistful of his hoodie in my hand.

Trouble was, I didn't think it was going to be okay. Not for him, or for me.