Reaper's Pet

Chapter 16

Starring at the all too familiar green door to the apartment she had lived in most of her life, Willow debated with herself if she should walk in. Missing her family, wanting to see them, but still afraid of the pain she would have to go through in leaving them, knowing that in only in a few hours her mom would get the call about the accident, made her question her decision.

The whole day yesterday after what happened with Fahima walking in was spent on trying to keep herself occupied with being in the garden with the others playing games. Ending with her getting her ass beat by Tuma and Jack in poker and losing her lair of mint chocolate. Today she has just stared at her bedrooms ceiling until Jack gently rubbed her shoulder letting her know it was time.

"Go inside Willow" Jack said softly as he looked at her from her side.

"I...I don't know if I should," she said hesitantly her hands trembling until he slowly reached down and took her right hand. The spell the door had over her was broken and she looked at him, seeing the understanding in his eyes as he waited for her decision. "What would you do?"

"I would already be in there, but this isn't my choice, this is yours." he mumbled his eyes shifting from her to the door. "Reapers aren't recommended...allowed to seek out our family, but I done it many times throughout the years. Especially with my little sister who now has a family of her own." Willow looked at him surprised, as this was the first time, he even mentioned siblings or his family for that matter.

Her palms grew sweaty, and he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze as she reached out to open the door, only for her hand to pass right through it. Surprised, she pulled it back and stared at it as if it were some foreign object, her gaze shifting from the hand to the door.

"Another reaper thing?" She mumbled, seeing Jack nod out of the corner of her eye. Taking a deep breath, she walked through the door right into the small well-known kitchen with the round dining table in the middle with the three chairs. One with a leg shorter than the others from when Peter broke it. Everything was as when she had left it, the health magazines on the small living room table her mom liked to read, to Peter's Spider-Man blanket just thrown over the couch as always.

But nobody seemed to be home.

Confused she looked around, letting go of Jacks hand while doing so.

"They're at the grocery store, thought you might like some time to pack some stuff before they came back," he put his hands in his black jeans pocket, leaning back on his feet while looking around. Gulping, she looked down the hallway filled with pictures from her childhood, before finally getting the guts to walk to her bedroom.

Willow cautiously pushed open the door to her room, expecting everything to look different. But the room seemed frozen in time, as if she had never left. For some weird reason she had expected things to have changed just as much as her life had, but nothing had.

The walls were still adorned with posters she had cut out of magazines of her favorite movies, and a collection of postcards from places she dreamed of visiting. A corkboard near her desk displayed a chaotic collage of memories, like concert tickets from when Iris mom had taken them to see the lord of the rings concert as her and Iris always at least once a year held a slumber party watching the movies, or the pictures with her friends and a faded drawing from her little brother of them both. The shelves that lined the wall was covered with souvenirs from the flew places they had been and, on her desk, her new running shoes sat in their box, untouched.

Nothing even seemed out of place, a panda from the zoo sat on her bed between the other teddy bears, looking slightly newer than the one in the mansion making her wonder if they went out and bought it to make it look like nothing was missing.