“Get up.” Larissa stalked over to me. Her black pencil skirt exaggerated all her curves as she bent down, and slammed her perfectly manicured hand on the neatly stacked folders on my desk. Her neon green eyes laser-focused on my computer screen. “I need you to finish your fieldwork, and please don’t make me write another incomplete.”

I pushed myself away from the desk, digging my nails into the side arms of the chair, and smiled through clenched teeth. “I did my fieldwork last month.”

Larissa sighed and took her hand off my desk, placing it on my shoulder with a firm grip. “Get out of the office, Estelle. I won’t ask you twice.”

“Can I at least ask Caius to come—”

“He’s busy working on cases you didn’t finish last time,” Larissa shot back.

I gulped. All right. Hint taken.

A few souls and I would be cleared for another month. No biggie. I was a boss-ass bitch who’s been reaping for a little over a hundred years. I got this.

“Okay, I’ll head out now.” I straightened my posture and gave Larissa a reassuring thumbs up and a sloppy grin, but her intense stare didn’t waver as she relaxed her hold on my shoulder.

Okaaay, she's not having any of my shit today.

I cleared my throat, sat up, and wobbled to the reaper station on the 20th floor despite trying to hype myself up for the thousandths time. My legs yearned to give out when Val came into focus, sitting behind a glass desk.

The room was anything but inviting. Starch white walls and one half-dead fern in the corner with fluorescent lights and no windows. It was like walking into a coroner's office. Sterile, empty, and everything that occupied it—dead. Perfect decor for a reaper’s headquarters.

I swallowed the lump forming in the back of my throat and clutched onto the hem of my blouse. “So, how many for me this time?” I asked, peeking at Val’s computer screen, attempting to read the small print, but I couldn't read a damn thing.

I tightened my grip on my blouse. The prolonged silence spiked my nerves alongside each click of her long fingernails against the keyboard. Her honey-brown eyes were barely visible from the glare reflecting off her glasses.

Val didn’t lift her gaze and said in a disinterested tone, “A hundred and ninety-nine. It’s a short day for you. Yay.”

Val’s nails continued to tap against the keyboard until a loud ding convulsed around us. My wrist watch zapped simultaneously with her final click, and my anxiety intensified as the shockwave shattered my equilibrium.

I clenched my side, suppressing the bile from rolling up my throat.

Short day, my ass. She had to be fucking with me. That will take me hours if not a whole day. Ugh, why couldn’t they leave the soul-reaping to the ones who were actually good at it?

It always made me want to hurl.