“Yep,” I said, smiling. Through the house, I heard Josh’s truck rev. My thoughts were still on him as I flopped onto my bed. He really was a nice guy.

Nakita shut the door behind her. “Do you think I should paint my nails?”

The shift of topics pulled my attention from the ceiling, and I propped myself up on an elbow. “You saw my dad look at them?” I asked, and she nodded, her beautiful face holding an almost comical amount of worry. “If you want.”

“I want to,” she said, looking relieved now. “And my toes.”

“I like them the way they are,” I said, rolling onto my stomach to reach the bedside table. Pulling it open, I rummaged until I found a bright red that went with her purse, now sitting on my dresser beside our textbooks. Josh had brought them over, too. Man, I really owed him.

“Good?” I asked as I held it up to her.

Nakita took it, her expression empty. “Do you have a paler color?”

I suddenly realized she was trying to look normal—to fit in—and I rolled back to look again. “I’ve got pink,” I said, and Nakita visibly relaxed.

“Thank you.”

She was all smiles again. Thinking that anyone else would get labeled with bipolar disorder, I shoved the drawer shut and dug the photography class–supplies list out of my pocket, going over the crumpled paper and mentally comparing it to what I had in my closet. “Most of this I’ve got,” I said, rolling over and finding my feet. “Do you want my red camera or the black one?”

“Black. No, red,” she said immediately, and then followed it with, “Which one would you pick?”

I opened my closet. Hands on my hips, I looked for the box I’d stashed them in. Josh said I took great pictures. My dad had said the same thing, but hearing it come from Josh so casually left me feeling warm—when warmth was something I hadn’t felt in months.

“There it is,” I said softly, leaning in past my skirts, tops, and jeans to reach the box in the back. It was from my mother’s grocery store, and I felt a twinge of homesickness as I set it on my desk. Call Mom. Don’t forget.

The unmistakable scent of electronics sifted out when I opened it up, tickling memories. “The red one is newer, but the black one has more versatility,” I said, and when she blinked vacantly at me, I handed her the black one. “This one takes better pictures. It doesn’t focus automatically, and you can choose what you focus on. Sometimes shooting something fuzzy makes it easier to see what you’re trying to show.”

Okay, it didn’t make much sense, but she took the old camera, carefully unzipping her purse and setting it inside. I swore I saw her smile as the up-to-now-useless bag suddenly had a purpose. It was the only thing in there.

“You can keep the nail polish, too,” I said, thinking that a purse should really have more than one thing in it.

“Thank you,” she said seriously as she set the bag beside her books and kicked off her sandals like a normal person. Normal, yes, but the wedges landed neatly under my wide window as if having been placed there. “I’ll never be as good as you,” she said wistfully.

I glanced at her perfect feet, then looked away. Jeez, no wonder the guys fell over themselves to talk to her. Even her feet were beautiful. “Being as ‘good’ as someone else isn’t the goal,” I said, dropping back on the bed to stare at my ceiling. I’d call my mom later. “Finding a way to show how something makes you feel is. There’s no wrong way to take a picture. If it makes you feel something, then you’ve done it right.”

The bed moved as she sat down on the end, and I shifted my weight. “Do you think your dad will like them?” she asked. “My pictures, I mean.”

Nakita was so confident of herself when she was on a scythe, it was odd to see her so unsure. “I know he will.” A smile curved up the corners of my mouth as I imagined her showing them to him. My dad loved my photography. He had an entire wall in the formal dining room devoted to my stuff, with lights shining on his favorites and everything. He was the one who told me about capturing how something makes you feel, and I think he tried to figure out what was going on in my head by what was coming out of my printer.

The biting smell of polish was strong. This waiting-around stuff was aggravating, but we couldn’t leave until my dad was in bed. My gaze drifted, finding the picture of Wendy and my ex-boyfriend, Ted, on my mirror. They looked happy together on the beach at sunset. I rolled over so I could see my old friends upright. I’d let go of the idea of Ted in my life almost as soon as I’d moved up here. Guys were like puppies sometimes—loyal but easily distracted—and I had known that as soon as I was gone, he’d find someone else to follow around. That it had been my best friend, Wendy, wasn’t a surprise. Squinting, I wondered if I could see a haze of blue around Wendy, mixing with a shadow of yellow about Ted. Their auras? My thoughts flitted back to Josh and that first kiss. And I smiled.

“Do you think Barnabas is doing okay?” I asked Nakita.

“I don’t know. I can’t reach him,” she said, sounding almost catty.

Jeez, what is with her tonight? I turned, seeing her bent at a sharp angle to put her face near her toes. Her hair draped to one side, framing her strong cheekbones and accentuating her perfect complexion. Her amulet gently swayed as she covered her black nails in pink, hiding what she was. Frankly, she looked like a model. Me, I was too flat chested, and since I was now dead, I was stuck waiting for the boob fairy for the rest of my existence. Isn’t that nice…?

Nakita knew I couldn’t contact Barnabas, but that didn’t mean I’d have to waste the next couple of hours. My body was somewhere between the now and the next, according to the seraph who had witnessed me taking on the role of the dark timekeeper. If I could find it, then I could go back to really living and give up being the boss of a system I didn’t agree with. I could forget all about timekeepers, amulets, reapers, and black wings. I could be myself again. Even if it meant forgetting all of this.

Glancing at Nakita, I wondered if that was something I still wanted to do.

Of course it is, I told myself, then stared up at the ceiling, wondering how one found the space between the now and the next.

Silence filled my soul, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t know where to even look. But wherever it was, I probably had to find it using my head, not my eyes. Taking three slow breaths, I held the last one, letting it out slowly until my lungs were empty. It was the first step in Barnabas’s “center yourself” exercise.

“What are you doing?” Nakita asked, startling me even though her voice had been soft.

I took a breath. “Besides waiting for my dad to go to sleep? Seeing if I can find the now and the next.” It was either that or call my mom.

I heard her shift position and start on the other foot. “Good luck with that.”

My eyebrows rose. The modern phrase had sounded odd coming from her. She was mad. “You’re fitting in great, Nakita,” I said as I opened my eyes and sat cross-legged on my bed. “You sounded almost like a real teenager there.”

“You don’t want to be a timekeeper,” she accused, blue eyes flashing, then amended it, saying sullenly, “You don’t want to be the dark timekeeper. I think if you had the chance, you’d put a guardian angel on Shoe.”

Is that what’s bothering her? “I am not going to put a guardian angel on Shoe,” I said. “A guardian angel won’t accomplish anything.” I snatched up the red nail polish and rubbed the bottle between my palms to mix it without putting air into it.

Nakita watched me mix the polish, and I could almost see her file the information away. Eyes coming up, she pressed her lips together and glared. “You don’t believe in fate. Soon as you don’t need that amulet to stay alive, you’ll give it back. And then you’ll forget everything. I was there. I heard you tell the seraph.”