I’m Madison Avery, dark timekeeper in charge of heaven’s hit squad . . . and fighting it all the way. Funny how timekeeper never popped up on my “careers good for you” when I did the test at school. The seraphs say I was born to the position, and when the choice was take the job or die? Well . . . I took the job.

“Fate,” the seraphs would say. “Bad choice” if you ask me. Even now I don’t believe in fate, and so I’m stuck working with a confused dark reaper who is trying to understand, and a light reaper twice fallen from heaven who thinks my ideas are a lost cause. Instead of just following orders sent down from above, I want to do things my own way, which involves trying to convince people to change. My only hope is to locate my real body so I can give the amulet back and forget the entire thing happened, because convincing heaven that I can save lost souls is looking impossible. It’d be a lot easier if my own people weren’t working against me.

The hot sun seemed to go right through me, reflecting off the aluminum bleachers to warm me from my feet up as I stood beside Nakita and cheered Josh on. He was running the two-mile in an invitational, and they were doing the last bit right on the track. The front three runners had begun to pick up the pace for the last hundred yards. Josh was ahead, but the guy behind him had saved some push for the last bit, too.

“Go, Josh! Run! Run!” Nakita yelled, and surprised, I lowered my camera to look at her. The dark reaper didn’t especially like Josh—she’d almost killed him once—and her excitement was unusual. Her pale face was flushed, and her eyes, usually a faded blue, were bright as she leaned forward and grasped the chain-link fence between us and the track. She was wearing a pink top with matching pink nail polish to hide her naturally black nails. Open-toed sandals and capris helped her blend in, and she looked nothing like one might imagine a dark reaper, capable of “smiting” lost souls.