Page 13 of You'll Be the Death of Me

He looked down with a soft smile and lifted her hand to kiss it. “I was just waiting for you to get home. I’m exhausted.”

The rejection stung for half a second. She’d had a vision of being knocked into their headboard all night in celebration, but surely, she’d be passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow anyway.

She gave him a soft, sleepy smile in return. “Good night, then.” She pecked his lips and turned for the stairs.

“I’ll be up soon,” he said.

“Mm-hmm.”

It took all her remaining energy to shower, brush her teeth, and pull on her pajamas. She sunk into bed with the full satisfaction of having kicked another day’s ass.

Chapter 4

When Dell woke the next morning, something felt... off. She initially wondered if it had to do with the celebratory champagne from the night before but decided it didn’t because the telltale signs of hangover—headache, dry mouth, deeply questioning her life choices—were missing. The strange sensation felt more like an emptiness than anything else. A curious absence of all normal bodily reminders she was mortal upon waking: her bladder needing to be emptied; her teeth needing to be brushed; her neck, back, and elbows needing a good pop from lying motionless all night.

When she rolled over to look at Tommy and perhaps ask him to check her for a fever, a very peculiar thing happened.

A chill shot through her like she’d walked into the freezer at Pergo. She reached for Tommy’s arm, and her hand passed straight through it.

She sat up with a start as Tommy shivered. Goose bumps erupted on his skin where she’d tried to touch him. He blindly rubbed it with his other hand as he slowly came into consciousness.

“Dell?” he sleepily said. “Why is it so cold in here?” Never one to wake easily, he reached for the sheet and pulled it up over his shoulder, hunkering down.

Dell stared at her own hand in confusion. It lookedlike her hand, there was nothing out of place, but the whole thing tingled as if crawling with ants. She decided she’d slept on it wrong and cut off her circulation. She shook it several times to bring the feeling back and reached for Tommy again.

Once more, she passed right through him.

“Brrr,” he mumbled with another shudder. He crunched into a tighter ball under the blankets. “Did you leave a window open or something?”

Dell glanced across the room to see their curtains hanging limp and perfectly pressed. The temperature hovering over their bed was colder than anything even San Francisco could muster on its best day; the window was not open. Something else was going on.

Dell was too confused to respond.

Since he was used to her waking before him every day and normally greeting him with a swat on the butt, when she didn’t say anything, Tommy sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Dell? Are you awake?”

“Yes,” she said, but Tommy didn’t seem to hear her.

It wasn’t until he turned to her side of the bed that Dell realized something was very,verywrong.

“Dell?” he repeated, and reached for the immobile body—Dell’sbody—still lying with her head on the pillow.

Dell gasped and jerked back.

It was her. Asleep? But how could that be if she was sitting up watching her fiancé try to shake her awake?

“Dell? Are you okay?” Tommy’s voice picked up an edge of worry. He rose on his knees and leaned over her. “Dell?”

“Tommy, I’m fine. I’m right here,” she said. She reached for him again, and her hand passed through his bare shoulder. His skin broke out in goose bumps, and he sucked in a breath.

“Dell, wake up!” he said with more force. When he gripped her sleeping body’s shoulders and shook her, Dell thought she was having the strangest dream of her life.

“Dell!” he shouted. “Come on, baby. Wake up!” He squeezed her face, pushing out her lips, which were an interesting shade of grayish blue, Dell realized. “No, no, no! Dell! What is happening?”

She was wondering the same thing. She climbed off the bed to stand beside it—beside her body, apparently—and tried to reassure him everything was fine. “Tommy! I’m right here.”

He leaned his ear against her lips. “Fuck,” he spat when he sat up. In a panic, he yanked on his hair and scooted to his side of the bed. He threw back the sheets and reached for his phone off the nightstand, Dell assumed to call 911.

While he paced and waited for someone to answer, she leaned in to look at her body lying in the bed. Her eyes were gently closed and her lips shut. She thought she was seeing the sheen of her night cream on her skin but realized the waxy pallor could have been the result of something else. At the same moment she noted her chest was not rising and falling with breath beneath her ivory nightgown, someone answered Tommy’s call.