When I opened my eyes again, all I could see was stars. Galaxies and galaxies of stars all around me.

“Gramps?” I looked around. The only person there was that beautiful woman from the kitchen. Her skin seemed to glow against the blackness of the sky surrounding us. I took a step toward her, but I didn’t get any closer. “Where’s my grandpa? Is he all right?”

She didn’t answer me. “You’ll be Hank O’Grady, twenty-nine years of age, career criminal…”

“Hang on, that’s not my name. My name’s Hake, Grady Hake, and I’m sixteen, not twenty-nine. And my grandpa’s name is Carl Hake. Is he all right?”

“I wasn’t assigned to a Carl Hake.” She shook her head, that mass of white hair sliding over her shoulders. “I was sent for Hank O’Grady, human, multiple counts of murder and theft. You.”

“But that’s not me,” I said. “I’m Hake, not Hank. And I’ve never committed any crimes. I mean, I speed sometimes, but that’s not even close to murder.”

A file appeared in her pale hand. She flipped it open and started scanning the pages inside.

“Is that about the guy you were looking for?” I reached for the file, but apparently I was farther away than it looked, because I couldn’t stretch far enough to touch it. “There’s got to be a picture or something in there that’ll prove I’m not him. I’ve never even drank or smoked pot. The worst I’ve ever done is mouth off to somebody. And they usually deserved it. I know that’s not an excuse, but…”

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I saw the exact moment she found the picture. Her silvery eyes flew open wide, and she looked from the file to me and back.

I relaxed. This was going to be okay. Now that the mistake was established, we could fix it.

A slice of light appeared to my left, like a door opening, and a guy with the same pale glowing skin and white hair stuck his head in.

“Everything all right in there, Reaper Eleven?”

“Of course,” she said, slapping the file closed. “Just another routine reap.”

“Wait, what about—” I started.

The guy nodded at her. “Carry on.”

Then the door closed.

I turned back to her. “Why didn’t you tell him about the mistake?”

“Reapers never take the wrong soul,” she said. “We’re very careful.”

“Obviously not.”

“You listen to me, you little—” She stopped for a second and smoothed out her face into something serene and beautiful again. “You are dead. You’ve been reaped from your body on Terra—”

“But I shouldn’t be dead,” I insisted. “Where’s God? He’s your boss, right? He can fix this.”

She blinked. “He’s…out of the office.”

“When will He be back?” I asked. “I’ll wait.”

Her eyes were narrow shards of mirror in her face.

“You are dead,” she said, enunciating each syllable. “You can’t go back to where you came from.”

“But my grandpa—” I shook my head viciously. “I’m not dead. You screwed up. I’m not this Hank O’Grady guy. That was probably the tweaker with the knife who you were supposed to take. Grady Hake is my name. I’m a high school sophomore, not a criminal. You made a mistake.”

Her full white lips pressed into a thin line, and her nostrils flared.

“Reapers,” she growled, “do not. Make. Mistakes.”

Then with a flick of her wrist, she threw me through the void of stars into nothingness.