Authors: Rachel Vincent
18
“WHY CAN’T
EVERYONE
stay at our house?” Sophie’s voice greeted me from the
direction of the living room the moment Tod, Nash, and I appeared in my empty
bedroom. “We have more space and better accommodations, and squinting at this
tiny television is giving me a migraine.”
“You’re not going to be watching TV, you’re going to be
sleeping,” my uncle Brendon said, and I realized the party had grown since I’d
left.
“Or you could be unconscious,” Sabine said. “I could make that
happen.”
“What the hell?” I muttered on my way down the hall, with Tod
and Nash right behind me.
“Kaylee…” My dad pulled me into a hug as soon as I stepped into
the living room. “Are you okay?”
“No.” That question was starting to sound pointless. Would any
of us ever be okay again? “What’s going on?”
“We’re circling the wagons a little more thoroughly. If Avari
can get to Alec, he can get to anyone else.”
“So we’re just going to camp out in Kaylee’s living room
until…? Until what?” Sophie demanded, glaring at the room in general from the
center cushion of the couch. “Hellions are immortal, remember? He’s not going to
be done screwing with us until we’re all dead. Permanently,” she added with a
contemptuous glance at me and Tod.
“This is just until we figure out how to keep hellions from
crossing over,” my uncle said from the kitchen doorway. “And you’re not all
going to stay here. The guys will stay at Nash’s. Harmony already okayed
it.”
The barrage of objections was loud and unanimous.
“What are we, twelve?” Sabine scowled and crossed her arms over
her chest. “This isn’t a junior-high dance, and frankly, dividing us down the
gender line reeks of sexism. And if that isn’t enough to change your minds, I’ll
be forced to point out that Nash is of age, and I have my legal guardian’s
permission to stay at his house.”
“But you don’t have Harmony’s,” my dad said, and Sabine’s
glower seemed to dim the whole room.
“I think we should all stay together,” Sophie said, glancing
less than subtly at Luca, who heartily agreed with her. “If our strength is in
numbers, why would we divide?”
“To keep us from grouping into pairs, right?” Sabine said,
glancing from my father to my uncle, then back. “But let me point out that if
you separate the guys from the girls, you’ll be awake all night trying to make
sure no one sneaks in or out. Whereas if you let us all stay here, we have no
reason to go anywhere else. And it’s not like anything’s going to happen with us
all stuck in one room, anyway,” she pointed out. And in the end, it was Sabine’s
unprecedented show of logic that won the case.
My dad glanced at Sophie’s dad, who shrugged. Then my father
sighed. “Fine. But this is a strategic maneuver, not a slumber party. Everyone
will be fully dressed in modest nightclothes. And there will be no ingesting
anything that didn’t come from my kitchen, no sharing sleeping bags, and no
complaining when at least seven of us have to share the shower in the morning.
Speaking of which, I call the first shower.”
No one argued.
Luca and Sophie followed her dad back to their house to grab
extra air mattresses and sleeping bags, then came back without him. Having never
died or been to the Netherworld, Uncle Brendon didn’t qualify for hellion
possession and he had to be at work at eight in the morning. Sophie was happy to
leave him behind.
I was happy that staring at Luca distracted her from
complaining about my small house, small TV, and small bathtub.
While they were gone, Tod went to check in at the hospital—he’d
missed the last third of another of Mareth’s shifts to help me with Alec—and Em
closed my bedroom door and plopped onto the bed next to me. “Is it true about
Alec?” she asked, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Avari got to him?”
I nodded. That much was true.
“How? What about Falkor?”
“Avari killed him. I don’t have the details. All I know is that
hellions being able to cross over changes everything. No one’s safe.” And the
people I knew and loved were practically walking around with targets on their
backs.
“I have a really bad feeling, Kay. Like I should be looking
over my shoulder. But that’s pointless, because suddenly evil looks like our
friends. How can we fight it if we don’t even know it’s there?” But I had no
answer for her. She picked at a thread on my comforter for several seconds, then
finally looked up. “Is it going to be like this forever? I mean, now that they
know how to cross over, what’s to stop them from doing it any time they
want?”
“Us, Em.
We’re
what’s going to stop
them. I don’t know how yet, short of reclaiming every resurrected soul they
have. That may be what this comes down to, and if so, this will be an ongoing
battle. But it’s not
your
battle. I’ll do everything
I can to keep you out of it.” She’d suffered enough, just because she was my
friend.
“It
is
my battle.” She blinked, and
the first two tears rolled down her cheeks. “Avari made it my battle when he
possessed me, and poisoned my boyfriend.” Doug had died of a frost overdose back
in December, just days after Scott was arrested and hospitalized. “He made it my
battle when he killed my friend.” She sniffled, and I had to brush away more
tears of my own. “Alec. Do you think…?” She blinked again and wiped mascara from
beneath her eyes with both hands. “Do you think he suffered?”
“I think he was caught by surprise, and it was over quickly. I
think that’s the only way it could go down.” His eyes had only focused on me for
a second. And as grateful as I was that Alec didn’t suffer for long, I hated it
that the last thing he saw and knew—his very last thought—was that he’d been
murdered by a friend.
* * *
By midnight, Sabine, Nash, Emma, Luca, and Sophie were
all sprawled out in my living room, taking up every bit of available floor space
as well as the couch and my dad’s recliner. I stood in the hall for a minute,
listening to them whisper to one another like they were camping out under the
stars. Their whispers were sad, and angry, and scared, but those were things
they shared, even in the worst of times—and this night definitely qualified. But
I couldn’t share those with them. Even if I were to clear a place for myself on
the floor next to Em, I wouldn’t be one of them. Not anymore. Not knowing what
I’d done.
“You okay?” Tod asked, and I looked up to find him leaning
against the wall next to me, his light features shadowed in the dark
hallway.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to be okay again,” I said, and
when his arms wrapped around me, I laid my chin on his shoulder and whispered
into his ear. “I’m not like them anymore.”
“No, you’re not,” he said, rubbing my back with one hand. “But
you can still be
with
them.”
“How? How am I supposed to pretend that prom, and graduation,
and college are still the most important things in the world when I can’t close
my eyes without seeing Alec on the floor in a pool of his own blood?”
“You aren’t. You’re not supposed to pretend with anyone in
there, and you’re not supposed to pretend with me. I know it doesn’t feel like
it right now, but you’re the luckiest dead person I’ve ever met. You have so
many people who love you and know what you’re going through.”
“They don’t know. How could they?”
“They may not understand everything you’re feeling, but they
know about your job and your afterlife, and they want to be there for you. Which
means you can be yourself with them, whether being yourself means sitting
through classes you hate, or ranting over the injustice of the afterlife in
general. The point is that you have people to talk to.”
He was right. “What do you have?”
“I have you. That’s all I need.” He tugged gently on my arm and
I let him pull me into my bedroom, where we stretched out side by side on the
bed. Fully clothed, on top of the covers, to keep my father from having a
meltdown.
“Thank you for what you did for me today.”
Tod shrugged. “What’s a little crime-scene tampering between
immortal lovers?”
“Not that. I’m still not sure that protecting me is a valid
reason to cover up a crime—”
“We’ll agree to disagree on that… .”
“—but it means the world to me that you were willing to go to
such lengths to protect me. But I’m talking about your room. The bath. A place
to crash. Clean clothes. You even picked out my underwear—”
“
Truly
my pleasure.” He dared a
naughty grin.
“—and what you said…” I didn’t have the words to tell him how
grateful I was. So I kissed him. It was a sad kiss, more comfort than heat, but
there was strength in it. There was strength in
him,
and when I was with him, I felt like I was stronger, too. Like I might actually
get through this.
“Thank you. I didn’t think I’d ever fall asleep again, but
evidently I needed that nap.”
“That was less sleep than shock-induced shutdown. Your head
needed time to catch up with your heart, and you needed someplace private to let
that happen. I’ve been there.”
“Kaylee?” my dad said, and I glanced up to see him standing in
the doorway, his gaze aimed at us, but unfocused. “It worries me when I can see
body-shaped dents on your bed, but can’t see the bodies making them.”
“Sorry.” I sat up, then concentrated on making myself corporeal
as Tod sat up next to me. “Fully clothed. As per orders.”
“Thanks for doing your part to keep your father sane.” He came
in and sank into my desk chair. “I think you need some more furniture. More
places to sit that aren’t the bed.” He was kidding—mostly—but when I couldn’t
make myself smile or remind him that I was as grown as I was going to get, his
focus narrowed on me in concern. “Are you okay? About Alec?”
“No,” I said, and fresh tears filled my eyes as Tod rubbed my
back. “Can you close the door, Dad? I need to tell you something.” I could make
sure that only he and Tod heard me, but my confession still wouldn’t feel
private with the door standing wide open.
My dad closed the door, then sank onto the bed next to me, and
his eyes swirled with concern. “What’s wrong, Kaylee?”
“I killed him.” The words burst from my mouth on the front edge
of a sob, like they’d been waiting there all along. The room lost focus beneath
my tears and as I stared at my hands in my lap, sniffling, trying to get myself
under control, drops trailed down my cheeks to fall on my jeans.
My dad pulled me into a hug, and more of my tears soaked into
his shirt. “No, Kaylee, you freed his soul and stopped Avari from wearing him
like a costume.” He ran one hand over my hair, smoothing it against the back of
my shirt. “You did your job, and I know it was hard, but if Alec were here, he’d
thank you.”
“No.” I sniffled and blinked tears from my eyes, but more came
to replace them. “Avari wasn’t wearing his soul, he was wearing Alec’s
skin.
” My words came out in staccato bursts,
punctuated by half-choked sobs. “Alec was just possessed, and I killed him.”
“She didn’t know,” Tod said as my father reached for the box of
tissues on my nightstand without letting go of me. “Neither of us did. He
manipulated her. It wasn’t her fault.”
I shook my head, drowning in guilt. Choking on grief. “I should
have known.” My fist clenched around a handful of my father’s shirt, and I
couldn’t let it go. “He was my friend. I should have been able to tell the
difference between my friend and a demon.”
“No, Kaylee, don’t do this to yourself.” My dad pulled away
from me so he could see my face, and when I tried to wipe my cheeks with my bare
fingers, he pressed a tissue into my hand. “This is what he wants.” My father’s
whole face was twisted with pain, for me. For Alec. For all of us caught up in
Avari’s carnival of lies and torment. “He wants you to suffer.”
“
I
want me to suffer.” I blotted my
face with the tissue, then wadded it into a ball I couldn’t stop squeezing. “I
should have known better, Dad. With hellions, the truth hides in what they
don’t
say.” Since they couldn’t outright lie, they’d
become masters of implication and manipulation. “He never actually said Alec was
dead.” I’d gone over everything Avari had said a dozen times since I’d woken up
in Tod’s bed. “I should have known better.”
“Kaylee, Avari has spent hundreds—maybe
thousands
—of years perfecting the art of misdirection. And he had
more than a quarter of a century to learn how to imitate Alec in particular.” My
dad ducked to catch my gaze. “There’s no way you could have known. There’s no
way
anyone
could have known.”
But that didn’t help. As badly as I wanted to let them comfort
me, their words held no weight. I’d killed him. I should have known better. The
guilt was mine to bear, and neither of them had the power to absolve me of
that.
“Kaylee.” Tod looked blurry through my tears, and I wanted to
touch him, but that wouldn’t be fair. Alec would never touch anyone again, and
that was my fault, so I didn’t deserve comfort. “Alec wouldn’t blame you for
this, so you have no right to blame yourself. Give credit where it’s due. Avari
did this. He used you and your dagger just like he used Alec’s body. I
understand why you feel guilty, and I know that’s going to be hard to overcome.
But what you should feel is
anger.
This wasn’t a
tragic accident. It was a crime, committed not by you, but by Avari. I don’t
know about you, but I’m ready to make him pay for that.”
I nodded. I was ready. “How? How do you hurt a hellion?” It was
the age-old question, without answer for who knew how many thousands of
years.
“Let’s start by starving him,” Tod said. “He feeds from pain,
and yours is his favorite flavor. So cut him off. Turn your pain into anger, and
he can’t feed from it. You have a responsibility to make sure that Avari’s not
profiting from his crime.” He shrugged and summoned a small, crooked smile.
“Anger’s more productive, anyway.”