My Soul to Keep (12 page)

“No!” My father’s palm slapped the table and it shook beneath my arm. “Stay away from him, Kaylee. Harmony, Brendon, and I will take care of this. I don’t want you anywhere near that kid. Ever.”

I nodded slowly, unsure what else to do. My dad was starting to sound paranoid. I had to go to school, and unless he’d miraculously graduated in the past few hours, so did Doug.

Harmony knelt on the kitchen floor in front of the cracked egg with a dish rag in one hand, but her attention was focused on me. “How bad off are they? Scott and Doug.”

“They’re both seeing things, but it’s obviously affecting Scott a lot worse than Doug,” I said, thinking about Nash’s conjecture that Doug had a little Netherworld blood somewhere in his genealogy.

“Scott totally lost it today at school,” Nash added, and I glanced at him in surprise; he’d hardly spoken since we’d left the hospital. “He was seeing things, and hearing things, and he was literally scared of his own shadow.”

“Assuming it really is his shadow…” I said. Nash and I hadn’t discussed my theory that Scott wasn’t really hallucinating, but I figured if anyone would know for sure about the side effects of Demon’s Breath, it would be Harmony.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

But Nash answered before I could. “Kaylee got creeped out by Scott’s shadow fixation. He was talking to them, and listening to them, and the whole thing was pretty convincing. Plus, there was the knife.” He shrugged and shot me a concerned, almost condescending look of sympathy. “It’s no wonder she started to believe him. She was terrified. I was scared, too.”

I bristled, glaring at him. “You think I’m imagining this? I was
not
creeped out!” Though I wasn’t going to deny being afraid of the knife.

“Kay…” Nash stood and made his way into the kitchen, his voice flowing over me like warm silk. “He was delusional, and you were scared, and bleeding, and in shock. Anyone would have been freaked out, but try not to read too much into anything Scott said or did. He’s not playing with a full deck anymore.”

I shook my head so hard my brain felt like it was bouncing in my skull, but I couldn’t shake the seductive feel of his voice in my mind. The overwhelming urge to nod my head, close my mouth, and let the whole thing play out without me.

I fought it, but struggling was like trying to swim in a huge vat of warm honey, when it would have been so much easier simply to sink into the sweetness. “Stop Influencing me,” I whispered, when what I really wanted to do was shout.

“Nash!” Harmony snapped, and his warm mental presence dissipated like fog in bright sunlight.

Furious now, I pushed my chair away from the table, twisting my injured arm in the process. I gasped over the fresh throb and clutched my arm to my chest, but the pain helped clear my head and I rounded on him, fighting angry tears and the sharp sting of betrayal. “I’m not some hysterical kid, and
I am not crazy!
” Even the implication that my logic had been compromised triggered my very worst fears.

And Nash damn well knew that.

“Kay, no one’s saying you’re crazy.” My father stood, too, and when he reached out for me, I let him pull me close. “You’ve had a traumatic day, and he was just trying to calm you down, though admittedly he’s going about it the wrong way.” He shot a pointed scowl at Nash, who had the decency to look horrified by what he’d done. So why the hell had he done it?

“I’m sorry, Kaylee.” Nash let me see the swirl of regret in his eyes. But I couldn’t forgive him. Not for this. Not yet.

“Stay out of my head, Nash.” I stepped back when he reached for me, and he looked like I’d punched him in the gut. Some small part of me felt bad about that, but the rest of me was pissed. I had more to say about this, but not in front of our parents.

So I sat at the table again and ground my teeth when he sat in the chair next to mine.

“I assume people noticed Scott acting strange?” my dad asked as he crossed the kitchen, obviously eager to pull the discussion back on track.

“Um, yeah.” Nash fought to catch my gaze, and when I refused to look at him, he fingered a crack in the weathered kitchen table. “But they all think he was high on something…normal.” He glanced at his mother, who’d just finished cleaning up the egg slime. “Is there anything we can do for him?”

Harmony shook her head slowly. “The damage to his brain is permanent. And withdrawal will be very hard on him in a human hospital, because all they can do is restrain him to keep him from hurting himself. The only medications I know of that can make him feel better come from the Netherworld.”

“Can you get him any of those?” I asked. “Assuming they keep him at Arlington Memorial?”

She leaned with one hip on the counter, drying her hands
on a damp dishrag. “I don’t work in mental health, but I can probably get in to see him once or twice. And if I can’t, Tod can.”

“What about Doug?” I asked. “He’s not as bad off as Scott is, but the night he hit my car, he said he saw someone in his passenger’s seat.”

“That’s easy enough,” Nash shrugged, looking optimistic for the first time since we’d left school. “Next time we hang out, I’ll just slip whatever weird medication he needs into his drink.” He glanced at Harmony again, eyes shining in either hope or desperation. “You can get whatever he needs, right?”

“I think so. But it won’t do any good until the Demon’s Breath is completely out of his system…”

“And we still don’t know how to cut off the supply,” I finished.

“You let us worry about that,” my father said with a note of finality he’d probably perfected kicking drunks out of his parents’ pub in Ireland. “Let’s get you something to eat, then I want you to take a nap while I’m here to make sure you wake up in your own bed.”

I didn’t even try to argue. I was exhausted, and I wouldn’t be any help to Emma or Doug until I could think straight.

My dad and Harmony messed around in the kitchen, trying to put together a decent meal and discuss the situation without saying anything that would upset me. Because apparently exhaustion and blood loss had combined to make me look about as sturdy as a blown-glass vase.

After several minutes spent listening to them whisper, I plodded to my room without even a glance in Nash’s direction.

He followed me.

I collapsed stomach-down on my bed while he stood in the doorway. “Go away.”

He took that as an invitation to sit at my desk.

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be.” I turned to face the window, fluffing my pillow under one cheek, and my desk chair creaked as he stood. A moment later, he knelt on the opposite side of the bed, inches from my face. “What the hell is wrong with you lately?” I was worried about the frost invasion too, but it hadn’t turned me into a controlling bitch.

“Kaylee, please…”

“That was messed up, Nash. That was…slimy.” I sat up and scooted back on the bed to put distance between us. “You make me think I want things I don’t really want to do, and it’s like losing control of myself. It’s worse than being strapped to a hospital bed because it’s not some stranger who has to let me up when I stop fighting. It’s you, and I shouldn’t have to fight you.” I blinked back tears, almost as mad at myself for crying as I was at him for invading my mind. “I don’t want your voice in my head anymore. Not even to help me.”

Nash nodded slowly, his eyes churning with too many emotions for me to interpret. “I’m so sorry, Kaylee. I swear it’ll never happen again.” He swallowed and glanced at his hands, where they gripped the edge of my mattress. “It’s just that everything is so messed up, and it’s all my fault. Scott could have killed you, and I…I’m just not thinking straight right now.”

“I know.” I wasn’t, either. I was running on caffeine and adrenaline, both of which were fading fast.

But before he could say anything else, my phone dinged, and I leaned to one side to dig it from my front pocket.

There was a text from Emma. R U OK? LB said you narced on Scott.

Crap.
I’d forgotten that Laura Bell—LB—had been home sick all day. She’d obviously seen them load me and Scott into ambulances—his under police escort—and had reported her version of the event.

It was probably all over school. And since I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, Laura’s version—which evidently blamed me for getting the quarterback arrested on drug charges—would stand on the record.

Great.

I tried to text her back, but I couldn’t type very well without my right hand, so after two failed attempts, Nash held out his hand for my phone, watching my face closely. Letting him help would mean I’d forgiven him.

I sighed and gave him my phone. “Tell her I’m fine, and I’ll explain later,” I said, and he nodded, typing almost as fast with two thumbs as I could. “And that I did
not
rat on Scott.”

The part about Scott trying to kill me could wait for another day.

E
MMA EYED ME
in concern when I collapsed into my chair beside her in chemistry on Friday morning. She’d been preoccupied with Doug for most of yesterday and hadn’t noticed my exhaustion, but evidently my zombie impersonation was now too obvious to be overlooked.

“Wow, Kaylee, you look like crap,” she whispered as the girl in front of me passed a stapled test packet over her shoulder.

“Thanks.” I shot Emma a good-humored smile. At least, I hoped it looked good-humored. “I haven’t been getting much sleep.”

After Nash and Harmony left the night before, I’d collapsed on the couch—again in my homemade protective gear—but got very little rest, because this time my father refused to sleep and I could feel him watching me. I had two death dreams in a four-hour span, and my dad woke me up from both of them the moment the first note of a soul song erupted from my mouth.

Each time, he sat on the coffee table with a spiral-bound
notebook, pen ready to go, but I had no new details to offer. Same dark figure. Same falling through the Nether-smog. Same panic welling inside my dream throat. Same featureless face I couldn’t identify.

Between the dream-screaming, the butchered forearm, and my near-death experience, peaceful sleep was a fond and somewhat distant memory. Yet, thanks to Scott’s absence and Laura Bell’s sensational but inaccurate gossip, the last school day of the semester was even worse than the sleepless night it followed.

I could feel them staring at me as I flipped open my test booklet. They’d been watching me all morning. Ogling the bandage my right sleeve wouldn’t cover, which made it obvious that something big had gone down the day before, but left the details tantalizingly vague.

I pretended not to hear the whispers in the hall, rumors linking my name with Scott’s. Wondering if he and I had been cheating on Nash and Sophie, which was easily the most ridiculous speculation I’d ever heard.

Until I heard someone claim that Nash had cut me—and was the source of whatever mysterious damage Scott had suffered—when he caught the two of us together.

There were other, quieter rumors from people who’d seen Scott’s breakdown in class or in the cafeteria. They knew something had been wrong with him before we’d ever left school, but their tales were less exciting and never really caught on. Which left me and Nash to bear the brunt of the rumors and the stares.

And Sophie, of course. Her conspicuous absence only fanned the flames of the rumor bonfire consuming the school, and for the first time, she found herself tied to a stake at the center of the blaze, condemned to burn alongside me.

I couldn’t really blame her for skipping school. Especially considering she had no idea what had really happened be
tween me, Scott, and Nash. For all I knew, she’d actually bought the load of crap Laura was shoveling.

“Just ignore them.” Emma glared across the room at a couple of juniors whispering and staring at me while they waited for test booklets. “Their own lives aren’t interesting enough to warrant gossip,” she said, loud enough for the whole class to hear.

Mrs. Knott frowned and cleared her throat, and Emma avoided her eyes as she flipped open her test. But as soon as the teacher turned away, Em kicked my chair softly to regain my attention. “I’m really worried about Doug,” she whispered. “He didn’t show up for his English midterm this morning.” Ever since Scott’s freakout at school, she’d been watching Doug closely for signs that he was headed down the same path. “He’s hardly eating anything. And this is going to sound stupid, but his hands are always cold.”

I tried to smile and calm her down. She couldn’t help him, so worrying would do her no good. “I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything, Em. Nash’s hands are usually freezing, and he’s…”

No.
I closed my eyes and swallowed thickly. It was a coincidence. Nash wasn’t using. He was helping me get rid of frost for good. He knew how dangerous it was, and he was just as repulsed by the thought of sucking hellion breath as I was.

But Doug
was
using, and it
would
kill him.

I hadn’t told Emma the truth about the Demon’s Breath, even after what happened with Scott, because Dad and Harmony agreed that the less she knew, the safer she’d be from Everett and his Netherworld supplier. But watching her now, forehead wrinkled in concern for the first high school guy she’d shown any interest in, I couldn’t help thinking that Dad and Harmony were wrong this time.

I knew better than most that ignorance was neither blissful nor safe, and it didn’t seem fair to put Emma through what I’d
suffered. Especially considering that Scott had turned out to be dangerous on Demon’s Breath.

What if Doug did, too?

“Em, I need to tell you something.” Her brows rose, and she nodded, but then Mrs. Knott walked down the aisle between us and I’d lost my chance to speak. The test had begun. “After class,” I mouthed, then turned my attention to my midterm.

Unfortunately, Doug was waiting for Emma after class, and she waved to me apologetically as she wrapped one arm around his waist, promising she’d catch me at lunch.

At first, I was surprised that Doug hadn’t asked me what happened to Scott. Until I noticed the half-eaten candy bar in his fist as they walked off. He held it without the wrapper, and despite his tight grip, the chocolate wasn’t melting against his skin. He was frosted, and probably not thinking about anything but staying that way.

Tod’s hospital shift started at noon, so I’d fully expected him to pop into class during one of my early midterms, demanding to know what he’d missed when I couldn’t possibly answer him. But I didn’t see him all morning, and I couldn’t help wondering why he was never around during his off hours, but would skip out on work to come bug me and Nash.

By eleven-thirty, my morning overdose of caffeine had worn off and I wobbled on my feet, flinching when I caught myself against the wall with my bad arm. I’d survived my first three midterms—though I couldn’t swear I’d aced them—and had three still to go. But after only twelve hours of sleep over the past three days, I could barely spell my name right, and passing the remaining tests seemed like a long shot, at best.

So during lunch, Nash and I snuck out of the cafeteria and into the parking lot, where I slept in the reclined seat of my rental car while he devoured a cafeteria cheeseburger and
crammed for his physics test, ready to wake me if I so much as hummed in my sleep.

I jolted awake thirty-eight minutes into our forty-five-minute lunch period, sitting straight up in the driver’s seat with Nash staring at me like I’d just recited the U.S. presidents in my sleep. An ability which probably would have come in handy during my history test.

“What happened?” I blinked, confused, until I remembered I was still at school, in a car I hadn’t completely gotten used to yet. Was that why I felt so…disoriented? But exhaustion couldn’t explain why I’d evidently sat up in my sleep.

Nash’s eyes churned steadily with fear and with some emotion I couldn’t quite identify, and as I watched, his irises began to settle as he got a handle on the scare I’d obviously given him. “You were making weird noises. So I woke you up.”

I was?
I didn’t remember having any dreams at all, much less the horrifying, recurring death dream. But something had obviously happened, and it had clearly scared the crap out of Nash.

In spite of my rude—and odd—awakening, the short nap helped more than I’d thought possible. Or maybe that was the Mountain Dew Nash handed me as we walked back into the building, just in time for fifth period. “Drink fast and work hard,” he said, giving me the sweetest, peppermint-scented kiss on the nose. “I’ll see you in the gym after school.”

He was trying really hard to make up for our fight the day before, and the caffeine fix was good for several bonus points.

But by the time the final bell rang, the Mountain Dew was wearing off and my arm was really starting to throb. I couldn’t stand the thought of spending my Friday afternoon painting booths for my cousin’s pet project—left-handed, thanks to my injury—while her friends stared and whispered. If Sophie was skipping, we could, too. So I drove Nash home and crashed on his bed while he played Xbox.

Nash shook me awake a couple of hours later, with hands so cold I could feel them through my shirt. I was relieved to discover that I had neither dreamed nor struck any odd positions in my sleep. “You have to get up if we’re going to make it to the party,” he whispered, soft, warm lips brushing my cheek.

The setting sun cast slanted shadow bars across Nash’s room through his half-closed blinds, and I blinked in the crimson glare, trying to fully wake up. The alarm clock on his bedside table said it was almost five-thirty. “Mmmm…” He smelled so good I wanted to bury my face in his shirt and breathe him in. Then go back to sleep.

Who needs food and water? Nash and slumber would be enough to sustain me. Right?

“What party?” I mumbled, pushing myself up on my good arm, in spite of the heavy hand of sleep threatening to pull me back under.

“Fuller’s. Remember? We were going to find Everett?”

And that’s when reality came crashing in on me, washing away the serenity that waking up next to Nash had lent me.

Doug’s party. Everett’s balloons. Scott’s knife. My sliced-up arm.
Suddenly my head hurt and my stomach was churning in dread.

“I can’t believe he’s still throwing a party, with one of his best friends in the hospital.” And charged with a felony.

Nash shrugged. “The crowd will be bigger than ever tonight, everyone hoping to hear what really happened to Carter.”

Well, they wouldn’t hear it from me. “My dad’ll kill me if we go to Doug’s.” Not that my father’s caution had ever stopped me from helping a friend in need before.

Nash rolled his eyes and pressed the power button on his Xbox, then shoved it against the scratched chest of drawers his
television sat on. “If we don’t go, who’s going to watch out for Emma?”

“Tod…?” I started, but the flaw in that plan was immediately obvious. “Well, I assume he has to actually show up for work at some point.”

“Let’s hope.” Nash hesitated as I ran my fingers through long, sleep-tangled hair. “Maybe you can talk her out of going…” he finally suggested. “You two could do something girlie tonight and let me handle Everett.”

I shook my head as I stepped into my first sneaker. “I already tried that. After what happened with Scott, she’s determined to keep an eye on Doug.” I had to sit on the bed to tug the second shoe on, then I met Nash’s frustrated gaze with one of my own.

Nash sighed and sat on the edge of his desk, and I sat straighter as a new thought occurred to me. “Maybe we’re making this too hard. Why don’t we just get him alone at the party, cross over with him, and leave him in the Netherworld?” Which was a virtual death sentence—or worse—for anyone native to the human world. Yet I felt only a fleeting pang of guilt over that thought, after what Everett’s little enterprise had done to Scott, and would do to anyone else who sampled his stash. “I mean, he can’t
sell
in our world if he can’t
get
to our world. Right?”

His brows rose. “You think he can’t cross on his own? If that’s true, how is he getting Demon’s Breath in the first place?”

Crap.
My disappointment crested in a wave of embarrassment.

Either Everett could cross over on his own—which meant he couldn’t be trapped in the Netherworld—or he was working with someone who could. In which case getting rid of Everett wouldn’t stop the distribution of frost into our world.

I grabbed my backpack from the floor and tossed it over one shoulder, squinting against the reddish light peeking through the blinds. “Nash, we have to tell my dad about Everett.”

Nash rolled his eyes. “What’s your dad going to do that we can’t? Other than make sure we’re never welcome at another party…”

“I don’t know. But what are we supposed to do? Threaten to scream until Everett’s ears bleed?”

Nash sighed and grabbed my keys from the desktop, where I’d dropped them when we came in. “Look, if your dad busts up the party, Fuller will wind up hanging out alone with Emma all night. Either high off his new stash, or crazy from withdrawal.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. I swear I heard it splash into the Mountain Dew I drank instead of eating lunch.

He was right. My dad could break up the party and possibly even stop Everett from selling to everyone there. At least for one night. But he couldn’t save Emma from Doug once they were alone.

That was up to me.

We went to my house first, so I could change and pack an overnight bag. On the way out, I left a note for my dad on the fridge, telling him I was going out with Nash and that I’d be spending the night with Emma—so she wouldn’t have a chance to be alone with Doug—and that he was welcome to call and check up on me. It’s not like I’d be sleeping. Ever again, evidently.

Then, because I knew he couldn’t answer his cell at work, I called and left a voice mail saying the same thing. He was working late again, to make up for the pay he’d lost the day before thanks to my trip to the hospital, and with any luck he wouldn’t get either message until his double shift was over. Around midnight. By which time I hoped to be stretched out
on Emma’s bedroom floor, halfway through a pint of Death by Chocolate and a B-grade ’80s horror flick, safe from the perils of the real world.

Make that
both
worlds.

E
MMA’S AFTERNOON SHIFT
at the Cinemark didn’t end until seven, so she couldn’t make it to the party until eight. Nash and I stopped for cheap tacos and still got there by seven-thirty.

Mr. Fuller had taken Doug’s twenty-eight-year-old stepmother with him to some professional conference in New York, leaving Doug alone in a house big enough to sleep the whole football team.

Or host the entire senior class.

We parked at the end of the street again, and I felt marginally more confident in the safety of my car this time, because it wasn’t really mine and because Doug wouldn’t be driving. He was already home.