“Love to.”
“Thanks for the cookies, Harmony. And the lesson,” I added, still trying to make up for acting like I didn’t care about her efforts to help me.
“No problem.” She headed toward the kitchen with both empty glasses. “And, Nash, please don’t linger. I doubt hanging out with you is on Kaylee’s list of approved activities at the moment.”
That was an understatement, considering that whatever my dad thought I’d been doing, he knew I’d been doing it with Nash.
Nash rolled his eyes at his mom and held the screen door open as I stuffed both arms into my jacket sleeves, then took the backpack he held for me. “Bye, Mom…”
We didn’t hear her reply, because the door closed behind us, and we were already walking hand in hand, in spite of the cold numbing my fingers. We walked in comfortable silence, and I opened my own front door with a key ring conspicuously missing my car key. Nash came inside, in spite of his mother’s warning.
“Want a snack?” I shrugged out of my jacket and backpack and let them fall onto the couch, and when I looked up, Nash was there, so close I caught my breath.
“I want you.” His eyes smoldered, and his lips came apart a tiny bit. Just enough to make me want to fill that gap with
my own. To taste his lower lip, and leave a trail of kisses over the stubble on his jaw and down his neck.
“Mmm,” I murmured as his lips found the hollow below my ear, and vaguely I realized that was the same sound Emma had made when she bit into her first cookie.
Nash was just as delicious, in a completely unsatisfying way. Unsatisfying, because no matter how much time we spent together, no matter how closely I pressed myself against him, I always wanted more.
But what if more was too much for me, and just enough for him? That fear lingered, that secret certainty that if I slept with Nash—if I gave us both what we wanted—he would move on in pursuit of the next challenge. It had happened before, over and over again. The list of his past conquests was long and distinguished, at least by Eastlake standards.
I couldn’t put my paranoia to bed. In fact, it grew with every groan he let slip, because they told me how badly he wanted me. But what if wanting me was like waiting for popcorn to pop, or coffee to brew? They both smelled so good, but the taste could never live up to such delectable scents. And neither made a very satisfying meal.
What if I was the sexual equivalent of popcorn? Suitable for light snacking only?
Nash’s lips met mine, and I pushed those fears away. I opened for him, sucking his tongue into my mouth, tasting it. He leaned into me, and we would have fallen onto the cushions if he hadn’t braced his hand against the back of the couch. He shoved my backpack and jacket to the floor, then lowered me gently, slowly. With infuriating patience.
Even drowning in my own doubts, I had no patience.
He settled over me, hips pressing into me, chest heavy on mine, holding himself up on one elbow. His knee slid between mine and I gasped, sucking air from him. Heat rose from the pit of my stomach, tingling all the way up. He tasted so good. Felt so good. And I understood him in a way no human girl ever could.
Surely he knew that…
Nash’s lips trailed down my neck, setting off a series of tingly explosions, adrenaline pumping through my heart. My hand clenched the tail of his shirt, then I pushed it up, trailing my fingers over his stomach.
And in that moment, I became a fan of football, for the simple fact that it had literally shaped him. I couldn’t resist running my hands around to his back as it twisted and bunched beneath my fingers. He was strength personified, and simply touching him made me stronger. Harder. More capable of everything ahead of us.
If I had Nash, I could do it. I could do anything.
The phone rang, and Nash groaned into my ear, his breath a puff of warm frustration fueling my own. “Your dad?”
“Probably.”
He collapsed on me, pinning me to the couch momentarily as the phone rang again, and I didn’t want to move. Didn’t want him to get up. He had to, of course, but he did it slooowly, sliding off me one delicious inch at a time until he sat on the floor beside the couch, one hand flat over my stomach.
I arched one arm over my head and grabbed the phone, moving as little of my body as possible. “Hello?”
“I take it you’re at home?” my father said as metal clanged in the background.
“I answered the phone, didn’t I?” I closed my eyes in regret; my answer had come out harsher than I’d intended, my voice sharpened by irritation at having been interrupted.
My dad sighed, and I heard hurt in his exhalation. “Is Nash there?”
“He walked me home.”
He sighed again and raised his voice. “Nash, go home.”
Nash scowled. “I was…just going.”
“Say hi to your mom,” my father said. Then there was only silence and the clang of more metal over the line, and I realized he was waiting for Nash to leave. Right then.
“Um, I will.” Nash stood and leaned down to kiss my cheek, the most he would do with my father there, even if only in spirit. And in voice. “See you later, Kaylee,” he said, then closed the door on his way out.
“Happy?” I snapped into the phone. I wasn’t sorry that time.
“No, Kaylee. I’m not happy. I’ll be home by seven-thirty with dinner. What do you want from the Chinese place?”
I bit my lip to keep from saying something I’d regret later. Likely much later. “Shrimp fried rice. Want me to call it in?”
“That would be great. Thanks.” He hung up, and I stared at the empty living room, wishing I knew of some way I could get along with my father
and
save Addy’s soul. But so far, the two seemed to be mutually exclusive. Fortunately, it would all be over in a matter of hours, and my life would go back to normal.
Assuming I survived the night.
M
Y DAD WALKED
in the front door at seven twenty-four, carrying a white paper bag and smelling of metal and sweat. He looked awful. Exhausted. I felt bad for him. And really guilty.
After my mother died and I’d been handed over to my aunt and uncle, my father had gone to Ireland to run the pub his parents owned. He’d made a decent living, but most of his extra money went to pay for my incidentals and to fund my college account. So when he came back to the States, he’d brought nothing but a suitcase and enough cash to put down a deposit on a rental house and buy a second used car—I still had the one he’d bought me for my sixteenth birthday.
Now he worked in a factory all day, taking overtime where he could get it, because he thought he should at least try to make as much money as his brother did.
I didn’t care about the money. A little money only made people want more of it. And I liked our used furniture, because if I spilled on it, no one got mad, which meant I could snack in the living room, in front of the television. But my father insisted we eat dinner together every night. Our crappy kitchen card table was the magic wand he kept waving
to turn us into a real family. But on some nights, all that magic seemed to do was irritate and frustrate us both.
And still he tried….
“I got some fried wontons.” He set the greasy bag on the card table and draped his jacket over the back of a folding metal chair.
“Thanks.” He knew they were my favorite. He knew all my favorite takeout, because he rarely had time to cook, and I didn’t care if I never ate another bite of homemade health food after living with Aunt Val for thirteen years.
We ate in near silence, except for the occasional intrusion upon my thoughts when he asked if I’d done my homework—yes—and how Nash and Harmony were doing—fine. He never asked about Tod, which was just as well, because if he had, he’d know from my answer that I’d been hanging out with the reaper, too. And that would just make him even angrier, and more worried.
“How long is it going to be like this?” my dad asked as I pushed back my chair and tossed my paper plate into the plastic trash bin. “How long are you going to be mad?”
“I’m not mad.” I trudged into the living room and shoved my trig and history books into my backpack, the corresponding homework assignments folded in half inside them. “I just…”
…have things I can’t tell you. Things you could probably help me with. But you won’t. So talking does us no good.
“I have stuff on my mind. It has nothing to do with you.”
I wanted to explain that things would get better. He would stop trying so hard—start realizing I was sixteen, not six—and eventually he’d understand that Nash was keeping me out of trouble, not getting me into it. When that happened, we could
both relax. Maybe he could even tell me about my mother without tearing up and making some excuse to stop talking.
But not yet. None of that could happen while I was still helping Addy and Regan behind his back. Because he knew something was wrong, and he couldn’t move beyond that until it was resolved, and I couldn’t look him in the eye until I was done lying.
Soon, though. It would be soon.
My dad fell asleep in his recliner shortly after eleven, and he sat there snoring for several minutes before I thought to turn off the television. I could only stare at him from the couch, boiling with frustration.
He was supposed to fall asleep in his bed, not in the living room!
I could wake him up and tell him to go to bed. That would still leave more than half an hour for him to go back to sleep before I had to leave for Nash’s. But the last time I’d done that, he’d decided he wasn’t ready for bed yet, and he’d stayed up to watch some stupid action movie until after midnight.
I could leave him where he was and hope he didn’t check on me when he went to bed. But then I’d run the risk of waking him when I opened the front door. Because the window in my room was painted shut, and the screen on the back door squealed like a pissed-off harpy.
That only left my backup plan, which I’d really hoped to avoid.
My dad’s bedroom door stood open, and I saw my cell phone on his nightstand, all alone and sad-looking. He’d never know if I took it, and I’d have a safety net in case something went horribly wrong while I was out.
I took my phone—I was too big of a wimp to walk into something so dangerous without a safety net—then stared at myself in the mirror over my dresser, wondering if I had the courage to do what needed to be done. I tucked a strand of straight brown hair behind my ear and wondered if my irises were swirling. I couldn’t see them myself, but if Nash were there, would he see the shades of blue twisting with the fear that pulsed through my veins, leaving icicles in its wake, threatening to shatter with my next movement. Could I walk into the Netherworld like I belonged there? Could I demand an audience with a hellion and offer him a trade?
Even if I could, would I survive such an audience? And if I did, what was I opening myself up to? It seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea to bring myself to a demon’s attention. Pretty much the opposite of my dad’s lay-low-to-survive philosophy.
At least I wouldn’t be alone. I’d have Nash and Tod. Assuming I survived sneaking out of my own house.
What should I take?
Something that would actually function in the Netherworld. Traveling light seemed wise, but did I really want to step into another reality carrying nothing but a useless phone and some pocket lint? I slid my pitifully incomplete key ring into my pocket. Cash would do me no good in the Netherworld—Nash said they spent other, unthinkable currency—but it might come in handy before we crossed over.
A small stone box on my dresser held everything of tangible value I owned: my mother’s engagement ring and the forty-eight dollars left over from my last paycheck. I stuffed the bills into my front pocket. Usually a small lump of cash felt reassuring; it represented emergency gas money, or bus fare home,
should I need it. But this time I still felt woefully unprepared to face the world with so little going for me.
What I really needed was a weapon. Unfortunately, the most dangerous thing in the entire house was my dad’s butcher knife, and something told me that wouldn’t be much use against anything I ran into in the Netherworld.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail and shrugged into my jacket, then pronounced myself ready to go. At least, as ready as I was going to be.
My heart beat fiercely, and suddenly my throat felt too thick to breathe through. My father would wake up if I tried to unbolt and unchain the front door, but there was no telling what
else
I’d wake up if I crossed into the Netherworld. Harmony said there’d just be an empty field, but what if she was wrong? What if things had changed since she’d last crossed over?
I shook off fear, forcing my spine straight and my head up. The best way to enter the lion’s den is one step at a time.
With that, I dove into my remembrance of death. It was like tumbling headfirst into a pool of grief and horror, and at first, it seemed I would sink. I would drown in sorrow. Then I forced my heartache into focus, scrambling desperately for a handle on my own emotion.
Sophie. Emma.
And finally my mother—what little I could remember of her. The memories of their soul songs bubbled up inside me. Darkness enveloped me, and sound leaked from my throat.
I pressed my lips together to keep it from bursting forth in a silence-shattering wail of grief and misery. If my father heard me keening—or singing, from his perspective—it was all over. So I swallowed the sound, like Harmony had taught
me. Forced it down and into my heart, where the echo resonated within me, hammering at my fragile self-control, clawing at my insides.
It was easier this time, just like she’d promised. Or rather, like she’d warned. I could see the Netherworld haze blooming before me, a gray filter laid over my room, covering my bed, my dresser, and my desk in various shades of gloom. Now I only had to add intent to my wail.
Whatever that meant…
I intend to cross over,
I thought, closing my eyes. When I opened them, my room was still gray, and still just as
there
as it had been a moment before.
It would be so much easier if there were a secret password, or handshake.
Netherworld, open sesame!
Yeah, that didn’t work, either.
I closed my eyes again, careful to keep the wail deep in my throat—all but one slim curl of sound that wound its way up and into the room, like a thin ribbon of Netherworld energy being pulled through me and into the human plane. If I could just follow it, like a bread-crumb trail, I was sure it would lead me where I needed to go.
Where I was already going…
The background hum of the refrigerator faded and cool air brushed my face. I opened my eyes and gasped so suddenly I choked on my own keening. I coughed, and the thin stream of sound ended in a wet gurgle.
My room was gone. As was the whole house. The walls, the doors, the furniture. All gone. My father, too.
I stood in the middle of a large field of some kind of grass I didn’t recognize. It grew tall enough that the thin seed
clusters on top brushed my elbows, and I knew without taking a single step that it would be a pain to walk through.
I ran my fingers over the grains, surprised by the rough, whispering sound they made against my skin. The stalks were stiff and brittle, and oddly cold to the touch, as if they were nourished by a chill wind rather than by the sun. And they weren’t green or even fall-brown like the November-hued grass was in my world. The entire field was an earthy olive color, with shades of deep umber near the base of the stalks.
Curious, I bent one seed cluster and nearly jumped out of my own skin when it broke with an audible
snap
and shattered between my fingers. It didn’t crumble. It splintered into hundreds of tiny, cold plant shards. The slivers tinkled like tiny bells as they fell, brushing the other stalks on the way down.
One sharp grass shard got caught with its point through the weave of my jeans. When I tried to brush it off, I accidently pushed the splinter deeper, flinching when the tiny point jabbed my skin. I used my fingernails like tweezers to pull it out carefully, and was surprised to see a little dot of blood staining my jeans.
Stupid sharp grass had cut me!
This gives all new meaning to the phrase “blades of grass….”
I looked up slowly, then turned to see as much as I could of the grass surrounding me without breaking any more stalks. I was in the middle of the field, at least a hundred feet from the nearest edge, which was in front of me. I couldn’t walk through the grass without getting shredded in the process.
Crap!
When Harmony said the Netherworld was dangerous, I’d thought she’d meant the residents!
I glanced around at my foreign surroundings, hoping for
inspiration from the scenery. What I could see of the Netherworld was beautiful, in a dark, eerie way. The night sky was a deep, bruised purple streaked with ailing shades of blue and green, as if the earth had beaten its canopy into submission.
The slim crescent of a moon was dark red, like the harvest moon after a slaughter, and its sharp points seemed to pierce the sky, rather than to grace it. It was beautiful-scary, but absolutely no help in getting me out of the field. I could
not
make it across one hundred feet of fragile glass spires without getting all sliced up.
But maybe I wouldn’t need to….
I only had to stay in the Netherworld long enough to get out of my house, to keep from waking my dad.
Would it have killed Harmony to mention that the plant life in the Netherworld was painful?
Okay, Kaylee, focus…
. How far was it from my room to the side yard outside my window?
Before I’d crossed over, I was standing in front of my mirror. I closed my eyes and visualized turning, then crossing my narrow room toward the far wall.
Ten steps, give or take. If I could make it eight feet to my right, I’d wind up just outside my bedroom window. Assuming I didn’t misjudge and cross over inside the brick wall…
Better go nine feet, to be safe.
I took a deep breath and lifted my arms to keep them from brushing the grass stalks and getting chewed up. Then I slid my right foot to the side, one step.
Four glasslike stalks shattered as my foot went through them. They collapsed to rain sharp chunks of Netherworld vegetation on my leg, and those chunks shattered even further.
But the damage to my body was minimal, because I didn’t try to brush the shards off.
On my left, something growled softly, and a slithering sound approached from near the ground. Ten feet away, several stalks shook without breaking.
My pulse raced, and I began to sweat in spite of the cold. A stray strand from my ponytail fell over my eyes, and I brushed it back, on alert for more movement or noise from the ground around me. But there was none, at least for the moment.
I moved quickly after that, shuffling sideways through the grass, pausing after each step to let the vegetation settle and to make sure I hadn’t been cut very badly. More dry rustling met my ears, and was followed by a quick, nausea-inducing burst of panic. But I saw no more movement.
Plants crunched beneath my shoes, and I soon learned to angle my right foot so that the stalks fell away from me, rather than on me. The slithering noises continued, like a dark echo from some panicked part of my brain, and I moved in the opposite direction, praying that whatever was making those sounds wouldn’t pounce. Or bite. Or whatever.
Ten steps later, I was sure I’d gone far enough. I closed my eyes and stuck my fingers in my ears to block out sights and sounds of the Netherworld, unconcerned with how stupid I must look.
I wanted to look stupid in my own yard.
The wail came even easier this time, and rather than worrying about that, I reveled in it, grateful that I didn’t have to fight for concentration with that slither-creature sliding toward me. Intent wasn’t hard to come by that time, either. I seriously wanted to go home. Just in time to sneak out.