The usual stools were missing from the lab, but the high, black-topped lab stations were still there, and so far unmolested by the Netherworld population and plant life. I opened several drawers and pawed through piles of useless pencils, erasers, pens, rulers and the occasional stirrer without finding anything useful. All the good stuff was locked in the cabinets at the back of the room.
But when I glanced up, I realized that the padlocks hadn’t bled through from the human world. Did that mean the supplies weren’t there, either?
Conscious of the clock ticking steadily in my head, I raced across the room and threw open the first cabinet—then grinned like a fool at the full shelves.
I pulled on a pair of thick neoprene gloves from the third shelf, then pawed through a series of Bunsen burners and test tubes before stumbling upon a basket full of scissors on the far right. I grabbed the biggest pair I could find, then tugged a pair of goggles into place over my eyes, just in case. Then I ran, my sneakers silent on the linoleum. I was several feet from the hallway intersection when a familiar voice spoke from a classroom to the left, and I froze in terror.
“I believe this is the second such gift you’ve brought me,” Avari said, and tiny icicles formed in my veins. “One might think you were paying tribute. Or trying to appeal to my mercy.”
“Can’t appeal to what doesn’t exist,” a second voice said, and my chill bumps sprouted chill bumps. Tod. No wonder he hadn’t answered my text; cell phones don’t work in the Netherworld.
“Mmm,” Avari said, as I tiptoed toward the hallway juncture. “You are not quite as foolish as you appear.”
“What’s that, the evil version of a compliment?” Tod said, and even though I couldn’t see him, I could picture the sarcastic lift of one eyebrow, based on nothing but his tone of voice. “Are we buddies now?”
Avari made an unpleasant noise in the back of his throat. “I retract my last statement.”
“Whatever. Just…take him, so I can get out of here.”
“This isn’t what you offered, and I don’t yet have what you asked for.”
“This is worth more than I offered, and I no longer need what I asked for. Which means you’re getting the better end of the deal. And you should do whatever you’re going to do before he wakes up, or you’ll never be able to keep him here.”
What the hell were they talking about? Who had Tod brought to Avari? Why would he make a deal with the hellion who’d made it his life’s goal to possess me, body and soul?
I stood in the middle of the hallway junction, exposed and vulnerable from four different directions, should anyone step out of a classroom. And I probably looked like an idiot in lab gloves and goggles, carrying a giant pair of scissors. But I couldn’t decide which way to turn. I could go right, and cross over to watch out for Emma. Or I could go left, and sneak a peek at whoever Tod had delivered into the third room on the right.
I’d be safer in the math classroom, and Emma would be safer with me there. But I couldn’t quite escape the brutal curiosity pulling me to the left—did this have something to do with me?—even though my exchanged expiration date meant nothing in the Netherworld. Here, I could die anytime, by any means. Or I could suffer eternity at Avari’s hands instead, and wish for death until the end of time.
I knew I was making a mistake, even as I turned left and took those first steps, rolling my feet for a silent approach, glad I’d worn sneakers instead of clunky flats.
“You don’t want him? Fine,” Tod said, when Avari made no reply. “I know a couple other hellions who will appreciate the value you’re passing up.”
“Leave him,” Avari said at last. “But I offer nothing in exchange, other than the safe passage you’ve already negotiated for yourself. It has not escaped my notice that I am doing you a service by taking him. But indulge my curiosity for one moment before you go,” Avari said, as I peeked cautiously into the first open doorway, careful to avoid the tendrils of Creeper vine curling around the door frame. The desks and chairs inside were stacked in a bizarre, complicated arrangement, like a pyramid of Cirque du Soleil gymnasts about to topple, but the room itself was blessedly empty. “How does this benefit our lovely Addison?” the hellion continued. “You’ve neglected to negotiate for time with her, and it’s much too late now….”
“This has nothing to do with Addy,” Tod snapped, and the pain in his voice echoed deep within my own chest.
“Some imbecilic human sage once said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and though I must confess to absolute incomprehension of the very concept of ‘heart’ it appears to me that you fall under a contradictory philosophy. With Addison out of your sight, she is clearly also out of your mind. Which is fitting, because since you last saw her, she’s been mostly out of her own mind, as well…”
Don’t listen to him, Tod, I thought, as I crept past the second door, now only feet from the room where they both stood, along with whoever Tod had dragged into the Netherworld. True or not, he’s only saying it so he can feed from your suffering. If I’d learned anything since discovering my nonhuman heritage, it was that pain of any kind was the currency of choice in the Netherworld.
“There’s nothing else I can do for Addy,” Tod said, an angry undercurrent threaded through his voice now. “You’ve made sure of that.”
“And you’ve moved on quite readily. I know precisely what bringing me this tribute does for Ms. Cavanaugh, and by extension, what it does for you.”
I froze at the sound of my name, less than a foot from the open doorway. My heart beat frantically, and I was afraid to breathe for fear of missing the next words spoken.
“What do you care, so long as you’re well fed?”
Avari actually laughed. “I will be better fed from your pain when you understand how futile this noble deed is. You know this won’t change anything, don’t you, reaper? This won’t even delay the inevitable. Your heroic gesture is rendered completely useless by the irony of poor timing and inexorable fate. She will die—right on time—without ever knowing about your failed attempt to save her.”
My heart leapt so high I could practically taste it on the back of my tongue.
I dared a long, silent inhalation to keep from passing out, but that didn’t stop the building from spinning around me. Confusion, anticipation and a strange plummeting feeling deep in my stomach kept me off balance, my very existence hinging on whatever words would come next.
And when Tod finally spoke, I realized my world might never stop spinning at all.
“This isn’t about saving her,” he said, his voice strong and steady, even though he was powerless in the Netherworld. “I know my limitations. This is so that bastard can’t ever put his hands on her again. So her last moments won’t be spent in terror. This is about making damn sure his face won’t be the last thing she ever sees.”
He? I took that last step forward, pulse roaring like the ocean in my ears, heedless of the danger for one moment as desperate, blinding curiosity overwhelmed every need I’d ever felt. Tod stood in the middle of the bare floor, facing the half of the room I couldn’t see. And when I saw what lay at the reaper’s feet, still waiting to be claimed by the hellion, understanding clicked into place in my head, like someone had thrown the breaker in my skull.
Thane. Unconscious and crumpled like a feed sack on the floor, one eye swollen and black above the massive blue bruise his cheek had become.
But even with that new information, I still had no real answers to the questions I couldn’t even properly form through the haze of gratitude and amazement now swirling around me like the Nether-fog. Tod had found Thane, knocked him out, dragged him into the Netherworld and given him to Avari to dispose of. Or maybe to feed from.
All to make my last days as peaceful as possible. Was he even going to tell me?
Tod crossed his arms over a plain white T-shirt. “Just bind him, or lock him up, or do whatever it is you do to keep people here.” Because reapers could cross over anytime they wanted. ?
??I’m done with you both.” Tod shoved Thane with his foot, and the unconscious reaper rolled onto his back, revealing another dark bruise on the right side of his face, disappearing beneath his hairline.
I stifled a gasp, but Tod must have seen my hand fly to my mouth in his peripheral vision, because he looked at me, then immediately returned his attention to the half of the room I couldn’t see.
For one long, terrifying moment, I was afraid Avari had seen his glance into the hall and figured out what it meant. I stepped away from the doorway, and when no one emerged to rip me limb from limb, I let myself breathe again. A little.
“Our business is concluded,” Avari said, and Thane’s feet—all I could still see of him—slid across the floor and out of sight. “Unless you’re willing to present my offer to Ms. Cavanaugh. One century of life in the Nether, untouched in both body and mind, in exchange for her soul.”
“She’d rather die than be your ward in hell,” Tod spat, and in my heart, I cheered.
“Two centuries. You could be with her every day. I’ve seen her lifeline, reaper, and in the Nether, it could stretch into forever. You could greet eternity together…”
“You will never have her,” Tod said, and as his footsteps thumped across the floor toward me, Avari’s reply echoed in my head, so soft I wondered if he’d actually said it out loud.
“We share that misfortune, reaper…”
A second later Tod was in the hall, taking my arm above the rubber glove, and that same fog rolled over my feet before I could protest. Before I could do anything but close my eyes. When I opened them an instant later, I stood in the human world, in the middle of the hall, staring at Tod in amazement, my heart still pounding from our narrow escape.
I pulled my arm from his hand just as a group of girls in Eastlake softball uniforms came around the corner carrying equipment bags and duffels. Several of them laughed at my chemistry safety gear, but I hardly noticed. And when Tod reached up to pull the goggles from my face, I only vaguely realized that meant they could see him, too.
“Why are you dressed like a mad scientist?” he whispered, dropping the goggles on the floor between us.
“Why did you give Thane to Avari?” I countered, as he pulled my first neoprene glove off slowly, as if baring my hand meant more than it should have.
“I think you know why.” He took the scissors from my other hand and slid them into his pocket, and when his gaze met mine, he let me see the blues swirling madly in his irises. “I think you heard most of that.”
“You made a deal with him to get rid of Thane?”
“The deal was for evidence against Thane.” Tod pulled my remaining glove off. “If I could find one of the souls he was supposed to have turned in, we’d have proof that he sold it instead. Avari was going to see if any Thane’s recent reapings had turned up in the Netherworld.”
“In exchange for what?”
Tod dropped the second glove on the floor at my feet, but his gaze never left mine. “There’s this guy in the county jail, waiting for his trial. I reaped the soul of the girl he killed. I saw what he did to her. If anyone deserves eternity at Avari’s hands, it’s him.” Tod shrugged. “Now the courts will get that bastard, and Avari gets Thane’s older, more powerful soul.”
My head was still spinning. I could hardly wrap my mind around it all. “When did you set all this up?”
“In Scott’s room, at Lakeside.” He glanced at his feet for a minute, then back at me. “I was there when you came into his room, negotiating with Avari through Scott.”
I blinked, stunned. Scott had been talking to someone else! “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tod’s brows dipped low over bright blue eyes. “I didn’t want you to know about any of this.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t fix anything. Avari’s right—I can’t save you. But I saw Thane tormenting you at lunch, and I couldn’t wait for evidence that may never come through. That psychotic bastard shouldn’t be anywhere near you, and he damn well shouldn’t be the last thing you ever see.” He glanced at the gloves lying between us on the floor, and when he looked up again, the fierce ache in my heart swelled until I thought it would burst, and that falling feeling was back, like I might never regain my balance. So I did the only thing I could think of to bring the world back into focus and make sense of the waves of confusion lapping at me from all sides. I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck.
Then I kissed Tod.
15
Tod’s arms slid around me like they were always meant to be there, and that sense of belonging was so strong that it took me a second to realize what I was doing. And to remember I wasn’t supposed to be doing it.
I stepped back and stared up at him, and one hand went to my mouth automatically, like covering it up would erase what I’d just done.
“I’m so sorry…” I took another step back, drowning in confusion and guilt, and in the giddy, reckless joy that threatened to overwhelm them both, in spite of my best effort to deny it. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
What the hell am I doing? And why didn’t it feel wrong? Vaguely I was aware that we were both fully visible, in the middle of the school, and those were just two of the many problems with what had just happened.
“Did you mean it?” His eyes churned urgently now, a collision of hunger and uncertainty. “Was that real, or were you just granting my last wish?”
“That was your last wish? A kiss?” Most guys would have wished for…more.
“I could have kissed you months ago, but it wouldn’t have meant anything. I wished for you to see me. And want me. So…did you mean it?” Fragile hope peeked out at me from behind the smug self-assurance I now recognized as his mask. As armor, against a world that no longer claimed or understood him, and suddenly I realized he wasn’t breathing. He was just waiting. For me.
“Yes,” I said, and some unnamed tension inside me eased. “I see you, Tod.”
And in that moment, I saw nothing else in the world.
Tod kissed me, and I fell into that kiss like Alice into Wonderland, headfirst and flailing, heart pounding the whole time. The world spun around me and still I fell, and I only crashed down to earth again when someone called my name.
“Kaylee?” Nash said, and I jerked away from Tod so fast I nearly tripped over the rubber gloves at my feet.
Nash stood at the end of the hall with Sabine, his phone in hand, like he was about to dial. Or like he just had. And before I could even complete that thought, my phone buzzed with a text message, probably a check-in from Nash, who’d thought I was watching Emma and Beck.
Shit! Emma…!
Nash stared at me, his expression cycling through pain and anger so fast I could see the tempest churning in his eyes from down the hall. “You said you weren’t… You said there was nothing…” Then he stopped, like the words had gotten tangled up in his mouth, and he couldn’t spit them out straight.
“There wasn’t,” I said, struggling for a deep breath against the tightening in my chest. “It just happened. I’m so sorry.” Tod had risked his afterlife to give me peace, and suddenly I saw what had been there all along. But the timing could not have been worse.
“I told you he’d do this.” Nash turned his fury on Tod. “How could you do this?” he shouted, storming toward us without waiting for an answer, and a door squealed open around the corner as some after-school club heard the very public fallout of my not-so-private life.
I stepped into his path, trying to hold him back from Tod with both hands on his chest. But Nash just kept coming, and I had to walk backward with him.
“Sabine, a little help?” I called over his shoulder, but she only crossed her arms.
“Nah, I think I’m gonna sit this one out.” Blatant satisfaction glittered in her black eyes, like she’d known about Tod the whole time. Like she’d been waiting for this.
“Nash, please calm down,” I begged softly, mortified to realize the Mathletes c
ould hear us now. They wouldn’t know exactly what had happened, or who Tod was, but rumors would fly the next day—Wednesday. Not that it would matter. With any luck, by Thursday my death would eclipse even the worst of the gossip. “Let’s go outside and talk.”
“It’s okay, Kaylee,” Tod said from behind me, and I could hear the strain in his voice. “You can let him go. He has a right to be mad.”
Nash finally stopped trying to push past me and glared at his brother over my head. “Don’t tell me what I have a right to feel. And don’t talk to her like she should listen to you. You don’t get to talk to her, and you damn sure don’t get to kiss my girlfriend!”
My cheeks burned. So much for no one knowing what had happened…
“Nash…” I said again, trying to get his attention. “We didn’t plan this.”
“You might not have, but he did,” Nash whispered fiercely through clenched teeth, either because he’d realized people were listening, or because he couldn’t manage any more volume. “He hates me, because I lived and he died.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tod said softly behind me, and I turned to look at him, drawn by the complex threads of emotion woven through his voice. I’d seen Tod mad, and I’d recently started seeing something else when he looked at me. But this was neither of those. Or maybe it was both. It was guilt, and loyalty, and anger, and fierce, protective love, all so tangled up I couldn’t tell them apart, and I doubted he could, either.
Tod was wrestling with more human emotion than I’d ever seen from him or any other reaper, and for one horrifying moment, I was afraid that it was too much for him. That after only two years dead, he’d lost the ability to process so much at once.
I wasn’t sure I could process it all.