Sabine watched me calmly for a moment, and I became acutely aware that my cheeks were flaming in anger. Then she turned to Tod, completely unruffled by my accusation. “Is she supposed to be on medication, or something? What the hell is she talking about?”
“I’m talking about Wells.” I stepped between her and the reaper, so she couldn’t ignore me. “The vice principal? And Mr. Wesner. And Mrs. Bennigan. And now Chris Metzer. You can’t just walk around killing people every time your stomach growls!”
“I’m not sure where you’re getting these delusions, but you need to step away from the crack pipe, Cavanaugh. I didn’t hurt Metzer. He’s never gonna miss what little energy I took, and if I’d wanted him dead, he’d be staring at the inside of a body bag right now. And as for those teachers, I’ve never even read their fears, much less played around in their dreams. Feeding from old-people fears is like eating tofu when you could have sirloin. I mean, why bother with the geriatric crowd, when guys my own age taste so much better?”
“You’re lying,” I said through gritted teeth, and Sabine only laughed.
“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of—okay, I’m not really ashamed of them, either—but lying isn’t one of them. Why would I give someone else credit for my hard work? For example, when I have my legs wrapped around your boyfriend, I’m not going to give you credit for losing him. I’m gonna give me credit for taking him.”
My vision bled to red and my hand flew. But I didn’t truly realize I’d slapped her until her hand swung up to cover her cheek and my palm started tingling like I’d just grabbed a live wire.
Tod gaped at me, obviously more surprised by how I’d reacted than by what she’d said.
Sabine stared at me, and I relished the shock clear in her eyes, even as a deep thrill of primal satisfaction burned hot in my gut.
But then she smiled and her hand fell to her side, revealing the angry red patch on her left cheek. “Atta girl! Now we’re playin’ the game! I wasn’t gonna make this physical, but if you insist…” She pulled her fist back, and I flinched. But then Tod was suddenly between us, holding her back.
“Outta my way, reaper,” Sabine growled, and even as my heart throbbed in my throat, I noticed that she looked much less creepy when she wasn’t smiling. Anger suited her better, like the grin she usually wore was a weird, ironic mask. “She started it.”
“You baited her.” Tod shoved her back by both shoulders, and I realized he’d had to become completely corporeal to do it.
“If she wants to fight for him, I say let her. I’ll play fair—no fear-reading, I swear.”
Oh, crap. My pulse raced so fast my vision was starting to go gray. Why the hell had I hit her? Sabine had been to jail, and I’d never even thrown a punch.
Yet to my surprise, I realized I didn’t regret it. Even though I’d probably get my jaw broken in front of the whole school. Sabine was a slutty, boyfriend-stealing, murdering Nightmare, and someone had to call her on it.
Evidently that someone was me.
“No, Sabine.” Tod stepped to the left when she tried to dodge him, and I stood there like an idiot when she raised both brows at me over his shoulder.
“You gonna let living dead boy protect you, or are you gonna put on your big-girl pants and fight for your boyfriend?”
“This isn’t about Nash,” I insisted, secure from behind the reaper, at least for the moment. Anger, confusion, and fear swirled inside me like a thick, dark storm. “Okay, that last bit was about Nash. But the rest of it is about you leaving a series of dead bodies in your wake, like slime from a slug’s trail.”
Sabine stopped struggling with Tod and glanced up at him. “She’s crazy. You do realize she’s completely, mind-bogglingly insane, right?” And from the way she watched me for my reaction, I knew that she knew.
That righteous, burning feeling in my stomach turned ice cold. “Nash told you?”
“He didn’t have to. I know what you’re afraid of and why,” she said, eyes glittering in satisfaction. “But I don’t hold it against you.” She shrugged. “We’ve both spent time in state institutions.”
I stood there, shaking with rage, but Sabine wasn’t done.
“I don’t think you understand, Cavanaugh,” she said around Tod’s shoulder. Then she glanced up at him and gave him a shove. “Move, reaper, I’m not gonna hurt her.” Tod stepped reluctantly out of her way, but stuck close to my side, just in case. For which I was profoundly grateful.
Sabine’s attention turned back to me, and her eyes were endless black pits of despair. “Nash and I aren’t a thing of the past. We’re a thing of forever. You’re a fleeting fascination for him. The only female bean sidhe he’s ever met, other than his mom. Of course he’s going to be curious, but curiosity’s all it is. He’ll get over that, and he’ll get over you, and I’ll be there waiting.”
“It’s not just curiosity,” I insisted through clenched teeth, my throat thick with the denial. It couldn’t be.
“You’re right—it’s part guilt.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stood with her feet spread, guy-tough, yet somehow still hotter than I’d ever be. “You’ve managed to make him feel guilty for what he is, and for an addiction that’s all your fault, even though he’s killing himself trying to overcome them both. But he shouldn’t have to. If you really cared about him, you’d be the one there with him at night, when he’s shaking from needing a hit. When he’s sick to his stomach, and sweating, and trying to look like he isn’t dying inside.”
I swallowed, guilt bubbling up inside me, but she wasn’t done.
“If you really cared about him, you wouldn’t have told him to stay out of your head. His Influence is part of who and what he is, and you made it clear that he can’t be that person when he’s with you.”
“You don’t know what he did…” I started, blinking away tears I refused to let fall. “He didn’t tell you that. I know he didn’t.”
“You’re so naive it would be cute, if it weren’t so pathetic.” Sabine shook her head, but her focus never left me. “Nash and I don’t have any secrets. He told me. It was this whole big confession for him, and the entire time he’s telling me how he lied to you, and pushed you, and let that demon use you, he’s looking at me like his fate’s in my hands. Like he’ll be damned forever if he sees judgment in my eyes. But he won’t. He never will, because here’s the thing—Nash can tell me anything. He can tell me how guilty he feels for using Influence to try to get into your pants. That’s one of his very worst fears, and maybe it should be. He shouldn’t have done that to you, because you can’t take it. You’re too fragile. One push too many, and you’ll shatter into a million shards of Kaylee, all sharp and broken, and he’ll be left to pick up the pieces.
“But I won’t break,” she continued. “And guess what else.” Her voice dropped into an exaggerated whisper, and she leaned closer as Tod tensed beside me. “This may make me a dirty girl, but I like it. Nash’s Influence? It’s a game of control—a challenge to see who has it, which is a high all on its own for someone like me. Someone who has to be in control of herself for every minute of every single day, to keep from creeping out everyone she ever looks at. After that, letting someone else have control for a few minutes… It’s something between a relief and a rush, and it’s fun. Nash can’t hurt me, and I can’t hurt him. We can be ourselves around each other, and that’s something you and he will never, ever have. Not ever. Because you don’t trust him. And you never will. And in his heart, he knows it.”
11
AT 4:23, SOMEONE KNOCKED on my front door. I’d just pulled a bag of popcorn out of the microwave and was about to do some research online, trying to dig up dirt on Sabine. Looking for anything that would make Nash and Tod take my suspicions seriously.
At first, I hesitated to answer the door. What if it was my own personal Nightmare, come to kick my teeth in when Tod wasn’t there to stop her? But I shrugged that off. The last thing I needed was something else to be afrai
d of, and the truth was that in spite of her record, in-your-face violence didn’t seem to be Sabine’s style. She was much more likely to sneak in at night and make me dream she beat the crap out of me. Then had victory sex with Nash. Or something equally violent and crude.
Still, I peeked through the front window, just in case, and sucked in a surprised breath. Nash. I should have guessed from the fact that I hadn’t heard a car pull up.
My heart beat a little harder when I opened the door, but I didn’t invite him in.
He didn’t smile. “Did you really hit Sabine?”
“Yeah.” I went back to my homework on the couch and he followed me in, pushing the door shut at his back.
“Why?”
I lifted both brows at him and pulled open the popcorn bag from its corners. Fragrant steam puffed up onto my face. “The more logical question might be why I waited so long.”
Nash sighed and sank into my father’s chair while I dumped popcorn into a bowl on the coffee table. “She wouldn’t tell me why.”
I faked shock. “I thought you two told each other everything? How could she keep a secret from her soul mate?”
Nash frowned, but looked more frustrated than angry. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just ask Tod.”
“What makes you think he’ll talk?”
“He’ll tell me if he thinks it’ll help you, or piss her off.”
“They sounded pretty chummy this afternoon. All dark and morbid together.”
Nash shrugged. “He likes you better.” He pulled off his jacket and laid it over the arm of the chair. “Please tell me, Kaylee. What the hell happened in third period?”
Tod and I had left for Chick-fil-A before the lunch bell rang, specifically to avoid Nash and Sabine. We’d texted Em to meet us at the restaurant. I was now considering eating out every day, just to avoid another confrontation. With either one of them.
I shook salt over the popcorn, avoiding his gaze. “She told me she was going to sleep with you. Not a huge surprise—I know what she wants—but it was the way she said it. She’s so sure I have nothing to offer you, and she has everything you can’t resist.”
“And you believe her?”
I closed my laptop and finally looked at him. “I don’t know what to believe. You told her things about me. You had no right to talk about me when I wasn’t there.”
“I wasn’t telling her about you. I was telling her about me. You just happen to be a big part of my life. And, unfortunately, a big part of everything I’ve screwed up lately. Kaylee, what I want from her and what I want from you are two completely different things.”
“Could you be more vague?” I crunched into the first bite of popcorn, but found it tasteless.
“I want you the same way I’ve always wanted you.”
“The way you used to want her?” He’d love Sabine once—for real—but claimed to have gotten over her. If he was lying, wouldn’t he eventually realize he wanted her back? And if he was telling the truth, did that mean he could get over me just as easily as he’d gotten over her?
“Yeah,” he said, and I had a moment of panic until I realized he was answering the question I’d actually voiced, not the ones playing over and over in my head. “But now she’s just a friend.”
“Have you told her that?”
“I tell her all the time.”
I pushed the bowl away, my appetite suddenly gone. “She seems to be selectively deaf.”
“Well, she’s stubborn, and she definitely knows what she wants.” He paused, and I looked up to find him watching me. “I wish I could say the same about you.”
I closed my eyes, trying to draw my thoughts and a tangle of emotions I couldn’t even describe into some kind of coherent stream. I knew what I wanted. But Sabine was right—I was scared to be with Nash while he was still fighting cravings, because if he gave in, even just once, the Netherworld would have him again. And if it had Nash, it would also have a piece of me. But I couldn’t tell him to his face that I didn’t have absolute faith in his recovery.
So I said nothing, and there was only silence. Painful, tense silence, like a wire wound so tight it would soon snap and lash us both. And finally Nash spoke, staring at the hands he clasped loosely between his wide-spread knees.
“Kaylee, do you even want me back? Because if you don’t, and I make her go, I’ve lost both my girlfriend and my best friend.”
“She’s your best friend now?” How was that even possible? She’d only been here for three days! That was an insanely short period of time for everything that had changed!
“She’s my best friend again. In case you haven’t noticed, the other candidates have vacated the position,” he snapped, and for just a moment, I saw a glimpse of the bitter, brittle pain he’d kept bottled up since Doug’s death and Scott’s descent into madness, buried beneath his own dark cravings and wavering willpower. “And as you pointed out, Tod’s barely speaking to me.”
“Well, then, you need to find a better friend.” I stood and stomped into the kitchen with my bowl of popcorn. “Someone who won’t try to carve me out of your life or feed from your friends’ fear.”
Nash followed me. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“You’re not asking the right one.” I set the bowl next to the sink and turned to face him. “Do I want you back? Yes. Desperately. Even though part of me thinks I shouldn’t. But wanting you isn’t enough anymore. I need to know that it’s not going to happen again. Any of it.”
“You don’t trust me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, the line of his jaw tight.
“And she says I never will, right?” I demanded, and Nash nodded. “Do you even realize what she’s doing? She’s telling you I’ll never be able to trust you, while she’s tempting you to betray my trust. She’s engineering her own predictions.”
“Is she right?”
“I don’t know!” I crossed the kitchen to throw away my popcorn bag, determined to keep space between us, because when I got close to him, it was hard to remember what I was thinking, even without his Influence. When he was close, all I wanted to do was hold him and remember how that used to feel. How it could still feel, if I could at least forgive, even if I never truly forgot. “You have to earn trust, and you don’t do that by hanging out with your ex-girlfriend until all hours of the night.”
Nash leaned against the tiled peninsula, watching me. “I wish you would stop thinking of her as my ex and start thinking of her as my friend.”
“I wish she would do the same!” I whirled on him and threw my hands in the air, exasperation practically leaking from my pores. He looked miserable, and I was pretty sure I looked crazy, so I took a deep breath and forced my voice back into the realm of reasonable.
“Okay, look.” I took a deep breath, bracing myself for what I had to say next. I didn’t want to do it this way—I’d wanted to wait until I had some kind of evidence—but waiting no longer seemed to make sense. “This entire conversation is probably pointless, anyway.”
He frowned, hazel eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I think she killed them, Nash. Mr. Wesner and Mrs. Bennigan, and Mr. Wells. Your ‘best friend’ is a murderer.”
“No.” Nash shook his head without hesitation, and I almost felt sorry for him. It must be hard to surface from such a sea of denial and finally breathe the bitter truth.
“What, she didn’t tell you that, either? Maybe she’s the one who can’t be trusted.”
He crossed the kitchen toward the breakfast table in one corner and pulled out a chair with his brows raised, asking me to sit with him. I nodded reluctantly and sank onto the seat he’d offered. He took the one on my left. “Kaylee, Sabine didn’t kill them. I know it’s weird, three teachers dying so close together, and it’s definitely suspicious. But she had nothing to do with it. Why would you even think that?”
“Because maras suck the life force out of people while they dream.” I was frustrated and half-embarrassed by my lack of proof, but thoroug
hly convinced I was right. “Sabine shows up at Eastlake, and suddenly three teachers are dead. And they all died in their sleep. It’s not a huge leap in logic.”
“Okay, but it’s not a slam dunk, either. Sabine doesn’t kill people. Why would she, when she can get plenty of energy from a single nightmare? She doesn’t even have to feed every night.”
“Well, she has been. She’s fed from me two nights in a row, and she gave Chris Metzer a nightmare during third period today. That’s what started our whole confrontation.”
Nash nodded too many times, like his brain was only a word or two ahead of his mouth. “Okay, yeah, she told me about Metzer.”
She had? Why would she admit that?
“But that doesn’t mean she killed anybody. She didn’t do it, Kaylee. I…” He rubbed his forehead, and I was pretty sure I’d given him a headache. “I wish you knew her like I know her. You’d understand then. She likes people to think she’s tough—and maybe she is. But she’s not a murderer. She’s not even really a fighter. The fights she’s been in were all self-defense.”
All? How many had there been?
“Nash, my dad knows about the teachers.” About Mr. Wesner and Mrs. Bennigan, anyway. “And he’s looking into their deaths. Something’s obviously wrong—I had to tell him. And I’m gonna have to tell him about Sabine, too.”
“Wait.” Swirls of color exploded in Nash’s irises and he grabbed my hand, squeezing it on the tabletop. “Don’t tell him about her. Please, Kaylee. If you think she did it, he will, too, but I swear on my soul that she didn’t do this.” He looked so desperate, so heartbroken, and my chest ached at the reminder of how much he cared about her. “Just give me a couple of days, and I’ll prove it.”
“How are you gonna do that?” I pulled my hand gently from his grasp, and he suddenly looked lost, clearly grasping at mental straws.
“Hospital records,” he said finally. “I’ll make Tod get them for me. That’ll prove they all died of natural causes.”