“Really?” I lifted one brow and crossed my arms over my chest. “So…what would the autopsy report say about someone who was drained by a mara?”
Nash frowned as my point sank in. “Probably heart failure.” Which was ultimately the cause of any death. “Fine. But I’ll find a way to prove it. Just don’t tell him about her yet. If he thinks she’s dangerous and that I’m hanging out with her, he’ll never let me see you again. Give me a couple of days. Please, Kaylee. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You don’t want to lose her.”
He took my hand again, and I let him, against my better judgment. “I don’t want to lose either of you.”
“What about your mom?” I asked. “My dad will ask my uncle and your mom for help looking into this, and your mom knows Sabine’s back, right?”
“Yeah, but she knows Sabine—she’d never bring her up as a suspect. But if you do, your dad will believe you.”
I thought about it and finally nodded. Why not? When he couldn’t find any proof that Sabine hadn’t murdered Wells, Bennigan, and Wesner, he’d have to finally face the truth. And surely he couldn’t possibly still want her once she’d been outed as a murderer. Right?
“SO, HOW’D IT GO?” I asked, as Alec closed and locked the front door.
“Oh, you know. Popcorn, soda, candy, scalding-hot butter-flavored oil.”
“Not that.” I smiled from the couch. It felt good to be talking about something normal. Something other than addict ex-boyfriends, Nightmare ex-girlfriends, and dead teachers. “The interview.”
“Oh!” Alec’s eyes gleamed like onyx, and I was amazed how different his eyes could look from Sabine’s, considering they were nearly the same color. “I got it! I start third shift next week. I gave my notice at Cinemark tonight.”
“Awesome! Third shift, though? That’s gonna suck.”
He shrugged on his way into the kitchen. “I’m not sleeping at night, anyway. How much worse can sleeping in the day be?”
“Yeah, I guess. We’ll miss you at the theater, though.”
Alec grabbed a Coke from the fridge while I gathered up my homework, preparing to vacate his makeshift bed. He looked tired. “You’ll get over it. You don’t wanna work with an old man like me, anyway, right?” He grinned, but I couldn’t help wondering how much of that was for show.
“Oh, stop it. You may be forty-five on the inside, but outside you’re a very young, very hot nineteen, and you have nothing but good things to look forward to.”
“Especially with the new job,” my dad added, and I whirled to see him standing in the living room doorway, holding a half-eaten apple.
“Hey, why didn’t you tell me he got the job?” My dad had been home for hours and had sat through an entire half a pizza and my recap of the vice principal’s death without leaking a word of their good news.
“That’s Alec’s announcement. And don’t call him hot.”
I rolled my eyes, but smiled, shoving my folded chemistry homework into the textbook. “I’ll leave you two coworkers to celebrate. I’m going to bed.”
“So early?” My dad ducked his head to glance at the clock over the stove in the kitchen. It was just past ten-thirty.
“I’m a growing girl. I need my sleep.” Actually, I was going to get in bed with my laptop and try again to dig up some dirt on Sabine.
“Common sense looks good on you,” my dad declared, as I brushed past him and into the hall.
“Well, apple doesn’t look good on you,” I said, glancing at the tiny clump of white stuck on his stubble. “Use a napkin.” I smiled, then went into my room and closed the door. Twenty minutes later, I was sitting under the covers with my computer on my lap when Tod appeared in the middle of my floor.
“Crap!” I jumped, startled, and nearly dropped the laptop.
“Sorry.” Tod reached out to steady it with one hand, then sat on the edge of my bed.
“What are you doing here?” I closed my laptop and set it on the bedside table. “My dad will kill you if…”
He laughed. “The longer I’m dead, the less threat that carries.”
“What’s going on, Tod?”
He exhaled and reluctantly met my gaze. “I wasn’t spying on them. I swear. Not this time, anyway. I went over there looking for my mom. I thought she had tonight off.”
“I’m guessing you were wrong?” I was also guessing we were talking about Nash and his ex, and my stomach twisted at the thought.
“Yeah. My mom was leaving just as Sabine pulled up.”
“What does this have to do with me?” I already knew they were hanging out, and hopefully Nash was making good on his promise to make her back off.
“I think you should see this.”
“Why?” My heart thumped in my throat, and I had to swallow it to speak. “Are they…?” ’Cause I didn’t want to see that. Ever.
“It’s not what you think. They’re just talking. But I think you need to see them together to understand their relationship. To understand why he won’t let her go. Because if you take Nash back, I don’t think you’ll be getting just him.”
“Tod, I don’t wanna…”
“Trust me, Kay.”
12
THE NIGHT WAS COLD, and I hadn’t brought a jacket. I hadn’t thought much beyond making the reaper turn around while I changed out of my pajamas. “So, how do we…?”
“Get in without being seen?” Tod finished for me, and I nodded. I’d sworn Alec to secrecy as I snuck out the kitchen door, then had to walk all the way so my dad wouldn’t hear me start my car. And finally Tod and I stood in front of Nash’s house, staring at it in the dark. “That’s the fun part. I hope.”
“Huh?” I glanced at the reaper and he gave a little shrug, but the uncertain gesture made me nervous. “What am I missing?”
“I’ve only done this a couple of times. I don’t exactly have anyone to practice on—”
“Practice on?” I interrupted, but he spoke over me.
“—but you only have to remember a couple of things.”
“What things?” I frowned up at him and found his grin highlighted by the streetlight across the road. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to blink into Nash’s room. With you.”
“Is that even possible?” And if so, why hadn’t he ever told us? We could have saved so much time and gas money!
“Yeah. But I’m not exactly an expert yet. I can only take one person, and I can’t go very far.”
“Which is why we had to travel the pedestrian route?”
“Yeah.” His grin widened. “Also, I don’t have enough strength—or maybe not enough experience—to keep you invisible and inaudible at the same time. So…breathe very softly and don’t talk.”
“Tod! I can’t go in there and spy on Nash! He’ll hear us, then it’ll get messy, and he’ll never trust either of us again!”
His brows rose, and the streetlight glittered off his blue eyes. “You’re worried about him trusting us?”
Okay, obviously that would be the kettle shouting at a couple of black pots, but there was enough distrust in our fractured relationship already.
The real problem wasn’t the possibility that Nash might discover us, but the fact that I’d let Tod talk me into spying on him in the first place. However, since we were already playing fast and loose with moral constraints, I saw no reason to make things worse by getting caught.
“What do I have to do?”
“Just take my hand and be quiet. And don’t let go, or you’ll suddenly appear in the middle of his room, and then there will be drama. And I hate drama.”
“Noted.”
“You ready?”
“No.” I shook my head for emphasis, shivering from the cold. “But let’s go before my teeth start chattering.” There was no way I could keep them from hearing that.
He took my hand, and for a moment I could only watch him, getting used to the unfamiliar feel of his warm, dry palm against mine. His fin
gers wrapped around mine loosely, then squeezed, and I thought I saw the slightest swirling of color in his eyes.
My pulse leaped and I blinked, breaking eye contact, then blinked again, confused by what I’d almost seen.
Tod stared at me for just a second longer, then shook his head, and his ironic grin was back. “Okay, wish me luck!”
“Wish you luck!” I gaped at him.
“Just kidding.” He put one finger against his lips in the universal signal for “shhhh!” In the next instant, my stomach seemed to drop right out of my body, like it used to on the swings, when I was a kid.
I closed my eyes. An instant later, when my stomach settled, I opened my eyes to see Nash’s room coming into focus around us. My mouth fell open, and I would have gasped at the eerie settling feeling throughout my body, but Tod squeezed my hand again, a silent reminder to be quiet.
And that’s when my ears popped, and suddenly the world had sound again.
“…that time it started pouring, two blocks from your house?” Sabine asked, and Nash laughed. They lay side by side on his bed, on their stomachs, propped up on their elbows with their sock feet resting on his pillows. A photo album lay open in front of them at the foot of the bed, and Nash turned a clear plastic page as he answered.
“Too bad you don’t have pictures of that! We were so soaked my shoes squished for a day.”
“Remember how we got warm?” Sabine asked, her voice softer than I’d ever heard it. Nash turned to look at her, and their mouths were inches apart.
I held my breath, and Tod’s hand tightened around mine again, another silent warning. But as my teeth ground together, I knew that if he kissed her, I wouldn’t be able to quiet my anger and betrayal. Not that it would matter, if that happened. Me and Tod suddenly appearing in Nash’s bedroom while he made out with his ex would be the least of Nash’s problems.
But he didn’t kiss her. Nash only grinned, then stared down at the photo album, the slight ruddiness in his cheeks the only sign that the memory still affected him.
I should have been happy. I should have been giddy with relief to see him actually pass up an opportunity most guys would have pounced on. But instead of relief, I swallowed a bitter, acrid taste on the back of my tongue. The memory—whatever they’d done that day, when they were soaked, cold, and in love—still affected him. Because he hadn’t sold it to Avari for another dose of poisoned air. He’d kept the emotional impact of his memories of Sabine intact, and gutted his memories of me instead.
“Like I could forget,” Nash said, oblivious to both my presence and my pain. He flipped another page and she watched him, rather than the pictures.
“Would you, if you could? Forget?” she added, when he looked confused. “Would you forget about me?”
His eyes widened, and I could see the slow churning in them, even from across the room. “No. I wouldn’t forget you, or a single moment we spent together, Sabine. You were my first everything, and that still means something, even now that everything’s changed. It always will.”
Her smile looked painful, like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Did you try to find me, Nash?” she asked at last, after he’d flipped several more pages in silence, and I realized with surprise bordering on amazement that she sounded…bruised. Lost. “Did you even look for me, after you left?”
Nash closed the album and sat up, while she rolled onto her back, staring up at him. “Yeah. I tried to call you at Holser House, to tell you we were moving, but they wouldn’t let me through. They wouldn’t even take a message.”
She nodded, and her hair fell to hang down the side of his bed. “You weren’t on my approved calls list, and I lost all my privileges when they found the cell you gave me.”
“I tried calling the Harpers after that, but they didn’t know anything about your new foster home. The school said you’d transferred, but wouldn’t tell me where. And the internet didn’t seem to know you even existed.”
“Yeah, it took me a while to find you, too.” She closed her eyes and let her head roll to one side. “I was stupid to think you’d wait for me.”
“Bina…” Nash looked like she’d just ripped out his heart and shown it to him, still beating, and as badly as I wanted to hate her, I found anger harder to cling to in that moment than ever before. She really was his first everything—including his first broken heart.
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened?” she asked, rolling onto her side to face him again. “If you’d never left? If I hadn’t gotten arrested again?”
“I…” Nash exhaled heavily, and I hated the confliction I read in the slow twist of green in his irises. “Yeah, I do. But what-ifs are pointless, Bina. It can’t be like it was then. Not anymore.”
“It could be.” She reached up to brush a chunk of thick brown hair from his forehead, and I bit my lip to keep from protesting. I didn’t want her to touch him. Ever.
“No.” He took her wrist before she could touch his hair again. “It’s different now.”
“Because of her,” Sabine said, staring straight into his eyes. Nash nodded and let go of her. “She thinks I killed those teachers.”
“I know.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I know you better than that. But you haven’t exactly given her a reason to trust you.”
Sabine frowned and sat up facing him. “I’ve never lied to her. And I don’t care if she trusts me.”
Nash set the album on his pillow. “Yes, you do. I’m not going to be enough, Sabine. You need more than one friend.”
She shook her head, and dark hair fell over her cheek. “You’re all I need.”
I’d never seen her look so vulnerable. In fact, I’d never seen her look anything short of antagonistic, but she was obviously a completely different person with Nash. I didn’t know whether to be relieved that she had a more human side, or pissed off that that side only emerged when she was alone with my boyfriend.
“No,” he said. “I was all you had back then. You never had a real shot at any other relationship because you couldn’t control yourself. But you can now.”
“Shut up. You’re making me sound needy just to piss me off.”
“I’m telling the truth.” He grinned. “Pissing you off is a bonus.”
“Oh, you wanna see me mad?” Sabine returned his smile and shoved him back onto the mattress, then threw one leg over him, straddling him. My heart beat so hard it bruised my chest. I tried to pull away from Tod, but he held my hand tight and shook his head, like the ghost of relationships past, demanding I only watch.
Next, would we float through the open window?
Sabine stared down at him, her long hair half hiding them both. “You forget what happens when I lose my temper?” But from the way she was watching him, all flashing eyes and sly smile, I got the feeling she had a rather unconventional, hands-on approach to anger management.
“I haven’t forgotten anything, Bina.” Nash wrapped his hands around her wrists and gently pushed her back onto her side of the bed. “Including Kaylee. This isn’t gonna work if you can’t rein it in.”
“This is only gonna work if I don’t rein it in.”
“I’m serious.” Nash rolled onto his side, propped up on one elbow. “You should give Kaylee a chance. She knows what you are. She could be a good friend, if you’d let her. If you’d stop trying to scare the shit out of her every time you see her.”
Um…no, I could not be a good friend to a vengeful Nightmare. Had he lost his mind?
Sabine snorted. She actually snorted and somehow made it look endearing. “I don’t have to try to scare her. All I have to do is let go. The hard part is not scaring the shit out of everyone else. That took a lot of practice.”
I shot Tod a questioning glance. How much more of this do I need to see?
He just tossed his head toward the bed, where Sabine watched Nash like he was the only flicker of light in a very dark place.
Nash looked at Sabine like she was s
ome complicated puzzle he was trying to solve, and I knew that look. He’d looked at me that way the first time he saw me sing for someone’s soul, before I knew I was a bean sidhe. He’d looked at me like that when I was the damsel he felt honor-bound to save from distress, whether I needed saving or not. I used to love that look.
Now I hated it.
“Sabine,” he said finally, when she showed no sign of breaking what was obviously a very comfortable silence. “Read me.”
“What?” She frowned, looking genuinely uncomfortable for the first time since Tod and I had entered the room. “No.”
“I want you to read my fear. For real. Go deep and take a look at what I’m really afraid of.”
Her brows furrowed over dark eyes. “Why?” Suspicion was thick in her voice now.
“I think it’ll help you understand.”
“What if I don’t want to understand?”
He leaned closer, looking right into her eyes. “Then you’re a coward, and I’m ashamed of you.”
Anger, ripe and bitter, passed over Sabine’s fine features and her frown deepened. “Now you’re trying to piss me off.”
“I’m throwing down a challenge. You used to love a challenge. Has that changed?”
A new smile crawled over her lips, slow and dark, like the gleam in her eyes. “Nothing’s changed. That’s what I keep trying to tell you.”
“Then read me.”
Sabine sat up, and Nash pushed himself upright to face her. “You want me to make it fun? Like we used to?”
I glanced at Tod again. How could having his worst fear read possibly be fun? But the reaper didn’t even look at me.
“Sabine…” Nash said, a very familiar warning in his voice.
She grinned, trying to make light of it, but mostly failing. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.”
But something told me I would be happy to blame her—if I had any clue what she was talking about.
“Fine. Give me your hand.”
Nash held out his hand like he’d shake hers, but instead of a formal hold, Sabine threaded her fingers between his and held their merged grip between them, knuckles pointed toward the ceiling.