All because of some redhead I didn’t even know.
Just thinking about her sent a fresh wave of devastation through me, and my knees collapsed. My fall caught Emma off guard, and I would have pulled her down if Nash hadn’t caught me.
He lifted me completely off the ground, cradling me like a child, and followed Emma out the back door with me secure in his arms. The club had been dim, but the alley was dark, and it went quiet once the door thumped shut behind us, Emma’s bank card keeping the latch from sliding home. The frigid near-silence should have calmed me, but the racket in my head had reached its zenith. The scream I refused to release slammed around in my brain, reverberating, echoing, punctuating the grief still thick in my heart.
Nash set me down in the alley, but by then my thoughts had lost all semblance of logic or comprehension. I felt something smooth and dry beneath me, and only later would I realize Emma had found a collapsed box for him to set me on.
My jeans had ridden up on my legs when Nash carried me, and the cardboard was cold and gritty with grime against my calves.
“Kaylee?” Emma knelt in front of me, her face inches from mine, but I couldn’t make sense of a word she said after my name. I heard only my own thoughts. Just one thought, actually. A paranoid delusion, according to my former therapist, which presented itself with the absolute authority of long-held fact.
Then Emma’s face disappeared and I was staring at her knees. Nash said something I couldn’t make out. Something about a drink…
Music swelled back to life, then Emma was gone. She’d left me alone with the hottest guy I’d ever danced with—the last person in the world I wanted to witness my total break with reality.
Nash dropped onto his knees and looked into my eyes, the greens and browns in his still churning frantically somehow, though there were no lights overhead now.
I was imagining it. I had to be. I’d seen them dance with the light earlier, and now my traumatized mind had seized upon Nash’s eyes as a focal point of my delusion. Just like the strawberry blonde. Right?
But there was no time to think through my theory. I was losing control. Successive waves of grief threatened to flatten me, crushing me into the wall with an invisible pressure, as if Nash weren’t even there. I couldn’t suck in a deep breath, yet a high-pitched keening leaked from my throat now, even with my lips sealed shut. My vision began to go even darker than the alley—though I wouldn’t have thought that possible—like the whole world had been overlaid with an odd gray filter.
Nash frowned, still watching me, then twisted to sit beside me, his back against the wall too. On the edges of my graying vision, something scuttled past soundlessly. A rat, or some other scavenger attracted by the club’s garbage bin? No. Whatever I’d glimpsed was too big to be a rodent—unless we’d stepped into Buttercup’s fire swamp—and too indistinct for my shattered focus to settle on.
Nash took my free hand in his, and I forgot whatever I’d seen. He pushed my hair back from my right ear. I couldn’t understand most of what he whispered to me, but I gradually came to realize that his actual words weren’t important. What mattered was his proximity. His breath on my neck. His warmth melting into mine. His scent surrounding me. His voice swirling in my head, insulating me from the scream still ricocheting against my skull.
He was calming me with nothing more than his presence, his patience and whispered words of what sounded like a child’s rhyme, based on what little I caught.
And it was working. My anxiety gradually faded, and dim, gritty color leaked back into the world. My fingers relaxed around his hand. My lungs expanded fully, and I sucked in a sharp, frigid breath, suddenly freezing as sweat from the club dried on my skin.
The panic was still there, in the shadowed corners of my mind, in the dark spots on the edge of my vision. But I could handle it now. Thanks to Nash.
“You okay?” he asked when I turned my head to face him, the bricks cold and rough against my cheek.
I nodded. And that’s when a new horror descended: utter, consuming, inescapable mortification, most awful in its longevity. The panic attack was all but over, but humiliation would last a lifetime.
I’d completely lost it in front of Nash Hudson. My life was over; even my friendship with Emma wouldn’t be enough to repair the damage from such a nasty wound.
Nash stretched his legs out. “Wanna talk about it?”
No. I wanted to go hide in a hole, or stick my head in a bag, or change my name and move to Peru.
But then suddenly, I did want to talk about it. With Nash’s voice still echoing softly in my head, his words whispering faintly over my skin, I wanted to tell him what had happened. It made no sense. After knowing me for eight years and helping me through at least half a dozen previous panic attacks, Emma still had no idea what caused them. I couldn’t tell her. It would scare her. Or worse, finally convince her I really was crazy.
So why did I want to tell Nash? I had no answer for that, but the urge was undeniable.
“…the strawberry blonde.” There, I’d said it out loud, and committed myself to some sort of explanation.
Nash’s brow furrowed in confusion. “You know her?”
“No.” Fortunately. Merely sharing oxygen with her had nearly driven me out of my mind. “But something’s wrong with her, Nash. She’s…dark.”
Kaylee, shut up! If he wasn’t already convinced I was certifiable, he would be soon….
“What?” His frown deepened, but rather than bewildered or skeptical, he looked surprised. Then came vague comprehension. Comprehension, and…dread. He might not know exactly what I meant, but he didn’t look completely clueless either. “What do you mean, ‘dark’?”
I closed my eyes, hesitating at the last second. What if I’d misread him? What if he did think I was crazy?
Worse yet, what if he was right?
But in the end, I opened my eyes and met his gaze frankly, because I had to tell him something, and surely I couldn’t damage his opinion of me much more than I already had. Right?
“Okay, this is going to sound weird,” I began, “but something’s wrong with that girl at the bar. When I looked at her, she was…shadowed.” I hesitated, scrounging up the courage to finish what I’d started. “She’s going to die, Nash. That girl is going to die very, very soon.”
2
“WHAT?” NASH’S eyebrows rose, but he didn’t roll his eyes, or laugh, or pat my head and call for the men in white coats. In fact, he looked like he almost believed me. “How do you know she’s gonna die?”
I rubbed both temples, trying to wipe away a familiar frustration rearing inside me. He might not be laughing on the outside, but surely he was cracking up on the inside. How could he not be? What the hell was I thinking?
“I don’t know how I know. I don’t even know that I’m right. But when I look at her, she’s…darker than everyone around her. Like she’s standing in the shadow of something I can’t see. And I know she’s going to die.”
Nash frowned in concern, and I closed my eyes, barely noticing the sudden swell of music from the club. I knew that look. It was the one mothers give their kids when they fall off the slide and sit up talking about purple ponies and dancing squirrels.
“I know it sounds—” crazy “—weird, but…”
He took both of my hands, twisting to face me more fully on the flattened box beneath us, and again the colors in his irises seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. His mouth opened, and I held my breath, awaiting my verdict. Had I lost him with talk of creepy black shadows, or did my mistakes start all the way back with the spilled drink?
“Sounds pretty weird to me .”
We both glanced up to find Emma watching us, a chilled bottle of water in one hand, dripping condensation on the grimy concrete, and I almost groaned in frustration. Whatever Nash had been about to say was gone now; I could see that in the cautious smile he shot at me, before redirecting toward Emma.
She twisted open the lid and handed me the bottle.
“But then, you wouldn’t be Kaylee if you didn’t weird-out on me every now and then.” She shrugged amiably and hauled me to my feet as Nash stood to join us. “So you had a panic attack because you think some girl in the club is going to die?”
I nodded hesitantly, waiting for her to laugh or roll her eyes, if she thought I was joking. Or to look nervous, if she knew I wasn’t. Instead, her brows arched, and she cocked her head to one side. “Well, shouldn’t you go tell her? Or something?”
“I…” I blinked in confusion and frowned at the brick wall over her shoulder. Somehow, that option had never occurred to me. “I don’t know.” I glanced at Nash, but found no answer in his now-normal eyes. “She’d probably just think I was crazy. Or she’d get all freaked out.” And really, who could blame her? “Doesn’t matter, anyway, because it’s not true. Right? It can’t be.”
Nash shrugged but looked like he wanted to say something. But then Emma spoke up, never hesitant to voice her opinion. “Of course not. You had another panic attack, and your mind latched onto the first person you saw. Could’ve been me, or Nash, or Traci. It doesn’t mean anything.”
I nodded, but as badly as I wanted to believe her theory, it just didn’t feel right. Yet I couldn’t make myself warn the redhead. No matter what I thought I knew, the prospect of telling a perfect stranger that she was going to die felt just plain crazy, and I’d had enough of crazy for the moment.
For the rest of my life, in fact.
“All better?” Emma asked, when she read my decision on my face. “Wanna go back in?”
I was feeling better, but that dark panic still lingered on the edge of my mind, and it would only get worse if I saw the girl again. I had no doubt of that. And I would not give Nash an encore of the night’s performance, if at all possible.
“I’m just gonna head home.” My uncle had taken my aunt out for her fortieth birthday, and Sophie was on an overnight trip with the dance team. For once I’d have the house to myself. I smiled at Emma in apology. “But if you want to stay, you could probably catch a ride with Traci.”
“Nah, I’ll go with you.” Emma took the water bottle from my hand and gulped from it. “She told us to leave together, remember?”
“She also told us not to drink.”
Emma rolled her big brown eyes. “If she really meant that, she wouldn’t have snuck us into a bar.”
That was Emma-logic, all right. The longer you thought about it, the less sense it made.
Emma glanced from me to Nash. Then she smiled and headed down the alley toward the car lot across the street, to give us some privacy. I dug my keys from my pocket and stared at them, trying to avoid Nash’s gaze until I knew what I was going to say.
He’d seen me at my worst, and rather than flipping out or making fun, he’d helped me regain control. We’d connected in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible an hour earlier, especially with someone like Nash, whose one-track mind was a thing of legends. Still, I couldn’t fight the certainty that this evening’s dream would end in tomorrow’s nightmare. That daylight would bring him to his senses, and he’d wonder what he was doing with me in the first place.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My keys jangled, the ring dangling from my index finger, and he frowned when his gaze settled on them.
“You okay to drive?” He grinned, and my pulse jumped in response. “I could take you home and walk from there. You live in the Parkview complex, right? That’s just a couple of minutes from me.”
He knew where I lived? I must have looked suspicious, because he rushed to explain. “I gave your sister a ride once. Last month.”
My jaw tightened, and I felt my expression darken. “She’s my cousin.” Nash had given Sophie a ride? Please don’t let that be a euphemism…
He frowned and shook his head in answer to my unspoken question. “Scott Carter asked me to give her a lift.”
Oh. Good. I nodded, and he shrugged. “So you want me to take you guys home?” He held his hand out for my keys.
“That’s okay, I’m good to drive.” And I wasn’t in the habit of letting people I barely knew behind the wheel of my car. Especially really hot guys who—rumor had it—had gotten two speeding tickets in his ex’s Firebird.
Nash flashed a deep set of stubbly dimples and shrugged. “Then can I have a lift? I rode with Carter, and he won’t be ready to go for hours.”
My pulse jumped into my throat. Was he leaving early just so he could ride with me? Or had I ruined his evening with my freak-tastic hysterics?
“Um…yeah.” My car was a mess, but it was too late to worry about that. “But you’ll have to flip Emma for shotgun.”
Fortunately, that turned out to be unnecessary. Em took the back, shooting me a meaningful glance and pointing at Nash as she slid across the seat, swiping a corn-chip bag onto the floor. I dropped her off first, a full hour and a half before her curfew, which had to be some kind of record.
As I pulled out of Emma’s driveway, Nash twisted in the passenger seat to face me, his expression somber, and my heart beat so hard it almost hurt. It was time for the easy letdown. He was too cool to say it in front of Emma, and even with her gone, he’d probably be really nice about it. But the bottom line was the same; he wasn’t interested in me. At least, not after my public meltdown.
“So you’ve had these panic attacks before?”
What? My hands clenched the wheel in surprise as I took a left at the end of the street.
“A couple of times.” Half a dozen, at least. I couldn’t purge suspicion from my voice. My “issues” should have driven him screaming into the night, and instead he wanted details? Why?
“Do your parents know?”
I shifted in my seat, as if a new position might make me more comfortable with the question. But it would take much more than that. “My mom died when I was little, and my dad couldn’t handle me on his own. He moved to Ireland, and I’ve been with my aunt and uncle ever since.”
Nash blinked and nodded for me to go on. He gave me none of the awkward sympathy or compulsive, I’m-not-sure-what-to-say throat-clearing I usually got when people found out I’d been half-orphaned, then wholly abandoned. I liked him for that, even if I didn’t like where his questions were heading.
“So your aunt and uncle know?”
Yeah. They think I’m one egg shy of a dozen. But the truth hurt too much to say out loud.
I turned to see him watching me closely, and my suspicion flared again, settling to burn deep in my gut. Why did he care what my family knew about my not-so-private misery? Unless he was planning to laugh with his friends later about what a freak I was.
But his interest didn’t seem malicious. Especially considering what he’d done for me at Taboo. So maybe his curiosity was feigned, and he was after something else to tell his friends about. Something girls rarely denied him, if the rumors were true.
If he didn’t get it, would he tell the entire school my darkest, most painful secret?
No. My stomach pitched at the thought, and I hit the brake too hard as we came to a stop sign.
My foot still wedged against the brake, I glanced in the rearview mirror at the empty street behind me, then shifted into Park and turned to face Nash, steeling my nerve for the question to come. “What do you want from me?” I spat it out before I could change my mind.
Nash’s eyes widened in surprise, and he sat back hard against the passenger’s side door, as if I’d shoved him. “I just…Nothing.”
“You want nothing?” I wanted to see the deep greens and browns of his irises, but the beam from the nearest streetlight didn’t reach my car, so only the dim light from my dashboard shone on him, and it wasn’t enough to illuminate his face. To let me truly read his expression. “I can count the number of times we’ve really spoken before tonight on one hand.” I held that hand up for emphasis. “Then you come out of nowhere and play white knight to my distressed damsel, and I’m supposed to believe you want nothing in return? Nothing to tell your f
riends about on Monday?”
He tried to laugh, but the sound was stilted, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I wouldn’t—”
“Save it. Rumor has it you’ve conquered more territory than Genghis Khan.”
A single dark brow rose in the shadows, challenging me. “You believe everything you hear?”
My eyebrow shot up to mirror his. “You denyin’ it?”
Instead of answering, he laughed for real and propped one elbow on the door handle. “Are you always this mean to guys who sing to you in dark alleys?”
My next retort died on my lips, so surprised was I by the reminder. He had sung to me, and somehow talked me down from a brutal panic attack. He’d saved me from public humiliation. But there had to be a reason, and I wasn’t that great of a conquest.
“I don’t trust you,” I said finally, my hands limp and worthless on my lap.
“Right now I don’t trust you either.” He grinned in the dark, flashing pale teeth and a single shadowed dimple, and his open-armed gesture took in the stopped car. “Are you kicking me out, or do I get door-to-door service?”
That’s the only service you get. But I shifted into Drive and faced the road again, then turned right into his subdivision, which was definitely more than a couple of minutes from my neighborhood. Would he really have walked if I’d let him drive me home?
Would he have taken me straight home?
“Take this left, then the next right. It’s the one on the corner.”
His directions led me to a small frame house in an older section of the development. I pulled into the driveway behind a dusty, dented sedan. The driver’s side door stood open, spilling light from the interior to illuminate a lopsided square of dry grass to the left of the pavement.
“You left your car door open,” I said, shifting into Park, glad for something to focus on other than Nash, though that’s where my gaze really wanted to be.
Nash sighed. “It’s my mom’s. She’s gone through three batteries in six months.”
I stifled a smile as her car light flickered. “Make that four.”