“Yes.” My father sat back on his stool, giving me plenty of space. “You’ll live until she was supposed to die. But don’t worry about that. I’m sure she would have had a very long life.”
And that’s when I burst into tears.
I’d held back until then, my sorrow eclipsed by overwhelming guilt over being the cause of my mother’s death. But thinking about how long her life should have been…That I couldn’t handle.
Nash cleared his throat, drawing our attention. “She knew the risk, right, Mr. Cavanaugh?” He stared at my father with a blatantly expectant look on his face. “Kaylee’s mom knew what she was doing, right?”
“Of course.” My dad nodded firmly. “She probably didn’t even realize I’d planned to make the exchange myself. She was willing to pay the price, or she would never have sung for you. I just…wanted to save her too. It was supposed to be me, but I lost you both that night. And I never really got you back, did I?”
I forced back my next sob, rubbing spent tears from my cheeks with my palms. I was getting really good at not-crying. “I’m right here, Dad.” I set the strainer in the sink and dumped the pasta into it, then slammed the empty pot down on the countertop. “You left.”
“I had to.” He sighed and shook his head. “At least, I thought I did. He came after you again, Kaylee. The reaper was furious that we saved you. He took your mother, but then he came back for you, two nights later. In the hospital. I would never have known it was coming if your grandmother hadn’t come in from Ireland after the wreck. She practically lived in your room with me, and she got a premonition of your death.”
“Wait, I was supposed to die again?” My hand hesitated over the strainer.
“No.” My father shook his head vehemently. “No. Your mother and I angered the reaper when we saved you. He came back for you out of spite. Your mother wasn’t hurt in the accident, and you were living on her time. There’s no way she should have died two days after you would have. So when he came for you the second time, I called him on it.”
“Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fascinated as I was.
My dad nodded. “He was an arrogant little demon.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“I punched him.”
For a moment, we stared at him in silence. “You punched the reaper?” I asked, and my hand fell from the strainer onto the edge of the sink.
“Yeah.” He chuckled at the memory, and his grin brought out one of my own. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father smile. “Broke his nose.”
“How is that possible?” I asked Nash, thinking of his sort-of-friendship with Tod.
“They have to take on physical form to interact with any physical object,” he said, fiddling with the long cardboard box the cheese had come in. “They can’t be killed, but they can definitely feel pain.”
“And you know this how…?” I asked, pretty sure I knew the answer to that one too.
Nash grinned. “Tod and I don’t always get along.” But then he turned back to my dad, serious again. “Why did the reaper come after Kaylee a second time?”
“I don’t know, but I was afraid he’d do it again.” My father paused, and his half grin faded into a somber look of regret. “I sent you to Brendon to keep you safe. I was worried that if I stayed with you, he’d end up taking you too. So I sent you away. I’m sorry, Kaylee.”
“I know.” I wasn’t quite up to accepting his apology yet, though the fact that he clearly meant it helped quite a bit. I dumped the pasta back into the empty pot and followed it with two fistfuls of cheese cubes. Then I turned the burner on medium heat and added salt, a little milk, and a spoonful of Aunt Val’s low-calorie margarine.
I stared into the pot as I stirred. “How long are you staying?”
“As long as you want me here,” he said, and something in his voice made me look up. Did that mean what I thought it meant?
“What about your job?”
He shrugged. “There are jobs here. Or, if you want, you could come back to Ireland with me. I’m sure your grandparents would love to see you.”
I hadn’t seen them since the last time I’d seen my father, and I’d never been out of the country. But…
My gaze was drawn to Nash. When he saw me looking, he nodded, but I wasn’t fooled. He didn’t want me to go, and that was enough for me.
“I’d love to visit Ireland, but I live here, Dad.” I sprinkled some pepper into the pot and kept stirring. “I don’t want to leave.” The disappointment on his face nearly killed me. “But you’re welcome to stay here. If you want.”
“I—”
I’d like to think he would have said yes. That he was considering a house for the two of us, hopefully not too far from Nash’s, but plenty far from Sophie and her fluffy pink melodrama. But I’d never know for sure. He didn’t get to finish because the front door opened, and something thumped to the floor, then Sophie groaned. “Who left these stupid bags right in front of the door?” she demanded.
Amused by her ungainly entrance, I craned my neck to see over Nash’s shoulder. My cousin knelt on the floor, one hand propping her up over an old, worn suitcase. I started to laugh, but when my gaze settled on hers, all amusement drained from me instantly, leaving me cold and empty. Her face was shadowed, her features so dark I could barely make them out, even with light drenching her from overhead.
The reaper had come for its next victim.
Sophie was about to die.
20
“SOPHIE?” MY FATHER stood and turned toward her without a single glance my way. “Wow, you look just like your mother, except for your eyes. Those are Brendon’s eyes—I’d lay my life on it.” If he’d looked at me, he’d have seen her fate. I was sure of it. But he didn’t look.
Even Nash was watching my cousin.
Fear and adrenaline sent a painful jolt through my chest, and I gripped the edge of the countertop. “Sophie…” I whispered with as much volume as I could muster, desperate to warn her before the panic kicked in for real. But no one heard me.
Sophie picked herself up with more grace than I’d ever wielded in my life, brushing off the front of the dark, slim dress she’d worn to the memorial. “Uncle Aiden.” She pasted on a weary smile, to match red-rimmed eyes, polite even in the grip of grief. “And Nash. Two of my favorite men in the same room.”
For once, I barely registered the flames of jealousy her claim should have lit within me, because the inside of my throat had begun to burn viciously. Yes, I often wanted to shut her up, but not permanently.
“Dad!” I rasped, still clinging to the countertop for support, but again, no one noticed me.
Except Sophie.
“What’s wrong with her?” My cousin clacked into the dining room in her dress shoes, hands propped on narrow, pointy hips. “Kaylee, you look like you’re gonna throw up in your…What is that?” She eyed the half-used brick of Velveeta. “Mac and cheese?”
Nash turned to me so fast he nearly lost his balance. “Kaylee?” But I could only watch him, my jaws already clenched against the wail for my cousin’s soul. “Again?” I nodded, and he pulled me close, already whispering words I couldn’t concentrate on, his rough cheek scratchy against mine.
“Kay?” My father whirled toward me a second behind Nash, and a look of horror slid over his features when he recognized the look on mine. He followed my gaze to my cousin slowly, as if afraid of what he’d see. “Sophie?” he asked, and I nodded, gritting my teeth so hard pain shot through my temples. “How long?”
I shook my head. I’d had no idea my ability came with a built in time gauge, much less how to use it.
“Brendon!” my father shouted, his focus locked on me.
Sophie flinched, then stepped forward to see me better, leaning over the back of a dining-room chair, her eerily shadowed forehead wrinkled in confusion.
Nash was still whispering to me, holding me tight with hi
s back to the stove. His lips brushed my ear, his words gliding over me with a soothing breath of Influence, helping me hold the panic in check. I breathed deeply, trying to hold back the looming wail as I stared over his shoulder, my focus glued to my oddly darkened cousin.
“What’s going on?” Sophie gripped the high back of the chair in both hands, and her gaze met mine. “She’s freaking out again, isn’t she? Mom keeps that shrink’s number around here somewhere.” She started toward the kitchen, but my father put out one arm to stop her.
“No, Sophie.” He glanced toward the hall and shouted, “Brendon! Get out here!” Then he turned back to his niece. “Kaylee will be fine.”
“No, she won’t.” Sophie shook her head and tugged her arm from his grasp, green eyes wide. Her concern felt genuine. I think she was actually afraid for me. Or maybe afraid of me. “I know you’re worried about her, but she needs serious help, Uncle Aiden. Something’s wrong with her. I told them this would happen again, but no one ever listens to me. They should have let that doctor give her shock therapy.”
“Sophie…” My dad’s shoulders tensed, his expression caught between fear and anger. He was going to set her straight—except that Nash beat him to it.
“Damn it, Sophie, she’s trying to help you, and you…” He whirled on her, eyes churning furiously. But the moment he stepped away from me, the panic descended in full force. I pulled him back by one arm, and Nash’s look of surprise melted into understanding, and he resumed whispering, as if he’d never stopped.
Footsteps pounded down the hall and I opened my eyes to see Uncle Brendon stumble to a halt in the middle of the living room. He looked from me to my dad, then followed my father’s gaze to Sophie. As I watched, my uncle’s features crumpled in an agony so complete, so encompassing, that I could barely stand to see it.
For several seconds, no one moved, as if afraid that the slightest twitch would draw the reaper out of hiding and bring about the inevitable conclusion. Sophie glanced from one of us to the next in total confusion. Then my father sighed, and the soft sound seemed to reach every corner of the wide-open living area. “Are you okay?” he asked, and I nodded unsteadily. I wasn’t the one facing death. Not yet, anyway.
“What’s going on?” Sophie demanded, shattering the quiet like a gunshot at a funeral. But no one answered. She was the source of all the trouble, yet no one even looked at her. For once, everyone was looking at me.
“Is it Sophie?” Uncle Brendon asked, walking slowly toward us, as if it hurt to move. His voice was barely audible over the unvoiced scream already reverberating in my head. I nodded, and his eyes closed as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled. “Are you sure?” He had to open his eyes to see me nod again, then the line of his jaw hardened. “Will you help me?” he asked, pain twisting his features into a mask I barely recognized. “I swear I won’t let her take you.”
Unfortunately, after my father’s story, I wasn’t sure Uncle Brendon would have any control over who the reaper took instead. Any reaper who would reap a soul not on the list wouldn’t think twice about taking the bean sidhe who got in her way. Or everyone else in the room, for that matter.
But I couldn’t just let Sophie die, even if she was a royal pain in the butt most of the time.
“What are you all talking about?” My cousin glanced at each of us in turn, like we’d all lost our minds, and sanity was getting lonely. “What’s going on?”
Uncle Brendon crossed the living room in four huge steps and motioned to his daughter to join him on the couch. She went reluctantly, and he pulled her down onto the center cushion. “Honey, I have to tell you something, and I don’t have time for the long, gentle version.” He took Sophie’s hands, and my chest ached with what could only be the splintering of my heart.
“You’re going to die in a few minutes,” he said. Sophie frowned, but her father rushed on before she could interrupt. “But I don’t want you to worry, because Kaylee and I are going to bring you right back. You’ll be fine. I’m not sure what’ll happen after that, but what I need you to know is that you’re going to be just fine.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Confusion pinched Sophie’s fine features into a scowl, and I could see panic lurking on the edge of her expression. Her world had just ceased making sense, and she didn’t know what to do with information she couldn’t understand. I knew exactly how she felt. “Why would I die? And what on earth can Kaylee do about it?”
Uncle Brendon shook his head. “We don’t have time for all that now. I don’t know how long we have, so I need you to trust me. I will bring you back.”
Sophie nodded, but she looked terrified, as much for her father as for herself. She probably thought he’d gone over the proverbial deep end and was now drowning in it. She glared at me over his shoulder, as if I’d somehow contaminated him with my mental defect, but I couldn’t summon any irritation toward my cousin—not with her moments from death.
“Noooo.”
Every head in the room swiveled toward the hall, where Aunt Val now stood, clutching the door frame as if that were the only thing holding her up. “It wasn’t supposed to be Sophie.”
“What?” Uncle Brendon stood so fast the motion made me dizzy. He stared at his wife in dawning horror. “Valerie, what did you do?”
Aunt Val? What did she have to do with grim reapers and bean sidhes? She was human!
Before my aunt could answer, a fresh wave of grief rolled over me and I staggered on my feet. Nash caught me before I hit the dining-room table and lowered me carefully into one of the chairs. It wouldn’t be long now.
Sophie started to tremble then, and the very sight of her sent tremors through my own limbs. Anguish racked me from the inside out. My heart felt too big for my chest. My throat burned like I was breathing flames.
But beyond the physical pain of holding back Sophie’s soul song, I felt my cousin’s loss intensely, though the reaper had yet to strike. It was like watching my own hand laid out on a chopping block, knowing the woodsman was coming for it. Knowing I’d never get it back. And it didn’t matter that we’d never been close. I wasn’t in love with my feet either, but I didn’t want to lose them.
“Mom?” Sophie squeaked, shifting her weight from one side to the other as she hugged herself. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry, honey,” Aunt Val said from the middle of the living-room carpet, her focus darting all over the place, like a junkie on a bad trip. “I won’t let her take you.” She paused, without ever looking at her daughter, and threw her head back as far as it would go, blond waves cascading down her back almost to her waist.
“Marg!” she shouted, and I flinched. My hands gripped the chair arms as I tried to regain my control after she’d nearly shaken it lose. “I know you’re here, Marg!”
Marg? I hadn’t told Aunt Val about seeing the reaper, or that she was, in fact, female. And I hadn’t even known the reaper’s name. Until now.
And suddenly I understood. Aunt Val knew the reaper’s name because she had hired her.
No! Denial and devastation pinged through me. I couldn’t believe it. Aunt Val was the only mother I’d known for the past thirteen years. She loved me, and she certainly loved Sophie and Uncle Brendon. She would never do business with a reaper, much less bargain with the souls of the innocent.
But the drinking, and the questions…She’d known all along why the girls were dying!
“This wasn’t part of the deal!” my aunt screamed, hands clenched into fists, shaking in either fear or fury. Or both. “Show yourself, you coward! You can’t do this!”
But that’s where she was so very wrong.
21
AUNT VAL’S SHRIEK had yet to fade from my ears when Sophie’s legs collapsed beneath her. As she fell, she smacked the back of her head on the edge of an end table. She hit the floor with a muffled thud, and blood trickled from her hair to stain the white carpet.
Neither of her parents saw. Uncle Brendon was scanning the bright
room obsessively, as if the reaper might be hiding behind an armchair, or in one of the potted plants. Aunt Val still stared at the ceiling, shouting for Marg to appear and explain herself.
As if reapers hailed from above.
But the moment Sophie died, her soul song forced itself from my throat, and I nearly choked, trying to hold it back out of habit.
Aunt Val noticed me retching and whirled around to look for her daughter. “No!” she screamed, and I’d never heard a human voice come so close to my own screech until that moment.
She dropped to her knees on the floor. “Wake up, Sophie.” She stroked loose blond curls back from her daughter’s face, and her fingers came away smeared with blood. “Marg, fix this! This wasn’t the deal!”
“Sophie!” Uncle Brendon joined his wife beside his daughter’s lifeless body, as Nash and I looked on in horror, too shocked to move. Then my uncle looked at me over his wife’s shoulder, but I couldn’t understand what he wanted. I was too busy holding back the scream.
Nash dropped into a squat by my chair and took my hands, his gaze piercing mine with quiet strength and intensity. “Let it out,” he whispered. “Show us her soul so we can guide it.”
So I sang for Sophie.
I sang for a soul taken before its time, for a young life lost. For childless parents, and for a girl who would never get to decide who and what she wanted to be. For my cousin, my surrogate sister, whose quick tongue would never be tempered by age and experience.
As I screamed, the lights dimmed, though I could see no noticeable difference in any one bulb. The entire room began to gray, like the gym had earlier, and I glanced hesitantly around the room, suddenly terrified of finding dark, misshapen creatures skulking around my own house.
There were none to be found. I was clearly seeing the Netherworld, but it was…empty, somehow.
But even more disconcerting than that was the sound. Or rather, the absence of sound. While I sang, I heard nothing else around me, as if someone had pushed the mute button on some cosmic remote control. After a few seconds, I couldn’t even hear myself scream, though I knew from the fire in my throat and lungs that I was, in fact, still screeching at the top of my inhuman lungs.