But I had to talk to Tod in private. And time was running out.
Chapter Twenty-One
The fact that I hadn’t actually lied to Tod didn’t ease my guilt as I blinked into his mother’s home. The house felt strange and too quiet without Nash and Harmony there. I missed the hum of the dishwasher, the scent of baking chocolate, and the video game sounds usually emanating from Nash’s room at the end of the hall.
My shoes squeaked on the linoleum while I searched the kitchen, and I bruised my knees climbing onto the countertop so I could check the upper cabinets, but I didn’t find what I was looking for there, or in the bathroom, or the living room.
Walking into Harmony’s room while she was suffering in the Netherworld felt like violating a shrine. Her closet was open and her bed was unmade, like she’d just gotten up, but the truth was that she hadn’t been home in more than a day, and she wouldn’t come home at all if I didn’t get what I’d come for, then do what had to be done.
Avari’s clock ticked in my head as I searched her drawers and her bedside table, and a countdown of my own added to the pressure when I glanced at her alarm clock and saw that twelve minutes had already slipped away from me. Tod would expect me in eight more. If I was too late, he’d text. Then he’d come looking for me.
I finally found what I needed in a shoe box at the back of Harmony’s closet. Eleven vials, neatly labeled in her all-caps print, along with a handful of disposable plastic droppers sealed in cellophane and a small notebook full of notes to herself. Most of the sentences were incomplete, but the dosages were clear.
I wondered how she’d been testing them. Then I decided I didn’t really want to know.
I slid the vial I needed into my pocket, along with one of the droppers. Then I took another dropper, just in case. After I’d closed the box, pushed it back into place, and double-checked to make sure I hadn’t left anything else out or open, I blinked out of Harmony’s house and into Levi’s office.
“Kaylee.” Tod’s boss blinked at me in surprise then hopped down from his rolling chair. His chest barely cleared the surface of his desk. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old when he’d died, and I found little else in either world creepier than an undead child. “I’m in the middle of a meeting.” He waved one small, freckled hand at something behind me, and I turned to see two reapers I didn’t recognize sitting in chairs at my back. I’d appeared out of nowhere between them and Levi’s desk.
“I need a favor.” Don’t look at his letter opener. Don’t look at his letter opener.... If he’d noticed the missing incubus soul, I couldn’t tell, and I wasn’t about to alert him to the loss.
“If memory serves, you’re already in my debt in that regard.” He’d restored Tod’s afterlife after I’d died. “And did I mention that you don’t have an appointment?”
“She’s not even a reaper,” one of the men at my back said.
Levi crossed tiny arms over his little-boy chest, half covering the Gap Kids logo. “I’m aware, David.”
“What is she?” the other reaper asked.
“Out of line. That’s what she is.” Levi planted both palms on his desk and glared up at me. It was like being scolded by a kindergartner. A kindergartner with an old soul and a corpse’s eyes. “Kaylee, see my assistant and make an appointment. I think I have an opening around noon tomorrow.”
“This can’t wait. Please, Levi. I need help.” I clutched the vial in my pocket and held his gaze, letting desperation show in mine, even though he probably couldn’t see the motion in my irises. “Five minutes, max. I swear.” That’s more than I could afford to spend there anyway.
Finally he exhaled and looked past me to the other reapers. “Wait in the hall.”
When they filed out the door without arguing, I realized that Tod was probably the least compliant employee Levi had—much like me in Madeline’s service.
The door clicked closed at my back. Levi gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk, and I sat. “Is this about Tod?”
“No. Not directly, anyway.” My feet bounced on the floor, and I couldn’t make them stop.
“Good, because he’s used all the favors he’s going to get—most of them on your behalf—and he’s been dead less than three years.”
I swallowed a lump of guilt over that. But if this went well, he wouldn’t have to worry about me getting Tod in trouble anymore.
“So, what can I do for you, Kaylee?”
I took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “I need you to tell a lie.”
Levi frowned with pouty child’s lips, and his freckled forehead wrinkled below a mop of bright red hair. “Maybe you better start from the beginning.”
It took almost five minutes for me to explain what I needed and why, and another two minutes to persuade him that my lie was necessary, and that he had to be the one to tell it. I then spent one more precious minute convincing him that I hadn’t lost my mind and that I would actually go through with my part of the plan.
By the time I shook Levi’s hand, unsettled more by the grim respect in his gaze than I was by the reality of what I was planning, I was seven minutes late to meet Tod, and he’d texted twice.
And I still had to pick up the drinks.
While I waited for our cherry limeades, I texted Tod to tell him I was on my way. Then I practiced controlling my pulse and slowing my heartbeat. Letting my true fear show in my eyes while hiding my guilt over what I was about to do.
This is about the war, not the battle, Kaylee. Sacrifices had to be made.
When I blinked into his room, Tod was squatting in front of the minifridge that served as his nightstand. When he saw me, he stood with the small carton of ice cream we’d opened the day before.
“No, thanks.” I set the limeades on top of the fridge and held his gaze. “I’m not here for the ice cream.”
His eyes widened. “I may not be the sharpest scythe in the shed, but even I can read those signals.” He kissed me, and I nearly forgot my own name.
“Mmm...” I said, when his mouth trailed over my chin and down my neck.
“Why do you taste so good?” he mumbled against my skin.
“Cherry limeade.” I reached back to hand him his. I’d gotten us each a small, because I needed him to drink as much of his as possible.
Tod took a long drink, then set his cup down. “I love those.”
“I know.” I slid my hands beneath his shirt, running my fingers over his stomach, then higher.
“I love you more.”
“More than processed sugar and fresh-squeezed citrus? You flatter me....”
I leaned into him until he had to take a step back, and then I leaned a little more. He lost his balance and had to sit on the edge of the bed, staring up at me in surprise. I climbed into his lap, then I kissed Tod like I might never see him again. Like the promise of eternity was a cruel joke and the truth was that we might not live to see dawn.
When that kiss finally ended, Tod leaned back a little so he could focus on my face. “Not that I’m complaining—and let me emphasize that I’m truly not complaining—but is something wrong, Kaylee? I mean, other than the missing parents/demonic evil thing?” He reached for his cup again, and relief and guilt churned within me, one fading into the other until they were indistinguishable.
“Does something have to be wrong for me to want to spend time alone with my boyfriend?”
His eyes narrowed as he sipped from his straw. “A smarter reaper than I might notice that you’re playing the same implication game Avari plays when he doesn’t want to admit something.”
“I don’t want a smarter reaper. I want you.”
“Ha ha.” He took another drink, then set the cup down again. “Kay...?” He knew me too well to fall for my avoidance game, and he loved me too much not to push for the truth when something was obviously wrong.
“I’m just...scared. I’m scared, Tod.” I slumped beneath the weight of that admission, and his hands slid up my back, over my
shirt. “I’m more scared now than I’ve ever been in my life. Or my afterlife.” That was true. In fact, that was the truest thing I could possibly have told him.
“You’re a murder victim. How can you be more scared now than you were the night you died?”
“I don’t know. There was no time to be scared then. All I could do was react. Fight. But now there’s nothing to do but think about what Avari’s doing to my dad and what he’ll do to your mom and Brendon when he gets them. Or about how we can’t stop it. We’ve been in and out of the Netherworld a dozen times in the past twenty-four hours, and we haven’t seen a single sign of your mom and my uncle since we found those bandages, and what scares me even worse is that Avari hasn’t found them yet, either. How is that possible? I mean, if they were still alive, wouldn’t he have found them, even if we can’t?”
“Maybe not.” Tod’s eyes went still beneath the burden of a fear I understood very well. As did Sophie and Nash. “They’re alive, Kay. And so’s your father. We’re going to get them back.”
“I know. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. But...” I sat straighter in his lap and looked right into his eyes. “You know we can’t do that without sacrificing something else, right? We can’t get them back without casualties.”
He shook his head. “No. No one else is going to—”
“Tod. We’re both as grown-up as we’re going to get, and we have to stop telling each other faerie tales. This isn’t a happy-ending kind of world we live in. Nothing comes without a price, and someone has to be willing to pay.”
“The bad guys are going to pay. It’s their turn to pay.”
“What part of our recent interaction with the Netherworld leads you to believe that’s even possible? If Ira had wanted Sabine dead, she’d be dead, and who knows how many more of us would have died trying in vain to save her. Or even find her. Sometimes I think we’re only alive because they haven’t decided to kill us yet.”
“We’re not alive,” Tod said, but for once, his grin failed to lighten the mood—because it wasn’t a real grin. He was as scared and angry as I was, and there was no way to truly forget that, while those we loved were suffering beyond our reach.
“You know what I mean.” I took a sip from my cup and handed him his, careful not to get them confused. Fortunately, I’d depressed the “diet” bubble on the lid of my own, even though there was no such thing as a diet cherry limeade. Thank goodness.
“I also know you’re wrong.” He took a drink, then set his cup down again. “We’re not alive because they haven’t decided to kill us yet. We’re alive in spite of them wanting us dead. Because they have tried, and we’ve come through it okay every single time. Because of you, Kaylee.”
“It was a team effort. Besides, not all of us came through it, and that part was because of me.”
“Don’t.” Tod took my face in his hands and kissed me before I could argue. Then he pulled me close again and spoke into my ear so softly I wasn’t sure if I was hearing words from his mouth or from his heart. “You don’t get credit for killing Alec because you would never have hurt him. Never. You’ve lost everything protecting the people you love. Em and Sophie. Nash. Your dad. And me. I’m here because of you. I’m as close to human as I can be—as I’ll ever be again—because you’re here with me. Every night, I count down the minutes until I can see you. I hate school because it takes you away from me. I wish I could sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, so I could dream about you. My mom and Nash are very important to me. I would do anything for them. But you’re the reason I’m still here. You’re the reason I’m still me—the reason I still see people instead of potential names on a future list.”
He held me tighter, and tears rolled down my cheeks before I even knew they were there. “We’re going to get through this. I promise you, Kaylee.” He pulled away so he could see my eyes, and I saw sincerity in his. Earnestness. I saw how very much he believed what he was saying. “We’re going to get them back. And we’re going to be together forever. There’s nothing in either world strong or evil enough to come between us.”
But he was wrong.
I blinked before he could see the truth in my eyes.
“You want to cross over again?” he asked, and I opened my eyes. “We can go now. I don’t have to be at work until midnight, and I won’t have a reaping until—”
“No. I mean yes, I do, but not yet. In a couple of hours. For now, I just want...you. Us. This.” I kissed him again and ran my hands through his curls, thinking about how soft his hair was. How good his skin felt beneath my hands, smooth and firm, and so very warm.
How this might be the last time...
“Mmm...” he moaned against my skin. He worked his way down my neck while I worked my way up from his stomach, dragging his tee up with my hands, trying to touch all of him at once. When my fingers crawled over his collarbones, he leaned back and lifted his arms so I could pull his shirt off.
I have no idea where it landed.
Tod lifted me and turned, and suddenly I was looking up at him, propped up on my elbows. His eyes churned with an intense blend of pain, and fear, and need, and anger, but at the center, just outside of his pupils, there was a deep spiral of something more powerful than all the others. Something stronger, like it could swallow everything else he was feeling, and with a sudden, startling leap of intuition, I realized that that spiral was me. That deep, bright blue that grew and twisted throughout the other colors—that was how he felt about me.
I got lost in his eyes. I got lost in the colors and the emotions, and I stayed lost there as long as I could, because those things he was showing me...those were real. His eyes were truly the windows to his soul, and those colors...they were Tod. Seeing them meant knowing him, and I knew that no one else had ever had free access to his soul. Not even Levi, who’d reaped it not once, but twice.
Tod was mine, just as much as I was his. And I was his. Completely.
My heart thundered in my chest with a sudden, stunning terror. My hands fell away from him. If Avari ever figured out how much Tod truly meant to me, he would stop at nothing to have him. To hurt him.
Ira would do the same, surely, if he would hurt Sabine just to hurt me.
There were still things I hadn’t considered. Things I needed to account for...
“Kay?” Tod sat up, and his fingers trailed down my side. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I...” I swallowed thickly, then met his gaze again. “Can you hand me my drink?” My mouth was suddenly so dry I could hardly speak.
While I sipped from my straw, he sipped from his.
“Tod, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done for the right reason?”
He grinned, and I loved that he could do that—that he could remind me of good times in the middle of the worst times we’d ever experienced. “You may remember that I kissed my brother’s girlfriend.”
“The way I remember it, she kissed you.”
“I kissed her back. A lot. Things escalated from there. Drama. Heartbreak. It was quite the scandal.”
I let my fingers trail down his bare arm while he took another drink, then he set both cups on the fridge again. “Do you ever regret it?”
“No. Not even for a second. Kissing you back may have been the wrong thing to do, but I did it for the right reason. I don’t ever want you to doubt that. This...” He put one hand over my heart, and I could tell from the sudden swell of color in his eyes that he could feel it beating. “Us... We’re right. This is the way things are supposed to be, Kaylee. Don’t tell me you can’t feel that. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I know. Do you think...? I mean, it sounds stupid, but your mom said it was true for my parents....” I blinked and could almost feel myself blush. “Do you think we’ll ever be soul mates?”
“I think we already are.” The blues in his eyes spun so fast they made me dizzy. “I remember the exact moment you took a piece of my soul. I felt it.”
I held my bre
ath, which, as it turns out, is completely different than simply ceasing to breathe. “When?” The word carried no sound, yet he heard it.
“When I found you on your bed, bleeding out. I knew you were going to die. I’d been trying to prepare myself for it, but when the moment came, I couldn’t let you go. I knew I couldn’t stop it, but at the same time I knew that if you died, you’d have to take me with you, because I couldn’t be here without you.”
My heart beat so hard my entire body shook with each thump.
“That’s why Levi was able to get me back, Kaylee. Did Madeline tell you?”
I shook my head. I didn’t quite understand what he was trying to say, but I could feel the reality of it slipping into place inside me, like all great, irrefutable truths.
“He turned in my soul after he reaped it, but they couldn’t process it because it wasn’t whole. I’d given part of it to you. He was on his way to untangle the rest of my soul from yours when Madeline found him and asked for an audience with you. Then, when you told him to bring me back, he knew that might actually be possible, because you still had some of my soul.”
Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.
“So...I’m yours, Kaylee. Every single part of me, from the hands that itch to touch you to the bit of my soul that you carry. Nothing can ever change that.”
I held him so tightly my arms ached and I was sure I must have been bruising him, but he didn’t complain. “I love you so much, and sometimes that scares the crap out of me.”
“Me, too. Have I told you that you’re the scariest thing I’ve ever seen?”
I blinked in surprise. “Well, that’s a...nontraditional compliment. Thanks?”
He laughed. “Okay, that was bad phrasing, but it’s the truth.” He ran his thumb over my lower lip, and the swirling in his irises swelled with the touch and with the thoughts behind it. “This is the most frighteningly beautiful mouth I have ever seen. The most terrifyingly delicious lips I have ever tasted. These lips make me hungry for more every time I kiss them. This mouth, and the tongue inside it...they speak words I hang on to. Words that make me want to be a better man. Words I would gladly build my entire afterlife around. But they also say things that terrify me. Things that send chills all the way to my heart. They speak about dangers I can’t prevent. Threats I can’t always see. They threaten to do things that could get you hurt, when every single beat of my heart tells me that I need to protect you.”