Before I Wake

by Rachel Vincent

  I shot a frown at him. “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said to Sabine, staring out into the dark after her, just in case. But I found nothing out of place except for her car, which was parked on the wrong side of the street, in front of the neighbor’s mailbox.

  “My guess is probably better.” She dropped her keys on the coffee table and headed for the hall, ignoring Tod when he called after her.

  “He passed out, Sabine. You may as well let him sleep it off.”

  “So, what?” I said when she’d disappeared around the corner. “They let Scott out—for no reason I can think of—and he heads straight for Nash’s house?”

  “Or for yours,” Tod said. “We don’t know where Nash saw him.”

  “Do you think he’s still possessed?”

  “How much did he drink? He’s out cold,” Sabine said, rounding the corner into the living room again to eyeball the half-empty bottle of whiskey. “Who’s possessed?”

  “It’s a long story.” I sank onto the couch next to Tod and folded my legs beneath me.

  Sabine shrugged. “It’s not like anyone here’s missing out on sleep.” Maras only needed around four hours a night, and Sabine had already gotten nearly that much before I called and woke her up.

  “Okay, but hold it down.” We were trying not to wake my father up, and I couldn’t mute her voice—much to my own frustration. “There’s this guy named Scott who used to go to our school—”

  “Scott Carter?” Sabine interrupted. “The frost junkie?” When I could only stare at her in surprise, she rolled her eyes. “Nash’s my best friend, Kaylee. We talk.”

  Good to know. I’d assumed they’d skipped straight to body language.

  “How much do you know?” Tod asked.

  “Nash and two friends got hooked on frost—breath from Avari, the hellion I met in the cafeteria.” The time she’d tried to sell me out so she could have Nash to herself. “Doug died, Scott went insane, and because Nash isn’t human, he got off with withdrawal and total abandonment from the one person who should have been there for him, no matter what.”

  “I didn’t… That’s not…” I gave up trying to explain that I hadn’t abandoned Nash, and that frost wasn’t what broke us up. “What matters now is that Scott’s out, and Nash says he saw him tonight.”

  “Okay, why are the two of you talking about a visit from an old friend like that’s worse than Nash being passed out in her bed. Which we’re going to discuss later, by the way.” Her dark-eyed glare narrowed on me. “You could have at least given him a shirt, Kaylee.”

  “Like you’re an expert on when it’s appropriate to wear a shirt,” I snapped, thinking of the time she’d pulled hers off and jumped Nash, with me in the next room, and Sabine bristled.

  “This seems headed into girl-fight territory,” Tod said. “Should I make popcorn?”

  I elbowed him in the ribs and glared at the mara. “The point is that Scott shouldn’t be out of the hospital. He wasn’t just a little unbalanced, Sabine. He suffered permanent brain damage from the frost, and Avari sent him enough visual and auditory hallucinations to make sure there was no doubt about his mental instability.”

  “So, how’d he get out?”

  “We’re not sure,” I admitted. “But he was half packed when we saw him tonight, so it looks like he was actually released.”

  Sabine frowned. “You saw Scott tonight?”

  “Sort of. We went to see if he’d ask Avari some questions for us, but when we got there, he was possessed, so we wound up dealing with Avari directly.”

  “Well, then, it sounds like you’ve answered your own question.”

  Tod glanced at me in question. “Is it just me, or is she making even less sense than usual?”

  Sabine rolled her eyes again. “You knew he was possessed because he wasn’t acting like himself, right?” she said, and we both nodded. “So couldn’t he have been possessed long enough to convince the doctors that he’s all cured off the crazy?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, and I was pleased to see that Tod looked no more convinced.

  “He was bat shit when we saw him a couple of months ago,” he said.

  “Yeah, but for all you know, Avari could have been playing all sane and healthy during his doctors’ appointments for a while, right?” Sabine said.

  I was far from convinced, but I didn’t have any better explanation. “Either way, if Nash saw Scott tonight, chances are good that what he really saw was Avari, wearing a Scott-suit. And if he went after Nash, he could go after anyone else. We need to stick together when we’re not at home. Pairs, at the very least,” I said.

  “I call Nash,” Sabine said, glaring at me, and I rolled my eyes.

  “I don’t want your boyfriend. Not like that.” And assuming he remembered anything we’d said before he passed out, Nash and I may have just made major strides toward an actual, healthy friendship.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Sabine said, and the thin thread of pain in her voice drew my focus her way.

  “But I thought… He said…”

  Sabine turned to Tod. “How long does she have to be dead before the naivety wears off?” Before he could answer, she turned back to me. “Only a virgin thinks sex means that much, Kaylee,” she said, and Tod’s hand tightened around mine before I could argue with her. She was lying. Sex with Nash meant something to her, even if she wouldn’t admit it, but Tod didn’t want me to call her on it.

  Sabine had never lied to me before. Not even when she was trying to break up me and Nash.

  She heaved a bitter sigh and scrubbed both hands over her face. “He’s sleeping with me, but look where he winds up the minute I fall asleep.” Her open-armed gesture took in my entire house.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” I insisted. “He probably came here on autopilot. Out of habit.”

  “No, Kaylee,” she said as I clung to Tod’s hand, feeling awkward and helpless in the face of her obvious angst. “You’re his choice. I’m the habit.”

  6

  TOD HAD TO head back to work, but Sabine wanted to stay the night with Nash, and I let her, adhering to the whole “strength in numbers” philosophy. Alone, she’d make a much better target for Avari, and I couldn’t risk letting her be either possessed, if Cujo—her Netherworld guard dog—fell down on the job, or was hurt, if he warned her and she fought.

  I checked on Em and Sophie both twice during the night, and every time I got back to my room, Sabine was just sitting in my desk chair, watching Nash sleep. Not in the creepy way. In the worried way.

  “He’s going to be okay,” I said, perching on the edge of my desk to watch him with her. I tried to say it like I meant it, but the truth was that I held no authority on the subject of Nash.

  Or the subject of being okay.

  “He wanted to go visit Scott, you know,” Sabine said, like we were in the middle of a conversation I couldn’t remember starting. “I told him I didn’t think that was a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what he needed to hear. He wanted to go see Scott because Scott is a piece of his life from back when his life made sense. He wanted to recapture some of that, and he wanted to apologize for being part of what put Scott in the psych ward. But he was scared that the Scott he knew wouldn’t be in there anymore, and if that was true, there’d be nothing left of his life from before. His best friends are either dead or insane, and the rest of them avoid him at school because they don’t know how to talk to him anymore. And half of them think he tried to kill you. But…”

  Sabine looked up at me, and her dark eyes only hinted at the raw pain her voice laid bare. “But beyond all that, Nash was terrified that being that close to Avari would be too much for him. That he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation, so close to the source.” She shrugged. “So I told him he shouldn’t go. Not that it mattered. A couple of weeks later, you made out with his brother, and sent him right over the deep end again.”

  “Neither of
us meant for any of that to happen,” I said. On the list of conversations I never wanted to have with Sabine, this one was right at the top. “And anyway, you got what you wanted, right?”

  Her dark eyes narrowed as she tossed a one-armed gesture at Nash, still passed out on my bed. “Does this look like what I wanted?”

  “He’s having a rough month. We all are.”

  “A rough month? Kaylee, I spent years trying to find him, and when I finally did, you were standing in my place. So I backed off and let your blatantly ill-fated relationship run its course—”

  “You didn’t back off, you tried to kill me!” I interjected.

  “Well, I had to try, didn’t I?” she demanded, and I couldn’t decide which fallacy in that sentence to address first, so I saved my breath. “But even with me there, waiting almost patiently, doing all the best-friend stuff because I love him, he’s moping over the friends he’s lost instead of seeing what he’s gained. And now you’re finally out of the picture—or so I thought—and look where he winds up.” She glanced at Nash again, and I flinched, though I’d played no part in his drunken late-night walk. “That’s probably the longest he’s ever even been in your bed.”

  “It is.”

  “What does that mean, Kaylee? Why would he rather be alone in your bed than with me in his?”

  Well, damn. Sad Sabine was no easier to deal with than angry Sabine. The last time she’d been distraught over Nash, she’d hijacked both me and my car and tried to make me fix what she’d messed up.

  “Okay, look. He didn’t come here to climb into my bed, Sabine. He came here because he wanted answers, and it’s obviously a lot easier to ask for them when he’s drunk. You’re just going to have to give him some time. He’s lost right now, but he’s strong, and he will bounce back from this. And when he does, he’s going to realize that you were there the whole time.”

  “You really believe that?”

  I’d never seen her so vulnerable. “Yeah. I do.” She really loved him. That had to mean something, and when Nash was thinking straight, he had to see that.

  Sabine glanced at her hands in her lap, like whatever she had to say next required a little bit of a lead-in. Then she met my gaze again. “Thank you.” Sabine blinked, and the vulnerability I’d glimpsed was gone. “Now, could we maybe pretend this whole bonding exercise never happened?”

  I laughed. “I’d like nothing better.”

  * * *

  I started cooking around six-thirty in the morning, my hair still dripping from the shower. I’d never made anything more complicated than microwave pancakes, but with time on my hands, a house full of guests, and a father obsessed with the concept of the “family meal,” I thought I’d give it a go.

  I microwaved a pound of bacon six strips at a time—turns out the key is good drainage—and made pancakes from a jug of mix-and-pour batter I found in the cabinet. It was only three days past its use-by date, so I figured the chances of it making anyone sick were slim.

  The first three pancakes were amorphous blobs—I swear, one looked just like a storm trooper—but by the fourth, I’d figured out how to flip them without making a huge mess.

  Nash shuffled into the kitchen as I was putting down a saucer of raw venison for Styx, and she glanced away from her breakfast just long enough to aim a yippy hello his way. She’d always liked Nash, but she still wasn’t comfortable with Tod, probably because he was dead. At first, I’d worried that she wouldn’t like me after my own death, but apparently our initial bonding transcended the questionable state of my existence.

  “Hey,” I said as Nash bent to scratch the back of Styx’s neck. “I made coffee if you want some.”

  “Thanks.” He sat in a chair at the table—the same chair that had always been “his” when we were together—and accepted the mug I set in front of him.

  “Where’s Sabine?”

  “In the shower.” Nash scrubbed his face with both hands. “Kaylee, I’m so sorry for…whatever I said or did last night.”

  “You don’t remember?” I poured coffee for myself and scooped sugar into the mug.

  “I remember parts of it,” he said, and I wanted to ask which parts those were, but a rehash seemed like a really bad idea.

  “You said you saw Scott. Do you remember that?”

  Nash’s eyes widened in surprise, then lost focus as he nodded, clearly trying to remember. “I thought I was dreaming at the time, but I wasn’t. I really saw him. Outside, on the street.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. Somewhere between my house and yours.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Nash shook his head slowly. “He just looked at me for a minute, then turned around and walked off.”

  “But you’re sure it was him?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sat in the chair next to Nash and sipped from my mug, trying to decide how best to say what needed to be said. “Tod and I saw him last night, too. Earlier. In the hospital. He was possessed, Nash. Which means you probably saw Avari.”

  Nash frowned. “How do you know? Did he sound like Avari?”

  “No, the voice sounded like Scott, but the words sounded like Avari.” Normally when a hellion possesses a human, the hellion retains his own voice. But… “He’s spent the past few months in Scott’s head, so it’s entirely possible he learned how to work Scott’s vocal chords, just like he did with Alec. When he was possessing Alec, I couldn’t tell the difference.”

  “Hey. Your turn in the shower,” Sabine said, padding into the kitchen in my robe.

  “Thanks.” Nash stood and glanced from her to me, then back, like he wasn’t sure what to say with us both listening. Then he made a break for the bathroom while Sabine snagged a piece of bacon from the platter.

  “Hi,” Sabine said, still chewing as she lifted the card from a vase of wilting mixed blooms on the counter. “The school sent you flowers. I’m sure that totally makes up for the fact that they hired the psychotic, soul-stealing pedophile who murdered you in your own home.”

  I could only blink at her while she chewed.

  With the pancakes warming on a pan in the oven and the last batch of bacon in the microwave, I knocked on my father’s bedroom door. “Yeah, Kay, come on in.”

  I pushed open the door to find him sitting on the edge of his bed in a pair of flannel pajama pants, squinting at the alarm clock on his bedside table. “Guess what? I made breakfast.”

  “You made…?” But before he could finish that thought, our ancient water heater groaned to life and the sound of running water erupted from down the hall. My dad’s eyes widened as he glanced at the closed bathroom door over my shoulder. “Who’s in the shower?”

  “Nash. We kind of…had an impromptu sleepover.”

  “You and Nash?” My dad was out of bed in an instant, reaching for the robe tossed over his footboard.

  “No! Well, yes. But Sabine stayed the night, too.”

  “That doesn’t sound much better, Kay… .”

  “Hang on, Pa, don’t reach for yer shotgun just yet,” I said, grinning over the protective streak I found funny, when there wasn’t actually anything to shelter me from. “We were just circlin’ the wagons, not having an orgy.”

  My dad suddenly looked like he might be sick. “Please don’t ever say that word again.”

  “Wagons?” I teased, and he actually cracked a smile.

  “Yes, you’re much too young to be using Wild West analogies.” He tied his robe and ran one hand through hair that showed no sign of thinning, well into his one hundred and thirty-second year. “So what happened? Why are we circling the proverbial wagons?”

  I sat on the edge of his bed and patted the spot next to me until he sat again. “Scott’s out of the hospital. Nash saw him last night, and we’re pretty sure that means he actually saw Avari.”

  “Nash came here because he saw Avari?”

  “Actually, he was on his way here when he saw Avari. But he thought it was Sc
ott, and he doesn’t remember much of it this morning.”

  My dad’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

  “Because he was drunk.”

  “Nash came to see you drunk?” My dad exhaled and rubbed his forehead. “Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned drunk dial?”

  “I believe that’s now the drunk text, but I think Nash wanted answers in person.”

  “Okay, so let me get this straight: the reaper who killed my wife and tried to kill my daughter has come back from the dead and is following orders from the hellion obsessed with owning my daughter’s soul, and now possesses the body of an escaped mental patient who also tried to kill you. Did I get that right?”

  “We think Scott was officially released, but other than that, sounds about right.” Why is it that my life can never be summarized in a sentence with fewer than three clauses?

  “And you didn’t wake me up because…?”

  “Because there’s nothing you could have done.”

  My dad scowled. “Kaylee, next time, wake me up.”

  “We’re kind of hoping there won’t be a next time.”

  Footsteps echoed behind me, and we both turned to see Sabine step out of my room, still wearing my robe. “Hey, Mr. Cavanaugh,” she said on her way to the front of the house.

  “You know this can’t be an everyday thing, right, Kaylee?” my dad whispered when she was gone.

  “I think it’s safe to say none of us wants that. But on the bright side, I made bacon.”

  * * *

  Breakfast was a whole new kind of awkward, with me sandwiched at the table by my irritated father and my hungover ex-boyfriend, who still wore my dad’s shorts. Sabine seemed oblivious to the unspoken tension—her attention was occupied by a stack of pancakes and a pile of bacon.

  After we ate, as I was digging through the hall closet for spare toothbrushes, I heard my father and Nash talking in the kitchen. Alone. The urge to go incorporeal so I could sneak closer and listen was almost too much to resist. In the end, the only thing that stopped me was the fact that I’d spied on Nash once before, with Tod’s help, then promised never to do it again.