My Soul to Steal

by Rachel Vincent

  He sighed again. “You have her at a disadvantage. She thinks she has to use her entire arsenal just to even the odds.”

  “I have her at a disadvantage? Tod says the two of you were attached at the hip. Or was it the crotch?” Yes, I was being petty and unreasonable. That may have had something to do with the fact that I wasn’t getting any sleep, and I’d just had my psychic energy drained by my ex-boyfriend’s leech of an ex-girlfriend.

  Nash’s bedsprings creaked again, and the soft click told me he’d just turned on his bedside lamp. “Are you mad at me because I slept with someone else two and a half years ago? Before I even met you?”

  “Yes!” I stood again and rubbed my forehead, well aware that my lack of logic wasn’t helping my case. But I couldn’t help how I felt, and he wasn’t doing much to alleviate my worries. “And don’t say that’s not fair, because ‘fair’ isn’t even in the equation anymore. What you let happen to me wasn’t fair, either. And I’m sure Scott would agree.”

  For a moment, I heard only silence over the line. I’d gone too far. I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. I’d never been so mad in my life, and now that the dam had ruptured, I couldn’t repair the damage. The overflow of anger wasn’t just about Sabine and this nightmare. It was about everything beyond my control that had happened in the past couple of months. Everything I’d never vented about before, but suddenly had to address, or I’d explode.

  “Are you trying to hurt me? It’s okay if you are. I know I deserve it. I just want to be clear on the point of this whole conversation, so I’ll know when we’ve accomplished whatever it is you need.”

  I had to think about that for a second. “No. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to heal me.”

  “Is it working?” He sounded so logical. So frustratingly reasonable, when I wanted to scream and shout and throw things until I felt better, logic be damned.

  “I don’t know,” I had to admit at last, sinking into my desk chair.

  More silence. Then, “What was the nightmare about?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, too quickly. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was that he’d fall off the wagon. That he’d go back to selling his memories of me and trying to Influence me into things I wasn’t ready for. That he might let Avari take over my body again, if that’s what it took to get his next high.

  Listing my fear—the facts—like that, the logical part of me couldn’t even believe I was thinking about forgiving him. The smart thing would be to let Sabine have him. Let the ex-con and the former addict have each other, and wash my hands of the whole mess.

  But I couldn’t, because of the one truth it didn’t hurt for me to think about: the guy who’d done those things to me wasn’t the real Nash. My Nash was the guy who’d defied my family to save my sanity, and fought hellions alongside me, and put himself in danger just to help protect me.

  This other boy—this boy whose addiction was literally the thing of my nightmares—he wasn’t even real. It wasn’t him doing those things, it was the frost. The Demon’s Breath, which had suppressed—maybe even corroded—his soul. Changed who he was with each poisonous breath.

  If he’d been human, the damage would have been irreversible. Part of it might be, anyway. But if it wasn’t, then Nash was still the first and only guy outside of my family who’d ever loved me. And I couldn’t turn my back on him if there was even a possibility of getting that Nash back.

  I still wanted that Nash. I still needed to feel his hand in mine. I wanted to see him smile like he had before and know that I was the only thing he craved. I wanted to feel him behind me and know he had my back, whether we faced bitchy cousins or evil, soul-stealing hellions.

  “Kay, can I come over?” Nash asked. “Can I please come see you?”

  My heart thumped painfully, in spite of my best effort to calm it, and I sat up straight in my chair. “Now?”

  “Yeah. I need to see you. We can just sit on the couch and talk. I just… I want to see you without the rest of the student body staring at us.”

  The ache in my chest spread into my throat, which tried to close around the only answer that made sense. “It’s the middle of the night, Nash. My dad would kill you. Then he’d kill me.” Just because he’d called to check up on Nash while he was sick didn’t mean my dad wanted us back together. If he knew I was even thinking about taking Nash back, he’d make me get my head examined.

  “Besides,” I continued, standing to pace again before he could protest. “Alec’s on the couch, so we wouldn’t exactly have privacy.”

  “What?” Nash’s voice went dark and angry with just that one syllable, and I realized I hadn’t told him Alec was staying with us. I’d hardly spoken to him at all since the Winter Carnival. “He’s there with you, while your dad’s asleep? When your dad’s not even there? And you didn’t tell me?”

  I rolled my eyes, though he couldn’t see them. “Don’t start. Sabine was in your room a couple of hours ago, actively trying to get into your pants while your mom was at work. And don’t even get me started on the list of things you didn’t tell me.”

  Another moment of silence. Then, “Fair enough. But I can handle Sabine. I know her. You don’t know anything about Alec, except that he spent a quarter of a century working for a hellion. Not exactly a stellar recommendation. Has he tried anything?”

  “Gross, Nash, he’s forty-five years old.”

  “That won’t matter when you’re legal and he still looks nineteen.”

  I sank onto my bed and let my head thump against the headboard. “You’re totally overreacting. He thinks I’m a kid.”

  “That’s not going to stop him from looking.”

  “You don’t even know him.”

  Nash laughed harshly, like I’d just told him rainbow-colored unicorns had flown through my bedroom window. “I know because he’s there, and you’re there, and he hasn’t seen a girl without tentacles or claws in twenty-six years.”

  “Wow. You make me sound like such a catch.”

  “I can’t win this argument, can I?”

  “Nope. I’m going back to sleep now.”

  “Lock your bedroom door.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Good night, Nash. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hung up before he could argue and turned off my lamp.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t make myself go back to sleep for fear that Sabine would be waiting to attack me again from my own subconscious. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Nash, huddled in a corner, telling me I wasn’t worth staying clean for. So I got up and padded into the kitchen, where I found Alec wide-awake, fully dressed, and halfway through a box of snack cakes.

  “You, too?” I asked, trudging past him to take a glass from the cabinet.

  “Kaylee?” Alec coughed, nearly choking on his snack in surprise.

  “Yeah. I live here, remember?” I ran tap water until it turned cold, then filled my glass.

  “Of course. I didn’t expect you to be awake. At this hour.”

  I raised one brow at him over my water glass. “You okay? You sound…tired.” And less than perfectly coherent. “And Dad’s going to kill you for eating all his cupcakes.”

  An annoyed expression passed over Alec’s strong, dark features, but was gone almost before I’d seen it.

  “You wanna hear something interesting?” I asked. “And by interesting, I mean terrifying beyond all reason…”

  One dark brow rose as Alec closed the end of the snack box. “You have my attention.”

  I had his attention? “If you’re trying to sound your real age, I think you’re finally getting it right.”

  He frowned, like I’d spoken Greek and he was trying to translate.

  “Anyway, remember my nightmare last night? I just had another one, but it turns out that they aren’t real dreams. Well, not natural dreams, anyway.” I leaned against the counter with the sink at my back. “Nash’s ex is giving them to me. On purpose. She’s a mara, if you can believe it. The living personi
fication of a nightmare. How messed up is that?”

  “Nash’s former lover is a mara?” Alec wasn’t even looking at me now. He was staring into space as if that little nugget of information took some time to sink in. I knew exactly how he felt.

  “Yeah. She wants him back and has decided I’m in her way. But I have news for that little sleep-terrorist—it’s going to take more than a couple of bad dreams to scare me off, so I hope she has something bigger up her sleeve.”

  But as soon as I’d said it, I wanted to take it back. Challenging Sabine felt a little bit like staring a lion in the mouth, daring it to pounce.

  “YOU OKAY?” MY DAD asked, pouring coffee into his travel mug as I walked into the kitchen. He wore his usual jeans and steel-toed work boots, his chin scruffy with dark stubble above the collar of a flannel shirt.

  “Just tired.” I couldn’t go back to sleep after my middle-of-the-night chat with Alec, so I’d stretched out on my bed, silently rehashing my argument with Nash, analyzing every word he’d said ad nauseam. “Can I have some of that?”

  My father frowned at the pot of coffee, hesitating. Then he gave up and poured a second mug for me. “If you need coffee at sixteen, I hate to think what mornings will be like when you’re my age.”

  Considering how many times I’d nearly died since the beginning of my junior year, I’d settle for just surviving to his age. But I knew better than to say that out loud.

  “Hey, Dad?” I said, pulling a box of cereal from the cabinet overhead.

  “Hmm?” He opened his carton of cupcakes—the breakfast of champions—and frowned into it. “Did you eat my snacks?”

  “No. Dad, what do you think the chances are of two teachers dying on the same day?”

  He looked up from his box, still frowning, but now at me. “I guess that depends on the circumstances. Why?”

  “’Cause Mr. Wesner and Mrs. Bennigan both died yesterday. At their desks, at least six hours apart. You didn’t see it on the news last night?” The story had been a short, somber community interest piece—a small Dallas suburb mourning the loss of two teachers at once. “There were no signs of foul play, so they’re calling it a really weird, tragic coincidence.”

  “And you don’t believe that?” His irises held steady—it took a lot to rattle my father—but unease was clear in the firm line of his jaw.

  “I don’t know what to think. It probably is just a coincidence, but with everything else that’s gone down this year…” I couldn’t help but wonder. And I could tell my dad was thinking the same thing.

  “Well, let’s not borrow trouble until we come up short. I can ask around.” Meaning he’d talk to Harmony Hudson and my uncle Brendon. “But I want you to stay out of it. Just in case. Got it?”

  I nodded and poured milk into my bowl. That’s what I was hoping he’d say. And now that I’d been expressly forbidden from investigating the massively coincidental teacher deaths, I should have felt free from the compulsion to do just that. Right? So why was it so hard to get Mrs. Bennigan out of my head? Why did the soft rise and fall of her back haunt my memory?

  Alec trudged into the kitchen and I shook off my morbid thoughts and sank into a chair at the table with my cold cereal. He headed straight for the coffeepot.

  “You, too?” my dad asked, with one look at the bags under his eyes.

  Alec shrugged and scrubbed one hand over his close-cropped curls. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

  My dad’s brows furrowed as he glanced from Alec to me, obviously leaping to a very weird conclusion. “Is there something I should know?” he half growled, glaring at Alec as he spooned sugar into his mug, completely oblivious to my father’s suspicion and sudden tension.

  I could only roll my eyes. “He’s still adjusting to a human sleep cycle, and I had a…bad dream. Two completely separate, unconnected neuroses,” I insisted, but my dad looked unconvinced.

  He stepped too close to Alec, who looked up in surprise. “I haven’t forgotten that you helped get me out of the Netherworld. But if you think that gives you some kind of claim on Kaylee, you’re gravely mistaken. You lay one inappropriate finger on my daughter, and you’ll learn that Avari isn’t the scariest thing you’ve ever faced.”

  Alec stumbled backward, away from my father, and winced when his back hit the corner of the counter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Cavanaugh.”

  “Dad!” I stood, pushing my chair out of the way with the backs of my legs. “Back off! Why are men so suspicious? Is it hardwired into your brain? Jeez, he’s forty-five years old!”

  Alec actually frowned at that, and I felt bad about throwing his lost youth in his face.

  “Not that you’re not hot…” I backtracked. Totally tall, dark, and crush-worthy, if we’d been anywhere near the same age. Especially with the bonus haunted-past mystique.

  Alec dared a faint grin, and my father scowled. “I’m not kidding, Kaylee. I know you and Nash just broke up, but that doesn’t mean you need to…”

  I dropped my spoon into my half-full bowl and grabbed my mug, already stomping out of the kitchen in humiliation. “I am not having this conversation with you.” My dad didn’t know exactly what had happened between me and Nash, but he knew Nash had been taking frost and he knew—and loved—that I’d taken a step back, at least while Nash recovered.

  My father groaned, then called me back before I’d made it to the hall. “Wait, Kaylee. Please.” The magic word. I stopped and turned to face him. “You’re right. I’m overreacting. There are so many things I can’t protect you from that I tend to go overboard in cases where I can actually make a difference. Come finish your breakfast. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re trying to protect her from me?” Alec frowned into his cup of coffee.

  Instead of answering, my father changed the subject, already on his way to the front door when he glanced back at Alec. “Don’t forget the interview at one. Don’t be late.” My dad was trying to get Alec a job at the factory where he worked. With better pay and more hours than he got at the theater, Alec could afford his own apartment and really start to get his life back together. “And you owe me four chocolate cupcakes.”

  “Cupcakes? Is that the fee for getting me an interview?” Alec pulled off a very convincing confused look, and I couldn’t quite hide my smile. But there was no way my dad would fall for that.

  As soon as the front door closed behind my father, Alec turned to me, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. “You faced down a hellion to rescue three people from the Netherworld. Why the hell is he trying to protect you from me?”

  I could only shrug. “He’s my dad. That’s what he does.” And lately, that seemed to be the only normal aspect of my entire life.

  9

  I PULLED INTO the parking lot fifteen minutes before the first bell, hoping I’d beaten Nash to school. Hoping he’d find some way to school that didn’t include Sabine, after what she’d done the night before. But four minutes after I arrived, her car pulled into a space two rows in front of mine, with a very familiar silhouette showing through the passenger’s side window.

  Maybe he was telling her to stay away from me. Maybe he was threatening her. Normally, I’m not big on physical threats. But normally, I don’t have my dreams invaded by psychotic nightmare demons. Or whatever. I was willing to compromise a little on the former to get rid of the latter.

  I followed them toward the building, hanging back so they wouldn’t see me. When Sabine turned to brush hair from Nash’s forehead, laughing at something he’d said, I dropped into a crouch next to a beat-up old Neon with faded blue paint. It certainly didn’t look like he was telling her to back off, or else.

  I wanted to see more tears. Less laughter and fewer you-light-up-my-life smiles. Nash had dumped countless other girls in his two and a half years at Eastlake, so why was he having trouble getting rid of this one? Had he forgotten how?

  When Sabine’s laughter was swallowed by the clang of the glass doors swinging shut, I stood, fum
ing, and kicked the front tire of the car I’d been hiding behind. Inside, I stomped straight to Nash’s locker, intending to tell them both off before I lost my nerve. But to my unparalleled relief, Nash was alone, stuffing books from his bag into his locker. I leaned against the locker next to his and crossed my arms over my chest, frowning up at him.

  “You really told her off, huh? I could tell by how hard she was laughing.”

  Nash glanced at me, then turned back to his locker. “I made her promise not to feed off you anymore.”

  “Just me?” I dropped my bag on the ground at my feet. “What about the rest of the school?” Or the rest of Texas, for that matter. “She can’t just go around slurping up fear from the general population while they sleep.”

  Nash closed his locker door, then drew me into the alcove by the first-floor restrooms and water fountain, where we were less likely to be overheard. “Actually, she kind of has to. If she doesn’t feed, she’ll starve to death.”

  Stunned, I blinked at him. “You’re serious?”

  He frowned. “Why else would she do it?”

  “I thought—” hoped… “—maybe it was recreational. Something she could quit, if she wanted to.”

  His frown deepened as my point sank in—a little too close to home. “Kaylee, she’s not getting high. She’s surviving. It’s not her fault that food and water aren’t enough to keep her alive.”

  “You seriously expect me to believe she doesn’t enjoy it?”

  Nash started to answer, then his mouth snapped shut as two freshmen came out of the girls’ restroom, talking about some song one of them had just downloaded. When they were gone, he turned to me again, leaning against the painted cinder-block wall.

  “I’m not saying she hates it. I’m just saying she has to do it, whether she likes it or not. Besides, what’s wrong with liking what you eat? Don’t tell me you hate pizza and chips and ice cream…” He did not just compare me to junk food. My temper flared. “I’m not draining someone’s life force every time I have a slice of pepperoni.”