If I Die ss-5

by Rachel Vincent

  My pulse spiked with a bolt of old fear. I couldn’t be alone with him while he was using. He would never intentionally hurt me, but he wasn’t himself when he was on frost, and things had gotten out of control before.

  “Nash, I can’t,” I said, drowning in my own guilt. “Go home with Sabine. Let her take care of you. I promise I’ll check on you later.” With Tod, whether he was visible or not. “I’m sorry.” I edged around the blue car and had taken several steps toward my own when Nash shouted behind me.

  “You owe me!”

  I flinched, but I didn’t stop. Yes, Tod and I had made a mistake, and yes, we felt horrible about it, but I’d done my best to explain and I’d apologized from the bottom of my soul more times than I could remember. But Nash was asking for something I couldn’t do.

  When I didn’t answer, he shouted again. “Come back!”

  Confliction burned in my chest for a single instant before his Influence rolled over me in a white-hot wave of compulsion, and suddenly I wanted to turn and walk back to him.

  Panic tightened my throat, threatening to choke me. I fought him in my head, but my feet turned and carried me back to him, even as angry tears formed in my eyes. This isn’t happening. He’d sworn he’d never Influence me again!

  “Nash…” Sabine said, but he ignored her, staring straight into my eyes.

  “Give me your keys,” he said, and my hand slid into my pocket slowly, as the first tears fell.

  Fighthimfighthimfighthim…!

  But I couldn’t fight, because I wanted to give him my keys.

  “Come with me.” He took the keys, then wound his freezing fingers around mine, and I wanted to follow him toward my car, even though I knew that if he’d just stop talking, I wouldn’t want anything but to run far enough away that I couldn’t hear him.

  “Stop,” I said, using all the willpower I had left to halt my steps and voice my objection. “You promised you wouldn’t do this.”

  “You’re not leaving me much of a choice. I just want to talk.” And every word he spoke washed away a little more of my objection, blurring my thoughts until they were hazy at best.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, as my pulse swooshed sluggishly and my feet carried me farther and farther from the school building.

  “Somewhere private,” he said with another warm pulse of Influence, and suddenly I wanted to be alone with him—all except for the thin voice of protest in my head whispering that this was a very bad idea. But the rest of me knew better. The rest of me knew that Nash could take care of me and make me happy. And all I had to do was let him.

  Sabine grabbed his arm. “Nash, let her go!” She looked scared for only the second time since I’d met her, and I knew I should understand her fear, but it was just out of my grasp. “This is insane. You can’t make her want you. You can’t talk her into loving you.” Sabine flinched, like each word she said actually hurt, and I felt bad for her. She needed someone to make her happy, like Nash made me happy.

  “My memories of her are empty, Sabine. The images are there, but I can’t feel anything when I think about them. I can’t feel what Kaylee and I used to be like together. I know that’s my fault, and I’ll never forgive myself for giving that part of her up. But I need today with her. I need new memories of her—good ones—or after she’s gone, I will truly have lost her. All of her.”

  He jerked free from her grasp and we were walking again. “I need you to understand that, and give us this one day.” He stopped next to my car and pulled open the passenger’s-side door, but Sabine stepped in front of him, blocking the car, her face a raw display of determination, her eyes dark with bitter pain.

  “You’re high,” she said, and he tried to brush her aside, but Sabine wouldn’t go. “Listen to me, Nash. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re hurt, and angry, and you’re already mourning her, and the Demon’s Breath is making all that worse. But I’m telling you right now that she’s gonna hate you for this. And so will Tod.”

  “Screw Tod!” Nash shouted, and I jumped, startled. I blinked, and everything looked a little clearer. The world felt a little sharper. “He shouldn’t have been anywhere near her in the first place.”

  “Fine. But this isn’t going to fix that. You can’t talk forever, and as soon as you stop, she’s going to realize what you’re doing, and she’ll die hating you. Is that what you want?”

  Fear slipped into the vacuum that the departing mental haze left in my head, and my hands started to shake. Something was wrong. I didn’t want to go…wherever he wanted to take me.

  “I just need her back, for one day. This is my last chance to make that happen.” Nash pulled her out of the way and pushed me closer to the car. “Get in,” he ordered, and the pain in his voice almost rivaled the Influence.

  But by then I understood. This was wrong, and I should fight it.

  I watched him through my own tears, struggling to keep my legs locked. To stay standing. “If you ever loved me, you won’t do this…” I whispered, with all the volume I could manage.

  “I do love you. Everything’s going to be fine, I promise. Now get in the car.”

  “She doesn’t want to go with you!” Sabine pulled him away from me, but he jerked free of her hold.

  “Yes she does. Ask her.” And he was right. I wanted to go wherever he wanted to take me, and that fact scared me so badly I could hardly breathe, because I knew I shouldn’t want to. “Sit, Kaylee.”

  My legs gave out and I fell onto my own passenger seat, as the first tear trailed down my cheek.

  He tried to close the door, but Sabine held it open. “Nash, don’t make me do this…”

  “Get out of the way. You know I’d never hurt her. I just want to talk to her,” he said, face flushed with irritation, irises swirling in an uneven, complicated mix of grief and determination.

  “That is hurting her.” Sabine punched him in the stomach, and he doubled over from the blow. And suddenly I was free.

  While he coughed, I sucked in a deep, clean breath and stood on shaky legs, tears falling steadily now, backing away from him in horror.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to Sabine, and I realized from the bruised look in her eyes that she was hurting, too. Maybe more than I was.

  “Just go away, Kaylee.” She handed me my keys and slid one arm around Nash to hold him up. “You did this to him, and the sooner he’s over you, the better off we’ll all be.”

  The ache in my chest was a steady throb of guilt, and fear, and worry. I slammed my open door, and backed away from them both, then around the car. “Are you sure you can handle him?” I asked as I sank into the driver’s seat.

  “Yeah. I’m stronger than you are. And I know how to work off misplaced aggression.”

  The truth of both statements pissed me off, but I wasn’t going to argue. “Keep him away from me. And keep him clean.” Then I started the car and drove out of the lot, fighting more tears.

  I texted Emma to tell her I was going home, and that she should stay away from Nash for a while, and that I’d call her after school to explain. Then I took several deep breaths and called Harmony from the road.

  “Kaylee?” Harmony said into my ear, her voice still groggy from sleep. And I burst into tears.

  “Kaylee, what’s wrong?” Bed springs creaked, and she sounded more awake. “What happened?”

  The road blurred beneath my tears, so I pulled into the nearest parking lot and turned off the engine. “Remember when you told me to watch out for bean sidhe brothers?”

  “Yes…” She sounded both relieved and wary to realize my call had nothing to do with my impending death, and everything to do with her sons’ hearts.

  “I didn’t watch out well enough.”

  Harmony’s sigh seemed to carry the weight of the world. “Does this have something to do with why Nash and Sabine were drinking last night?”

  “Yes. But it’s so much worse now. And I’m so sorry for what I did, and now everything’s messed up.” And telling
Harmony was almost as hard as telling Nash, because she was the closest thing I had to a mom, but she was their mother, and I’d torn her real family apart.

  “Okay, calm down and tell me what happened. Where are you? Do you need me to come get you?”

  “No, you have to go get Nash. You have to help him.”

  “Why? What happened to Nash?” She was on her feet now—I could hear the floorboard creak over the line, between my own ragged, tear-choked breaths.

  “I kissed Tod, and Nash saw it, and we broke up. But then he came to school today and wanted to get back together, but he’s high on frost and he’s out of control. He tried to make me leave with him, and Sabine had to hit him, and everything is so messed up, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

  Harmony took a deep breath, and I envied her ability to simply institute calm whenever she needed it. If I were going to grow up, I’d want to be just like her. “Is Nash still with Sabine?”

  “Yeah. They’re in the school parking lot.”

  “Okay, I’m going to let you go so I can call her and see about Nash.”

  “Okay.” I sniffled one more time, then wiped my face with the tail of my shirt. “Harmony, I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I, sweetie. I’m sorry for all of us.”

  She hung up, and I took several more deep breaths to make sure I wouldn’t sound like I’d been crying. Then I called Tod from the road. He answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you be in class?”

  “No. Definitely not. Can you come over?” I would have asked him to bring pizza, but it was only nine-thirty in the morning, and the pizza place didn’t open till eleven.

  “I’ll meet you at your house.” But, of course, he was already waiting on the porch when I got there.

  Inside, I pulled him close for a hug I never wanted to end. He felt good, his shoulder solid beneath my cheek, his arms around me, hands clasped at the base of my spine. Tod felt strong, and warm, and wonderful, and I wanted to hold him—to be held by him—for the rest of what little life I had left. “I really needed that,” I said, staring up at him when I finally let go. “I might need another one.”

  “I live to serve. Except for the part about living…” He leaned in for another hug, but stopped with one good look into my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  Instead of answering, I tugged him toward the couch, then pulled him down next to me.

  “Kaylee, what happened?”

  “I talked to Nash at school today, and it didn’t go so well.”

  “Not so well, meaning…?”

  “He was high. And upset. I had to tell him about us, and that made it worse.”

  “Damn it.” Tod let his head fall against the back of the couch. But he didn’t look surprised.

  “You knew he was using again?”

  He sat up when I twisted to sit cross-legged facing him, with my spine against the arm of the couch. “Um…yeah. I caught him with a full balloon last night. Don’t worry, though. I popped it.”

  Which was why Sabine hadn’t been able to find it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I knew you’d blame yourself.” He shrugged, like keeping something that important from me was okay.

  “Yeah. Because it’s my fault!”

  “No.” Tod took my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine. “Kaylee, no one feels worse about what Nash is going through than I do. I don’t regret a single second I’ve spent with you, but I regret how we got here, and I hate that us being together makes my brother miserable. But you aren’t responsible for how he reacts to pain and anger, and this isn’t the last time he’ll have to face either of those. Nash makes his own decisions, and you can’t blame yourself for how he’s chosen to cope with this.”

  “But—”

  He cut off my protest with a kiss that lingered, and deepened, and ended with a satisfied sound from deep in his throat as he leaned his forehead against mine.

  “Cute.” I couldn’t resist a small smile, but it faded almost immediately. “Seriously, though, he saw us together, and now he’s high and miserable. We’re the reason he started using again.”

  “No.” Tod shook his head, and that stray curl fell over his brow. “We’re the reason he’s upset enough to want to get high. But Kaylee, it’s not like a balloon full of Demon’s Breath just appeared in his hands, and you certainly didn’t give it to him. He made a conscious decision and an active effort to go find one.”

  “How? Where would he get Demon’s Breath, if he can’t cross over? How would Avari even get it into our world?”

  “Where there’s demand, there will always be someone willing to supply. There are a hundred different ways Avari could be off-loading his product. Assuming it’s even him.” Tod rubbed his forehead. “The only supplier I know of specifically is the balloon animal guy who hangs out near the zoo. His black balloons aren’t for kids. But I know how to take care of him.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Is that something you really want me to answer?”

  Was it? “No. But if he’s really Nash’s new source, just…make it stick. Whatever you do.” I felt a little sick to my stomach, knowing I’d just given my blessing for Tod to do something I didn’t even want to think about. To another human being. But anyone peddling frost was a murderer in my eyes, and Tod wouldn’t kill him—he would never reap off the record. Though the balloon animal guy might soon wish he were dead.

  “It’ll stick. And I want you to stop worrying about Nash.”

  “But—” I started, and Tod cut me off with another kiss. “Is this the routine now?” I asked, as his hand tightened around mine and my heart lodged in my throat. “I argue, and you cut me off with a kiss?”

  “Not all arguments. In general, I like it when you argue. You get all fiery and passionate. But stupid arguments?” He somehow managed to raise both brows and frown sternly at the same time. “Yeah. I’m gonna shut you up. Like this.” He kissed me again, and that one lasted.

  “Mmm… Best punitive system ever.”

  “That’s kinda what I thought.”

  “For real, though, you have to tell me stuff like that. No secrets.”

  Tod frowned down at me. “I should tell you about bad things that you can’t fix, even when I know you’re just going to blame yourself for them and have a miserable last day of life?”

  Well, when you put it like that… “Yes.” I nodded firmly.

  “Fine. I’ll keep that in mind, should I find another opportunity to ruin the rest of your life.”

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  “I don’t want you to worry about Nash, though. When he fell asleep, I took his balloon and popped it in the Netherworld, so he should be fine, at least until he finds another one.” Demon’s Breath was stored in and dispensed from latex party balloons, an idea I’d accidentally given to Avari, who turned out to be a rather enterprising hellion. “And we can worry about that in a couple of days.”

  “I won’t be here to worry about that in a couple of days.”

  “Exactly. See, even death has a bright side.”

  But I couldn’t let it go. “When did you get rid of Nash’s balloon?”

  “Last night, after I left here. Sometime after midnight.”

  “Sabine said he was trashed when she picked him up this morning, and his hands were freezing during second period. How is that possible?”

  “It’s not, unless he restocked, or had more than that one balloon in the first place.” Tod closed his eyes and let his head fall back again. “Shit.”

  “And you don’t feel even a little bit responsible for this?” I asked softly, wishing I could absolve him of guilt, even as I demanded that he accept some of the responsibility.

  “I didn’t say that. I said you shouldn’t feel responsible.” The reaper sighed and ran one hand through his short curls. “Okay, I gotta go find the rest of his stash. You wanna come with me or meet me after?”

  “Actually, I think it can w
ait. He’s with Sabine.” In some ways I’d never truly be able to trust her. But I trusted her to keep Nash safe—especially after she’d seen him lose control in the parking lot. “And your mom’s probably there by now.”

  “You called my mom?”

  “She can help him, Tod.”

  “I know. I was just hoping she wouldn’t have to know this time. But it sounds like he picked up right where he left off, so yeah, I guess you had to tell her.”

  “I’m sorry. I told her about us, too. I hope she doesn’t hate me for coming between the two of you.”

  “She could never hate you, Kaylee. I’ll probably get an earful, though.” He grimaced at the thought. “But enough about that. How do you want to spend your last full day?”

  “I don’t know…” I held up our joined hands. “This is nice.” Tod’s hand fit so well in mine that I didn’t want to go anywhere or think about anything but him, and us, and the fact that we hadn’t even considered turning on the TV, because we didn’t need it for entertainment. And he made me smile. Even knowing that Nash was back on frost, my demon math teacher wanted to impregnate my best friend and my lifeline was scheduled to end the next day, Tod could make me laugh.

  “Yeah, it is.” His gaze went out of focus, like he was looking at something I couldn’t see. “I can’t remember the last time I actually got to touch someone I care about, just for the sake of touching and being touched. For human contact that demands nothing.”

  “You and Addy didn’t…?”

  “Get back together?” he said when I wasn’t sure how to finish my own sentence, and I nodded. “No. Seeing Addy again was like going back in time, to before I died. But I don’t think she thought of me like that. Not this time, anyway. She had more important things on her mind.” Like reclaiming her sister’s sold soul, not to mention her own. “And then she died, and I couldn’t stop it.” He was looking at me again by then, and I knew what he was thinking.

  “This is different, Tod.” I put my free hand on top of the one that held his. “I still have my soul, so I’m not just moving into the Netherworld for an eternity of torture. Dying for me will be more like a release, right? It’s everyone else I’m worried about.”