My Soul to Steal

16

THE REST OF THURSDAY morning was blessedly uneventful. No more teachers turned up dead—Avari hadn’t had a chance to possess Alec the night before—and that was a mercy, considering the almost universally shell-shocked faces of both the students and staff members. Avari’s latest evil scheme had proved successful enough to become obvious to—though still misunderstood by—the local human populace, and the fact that he didn’t care about the unwanted attention made me very, very nervous.

The only bright spot—though it was more like a dimly lit spot—in the day was the fact that I got to do my unfinished homework during algebra, which was still being treated like study hall by the long-term sub.

I went out during my free period again and bought lunch for me and Emma, and when I got back, I found Sabine sitting at one of the tables in the quad, talking to my cousin, Sophie, and a couple of her dance team friends like they were long-lost sisters.

That might have been believable—if she hadn’t just brushed her arm against Sophie’s hand when she reached for a packet of mustard. Sabine wasn’t just spreading her social wings—she was reading their fears.

My mood instantly soured as I crossed the quad toward them, fast-food bag in hand. “What’s going on?” I asked, glaring at Sabine from behind Laura Bell, the reigning Snow Queen and Sophie’s best friend. Sabine was up to no good, as usual.

I could tell because she was breathing.

“This is a private conversation,” Sophie snapped. “Go peddle weird somewhere else.”

“Sabine?” I said through clenched teeth, and she looked up at me with those weird, dark eyes, sporting a faux friendly smile the three blind mice would have seen through. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“I’m kind of busy now, Kay,” she said, raising one brow at me in challenge. “Sophie and Laura were just telling me all about the dance team. Seems they’re short one team member.”

As if Sabine would ever even consider trying to replace the dancer whose life I’d failed to save from a rogue reaper a few months earlier.

I fought to keep from grinding my teeth. “I brought you a hamburger.”

Sabine cocked her head in interest. “I never could say no to a good piece of meat.”

She stood, and Sophie put a hand on the mara’s arm, as if to stop her—whether she wanted Sabine there or not, she’d do anything to keep me from getting what I wanted. But then Sabine looked down at her and Sophie froze when their gazes locked. When the mara looked away a second later, my cousin silently withdrew her hand and turned back to her teammates, obviously upset by whatever she’d seen in her new “friend’s” eyes.

At least I wasn’t the only one. Sabine seemed to be letting her creepiness leak out for everyone to see lately, and I credited myself with shaking her off her foundation.

“I thought we were going to stay out of each other’s way,” I whispered angrily to Sabine as we wound our way through the quad to our usual table.

“You’re the one dragging me away from the only healthy relationship I’ve attempted in years,” Sabine snapped. “I’d say that’s you getting in my way.”

“Sophie’s my cousin,” I said, but the satisfaction on Sabine’s face said she already knew that.

“So?”

“So…leave her alone. She may be a pain, but she’s not food,” I insisted, pulling the first burger from my bag. “Got it?”

“She hates you,” Sabine said. “For real. Her fears are a bit bland, except for a vague, inexplicable fear of you, which is interesting all on its own. But she has plenty of energy to spare, and it all tastes like spite and insecurity. Why do you care if I take a little sip? I’d really be doing you a favor.”

“Just because I don’t like her doesn’t mean I want you feeding from her.”

Sabine frowned as I handed her the burger I’d bought for myself. “I don’t get you, Kaylee.”

“That’s painfully obvious.” I took a fry from the carton, glad I hadn’t included those in my bribe. “Just stay away from my family and my friends.”

“Oh, real food!” Emma said, jogging the last few steps toward our table. She pointed to the mara and gave me a questioning look, but I couldn’t explain, because she didn’t know what Sabine was. “This is why I love you, Kaylee!”

I pushed the greasy bag toward Em when she sat.

“This is why we all love her.” Sabine shot an ironic, predatory smile at me. “Because she feeds us.”

I glared at Sabine, hoping she’d wander off, now that she had my lunch, but she seemed content to stay just to bug me, even though Nash obviously wouldn’t be joining us. And since I had nothing civil to say to the mara, lunch would have been either really quiet or really ugly, if not for my best friend. Fortunately, Emma was a never-ending fount of pointless gossip.

“Did you hear that Chelsea Simms ratted out Mona Barker for smoking pot behind the gym during second period?” Emma said, a ketchup-dipped fry halfway to her mouth.

“Why would she do that?” I asked, cracking the lid on my bottle of Coke. “They’ve been best friends since, what? Preschool?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Emma nodded. “And Mona always shared.”

“Chelsea Simms?” Sabine looked unconvinced. “The newspaper chick? I can’t picture her smoking anything. She looks too…uptight.” She shot a pointed glance my way, but I just glared and ate another fry.

“Yeah, she thinks it gives her some kind of hippie, free-speech, peace-rally quality.”

“Turning in her best friend doesn’t sound much like peace to me,” I said, and Em waved her burger for emphasis while she spoke.

“I heard Chelsea flipped out because she got demoted from editor of the school paper, for running that conspiracy theory story connecting Bennigan’s death with Wells’s and Wesner’s. She found out first period that her best friend got the job. By second period, Mona was starin’ out the back window of a cop car.”

“Da-yum.” Sabine whistled, looking decidedly impressed. I kind of wanted to slap her again.

I finished my fries while they discussed Mona’s chances of surviving jail for even one night—Sabine provided the insider’s perspective—then her chances of surviving her parents the following night, and I’d just stood to throw my trash away when the cafeteria door flew open and Principal Goody stomped outside, her flat-soled shoes clacking on the concrete steps.

Both campus security guards came right behind her.

Emma’s last sentence faded into nothing and I sat back down on the bench as a hush settled over the quad. All gazes tracked Goody and the school cops, who headed straight for the last table on the left, two spots down from us. It was the football table, where Brant Williams sat with several teammates and their girlfriends—all friends of Nash’s who didn’t quite know how to be around him without Scott and Doug at his side.

“Zachary Green?” Principal Goody said, her drill sergeant voice almost comical, coming from such a small, prim woman. “Come with us, please.”

“Come with you where?” Zach demanded, and I couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t asked what he’d done wrong.

“To my office, then home with your parents. They’ve already been called.”

“What for?”

Oh, now he asks, when his ignorance is too late to be believable.

“For vandalism of school property.”

Instead of demanding specifics, Zach stood and let the old guard tug him toward the cafeteria, and he only dragged his feet long enough to throw a satisfied look over his shoulder at one of the other players still staring after him in surprise.

As the guard hauled Zach up the first step, the cafeteria door flew open again, and Leah-the-pom-girl nearly collided with the entire principal parade. She bounced down the stairs to make room for them to pass, and as soon as the door swung shut, she raced across the half-dead grass toward the seat Zach had just vacated.

“Did you guys see?” she demanded, sliding onto the bench seat next to Laura Bell. “He did it in neon pink. It looks like a flamingo bled all over the lockers.”

“What lockers?” Brant asked, and Leah’s gaze narrowed on the player Zach had glanced back at.

“Yours.” She nodded to Tanner Abbot. “And Peyton’s.” Her focus skipped to his girlfriend—who also happened to be Zach’s ex-girlfriend, after a very messy breakup right before the winter break.

“Ouch. I thought Zach was over that,” Emma whispered, as talk among the players built to a startling crescendo.

“Jealousy festers…” Sabine said, and I nearly choked on the last gulp of Coke from my bottle when she stood, facing the other table. “What’d he write on them?” she called across the quad, and every voice went silent as all heads turned our way.

I wanted to melt into the ground just to escape all the stares, but Sabine stood tall, silently demanding an answer.

Leah hesitated, glancing at Peyton—her friend—in sympathy. But in the end, the spotlight called to her; she could not disappoint her audience. “He wrote, ‘skanky nympho whore’ on hers, and ‘limp-dick traitor’ on Tanner’s.”

For one more, long moment, silence reigned. Then the entire quad broke into laughter and loud, eager commentary, while Peyton and Tanner huddled together in humiliation.

“Never a dull day around here, is there?” Sabine asked, sinking onto the bench again with a huge smile on her face.

She was right about that—nothing had been the same since she’d come to Eastlake.

AFTER SCHOOL, I RODE to work with Emma and Alec, glad she had offered to drive, because I wasn’t sure I could have stayed awake behind the wheel.

Alec looked just as tired, and when I asked, he admitted he hadn’t let himself sleep at all that day, for fear of waking up somewhere other than on my couch, with mud on his shoes and a new hole in his memory.

The Thursday night crowd was enough to keep me awake and on my feet for the first half of the evening at the Cinemark, but during my break, I went to check on Alec and discovered that he’d already gone on his. I started my search in the parking lot, where he usually napped in the car on his breaks.

Unfortunately, Emma’s car was empty.

When I didn’t find him anywhere else in the lot, I headed back inside and glanced into the break room, then called his name outside of all the men’s rooms. But Alec was gone, and he wouldn’t have wandered off without telling me. Not after what we’d figured out the night before.

Think, Kaylee! I demanded, leaning against the closed door of theater two. My heart was beating too hard, and I was starting to sweat, in spite of the enthusiastic air-conditioning. If Avari really has him, he’ll be looking for someone sleeping. But why would anyone pay to sleep in a movie theater, when you could sleep at home for free?

Maybe he’d left. Maybe Avari knew we were on to him, so he’d hijacked Alec’s body the first chance he got, then simply ditched the theater? Surely a hellion wouldn’t care whether or not his host got fired….

I’d taken two steps—on my way to tell my boss I had to leave—when the door to theater two opened so suddenly it slammed into my shoulder. The two college-age men who emerged didn’t even notice me in the shadows.

“I swear, I’m gonna fall asleep in there if I don’t get some more caffeine and sugar,” the shorter, rounder of the pair said, running one hand through pale hair. “This better pay off.”

“It will,” the taller man said, as they headed toward the lobby and the concession stand. “Dana always leaves these tearjerkers all mushy and willing, ’cause she’s grateful her life doesn’t suck like the chick in the movie. Don’t fall asleep, though. That’ll piss them both off, then we’ll have sat through an hour and a half of women bonding on screen for nothing.”

And as they walked off toward the land of caffeine and sugar, what they were saying truly sank into my exhausted, frustrated brain. If a chick flick could bore them to sleep, it could bore some other poor jerk to sleep. Which made theater two my best bet for finding Alec, assuming Avari had actually caught him asleep at the wheel. Literally.

I pulled open the doors and rushed up the steeply inclined walkway toward the front of the theater, then had to pause to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Fortunately, theater two was one of the smaller spaces, so it didn’t take me long to find a familiar, close-cropped head of curls about two-thirds of the way up, several seats from the right-hand aisle.

I made my way up the steps slowly, but he saw me before I got there. Unfortunately, in the dark, I couldn’t see his expression, so I had no clue whether I was looking at Avari or Alec. Or whether lights would have made any difference.

“Hey,” Alec’s voice said, as I sank into the chair next to him, and I took a deep, silent breath. My heart raced. It was Avari. It had to be. Why else would Alec waste his dinner break watching a six-week-old movie about middle-aged women rediscovering their lost youth?

I was even more convinced when I noticed that the man in front of him was snoring softly, while his wife munched on popcorn, oblivious.

But I had to be sure.

“What color was my first bike?” I whispered.

Alec’s head turned toward me slowly, and my pulse tripped faster. “I’m sorry?”

My heart leaped into my throat, and I had to swallow it to speak. “I know it’s you. Let Alec go. Now.”

Alec only blinked, and my hands clenched around the armrests. Then, finally, he nodded, and the voice that replied was all hellion, oddly muted but rendered no less terrifying by the whispered volume.

“Ms. Cavanaugh, how delightful to see you again, without all the pretense.”

Hearing his voice left no room for doubt—it was really Avari. I’d known that, deep down. But knowing it and experiencing it were two completely different things, which I didn’t discover until I found myself staring into the unfamiliar depths of a familiar pair of deep brown eyes, lit only by the flicker of the big screen.

“Get out,” I repeated, whispering through clenched teeth.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Avari leaned Alec’s head so close his lips brushed my ear, and my skin crawled. But I didn’t dare pull away, for fear that he’d only come closer. “Alec has been very difficult to get ahold of lately, and I’m disinclined to let him go, now that I finally have him.”

“You can’t stay in there forever,” I insisted softly, resisting the urge to rub the chill bumps popping up on my arms.

His hand settled over my wrist, as if he knew what I was thinking. “No, not forever. But I have quite a bit of energy stored up at the moment—thanks to our friend Alec—so I can hang on more than long enough to replace the meal you’ve interrupted.” He waved one dark hand toward the man sleeping in front of him in an eerily graceful motion, which looked very wrong on Alec’s strong young body.

I jerked my hand from beneath his in horror. He’d already been feeding. But with any luck, my interruption had saved the poor idiot’s life, if nothing else.

“Get out!” I demanded, forgetting to whisper, and the lady in front of me turned to glare.

“Or you’ll what?” Avari leaned close again. “Dump popcorn all over this badly tailored, ill-fitting uniform?”

And that’s when I realized I had no idea what to do next.

My plan only went far enough to expose the hellion’s presence. How the hell was I supposed to get rid of Avari? I didn’t have anything to hit him with, and I couldn’t afford to make a scene in the theater, anyway.

Or could I?

“Is this really what my proxy has been reduced to?” he asked. “Serving greasy concessions to the masses in ugly shirts and pleated pants. I think he was better off in the Nether. With me.”

“Well, I don’t think so, and neither does he.”

The hellion chuckled, and the smooth, dark sound wound its way up my spine, promising me pain and pleasure so hopelessly intertwined that I knew if I gave into it, at least I’d die smiling. “Is that what he told you? That he’s the victim here, rather than a full partner? He didn’t happen to mention the fee he gets for renting out his body?”

“Fee?” He was lying. He had to be. Alec didn’t have to tell me anything about Avari’s new hobby, but he’d volunteered the information. He wouldn’t have done that if he were a willing participant, right?

“He didn’t tell you he gets a portion of the energy from each one?”

In fact, he’d claimed the exact opposite. “You’re lying.”

Another laugh, and this time his breath stirred my hair, warm and damp on my earlobe. “Ms. Cavanaugh, you are charming, even in your ignorance. I have many, many talents. Some that defy description in any human vocabulary, and more’s the pity. But lying is not among them. Hellions cannot lie.”

But if that were a lie itself, wouldn’t that mean that everything else he’d said was, too?

I shook my head, confused. So I clung to what I knew without a doubt. I wasn’t sure I could trust Alec, but I was sure I couldn’t trust Avari.

“Get out right now, or I’ll scream for security,” I hissed, leaning into him this time, in spite of the discomfort crawling up my spine. “I’ll tell them you assaulted me, and you can spend the rest of your time here in jail, getting to know an entirely different portion of the ‘masses.’”

I had Sabine and her criminal history to thank for that little stroke of genius.

Alec’s thick, dark brows arched dramatically in the flickering light from the screen. “I don’t believe you’d do that to your friend.”

“Believe it. Alec would rather wake up in jail when you’ve exhausted your resources than be an unwilling participant in another of your murders.”

Plus, I could always recant my accusation later, without hurting anything but my own credibility.

“So what’ll it be? Home sweet Netherworld, or the inside of the Tarrant County jail?”

“People have to sleep in jail, right?” Avari smiled, and I decided to call his bluff.

“Maybe. But I hear most people are bailed out pretty quickly, so you’d probably be the only overnight guest.” No need to mention that my knowledge of the inner workings of the adult justice system came entirely from television. “And considering that you haven’t had a good meal recently, I’m guessing you won’t be able to hold out that long. Am I right?”

Avari’s borrowed smile faded slowly. “You know I will be back.”

I shrugged, trying to look like I wasn’t scared out of my mind and sweating beneath my “ill-fitting” uniform. “Not if I can help it.”

“But you cannot help—not Alec, and not yourself. You’re in over your head, little bean sidhe, and if you are not careful, I’d venture that someone will be happy to relieve you of that pretty little head entirely. In just…one…bite.”

I clutched the seat between us to keep my hand from shaking as his eyes flashed with malice and the promise of pain, in the sudden bright glow from the movie screen.

“Until next time, Ms. Cavanaugh…”

Then Alec’s eyes closed. His hands relaxed and his head fell onto the cushioned back of his chair. He snored lightly.

I sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, trying to purge my fear with the used air. Then I shook him awake.

Alec sat upright in a single, startled movement. His eyes widened, and he glanced around the darkened theater in wild panic, gripping the armrests almost hard enough to crack the cup holders.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, and he whirled in his chair to face me, shocked eyes still round, pupils drastically dilated.

“Kaylee?” He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “It happened again?”

I nodded. “First, what color was my first bike?”

Alec blinked. “White, with red ribbons.”

My whole body relaxed with my next exhale, though I knew I’d already used up my entire break, plus some. “Thank goodness. Yeah, it happened again. Let’s get out of here.” I stood and pulled him down the steps by one hand, moving so fast I almost tripped us both. In the wide hallway between theaters, I tugged him into a corner of the unused secondary concession stand.

“I’m late, so here’s the short version—you must have fallen asleep on your break, and Avari got in. He found some guy sleeping during the chick flick in theater two and was chow-ing down on some human life force when I found you. Er…him. I threatened to have him arrested if he didn’t vacate your personal premises immediately.”

“And that worked?”

I shrugged. “I may have exaggerated how long he’d be in jail, and how alone he’d be, with no one to feed on.”

Alec frowned. “What were you going to have him arrested for?”

I glanced at the sticky ground beneath my feet, avoiding his eyes. “Inappropriate, unwelcome contact with a minor.”

“Sexual assault?” Alec hissed. “You were going to get me arrested for groping a sixteen-year-old girl in the back of a theater? Are you insane?”

I bristled over his use of my least favorite nonmedical descriptor, but I had to admit that hearing it aloud made it sound pretty bad. “It was just a bluff,” I insisted, staring up into his horrified eyes. “And anyway, I would have recanted.”

“Kaylee…”

“What else was I supposed to do?” I demanded. “I didn’t have anything to hit you with, and I couldn’t just let him use you to kill that poor man.”

“Fine.” But he didn’t look like it was fine, and the longer he stared at me in horror, the guiltier I felt. “Just promise me you’ll come up with some better threats. Preferably nothing that’ll get me arrested.”

“I swear. And you have to promise not to fall asleep by yourself.”

“That’s a lot harder than it sounds, you know.”

“I remember. I spent days trying to stay awake, to keep you from dragging me into the Netherworld in my dreams.”

“I said I was sorry about that.” Alec groaned.

“And I’m sorry about this. But I gotta go. I spent my whole break talking to a hellion in the back of the theater.”

Alec flinched. “I’ll make it up to you.”

But I didn’t see how that was even possible. I started walking back toward the concession stand, where my shift was tragically Emma-less—she’d gotten stuck in one of the ticket booths—then stopped when something else occurred to me.

“Alec?”

“Yeah?” He turned, halfway to the break room, and followed when I gestured toward the shadowed alcove housing a supply closet.

“Avari said you’re in on this. That you’re his partner, and that you’re getting a portion of the energy from each of his kills.”

Alec frowned. “Kay, would I be this exhausted if I were getting any of that energy?”

Oh, yeah. Still, exhaustion could be faked… “He also said hellions can’t lie. That’s total BS, right?” I asked, trying in vain to think of a time Avari had lied to me. But I came up blank.

Alec’s frown deepened. “Actually, that part’s true.”

“Then how could he say…?”

“That I was his partner in this new serial slaying?” Alec finished for me, and I nodded. “He probably didn’t. Hellions can’t tell an outright lie, but they’re very, very good at implying things and letting people draw their own conclusions. Did he actually say I was in on it? Or did he just ask leading questions, then fail to correct your assumption?”

I thought hard, but I couldn’t remember. The whole encounter was indistinct now, but for the memory of his hand over my arm, the sickening warmth of his breath on my ear, and the skin-crawling revulsion I’d felt over both.

What kind of world was I living in, where the only people who never lied to me were the ones out to steal either my soul or my boyfriend?