My Soul to Steal

15

“YOU’RE A HYPNOS?” I rubbed my hands over the cotton of my pajama pants, needing to feel something real and familiar to assure me that I was still safe in my own living room. That I hadn’t accidentally crossed into that world of nightmares—or succumbed to an actual nightmare.

“Half hypnos,” Alec corrected, scowling at the floor again.

My mind didn’t want to accept the concept, and my mouth didn’t really want to ask the next question. But I did, anyway. “Minor creature from the Netherworld… Please tell me that ‘minor creature’ isn’t a euphemism for ‘monster of titanic proportions.’ Your dad isn’t some kind of demon, is he? A hellion cousin species?”

“My father is dead.” Alec’s words were clipped short, yet no hint of emotion showed on his face. “But, no, he wasn’t any relation to hellions. Hellions deal in human souls—no other Netherworld creature does that. Hypnos are just another species of Netherworlder, most of which feed from humans in some way. Some absorb the energy that bleeds through from this world to theirs. Some drink human bodily fluids. Some eat flesh. For most species, human by-products are a delicacy—delicious, but unnecessary. Like your dad’s cupcakes. However, hypnos are one of the few species that need some human energy in their diet to survive. They feed through the barrier.”

“How did your dad die?” I asked, pushing aside the information I wasn’t ready to deal with yet—the fact that Alec was at least half psychic carnivore.

“Avari killed him when I crossed into the Netherworld, to keep him from trying to send me home.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Alec only shrugged. “I’ve had plenty of time to deal. Besides, it’s not like I ever actually met him.”

Still, I knew what it felt like to lose a parent, and he’d suffered twice my loss. That realization reminded me that Alec had a human side as well as a monster side, which tempered my fear and horror with a bit of empathy.

But what if his Hyde half was stronger than Dr. Jekyll?

“So, do you have to…feed? From humans? Like your dad?” And like Sabine?

Alec shook his head. “I didn’t even know I could until I was nearly grown. I inherited the ability to feed from human energy, but not the necessity.”

Thank goodness. But suddenly another question was poking at my conscious mind. “Alec, did you pull me into the Netherworld in my sleep, that first time I saw you?” He’d been stomping his way through a field of razor wheat, wielding a metal trash can lid like a shield.

“Yeah. Sorry.” He looked almost as ashamed about that as he was about hiding his species. “I was just trying to get in touch with you while you slept. Subconsciously. But it didn’t go exactly like I’d planned.”

Oddly enough, I wasn’t angry over his admission. At least now I wouldn’t have to worry that I’d dream of death and wake up in the Netherworld again.

“So…how does it work—Avari using you to kill people?”

Alec shrugged miserably. “I don’t know. I’m not really in here when he does it.” He tapped his skull with one long index finger. “But I can tell you one thing. The energy he’s taking from them—and it must be a lot, if it’s killing them—must be going straight through me to him, because I’m not getting any of it. I’m almost as worn out now as I was in the Netherworld.”

That was a mixed blessing, for sure. The thought of Alec—my new friend and confidant—devouring my teachers’ life force made me sick to my stomach. But knowing it was strengthening Avari instead was no better.

“Why teachers?” I asked, and Alec’s frown only deepened.

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this, Kaylee. I’ve never even been to your school—at least, not while I’m in control of my own body.”

I frowned at a vague glimmer of light on the dark horizon. “So then…are you sure this is what’s happening? ’Cause I’d be perfectly happy to continue pinning this on Sabine.” And I was only partly joking.

“I know you want her to be guilty, and I’m not exactly eager to take the blame for something I had no control over. But for the past two nights in a row, I’ve gone to sleep on the couch, then woken up standing in the middle of the kitchen, fully clothed, with no idea how I got there. Avari’s using me to kill people, and I have to make it stop.”

“You will. We will. I’ll help you.” But I wasn’t sure how to even begin, other than making sure no one fell asleep at school. Ever.

I stood to take my empty can into the kitchen, and his voice followed me. “Thanks, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do. I’m not sure there’s much either of us can do.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what Avari thought last time, and look how that turned out.” I tossed the can into the recycle bin and pulled a fresh one from the fridge. “We got you, Nash, and my dad out of the Netherworld and kept Avari from forcibly emigrating the entire population of Eastlake High.”

Alec huffed, a harsh sound of skepticism. “Unfortunately, that silver lining is overshadowed by one hell of a gray cloud. You and Nash took a wrong turn on the road to happily ever after, and Avari’s practically got on-demand access to my body and my feeding abilities.”

“Avari doesn’t get credit for driving a wedge between me and Nash,” I insisted. “Nash did that himself, and he’s only letting Sabine drive that wedge deeper.” I popped the tab on my soda as I crossed the living room again, then sank into my dad’s recliner. “And as for you… At least now that we know what he’s doing, we have a shot at stopping him.”

But the truth was that our shot was a long shot at best. The only thing keeping Avari in check before was the fact that he couldn’t cross into the human world. And now that he’d found a way—not to mention a very powerful weapon to wield—he was virtually unstoppable. The hellion was playing by new rules, and we’d have to adapt to them quickly to have any hope of stopping him.

“Kaylee…?” Alec’s voice was oddly soft and tentative, drawing me from grim thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“What are you gonna do? I mean… Are you going to tell…people?”

He meant my dad. My father had bent over backward to help Alec, out of gratitude. But if he found out that Alec was being used as Avari’s murder weapon—and that he’d kept his species and abilities a secret—my dad would kick him out without a second thought. At the very least. He wouldn’t let anyone or anything risk my safety, even if that meant turning his back on a friend.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go, Kay.” Alec met my gaze frankly. “I spent the past quarter of a century groveling for whatever crumbs of mercy fell from Avari’s table, and the pickings were very, very slim. When I got back to the human world, I swore things would be different. Here, I have freedom and self-respect. And friends. But one word from you could take all that away. So I’m begging you, Kaylee.”

Alec’s eyes watered, and I could see how much it cost him to beg for mercy, when he should have been way past such bruising necessities.

“And I swear, it’ll never happen again. I won’t let it. I spent two and a half decades trying to get free from Avari, and I am not going to let him use me here like he used me there. But I need your help. I need you to keep this quiet while I figure out how to keep him out of my body. And I swear on my life that I’ll never let him use me to kill again.”

I wanted so badly to believe him. He looked sincere, and he sounded sincere, and both my heart and my gut believed the agony and determination clear on his face. But what if I was wrong, and he was lying? What if he’d known all along what Avari was doing, and they were working together?

Or what if, in spite of his best efforts, he couldn’t stop Avari from using him? What if he knew this was the only thing keeping Avari from calling in every favor owed to him to get his former proxy back? What if Alec was willing to pay this price—to let innocent people die—for his freedom from the Netherworld, and now he was playing me for a fool to keep me quiet?

The soul-searing truth was that I no longer knew who I could trust—my own track record made that painfully clear.

I’d trusted Nash, and he’d lied to me. I’d trusted Tod, and he’d withheld the truth about what could happen to me in the Netherworld. I’d trusted my family, and they had all lied to me about who and what I am, for almost my entire life.

The only person in the whole world—either world—that I was sure had never lied to me was Emma, and unfortunately, the reverse could not be said. I’d lied to her countless times, trying to keep her safe from Netherworld elements.

My life was a tower of lies, and I could feel that tower leaning. One day it would fall and crush me, and everyone around me. But until then, all I could do was slap on some more mortar and cling to the framework of trust in humanity that held me upright. Even if I was contributing to my own eventual downfall.

Alec shifted on the couch, waiting in tense silence for my answer.

“No, I’m not going to tell my dad. Yet,” I said, and his relief was so palpable I almost hated to ruin it. But the rest had to be said, too. His life was worth no more than the ones I’d be putting at risk by keeping his secret. “But I have to tell Nash.” Otherwise, he’d keep trying to prove Sabine innocent. “And if you let anyone else die, I swear I’ll drop you off on Avari’s doorstep personally.”

He shook his head firmly. “It won’t come to that. I swear.”

Please, please, please let me be right about Alec.

“Good. And I think we should sleep in shifts from now on. You know, to watch each other. You can wake me up if I look like I’m having another nightmare, and if Avari possesses you again, I’ll expel him through whatever means necessary.”

“What means would those be?” Alec asked, his eyes narrowed.

I shrugged. “A good whack on the head seems to do the job. You’ll wake up with a headache, but that’s better than having more blood on your hands, right?”

Alec nodded. “But how will you know it’s him, if he sounds like me?”

I wanted to tell him I’d know. That I’d somehow be able to look into his eyes and know I was staring at a demon, rather than at my friend, but the truth was that I couldn’t be sure. Nash hadn’t known the difference between me and Avari once, and I’d already made the same mistake with Alec twice.

“We need a secret code word, or a security question, or something.”

“A code word?” Alec chuckled, a release of the tension he’d been buried in, and I frowned at him over my can as I took another drink. “Isn’t that a little juvenile?”

I raised both brows in challenge. “You got a better idea?”

After a moment, Alec shook his head.

“Then we go with the security question. It has to be something Avari wouldn’t know the answer to. Something like your favorite color, or your mother’s maiden name.”

“My mom never married. And I don’t think there’s anything about me that he doesn’t know. The question should be about you.”

Fine. What would Avari not know about me…? The list had to be endless, but I was coming up with exactly nothing.

“What color was your first bike?” Alec asked

“White, with red ribbons.”

He smiled. “That’ll be the security question and answer.”

“Okay.” Makes sense… Assuming I wasn’t talking to Avari right now. But that was impossible, right? Avari wasn’t that good an actor. Still…

“Did he kill anyone tonight? Do you have any new holes in your memory?”

Alec shook his head. “I haven’t even been to sleep yet.” He glanced over my shoulder at the front window, and I twisted to see faint early-morning sunlight leaking in between the slats in the miniblinds. “And it’s looking like the time for that has passed.”

Except that he’d gotten Mrs. Bennigan in the middle of the day, when she’d passed out at her desk. Mrs. Bennigan had just gotten back from maternity leave, so no doubt the new baby was contributing to her exhaustion, but she couldn’t be the only teacher who ever fell asleep in the middle of the day. And the less sleep Alec got at night, the more likely he’d be to pass out during the day, leaving himself—and any simultaneously napping teachers—at risk.

“You don’t have to be at work till eleven, right? Why don’t you sleep for a couple of hours while I’m here to watch you?”

He frowned. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” I stood and headed for the kitchen. “I’m just going to make some coffee and do some homework.” There hadn’t exactly been time for it the night before, between spying on Nash and trying to pin the murders on Sabine.

“Thanks, Kay. I really owe you.”

I pasted on an uneasy smile. “I’ll put it on your tab.”

Two and a half hours later, I sat in my car in the school parking lot, waiting for Sabine. Again. And for once, I actually hoped she’d have Nash with her. That way he’d be there to hear that she’d broken a promise to him by invading my dreams. Again.

I’d only been waiting a few minutes when she pulled into the lot and parked one row down, four spots over. I grabbed my backpack and locked the car, wishing that I’d remembered my jacket. But with nightmares, murder, and hostile invasion by a hellion on my mind, the January cold hadn’t even ranked among my worries that morning.

“Sabine!” I yelled as I jogged toward her car, and several people turned to look. My resolve wavered for an instant when I realized we’d have an audience, but one glance at the smug look on her face as she stepped onto the pavement was enough to bring my determination back in full force.

“Kaylee?” Nash stood on the other side of her car with one hand on the roof. “What’s wrong?”

I stopped closer to Sabine than I really wanted to be, to keep anyone else from overhearing. “Your delinquent Nightmare of a girlfriend was in my head again,” I snapped through gritted teeth.

“Did you say head?” Sabine asked, drawing both my anger and my attention from Nash. “’Cause it sounded like you said bed, and I don’t think anyone’s ever been in your bed.”

White-hot sparks of anger floated in front of my eyes. “Am I supposed to be embarrassed because I’m not handing it out like Halloween candy?”

“I think you are embarrassed, ’cause you’re afraid to let anyone have even a little taste of your…candy.”

My hand clenched around the strap of my backpack. “You sound like a slut.”

“You dress like a prude.”

“Whoa, wait a minute.” Nash rounded the car in a few steps and grabbed Sabine’s arm, pulling her away from me, and I had to wonder which of us he was trying to protect. People were watching us outright now, and Nash turned to yell at them, standing firm between me and Sabine. “Go on in! You’re not missing anything.” I felt the warm brush of his Influence—not directed at me, fortunately—and probably would have been mad at him for Influencing our classmates, if I weren’t so busy being furious with Sabine. But his Influence worked—it always did—and this time no one got hurt. They all just turned and headed for the building, like a herd of human cattle.

When we were no longer the center of attention, Nash turned to Sabine. “You were in her dreams again?”

“Oh, come on. She’s such a tease.” Sabine shook her head, like I should be ashamed of myself. “Those mommy issues were just crying out for attention.”

“Stay out of my head,” I demanded, just as Nash said, “Sabine, you promised!”

She turned to him, eyes flashing in anger. “I promised I wouldn’t try to scare her away from you, and I didn’t. It had nothing to do with you this time. She stuck her nose into my private life, so I responded in kind.”

Nash turned to me, rubbing his forehead like it hurt. “What the hell is she talking about?”

“Yeah, Kaylee, what could I possibly be talking about?” Sabine’s eyes widened in fake wonder for a second before her gaze hardened into true anger. “Why don’t you tell Nash where you were last night?”

My cheeks glowed like sunset on the horizon of my vision. “Kaylee?” Nash asked, but I couldn’t say it.

“Even when I can’t see you, I can taste your emotions like a shark tastes blood in the water,” Sabine whispered, leaning around Nash to make sure I heard her. “You can’t sneak up on me. You can’t spy on me. I will always know you’re there, Kaylee.”

My face burned now, and I had nothing to put out the flames.

“Someone tell me what the hell you two’re talking about!” Nash snapped through clenched teeth, as more students paused to eye us before heading into the building.

Sabine crossed her arms over her chest, smug and satisfied. “Kaylee pulled the Invisible Man routine in your room last night.”

Nash turned to me, suspicion and disbelief swirling slowly in his eyes. “Kaylee?”

Crap.

“I’m sorry. I just…” I wanted to explain, but I wasn’t gonna blame it on Tod. Even if it was his fault. “I don’t get what you see in her, and I wanted to see you both together. I needed to understand. To be sure.”

“To be sure of what?” Nash demanded, his voice as low and hard as I’d ever heard it. “You spied on me to make sure I’m not sleeping with her?”

“She doesn’t trust you,” Sabine said, like a snake hissing in his ear. “And she never will. I can’t believe you can’t see that.”

Nash whirled on her. “Shut up!” His irises churned with anger, roiling like storm clouds, but it wasn’t all directed at her; a good bit of that anger was for me. “It’s my fault she doesn’t trust me.” He turned back to me. “I know it’s my fault, but that doesn’t excuse this.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, obviously trying to keep a handle on his temper. “I can’t believe you spied on me.” His eyes flew open and his gaze settled on me with a bitter weight. “Did it make you feel better? I hope whatever you saw justifies you violating Sabine’s privacy. And mine.”

And just like that, my guilt was overcome by a spark of my own latent rage. “Oh, right. Like you can claim the moral high ground here, after everything you did.”

“I’m not claiming anything,” Nash insisted. “I just thought you were better than that. Better than me. Where were you hiding, anyway? In the closet?”

“I told you, she was invisible,” Sabine insisted.

Nash shook his head. “Kaylee can’t…” He stopped, and his scowl deepened with understanding. “Tod. Damn it. I take it he’s been practicing?”

I could only shrug.

“It’s bad enough that he goes around spying on people, but dragging you into it is way over the line.”

“Don’t blame him,” I insisted. “I could have said no.”

“I hear you’re good at that.” Sabine grinned fiercely, bending to pick up her book bag.

“I hear you can’t even spell it,” I snapped, infuriated by how vulnerable I felt, knowing she knew intimate details of my personal life. Maybe by eavesdropping, I’d evened the score a little bit in that respect.

“Okay, that’s enough!” Nash growled. “I’ve had it with both of you.” He pulled his own bag higher on one shoulder and turned to me. “You let me know when you decide what the hell you want from me. I love you, and I miss you, and I’ll be waiting, whenever you’re ready. But don’t spy on me again. Ever.”

I nodded miserably as he twisted to face Sabine. “And you… You come find me when you’re ready to be my friend, because that’s all I have to offer right now. But as badly as I need someone to talk to, I don’t need another complication in my life. And as for the two of you…” He stepped away from us, already walking backward toward the school entrance. “Work it out. Or don’t work it out. But leave me the hell out of it.”

Then, for the first time since our first kiss, he turned around and walked away from me without a single glance back.

“This is all your fault,” Sabine snapped, as soon as Nash was out of hearing range.

I rolled my eyes. “We were fine until you showed up.”

“Yeah. About as fine as a train wreck.”

“We were working things out,” I insisted.

“You were pouting and licking your wounds.” Sabine pulled open her car door and locked it, then slammed it shut. “You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Deal?”

“Does that mean you’re giving up on him?”

“Hell, no.” Sabine’s eyes darkened, even as they narrowed at me. “It means I’m giving up on you.”

The familiar tap of hard-soled, clunky shoes echoed behind me, and Emma came to a stop at my side. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Sabine’s predatory gaze snapped from me to Emma, and Em actually sucked in a startled breath. Then the mara turned sharply and marched into the building alone.

“I’m starting to see the creepy,” Emma whispered, as we watched her go. And I hoped she’d never have any reason to see the real Sabine—or to feel her fury.