My Soul To Take

CHAPTER 12

“You’re coming in, right?” I asked when Nash shifted into Park but left the engine running.

There wasn’t enough light in the driveway for me to truly see his eyes, but I knew he was watching me. “You want me to?”

Did I?

A slim silhouette appeared in the front window: Aunt Val, one hand on her narrow hip, the other holding an oversize mug. They were waiting to talk to me. Or more likely at me, because they probably had no intention of telling me the truth, since they didn’t know someone else already had.

“Yeah, I do.”

It wasn’t that I needed him to fight my battles. I was actually looking forward to demanding some long-overdue answers, now that the big lie—aka my entire life—had been exposed.

But I could certainly have used a little moral support.

Nash smiled, his teeth a dim white wedge among shadows, and twisted the key to shut down the engine.

We met at the front of the car and he took my hand, then leaned forward to brush a kiss against the back of my jaw, just below my left ear. Even as I stood in my driveway, knowing my aunt and uncle were waiting, his touch made me shiver in anticipation of more.

I’m not crazy. I knew that now. And I wasn’t alone—Nash was like me. Even so, dread was a plastic spork slowly digging out my insides as I pulled open the front door, then the screen. I stepped into the tiled entry and tugged Nash in after me.

My aunt stood in the middle of the floor, a frail mask of reproach poorly disguising whatever stronger, more urgent sentiment peeked out around the edges. My uncle rose from the couch immediately, taking us both in with a single glance. To his credit, the first expression to flit across his features was relief. He’d been worried, probably because I hadn’t answered any of the twelve messages he’d left on my silenced cell.

But his relief didn’t last long. Now that he knew I was alive, he looked ready to kill me himself.

Uncle Brendon’s anger lingered on me, then more than a bit of it transferred when his focus shifted to Nash. “It’s late. I’m sure Kaylee will see you at the memorial tomorrow.”

Aunt Val only sipped her coffee—or maybe “coffee”—offering me no help.

Nash looked to me for a decision, and my tight grip on his hand demonstrated my resolve. “Uncle Brendon, this is Nash Hudson. I need to ask you some questions, and he’s going to stay. Or else I go with him.”

My uncle’s dark brows drew low and his gaze hardened—but then his eyes went wide in surprise. “Hudson?” He studied Nash more carefully now, and sudden recognition lit his face. “You’re Trevor and Harmony’s boy?”

What? My gaze bounced between them in confusion. On my left, Aunt Val coughed violently and pounded on her own chest. She’d choked on her “coffee.”

“You know each other?” I asked, but Nash looked as clueless as I felt.

“I knew your parents years ago,” Uncle Brendon said to Nash. “But I had no idea your mother was back in the area.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans, and the uncertain gesture made my uncle look even younger than usual. “I was so sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you, sir.” Nash nodded, his jaw tense, both his motion and words well practiced.

Uncle Brendon turned back to me. “Your friend’s father was…” And that’s when it hit him. His face flushed, and his expression seemed to darken. “You told her.”

Nash nodded again, holding his gaze boldly. “She has a right to know.”

“And obviously neither of you were going to tell me.”

Aunt Val sank into the nearest armchair and drained her mug, then almost dropped it onto a coaster.

“Well, I can’t say this is entirely unexpected. Your dad’s already on his way here to explain everything.” My uncle’s hands hovered at his sides, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Then he sighed and nodded to himself, like he’d come to some kind of decision. “Sit down. Please. I’m sure you both have questions.”

“Can I get anyone a drink?” Aunt Val rose unsteadily, her empty mug in hand.

“Yeah.” I gave her a saccharine smile. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

She frowned—for once unconcerned with the wrinkles etched into her forehead—then made her way slowly into the kitchen.

“I’d love some coffee,” Uncle Brendon called after her as he sank into the floral-print armchair, but his wife disappeared around the corner with no reply.

I dropped onto the sofa and Nash sat next to me, and in the sudden silence I realized my cousin hadn’t come out to interrogate me or flirt with him. And no music came from her room. No sound at all, in fact. “Where’s Sophie?”

Uncle Brendon sighed heavily and seemed to sink deeper into the chair. “She doesn’t know about any of this. She’s asleep.”

“Still?”

“Again. Val woke her up for dinner, but she hardly ate anything. Then she took another of those damned pills and went back to bed. I ought to flush the rest of them.” He mumbled the last part beneath his breath, but we both heard him.

And I agreed with him wholeheartedly on that one, if on little else at the moment.

Fueling bravado with my smoldering anger, I pinned my uncle with the boldest stare I could manage. “So I’m not human?”

He sighed. “You never were one to beat around the bush.”

I only stared at him, unwilling to be distracted by pointless chatter. And when my uncle began to speak, I clutched Nash’s hand harder than ever.

“No, technically we’re not human,” he said. “But the distinction is very minor.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes. “Except for all the death and screaming.”

“So you’re a bean sidhe too, right?” Nash interjected, oiling the wheels of discourse with more civility than I could have mustered in that moment. At least one of us was calm….

“Yes. As is Kaylee’s father, my brother.” Uncle Brendon met my eyes again then, and I knew what he was going to say from the cautious sympathy shining in his eyes. “As was your mother.”

This wasn’t about my mom. So far as I knew, she’d never lied to me. “What about Aunt Val?”

“Human.” She answered for herself, stepping into the living room with a steaming cup of coffee in each hand. She crossed the carpet cautiously and handed one mug to my uncle before sinking carefully into the armchair across from his. “And so is Sophie.”

“Are you sure?” Nash frowned. “Maybe she just hasn’t had an opportunity for any premonitions yet.”

“She was there with Meredith this afternoon,” I reminded him.

“Oh, yeah.”

“We’ve known from the moment she was born,” my aunt said, as if neither of us had spoken.

“How?” I asked, as she slowly, carefully crossed one leg over the other.

Aunt Val lifted the mug to her lips, then spoke over it. “She cried.” She sipped her coffee, her eyes not quite focused on the wall over my head. “Female bean sidhes don’t cry at birth.”

“Seriously?” I glanced at Nash for confirmation, but he only shrugged, apparently as surprised as I was.

Uncle Brendon eyed his wife in mounting concern, then turned back to us. “They may have tears, but a bean sidhe never truly screams until she sings for her first soul.”

“Wait, that can’t be right.” I’d cried plenty as a child, hadn’t I? Surely at my mother’s funeral…?

Okay, I couldn’t actually remember much from that age, but I knew for a fact that I’d screamed bloody murder when I rode my bike off the sidewalk and into a rose bush, at eight years old. And again at eleven, when I accidentally ripped a hoop earring through my earlobe with a hairbrush. And again when I’d been dumped for the first time, at fourteen.

How long had I been making fatal predictions, without even knowing it? Had I thrown inconsolable fits in preschool? Or had my youth largely kept me away from death? How long had they been treating me like I was crazy, when they knew what was wrong with me all along?

My spine stiffened, and I felt my cheeks flush in anger. Every answer my uncle provided only brought up more questions, about things I should have known all along. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, teeth clenched to keep me from yelling and waking Sophie up. I’d missed so much. Wasted countless hours doubting my own sanity.

When what I really should have been doubting was my humanity!

“I’m so sorry, Kaylee. I wanted to.” Uncle Brendon closed his eyes as if he were gathering his thoughts, then met mine again, and to my surprise, I realized I believed him. “I started to tell you last year, when you were…in the hospital. But your dad asked me not to. The damage was already done, and he hoped we could wait a little longer. At least until you finished high school.”

That’s what they’d hoped I’d have more time for! Not life, but a normal, human adolescence. A noble thought, but somewhat lacking in the execution…

“I’m surprised your little farce held up this long!” I found myself on the edge of the couch as I spoke, Nash’s hand still grasped in mine. He was the only thing keeping me seated as I vented the geyser of anger and resentment threatening to burst through the top of my skull. “How long did you think it would be before I’d run into someone on the verge of death?”

Uncle Brendon shrugged miserably but held my gaze. “Most teenagers never see anyone die. We were hoping you’d be that fortunate, and we could wait and let your dad explain all this…later. When you were ready.”

“When I was ready? I was ready last year, when I saw a bald kid in a wheelchair being pushed through the mall in his own private death shroud! You were waiting for him to be ready.” For my father to finally step up and earn his title.

“She’s right, Brendon,” Aunt Val slurred, now slumped in her chair, her linen-clad legs splayed gracelessly. I watched her, waiting for more, but turned back to my uncle when she lifted her mug to her mouth instead of speaking.

“Why keep it a secret in the first place?”

“Because you—” Aunt Val began again, gesturing in grand sweeps with her half-empty mug. But my uncle cut her off with a stern look.

“That’s for your father to explain.”

“It’s not like he hasn’t had time!” I snapped. “He’s had sixteen years.”

Uncle Brendon nodded, and I read regret on his face. “I know—we all have. And considering how you wound up figuring it out—” he glanced apologetically at Nash “—I think we were wrong to wait so long. But your dad will be here in the morning, and I’m not going to step on his toes with the rest of it. It’s his story to tell.”

There was a story? Not just a simple explanation, but an actual story?

“He’s really coming?” I’d believe that when I saw him.

Yet my chest tightened, shot through with a jolt of adrenaline at the thought: my dad had answers no one else seemed willing to give me. But I might have known it would take an all-out catastrophe to get him stateside again. He wasn’t coming to see me. He was coming to do damage control, before my aunt reversed the charges.

Uncle Brendon frowned at my obvious skepticism—he could probably see it swirling in my eyes. “We called him this afternoon—”

“I called him,” Aunt Val corrected. “I told him to put his ass on a plane, or I’d…”

“You’ve had enough.” My uncle was on his feet before I could blink, and an instant later he held his wife’s mug. She slouched in her chair, eyes wide in sluggish surprise, hand still curved, as if around the cup handle. “I’ll get you some fresh coffee.” He stopped in the threshold between the living room and dining room, Aunt Val’s mug gripped so tightly his knuckles were white. “I’m sorry,” he said to Nash. “My wife isn’t taking any of this well. She’s worried about the girls, and she’s a friend of Meredith Cole’s mother.”

Yeah, but she and Mrs. Cole were gym buddies, not conjoined twins. And I’d hardly ever seen my aunt drink more than a single glass of wine at a time—she said alcohol had too many calories.

Nash nodded. “My mother would be upset too.”

Yeah, but I bet she wouldn’t be drowning in brandy….

“How is your mother?”

“She still misses him.” Nash glanced at our entwined hands, obviously uncomfortable talking about his own family.

Uncle Brendon’s expression softened in sympathy. “Of course she does.” Then he turned into the kitchen and let the subject rest.

For a moment, we stared at the carpet in silence, not quite sure what to say next. We’d hit a lull in the single most awkward conversation of my life, and I wasn’t exactly eager to pick it back up.

But Aunt Val obviously was. “She wouldn’t have liked this.” Her gaze was focused on the floor several feet in front of her chair, her arms draped over the sides, hands dangling. I’d never seen her look so…aimless. Limp.

“My mom?” Nash asked, confused, but I knew what she meant. She was talking about my mother.

“Wouldn’t have liked what?” I asked, curious in spite of my lingering anger. No one ever seemed willing to talk about my mom in front of me.

“If it had gone the other way, she would have told you the truth. But Aiden couldn’t face it. He was never as strong as she was.” Aunt Val’s gaze found me, and I was startled by the sudden clarity in her eyes. The unexpected intensity shining through a glaze of intoxication. “I never met anyone stronger than Darby. I wanted to be just like her until—”

“Valerie!” Uncle Brendon stood frozen in the doorway, a fresh—presumably un-spiked—mug of coffee in one hand.

“Until what?” I glanced from one to the other.

“Nothing. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.” He set the mug on the nearest end table—without a coaster—and crossed the room in a blur of denim, practically exhaling frustration and anxiety. Uncle Brendon lifted his wife from her chair with an arm around her shoulders, and she tottered unsteadily, lending credence to his claim.

Yet despite her wobbly legs, her eyes were steady when they met his, and his silent censure did not escape her notice. But neither did it make her retract her statement. Whatever had just passed between them, it was crystal clear that Aunt Val did in fact know what she was saying.

Uncle Brendon half carried his wife toward the hallway. “I’m going to get her settled in for the night. It was good to meet you, Nash, and please give my best to your mother.” He glanced pointedly at me, then at the door.

Evidently visiting hours were over.

“Uncle Brendon?” I had one question that couldn’t wait for my father, and I wanted to be holding Nash’s hand when I heard the answer, just in case.

My uncle hesitated in the doorway, and Aunt Val laid her head on his shoulder, her eyes already closed. “Yeah?”

I took a deep breath. “What did Aunt Val mean when she said I’m living on borrowed time?”

Comprehension washed over him like waves smoothing out sand on the beach. “You heard us this afternoon?”

I nodded, and my hand tightened around Nash’s.

A pained look chased his smile away, and he pulled Aunt Val straighter against him. “That’s part of your father’s story. Have a little patience and let him tell it. And try to trust me—Val really doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

I exhaled in disappointment. “Fine.” That was the best I was going to get; I could already tell. Fortunately, my father would be there in the morning, and this time I wouldn’t let him leave without answering every one of my questions.

“Get some sleep, Kaylee. You too, Nash. With the memorial, tomorrow probably won’t be any easier than today was.”

We both nodded, and Uncle Brendon lifted Aunt Val into his arms—she was snoring lightly now—and carried her down the hall.

“Wow.” Nash whistled as I fell back against the arm of the couch facing him. “How much has she had?”

“No telling. She doesn’t drink much, though, so it probably doesn’t take much to lay her out cold, and she started this afternoon.”

“My mom just bakes when she gets upset. Some weeks I live on brownies and chocolate milk.”

I grinned. “Trade ya.” Aunt Val would rather shoot herself than touch a stick of real butter, much less a bag of chocolate chips. Her theory was that not knowing how to bake saved her thousands of calories a month.

My theory was that for all the brandy she’d had in the past eight hours, she could have had a whole pan of brownies.

“I like brownies. You’re stuck with your aunt.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

Nash stood, and I followed him to the door, my arm threaded through his. “I gotta get Scott’s car back before he calls the cops,” he said. I walked him out, and when we stopped by the driver’s side door, I wrapped my arms around his waist as his went around my back. He felt sooo good, and the thought that I could touch him anytime I wanted sent a whole flock of butterflies fluttering around in my stomach.

I leaned back against the car, and Nash leaned into me. His mouth met mine, and my lips opened, welcoming him. Feeding from him. When his kisses trailed down my chin to my neck, I let my head fall back, grateful for the night air cooling the heat he brought off me in waves. His lips were hot, and the trail of his kisses burned down my throat and over my collarbone.

Each breath came faster than the last. Every kiss, every flick of his tongue against my skin, scalded me in the most delicious way. His fingers trailed up from my waist as his lips dipped lower, pushing aside the neckline of my shirt.

Whoa… “Nash.” I put my hands on his shoulders.

“Mmm?”

“Hey…” I pushed against him, and he rose to meet my own heated gaze, his irises churning furiously in the light from the porch. Was this because we were two of a kind? This irresistible urge to touch each other?

My racing pulse slowed as my heart began to ache. Was it really me he wanted, or did our mutual species throw our hormones into overdrive? Would he want me if I were human?

Did that even matter? I wasn’t human. Neither was he.

“You want me to pick you up for the memorial?”

His eyes narrowed in confusion over my abrupt subject change. Then he inhaled deeply, slowed the churning in his eyes, and settled against the car next to me. “What about your dad?”

“He can drive himself.”

Nash rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think you’d want to go, with your dad in town.”

“I’m going. And I’m going to drag my dad and uncle along too.”

He arched his brows, sliding one arm around my waist. “Why?”

“Because if some vigilante reaper is after teenage girls, I figure he’ll find an auditorium full of us pretty hard to resist. And the more bean sidhes that are present, the greater the chance one of us will get a look at him, right?”

“In theory.” Nash frowned down at me, and I could feel a “but” coming. “But, Kaylee—” I grinned, mildly amused at having predicted something other than death “—it’not going to happen again. Not this soon. Not in the same place.”

“It’s happened for the past three days in a row, Nash, and it’s always happened where there are large groups of teenagers. The memorial will have the highest concentration of us in one room since graduation last year. There’s just as much chance he’ll pick someone there as anywhere else.”

“So what if he does? What are you going to do?” Nash demanded in a harsh whisper. He glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one had appeared on the porch, then met my eyes again, and I realized that behind his sudden anger lay true fear.

I knew I should have been scared too, and in truth, I was. The very concept of reapers running around harvesting their metaphysical crop from empty human husks made my stomach pitch and my chest tighten. And the idea of actually looking for one of those reapers…Well, that was crazy.

But not as crazy as letting another innocent girl die. Not if we could stop it.

I watched Nash, letting my intent show on my face. Letting determination churn slowly in my eyes.

“No!” He looked toward the house again, then back at me, his irises roiling. “You heard what Tod said,” he whispered fiercely. “Any reaper willing to steal unauthorized souls won’t hesitate to take one of ours instead.”

“We can’t just let him kill someone else,” I hissed, just as urgently. I resisted the urge to step back, half-afraid that any physical space I put between us during an argument would translate into an emotional distance.

“We don’t have any choice,” he said. I started to argue, but he cut me off, running one hand through his chunky brown hair. “Okay, look, I didn’t want to have to go into this right now—I figured finding out you’re not human was enough to deal with in one day. But there’s a lot you still don’t understand, and your uncle’s probably going to explain all this soon, anyway.” He sighed and leaned back against the car, his eyes closed as if he were gathering his thoughts. And when he met my gaze again, I saw that his determination now matched my own.

“What we can do together?” He gestured back and forth between us with one hand. “Restoring a soul? It’s more complicated than it sounds, and there are risks beyond the exchange rate.”

“What risks?” Wasn’t the exchange rate bad enough? A new thread of unease wound its way up my spine, and I leaned against the car beside him, watching light from the porch illuminate one half of his face while rendering the other side a shadowy compilation of vague, strong features. I was pretty sure that if whatever he was about to say was as weird as finding out I was a bean sidhe, I’d need Carter’s car at my back to hold me up.

Nash’s gaze captured mine, his eyes churning in what could only be fear. “Bean sidhes and reapers aren’t the only ones out there, Kaylee. There are other things. Things I don’t have names for. Things that you don’t ever want to see, much less be seen by.”

My skin crawled at his phrasing. Well, that’s more than a little scary. Yet incredibly vague. “Okay, so where are these phantom creepies?”

“Most of them are in the Netherworld.”

“And where is that?” I crossed my arms over my chest, and my elbow bumped Carter’s side-view mirror. “Because it sounds like a Peter Pan ride.” Yet my sarcasm was a thin veil for the icy fingers of unease now crawling inside my flesh. It might have been easy to dismiss claims of this other world as horror movie fodder—if I hadn’t just discovered I wasn’t human.

“This isn’t funny, Kaylee. The Netherworld is here with us, but not really here. It’s anchored to our world, but deeper than humans can see. If that makes sense.”

“Not much,” I said, but with the skepticism gone, my voice sounded thin and felt empty. “How do we know this Netherworld and its…Nether-people are there, if we can’t see them?”

Nash frowned. “We can see them—we’re not human.” Like I needed another reminder of that. “But only when you’re singing for someone’s soul. And that’s the only time they can see you.”

And suddenly I remembered. The dark thing scuttling in the alley when I was keening for Heidi Anderson. The movement on the edge of my vision when Meredith’s soul song threatened to leak out. I had seen something, even without actually giving in to the wail.

That’s why Uncle Brendon had told me to hold it in. He was afraid I would see too much.

And maybe that too much would see me.