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 dra
w 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?
17
THAT NIGHT, AFTER my father went to sleep, Alec came into my room and we took turns sleeping in two-hour shifts. True to her word, Sabine stayed out of my head, but because Avari had made no such deal with Alec, and especially since I’d evicted him from his earlier occupation, I shook him awake every time he so much as grunted in his sleep, and every single time, I made him tell me what color my first bicycle was.
He passed the test each time. We’d dodged a bullet, but I was far from sure we’d be able to do the same thing night after night. Especially considering how exhausted I was the next morning, after nearly a week without a decent night’s sleep.
Friday was a blur of desks, textbooks, and piercing school bells, made even more miserable because Nash ignored both me and Sabine again. All day long. And I have to admit that once I was sure no more teachers had died, I kind of mentally checked out of the school day. I was just too tired to concentrate.
Until some sophomore, bitter over not making the basketball season cheerleading squad, was caught dumping bleach from the custodian’s closet all over the cheerleader uniforms hanging at the back of the team sponsor’s classroom during lunch. That woke the whole school up.
As Principal Goody escorted a gaggle of pissed-off cheerleaders to the office to call their parents, she stopped in the hall and I heard her tell the team coach she’d be glad when this week was over.
I knew exactly how she felt.
That night, I had to work, with neither Emma nor Alec to keep me company. After my shift, I checked my phone for missed calls and found a voice mail from Nash. I listened to it in my car, in the dark, with nothing to distract me from the intimate sound of his voice in my ear.
“Hey, it’s me,” he said, and just hearing from Nash made my chest ache, after two days of near-silence from him. “I’m sorry about the other day. Are you working? You wanna come over tonight? Just to talk? We could order a pizza, and Mom made some of those fudge cookies before she left for work.”
He paused, and my sigh was the most pathetic sound I’d ever heard.
“Anyway, I figured if I invited you, you wouldn’t feel like you had to sneak in under the cover of…Tod. Give me a call?”
Then the phone went silent in my hand.
I dropped my cell onto the passenger seat and started the engine. Then I turned the car off and stared out the windshield.
Nothing had changed. Nash was still recovering from a serious frost addiction, I was still trying to forgive him for what he’d done, and his ex was still marching toward a very messy boyfriend coup.
But then again, maybe nothing would change until I gave him a real chance to make things better. Maybe I never would be able to move on until I either forgave him or let him go.
And I desperately didn’t want to let him go.
I’ll just stay for a few minutes. I’ll have one slice of pizza. And maybe a cookie. A cookie never hurt anyone, right?
Besides, I hadn’t had a chance yet to tell him what was going on with Alec, because he’d been avoiding both me and Sabine at school. So I’d stay for a few minutes. An hour, tops.
I’d definitely be home before curfew….
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES later, I knocked on Nash’s door, suddenly wishing I’d changed out of my uniform shirt. I’d considered it during the drive, but in the end I dismissed the thought—dressing up might send the wrong message.
If I came in my uniform, he’d know I was just there to talk. That I wasn’t trying to look good or to take things beyond that first crucial private conversation. I’d made the right choice.
But I still wished I’d changed.
Nash opened the door in nothing but a pair of jeans, and suddenly I wished he’d changed. He was really hard to talk to when he wasn’t fully clothed.
A relieved smile lit up his face when he saw me, and I couldn’t resist a small grin of my own. “I didn’t think you were coming.” He stepped back to let me in. “I called three hours ago.”
“I was at work. They make us leave our phones in our lockers.” But even after my shift, I hadn’t called to let him know I was coming because I wasn’t sure I’d actually go through with it until I rang the doorbell. Being alone with Nash was hard. Even without his Influence working in his favor—which he’d sworn would never happen again—he was temptation on two feet. When I was with him, I wanted to touch him, and when I touched him, I wanted to touch him some more, but that would lead to all things sweaty and illogical, and logic was the only weapon I could deploy against the lure that was Nash, and the traitor that was my own heart.
He closed the door at my back, then leaned against it, and my pulse rushed in my ears as I pulled off my jacket and dropped it on the back of a chair. “Did you eat?” he asked, while I stood there like an idiot in the middle of his living room.
“Just some popcorn on my break.”
“I’ll call for pizza.”
While he dialed, I sat on the couch and tried to get comfortable. We’d never really hung out in his living room, but I wanted to make it clear that I had no business in his bedroom. Not tonight. Not while we were still feeling things out. Figuratively.
When he hung up, Nash sat next to me, and I twisted to face him, leaning against the arm of the couch with my back to the end table lamp. Light from over my shoulder lit his face enough for me to see the browns and greens in his eyes, alternately twisting contentedly and churning with nerves.
I was relieved to realize he was nervous, too. He understood that he was getting a second chance, and he obviously didn’t want to mess it up.
“Hey, I thought you should know you were right about Sabine.”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t want to talk about Sabine.”
“I’m just saying, she didn’t kill them.”
“I know. I still don’t want to talk about her.”
I smiled. “Looks like we still have things in common.”
“I sure hope so.” He reached out for my hand and curled his fingers around mine, and my pulse leaped just like it had the first time we’d touched. How could it possibly feel just like that still?
I hesitated, tempted to drop the subject and continue exploring a potential reunion. But Nash deserved to know the truth, and frankly, I didn’t like the pressure or responsibility that came with being the only one who knew Alec’s secret. “Wait, there’s more,” I insisted.
“I like more…” His eyes flashed, and my heart beat harder.
“It’s Alec,” I said, and Nash froze.
“What’s Alec?” He pulled his fingers from my light grip and scowled. “You and Alec…?”
“No!” I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “Why does everyone keep saying that? He’s old, no matter how young he looks!” And he had much more important things on his mind than dating. I took a deep breath. “Alec killed them. The teachers.” I frowned. “Well, not him, exactly. It was actually Avari, but he was using Alec’s body. It’s kind of a long story.”
“Then you should probably talk fast.” Nash’s irises churned too fast for me to isolate individual emotions, but his lips were pressed thin, his hand clenched around the back of the couch.
“Okay. It turns out that Alec’s only half human. His other half is hypnos, and Avari somehow scraped together enough power to possess Alec and feed through him. Which only gives him more power. And evidently kills people.”
Guess that wasn’t such a long story, after all.
Nash’s frown could have blotted out the sun.
“And he’s sleeping on your couch?”
Actually, now he was sleeping half the night in my bedroom, where I could watch him for signs of possession. But all I said was, “He’s not really sleeping much at all, since we figured out what was going on.”
“Kaylee, you have to tell your dad.”
I shook my head. “He’ll kick him out.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“No, Nash. If my dad kicks Alec out, who’s going to make sure he doesn’t get possessed and kill someone else?”
“Let your dad worry about that.” I started to shake my head again, but Nash cut me off. “If you don’t tell him, I will. This is too dangerous, Kay. Swear you’ll tell him. Tonight.”
And finally I nodded, feeling almost as relieved to be free from the responsibility as I felt guilty over having to break a promise to Alec. “Fine. I swear.”
Nash’s hand relaxed on the back of the couch and he slouched a little, obviously more at ease now that he had my promise.
“So…how are you?” I asked, ready for a subject change. I didn’t want to bring up the issue that had separated us in the first place, but I felt like I should know how he was doing. For real. I wanted to know.
“I’m better now.” Now that I was here. He didn’t say it, but we both heard it. Then the heat in his gaze gave way to a different kind of intensity. “Kaylee, I’m so sorry for everything that happened. I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could do so many things differently….”
I squeezed his hand. “Nash, you can stop apologizing.”
“But you haven’t forgiven me.”
“Not for lack of apologies.” I glanced at our intertwined fingers, enjoying the familiar warmth and the way our palms seemed to fit together. “It’s just a lot to deal with. Doug died because we did too little, and we did it too late. And Scott probably wishes he were dead.”
Surely lifeless oblivion would be better than living with Avari’s voice constantly in your head, telling you things you don’t want to know, demanding you do things no sane person would do….
His hand tightened around mine, and his gaze seemed to burn a hole right through me. “What else can I do?”