My Soul to Steal

  In the painful silence, I popped open my Coke, just to have something to do with my hands. “So…what is she?”

  Nash looked up, obviously confused. “I thought Tod told you…”

  “He just said she’s my worst nightmare. Whatever that means.” But frankly, any girl openly trying to steal Nash from me would qualify as my nightmare. “So…what is she?” I repeated, hoping I wouldn’t have to say it again. “Siren? Harpy?” I raised both brows at him in sudden comprehension. “She’s a harpy, isn’t she? She acts like a harpy.” Not that I’d ever met one.

  Nash laughed out loud. “She’d probably get a kick out of that.” But I had my doubts. “She’s a Nightmare, like Tod said. Only that’s kind of an antiquated term. Now, they’re called maras.”

  “There’s a politically correct term for Nightmares? Would that make me a death portent?” I joked to cover my own confusion and ignorance, and Nash laughed again to oblige me.

  “Sure. We could start a movement. ‘Rename the bean sidhe.’ You make picket signs, I’ll call the governor. It’s gonna be huge.”

  “Funny.” Only it wasn’t. “So what exactly is a mara?”

  Nash leaned forward and met my gaze with a somber one of his own. “Okay, I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise not to freak out. Remember, it was weird finding out you were a bean sidhe at first, too, right?”

  Weird didn’t begin to describe it. “Nash, I just found out she was on your bed at two o’clock this morning. With you. How much worse could this be?”

  He gave me an apprehensive look, but didn’t deny that they’d been on his bed together, and another little part of my heart shriveled up and died. “Maras are a rare kind of parasite, and unique in that they aren’t native to the Netherworld. At least, according to my mom.”

  “Did she and your mom get along?”

  “Yeah.” Nash shrugged. “Sabine didn’t know what she was when I met her, and I’d figured out she wasn’t human, but that’s as far as I’d gotten. But my mom narrowed it down pretty fast. She wanted to help her.”

  Of course she had. Harmony’s heart was too big for her own good. She wanted to help me, too, and I was definitely starting to see a pattern. Nash and his mother shared their hero complex—I should have seen that coming, considering that she was a nurse—and so far, only Tod seemed immune to the family calling to help people.

  He killed them instead.

  “So she’s a parasite? That sounds…gross. If I get in her way, is she going to attach herself to my back and suck me dry like a tick? Or a vampire?”

  Nash rolled his eyes. “There are no vampires. And no. Maras don’t feed physically. They feed psychically. Off of human energy.”

  Alarms went off in my head. “She eats human energy? Like Avari?”

  “No.” Nash frowned, like he was mentally organizing his thoughts, and it was a struggle. “Well, kind of. But she’s not a hellion. Hellions thrive on pain and chaos, and they’re strong enough to take it from the bleed-through of human energy between worlds. Parasites are nowhere near that strong. They have to feed through a direct connection, of one sort or another. And maras, specifically, feed from fear.”

  I blinked. Then blinked again, grasping for a nugget of comprehension from the words he seemed to be throwing at me at random. “She’s a fear eater?” I said at last. “So…as long as I don’t show her any fear, she can’t feed from me?”

  Nash took another long drink from his can, then set it on his nightstand. “Not exactly. There’s a reason they used to be called Nightmares.”

  But before he could continue, movement from across the room caught my eye and I looked up to find Tod scowling at me. “You really think this is smart, after what he did?”

  Nash obviously could neither see nor hear his brother, but he’d seen me stare off into space often enough to interpret the silence. “Damn it, Tod.”

  I sighed, glancing from one brother to the other. “I needed answers.”

  “I would have given them to you.” Tod crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Nash, who stared at nothing, two feet from the space Tod actually occupied. “He owes them to me.”

  “Show yourself or get out,” Nash said, finally tired of being ignored. “Better yet, just get out.”

  Tod’s eyes narrowed and he stepped forward, clearly stepping into sight, just to spite his brother. “Did you tell her about the dreams?”

  Nash’s frown deepened. “I was about to.”

  Dreams. Nightmares. Parasite. Sabine kissing Nash in front of my locker. No! But the pieces of the puzzle fit, so far as I could tell, and there was no denying the picture they formed. “She feeds during nightmares? She fed from me, during my sleep last night?”

  “Probably,” Tod said, while Nash asked, “What did you dream?”

  I wasn’t going to answer, but they were both looking at me, obviously waiting for a response. “I dreamed you and Sabine were making out in front of my locker. And you dumped me for her, because she ‘delivers.’”

  Nash flinched, while the reaper only shrugged. “Yeah, that sounds like Sabine.”

  “I’m sorry, Kay.” Nash looked miserable. “I’ll make sure she stops.”

  “Yeah. You will.” I didn’t even have words for how repulsed and scared I was by the fact that she’d been there while I slept, sucking energy from me through my dream. A very personal, horrifying dream.

  “Kay, she didn’t just feed from your nightmare,” Tod explained, lowering his voice, as if that might soften whatever blow was coming. “She gave you that nightmare.”

  Huh? “What does that mean? How do you give someone a nightmare?” Other than scaring the living crap out of them. Which, come to think of it, fit Sabine to a T.

  Nash tapped his empty can on the nightstand. “Sabine creates nightmares from a person’s existing fear. It’s a part of what she is, just like singing for people’s souls is a part of who you are.”

  I felt my eyes go wide, as indignation burned deep inside me. “Yeah, but when I sing, I’m not sucking people dry! I’m trying to save their lives! That’s the opposite of parasitic. Sabine and I are polar opposites!”

  “Trust me, I know,” Nash said. And if that was true, how could he possibly claim to love me, when he’d once loved her?

  “Did you tell her how they feed?” Tod crossed the room to sit on the edge of the desk, taking his place at my side like an ally. And I’d never felt more like I needed one.

  “Get out, Tod,” Nash snapped. “I can handle this myself.”

  Tod scowled. “I’m not here to help you.”

  “How do they feed?” I demanded, when they both seemed more interested in measuring testosterone levels.

  “Are you familiar with astral projection?” Nash asked, and I nodded.

  “That’s when someone’s consciousness leaves the body and can go somewhere else, fully awake. Right?”

  “Basically. What Sabine does is similar to that, except when her consciousness goes walking—she calls it Sleepwalking—she crafts people’s fears into nightmares while they sleep. She says it’s like weaving, only without physical thread.” He shrugged. “Then she feeds from the fear laced into the dreams she’s woven.”

  “By sitting on her victim’s chest,” Tod added, looking simultaneously satisfied and disgusted with his contribution to the explanation.

  “Sitting on their…?” On my chest. My stomach churned. My horror knew no bounds. “You cannot be serious. While I was sleeping—minding my own business—she came into my room and sat on my chest, weaving some kind of metaphysical quilt out of fears she took right out of my own head?” That sentence sounded so crazy I was half-afraid men in white coats would burst through the door to drag me back to mental health.

  “Not all of her. Just the part that was Sleepwalking,” Nash insisted miserably.

  “Is that supposed to make this any better? How could you not tell me this the minute she showed up at school?” I demanded, and when he had no answer for m
e, I turned around and stomped out of his room, through the house, and out the front door.

  “Kaylee, wait!” he shouted, but I didn’t wait. I got in my car and drove straight home, so angry my vision was tinged in red.

  Sabine wants a nightmare?

  That’s exactly what she’s gonna get…

  7

  NASH IS ON THE floor watching me. He’s not in the bed, and I don’t understand why, because he looks sick. His face is pale, and beads of sweat dot his forehead and his bare chest. He should be resting.

  Instead, he’s staring at me, and his eyes hold accusation and pain and shame. His irises swirl with it all, so fast I can’t separate one emotion from the others. They blend together, writhing violently, until the definitions no longer matter, because they’re all aimed at me. Whatever’s wrong with him, it’s my fault.

  My stomach clenches around nothing and suddenly I’m cold. I cross his bedroom and sink onto my knees in front of him, in the corner. His eyes are unfocused. Half-closed. I take his hand, and it’s freezing.

  No! This can’t be happening. Not again. He quit!

  Then I see it. In the corner, the opening pinched between his fingers. A single red balloon, half-deflated. I hate that balloon. In that horrible, irrational moment, I hate all balloons.

  “Kaylee…?” he whispers, reaching for my face. His other hand stays around the balloon, but that’s not safe. Not with him like this. If he lets go, he’ll pollute the whole room and probably kill us both.

  I take the balloon from him, careful not to let the deadly vapor leak out. I twist the end into a knot, gritting my teeth as the unnatural chill seeps into my hands. My knuckles ache with the cold and my fingers are stiff. But the knot holds.

  “I’m so sorry….”

  Nash is gone. His body is here and his mouth keeps moving, keeps apologizing, but Elvis has left the building. Abandoned it to the toxin I hate. The poison that is rotting his soul, and corrupting him, and killing us.

  “I tried,” he whispers, and I need to move closer to hear him better. But I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want to breathe what he’s exhaling, and I can smell it from here. “I tried,” he repeats. “But it was too hard on my own. You didn’t come….”

  Tears form in my eyes. He’s right. I didn’t come see him while he was getting clean. I didn’t help. I could hardly look at him without remembering, and now he hasn’t just fallen off the wagon, he’s been run over by it.

  And it’s all my fault.

  I want to get mad. I want to yell at him and scream, demanding to know why he can’t just stand and shake it off. He’s so strong in every other way. Why can’t he do this one thing?

  But I can’t yell. I can’t cling to my anger—not when everything I know is falling apart along with Nash. Anger is great. It’s powerful, when you need something to hold you up. Something to steel your spine. But in the dark, when you’re alone with the truth, anger can’t survive. The only thing that can live in the dark with you is fear.

  And I’m swimming in fear. I’m afraid of Nash when he’s like this. Afraid of what he’ll do or say. Afraid that he won’t listen. That he won’t stop. And I’m terrified of Demon’s Breath. Of the vapor he loves more than he loves me.

  Because that’s the crux of it. The dark truth. I’m not enough for him. I can’t keep him safe from Avari. Safe from himself. He doesn’t care enough about me to let me try.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper back. “It’s gonna be fine.” But I can’t say it with any strength, because it’s a lie.

  “They’re empty,” Nash says, as I sink onto the floor next to him, trying to warm his hand in both of mine. But that’s a useless battle. His chill comes from within, and I can’t fight it.

  “What’s empty?” I ask, and he’s shaking now. Not shivering. More like tremors. His bare feet bump into each other over and over, and his empty hand flops on the floor.

  Convulsions. He took too much. I want to get rid of the balloon, but I can’t pop it without polluting the entire room.

  “Memories…” His head rolls against the wall to face me. “They’re empty. Numb.”

  My heart beats too hard. It’s going to rupture. Nash has sold the emotions in his memories to pay for this high, and even if he survives, he can never get those feelings back.

  “Which memories?” I don’t really want to know. But I have to ask.

  “You.” His hand tightens around one of mine, but only a little. That’s all the strength he has left. “He only wants memories of you.”

  My throat closes and I can’t breathe. It’s all gone. He can never again look back on our history together and feel what he felt about me then. If there’s no memory of love, can there still be love?

  Finally, I suck in a deep breath, but it tastes bitter. Is this what I’m worth? A single latex balloon full of poison? If someone who loves me could sell me for so little, what value could I possibly have to anyone else?

  My next breath comes before I can spit the last one out, and the next comes even faster. I’m hyperventilating. I know it, but I can’t stop it.

  I drop Nash’s hand, and he stares at it blankly. Then he blinks and turns away from me, reaching for the balloon while I gasp and the room starts to go gray.

  “It’s a relief, really,” he says, and I can hear him better now. Somehow he’s stronger now, without me. “You’re so needy, and clingy, and sealed up tighter than a nun. Too much work for too little payoff.”

  My tears run over, blurring him and the room and my whole pathetic life. His words burn like acid dripped onto my exposed heart. But he’s sitting straighter now, like he draws strength from this. The truth is supposed to set you free, but it’s killing me. And it is the truth. I can see that in his eyes, and his eyes don’t lie. They can’t.

  I truly have no worth. And I don’t think I can live with that.

  “Go ahead and cry.” Nash picks at the knot I tied, trying to loosen it. “Your tears are worth more than my memories, anyway. Wonder what I could get for the rest of you? Kaylee Cavanaugh, body and soul. Probably be enough to keep me high for life. Guess you’re worth something, after all….”

  8

  I SAT UP IN BED, sticky with sweat. My pillow was damp from tears, and lingering fear pulsed through me, throbbing with each beat of my heart. I wasn’t worth loving, or even remembering. I tried too hard, but gave too little. Nash had wasted his time on me, and selling me to Avari was the only way to recoup his loss.

  My worst fears, ripped from my own soul and left bleeding like an open wound.

  Then the room came into focus through my tears, and I shook off sleep. With awareness came logic. And anger.

  Fury, like I’d never felt.

  “Sabine, get the hell out of my room!” I snapped through clenched teeth, remembering not to yell at the last minute, to keep from waking my dad. “Stay out of my head and out of my dreams, and stay away from Nash, or I swear your last semester of high school will make you homesick for prison!”

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t even sure she was still there. But I had no doubt she had been. She’d given me the new nightmare, playing on my own fears. And that was the worst part.

  Sabine was a horrible, cruel, emotional parasite, but she couldn’t have played architect in my dreams if I hadn’t given her the building material. The fears were real. Deep down, I was terrified that Nash wouldn’t stay clean. That he didn’t love me enough to even try. Because I wasn’t worth loving. Why else would my father have left me with his brother and let me be hospitalized?

  My resolve wavered again, and I clutched at it like a life preserver, refusing to give in. Refusing to wallow in my own fear, which was no doubt what Sabine wanted.

  I threw back the covers and grabbed my cell from the nightstand, pacing back and forth on my rug while the phone rang. My alarm clock read 2:09.

  “Kaylee?” Nash sounded groggy. “What’s wrong?”

  “Is she there?” I demanded, stomping all the way to my closet, then turning
to stomp the length of my bed.

  “Is who here?” As if he didn’t know!

  “Sabine. Is she there with you? Tell me the truth.”

  His bedsprings creaked. “You woke me up in the middle of the night to ask if Sabine’s with me?”

  “It’s not like that’s a stretch, considering how late she was there last night.”

  Nash groaned and I heard him roll over. “I sent her home hours ago. Before midnight,” he added. “Why?”

  “Because she just gave me another nightmare, Nash. She was feeding from me in my sleep, like a great big flea!” Which made me feel a bit like a dog and gave me a huge case of the creeps. “I don’t want her in my head, or in my dreams, or in my room.” Or in my life, or in his. “If you don’t do something about her, I will.”

  I had no idea what I would do, but I’d come up with something. Fortunately, Nash didn’t press for details.

  “I will. I’ll take care of it, Kaylee. I swear.”

  “What on earth did you guys talk about? ’Cause it obviously wasn’t the fact that she is not allowed to stalk my dreams!”

  “Kay, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “It better not.” Sabine had invaded my most private thoughts. “It’s almost as bad as having you in my head.”

  Nash’s sigh sounded like it had completely deflated him. “I don’t…” He stopped and started over. “I said I was sorry about that. So sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Because he’d been high when he’d tried to Influence me into his bed. “It’ll never happen again. Can we please just move on from that? Please?”

  “You can, obviously. Forgive me if I’m having a little more trouble with that. Especially with your new girlfriend playing dreamweaver in my sleep!”

  “She’s not my girlfriend, Kaylee.”

  I sank onto my bed, clenching one fist around a handful of my comforter. “Well, she’s not much of a friend to you, either, if this is how she treats your…people you care about.”