If I Die

  “Does it matter?” I wrapped the remaining meat up, trying desperately to pretend that the man assigned to kill me wasn’t getting yet another unauthorized peek into my private life.

  “Of course it matters,” Nash snapped. “Why wouldn’t it?”

  I shoved the meat into the fridge and spun to face him, struggling not to vent my fury at Thane on him. “Because in three days, I’m going to be dead, and this’ll be the mootest point of all time.”

  “Well said!” Thane shouted, and his voice echoed around the room like thunder, though only I could hear it.

  “It matters to me,” Nash insisted. “And the question won’t be moot in three days, because Tod will still be here, and every time I look at him, I’m going to know how he felt about you and wonder if that was mutual. If my own brother was trying to steal my girlfriend. So answer me! Do you like him?”

  “Oooh, there’s a brother?” Thane demanded, standing inches away, his chest practically brushing my right shoulder. “Drama, drama, drama.”

  I did my best to ignore the reaper, and focus on Nash. “First of all, I’m not a piece of property that can be stolen.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Nash began, but I cut him off.

  “And second of all, Tod isn’t trying to steal anything from you. You and your mom are all he has left in the world, and I don’t think he’d ever intentionally hurt you.”

  “You know, Cain and Abel were brothers…” Thane said, and I whirled on him, fury sparking like fire in my veins. But before I could say a word, Nash followed my gaze and found…nothing.

  “Is that him? Is he here?” Nash demanded. “Is he talking to you, now?”

  “Why would this Tod be invisible?” Thane asked. “Don’t you have any human friends?”

  I ignored him and focused on Nash. “No, it’s not Tod. It’s—”

  “Uh-uh…” Thane taunted, crossing in front of me slowly, his nose brushing my cheek on its way to my ear, and I shuddered in revulsion. “If you tell him, I’ll have to kill him. And once I’ve broken one rule, I’m on the run anyway, so what’s to stop me from breaking another one and taking you right…now…?” He circled behind me, and his hand trailed across my lower back. I closed my eyes, fighting nausea at his touch.

  “Kaylee!” Nash shouted. “Answer me!”

  But I couldn’t. I could barely even think past the terror and loathing crawling through me.

  “So this’ll be our little secret, right, Kaylee?” the reaper whispered into my other ear, as he completed the circle around me.

  “Tod!” Nash growled through clenched teeth, glaring at random spots in the empty room. “Get the hell out of here.”

  “It’s not Tod!” I said, and the reaper stiffened at my side, until I continued. “It’s not anyone.”

  “Good girl…” Thane whispered. “Until next time…” Then he disappeared, and I leaned against the kitchen counter, sagging with relief.

  “Then what’s wrong?” Nash asked, and my brain raced as I tried to refocus on him in the aftershock of Thane’s invasion.

  “I don’t know, Nash. I don’t know if I like Tod.”

  The truth was that I hadn’t even considered the possibility until a couple of hours earlier, because it hadn’t seemed real. I wasn’t Emma or Sophie. I didn’t have C-cups bouncing in front of me with every step and I didn’t dance around in tiny skirts. Guys didn’t fight over me. Nash was an anomaly. I never would have been on his radar if we didn’t share a species, so it had never occurred to me that I might be on anyone else’s.

  In fact, the reverse had always seemed much more plausible—that someone else would steal him away from me.

  “Do you like Sabine?” I asked softly, silently daring him to tell me the truth, in the face of his own accusations.

  Nash turned and stomped into the living room. “This isn’t about Sabine.”

  I followed him, truly irritated now. “Maybe it should be. You wanna know what I think?” I asked, then gave him no time to reply. “I think you do still like Sabine, at least a little bit. I think you like it that she still wants you, and you like flirting with her when I’m not there, dangling the possibility in front of her. Playing her game.” I sucked in a deep breath, surprised to realize that I was now thoroughly pissed at what amounted to his hypocrisy.

  “But I think it goes beyond that. I know how serious the two of you were, and I don’t think you can ever really get over something like that. Not completely. And you know it. But you still hang out with her, alone, in your room. Practically daring each other to take things beyond friendship. Then you have the nerve to ask me if I like Tod, three days before I’m going to die?”

  How could the four of us possibly be so tangled up in one another? And how could I not have seen it coming?

  Nash stared at me, stunned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry I opened this can of worms, especially now. I swear I have no intention of taking things beyond friendship with Sabine, but this is the second time this week you’ve stood me up, then turned up with Tod. And I know he wants you, and it was starting to look like that might be mutual…?”

  His voice went up on the end in question. He was still asking. And I didn’t want to lie. But did it really matter? So what if Tod was funny, and unpredictable, and there every time I needed him. So what if he liked it when I “raged” against things and didn’t think I was crazy for wanting to break into Lakeside? So what if he’d spent months hanging out, getting to know me instead of trying to feel me up the first week we met.

  What did that matter? What good was the possibility—the life-changing, love-wrecking possibility—when I wouldn’t be around to explore it?

  Should I admit that I might—might—like Tod back, when that would wreck everything between me and Nash for no reason at all?

  It would be different if I weren’t dying. If I was going to have a chance to decide how I felt and think about the long-term consequences. But since that wasn’t going to happen…

  “Nash, why would I be with you, if I liked him?”

  Instead of answering, Nash pulled me closer, staring into my eyes, and for a moment, panic consumed me. Then I swallowed my panic and steadied my breathing, focusing on how desperately I didn’t want to hurt Nash.

  “So, we’re okay?” he asked, and I realized I’d controlled the telltale swirling in my eyes, possibly for the first time in my life.

  “Yes, we’re fine.”

  “Well then,” Nash said, brows arched in challenge, like he wasn’t sure he completely believed me. “I can’t help noticing that we’re all alone here.” He squeezed me tighter and whispered into my ear, though there was no one else to hear him. “I say we go to your room and start granting wishes…”

  A couple of hours earlier, I would have led him to my room with my head spinning, the rest of me on fire with anticipation. But now, it didn’t feel right. Tod was right—I did want to sleep with Nash just to say I’d done it. To know what it felt like. But Nash would think it meant more than that.

  Lying to avoid hurting him felt bad enough, and I was only doing it because I’d be gone in a few days, but Tod wouldn’t, and three hundred years was a long time to hate your own brother.

  But sleeping with Nash for the wrong reason was something else entirely. I couldn’t use him like that. So I lied again.

  “It’s been a really long day, and I’m kind of starving. Why don’t we order Chinese and watch a movie? Your choice.”

  Nash frowned. “I thought you wanted to.”

  “I did. I do. Just…not tonight.” Not that there were many nights left, but I’d deal with those as they came.

  “Are you still mad because I asked about Tod?”

  “No. Nash, this has nothing to do with Tod, and I’m not mad at you. Everything’s fine.” Surely the biggest lie I’d ever told.

  He looked unconvinced, but dropped a kiss on my forehead anyway and tried to hide his disappointment. “You order the food, I’ll find a movie. It does
n’t matter what we do. Just being with you is enough for me.”

  My guilt was like the ocean, swallowing me whole.

  “When you were little, you used to call those ‘pop hearts,’” my dad said, and I looked up from my blueberry toaster pastry to find him standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “Hey. Where were you last night?” He looked like hell. Bloodshot eyes, dark circles, pale skin.

  “Out looking for a miracle.” My dad sighed and trudged toward the coffeepot.

  “Okay then,” I said as he poured. “Where were you all day yesterday? Mr. Ryan left a message on the machine. He says if you don’t come in today, you’re fired. Have you even been to work this week?”

  He took the first sip of black coffee without bothering to replace the pot. “I have more important things to worry about right now, Kaylee. But the universe seems adamant that you are the only miracle I’m going to get.”

  I nodded slowly, fighting to keep my eyes from watering. “The universe is always right, Dad. There’s nothing you can do.”

  He just looked at me over his steaming mug, refusing to admit defeat. Then, finally, he sighed and leaned against the counter. “You wanna skip school today and hang out? Just the two of us? There’s an Alien marathon on all day, all the way through Alien vs Predator: Requiem. We could order pizza and revel in the carnage.”

  I wanted to cry. He wouldn’t admit he couldn’t save me, but an offer to play hooky for father-daughter time spoke volumes. And I really wanted to say yes. To stay in my pjs and watch TV with my dad all day, for the last time in my life. But… “Can’t,” I said around the last bite of blueberry filling. “You have to go to work.” And I had to go to school and plot the destruction of a Netherworld monster posing as my math teacher.

  “Tonight, then?” He tried to hide his disappointment, but the rare swirl of color in his eyes spoke the truth. “I can set it to record.”

  “No you can’t.” We’d had the DVR on the living room TV for a month, and he still hadn’t figured out how to change the channel. “But I can. Come home with pizza, and I’m all yours.” I wouldn’t be doing any more homework anyway. For the rest of my life.

  “Deal.” My father smiled and looked a little less than exhausted for a couple of seconds. But then he sipped from his mug again and I could see how tired he was and how hard the past few days had been for him, and for the first time, it occurred to me that I may have gotten the good end of the deal. In a couple of days, my troubles would be over. But my dad would have to live with my death—with failing to save me—for the rest of his life.

  I started to say something else—to try to put into words how much I loved him—but the doorbell rang before I could come up with the first word.

  My dad frowned, his mouth already open to ask who was at the door, but I jogged past him to open it before he could speak. Nash and Sabine stood on the front porch, her car parked at the curb. I stepped back to let them in while my dad poured the rest of his coffee into a travel mug.

  “Hey, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Sabine said, plopping next to Nash on the couch.

  “You’re all up early today. What’s going on, guys?” My dad held his work gloves and keys in one hand, his mug in the other. He tolerated Sabine in spite of the creepy vibes she leaked when she got angry or upset because he didn’t know what she’d been willing to do to me to get to Nash. And be cause he felt sorry for her, stuck with a foster mother who only wanted to draw a government check. But what he didn’t know was that Sabine relished the freedom apathetic parenting afforded her.

  What no one knew—except maybe Nash, and he wasn’t talking—was where she’d gotten her car, with no job and very little spending money.

  “We’re working on something for school today,” I said. And technically, that wasn’t a lie. But if I told him the whole truth, he wouldn’t go to work, then he’d lose his job, and after I died he really would have nothing left to live for.

  “Okay.” My dad watched me from the entry, one hand on the doorknob. “Now tell me what you’re really up to.”

  I should have realized he knew me well enough now to recognize my half-truths. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Emancipated minor, remember?” I said, daring a grin he didn’t return. “Besides, how much trouble could I possibly get into in the next two days?” But he didn’t seem very pleased by the reminder.

  “If I recall, this emancipation expires in less than forty-eight hours. I expect to hear all about this over breakfast Friday morning.”

  “Deal.”

  None of us said what we were all thinking—that this time, I wouldn’t be around to ’fess up and get grounded.

  Alec knocked on the door minutes after my dad’s car disappeared down the street, just like I’d planned. “Okay, I’m here,” he said, brushing past me into the living room. “What’s with the summons?”

  I pushed the door closed behind him. “I talked to one of Beck’s other victims last night at Lakeside, and we were hoping you might have some more answers for us.”

  Alec just looked at me. Then he looked at Sabine and Nash. Then back at me. “You’re not going to give this up, are you?” he asked, and I shook my head. “Fine. But you’re gonna have to feed me. I haven’t even been to bed yet.” He worked third shift at the same factory where my father worked.

  “Pancakes?” I offered.

  “And lots of coffee.”

  Nash made a fresh pot while I nuked an entire box of frozen chocolate chip pancakes, three at a time. “The girl I went to see last night is named Farrah Combs, and she’s very, very pregnant with Beck’s baby. According to Lydia, the nurses say the baby’s a boy. Which means it’s an incubus. Right?”

  Alec nodded around his first bite, then licked a smear of chocolate from his lower lip.

  “Who’s Lydia?” Nash asked, sliding into the chair between me and Sabine with a plate of his own.

  “Farrah’s roommate. I met her when I was at Lakeside.”

  “Okay, so Beck’s about to get his baby.” Alec shrugged and picked up his mug. “It sounds like this mess is about to clean itself up. Once he gets what he wants, you’ll be rid of him, at least for the next century.”

  “No way.” Sabine shook her head firmly. “He doesn’t get a happy ending. He has to pay for what he’s done.”

  I refrained—barely—from pointing out that she hadn’t paid for what she’d done, which added a hollow note to her righteous anger, at least in my ears.

  “He’s not getting a happy ending or a son,” I said. “According to Tod, incubi babies are really hard to carry to term. The few that aren’t miscarried either drive the mothers insane—literally—or kill them. Farrah got the worst of both worlds. The only reason she and her baby have both survived this long is because Lydia’s a syphon and she’s been kind of splitting the burden with Farrah. But now that she’s gone, Farrah and the baby are both going to die, and Beck will be back to square one. Which means he’s still dangerous, and we still have to get rid of him.”

  “Wait, where did Lydia go?” Nash asked, absently cutting his pancakes into small triangles.

  “Um…Tod and I kind of…broke her out.”

  “You broke a psych patient out of the hospital?” Alec’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth, dripping syrup onto the edge of the table.

  Sabine leaned back with her chair balanced on two legs. “Playin’ a little fast and loose with the rules lately, aren’t you?”

  “She didn’t belong there any more than I did,” I insisted, and the mara’s brows rose.

  “Interesting phrasing, Kay…”

  I glared at her, but refused to be distracted. “The point is that Farrah can’t hold on to the baby without Lydia’s help, and as soon as Beck realizes he’s going to lose his son—if he hasn’t already—he’s going to step up his game. I figure if Farrah’s seven months pregnant, assuming she was one of his first tries, he’s already more than halfway through his fertile period wi
th no luck so far. That has to be making him kinda desperate, and possibly careless, and the last thing our school needs is a rash of demonic miscarriages.”

  “Though miscarriage seems to be the lesser of several evils, considering how dangerous the pregnancies are,” Sabine said.

  “I don’t know,” I said, thinking about what Danica had told me in the hospital. “Danica’s messed up so badly that she can’t have kids. Ever. And now I’m wondering whether her case is a rarity, or just another awful part of the pattern.” I turned to Alec as he swallowed another bite, and Sabine and Nash followed my gaze.

  “That’s pretty typical of an incubus miscarriage, and it would have been worse a couple of centuries ago.” Alec shrugged without setting his fork down. “Before modern medicine, your classmate would have bled to death. At least this way she’s still alive.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure Danica will be thrilled to hear how lucky she is.” I pushed my own plate away, untouched.

  “Damn,” Sabine swore softly. “I have to feed to survive, but I never did anything that messed up. I swear.”

  I tried not to remember how hard she’d tried to break up me and Nash, which I’d personally found pretty messed up.

  “Is that how you think about me?” she demanded softly, like she might not really want the answer. “Like some kind of monster?”

  “No,” I said, and she pretended to believe what I pretended was true. But she looked more wounded than I’d thought possible.

  “The internal damage is an unfortunate side effect for women not strong enough to carry an incubus’s baby to term,” Alec said, obviously trying to draw us back on track. “That’s why they usually target younger, healthier women, who are more likely to survive the pregnancy.”

  “Which is why he’s teaching high school,” Nash said. But that rationalization did nothing to soften my horror.

  Alec shrugged. “The age thing probably doesn’t mean anything to him. A couple hundred years ago, girls in his target age range were considered marriageable.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah, well, now we’re jailbait.”