Wicked Kiss

by Michelle Rowen

  I cast another glance at Jordan and our eyes met. I saw the same realization on her face that I felt inside myself.

  We were in very deep trouble.

  But I already knew that.

  I returned my attention to my birth father. “If I’m so unworthy of breathing, what do you need me for?”

  His dark brows drew together. “I never said you were unworthy to me. Just to them you are. They would kill you in a heartbeat and they would use you for their own gain—as they already have.”

  “And you don’t want to use me?”

  This earned the shadow of a grin. “Touché. The truth is, I need what you and I share. That hunger that has awoken inside you. It’s powerful, that hunger. Some might call it an anomaly, but it’s an asset. It’s not like what you felt before with the need to devour souls. This serves you...and it can serve me.”

  My stomach convulsed at what he was suggesting. “I’m not helping you destroy the world.”

  “Of course not. I know you wouldn’t agree to such a thing. Not now, anyway.” He grimaced again and the lines moved all the way down his hands to his fingertips. He looked at them grimly. “Seventeen years of absorbing the energy of the Hollow—the energy of each discarded demon or angel who found his or her way into its belly. I took as much of it as I could get. It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized it was too much.”

  “What do you mean, too much?”

  “The energy is overwhelming me. I need to release it so I can gather my strength again. Otherwise, it will break me into pieces.” A glimmer of knowledge came over his expression and, if I wasn’t mistaken, an edge of fear.

  “Sorry, Dad.” I said it as harshly as I could, despite quaking inside. “But you being destroyed before you put your nasty plan into action? Doesn’t sound like a tragedy to me.”

  He laughed at this, a sharp crack of a sound. “No, I’m sure you’d think that, given all evidence to the contrary. But you’re wrong. Those pieces of me will each become a Hollow of its own. Countless hungry mouths seeking energy with no conscious being controlling it. I might relish chaos and the destruction of my enemies, but not at the risk of my own existence. I want to be the one to destroy Heaven and Hell. Me alone.”

  Could it be that the power inside Nathan was ready to shatter tonight and that one of those pieces was what destroyed Trinity as it did in my vision?

  No one to control it. No one to stop, because there was no one to stop.

  My throat tightened, as if gripped by an invisible hand as I stared with fear at the man I’d always thought harmless from the moment I met him. Harmless and in need of help. I’d been only half right. “You want me to take some of that power away with a touch because I’m the only one who can. Take it into myself—that poison you’re dealing with right now that’s causing you so much pain.”

  “From what I’ve seen of you, beautiful star, you have a need to help others. Even though they would turn their backs on you, abuse you, use you and underappreciate you. You want to help them. You want to save them.” His jaw, covered in those strange black lines, tightened. “This is the only way you can.”

  Jordan continued to look on in shock, following this conversation as if fascinated and horrified by everything said.

  That made two of us.

  What Nathan was asking settled over me like a rancid, moldy blanket. “You’re asking me to sacrifice myself tonight to save this city.”

  He shook his head. “No, not sacrifice your life—that would require taking all of my power. I’m the only one capable of using that power to destroy. You’re too young, too fragile to handle that. It would kill you.”

  “Sam, no...” Jordan whispered.

  “You don’t belong here, beautiful star,” Nathan continued. “Not here. You’re not one of them and you never have been. Taking part of my energy to relieve the pressure on me temporarily will not kill you, but it will change you into what you were always meant to be. You will become a permanent part of the Hollow, just as I am. And if you refuse, everything in the world will suffer and there’s not even anything I can do to stop it. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Simple.” I swallowed. “You think any of this is simple?”

  “It is to me. I see the truth. Even your adoptive family rejects you. Nobody cares about you at school. Even the girl who stands here shivering before us both hates you and has caused you only pain.”

  “He’s wrong, you know,” Jordan spoke up, her voice strained but steady. “I don’t hate you. I actually like you. I think you’re all kinds of strange and make stupid decisions nearly every day, but I like you. Normally I wouldn’t admit this out loud, but I feel like the situation sort of calls for it.”

  I turned to her with surprise, my eyes stinging. But before I could say anything, the demon surged forward until he was right in front of her.

  “If I wanted your opinion, I’d ask.” Nathan backhanded her and she went flying through the air and slammed down against the pavement fifteen feet away.

  It had happened so fast, all I could do was look at him in shock and fury.

  Out of the darkness, another figure now approached. Fast. It was Stephen, a furious expression on his face.

  “I’m going to kill you for that,” he snarled.

  Nathan sighed. “More teenage romantic drama. Never ends well, boy. Consider this a lesson for you.”

  As Stephen’s fist was about to make contact with Nathan’s jaw, the demon grabbed it, twisting. I heard Stephen’s wrist break and he gasped in pain.

  Nathan held on tight and Stephen made a wheezing sound, as if he couldn’t get any air into his lungs. The demon was feeding on more life energy, draining Stephen of his life right before my eyes.

  “Stop it,” I yelled. “Stop it now! If you want me to help you, don’t do this!”

  Nathan let go of Stephen and the gray crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

  I stood there facing my demonic birth father with three unconscious bodies surrounding us as if this was a battlefield.

  “You’ll help me?” he asked.

  I’d quickly found myself cornered with no chance to run, no opportunity for escape. Natalie may have lied shamelessly to me in order to attempt to get me to do what she wanted. But with Nathan—I had no doubt he’d been telling the truth.

  Unless I took away some of the energy that was currently trying to shatter him into countless pieces and which would then destroy everything in their paths, everyone and everything was doomed.

  This definitely wasn’t a multiple-choice quiz with the possibility of full marks.

  “I’ll help you,” I said finally, my chest tight. “But I need you to do something for me first.”

  “What?”

  “Bring Carly back.”

  “Your little blonde friend.”

  “She was taken still alive. And I know you can release people like that. You did it for Natalie. Do it for Carly, too.”

  He cocked his head. “Always trying to help others. You must get that from your mother’s genes.”

  Nathan’s eyes began to glow red and a moment later, the Hollow opened up behind him. Just like that. One moment there was nothing there, the next, a swirling black vortex, eight feet in diameter, hung in the air. The sound was as thunderous and ear-splitting as always.

  The vortex disappeared a moment later, but there was someone left standing in its place with her back to us. Someone very familiar.

  It was Carly.
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br />   Chapter 36

  She scanned the area and slowly swiveled around to face me, her face even paler than her light blond hair. “Sam?”

  “Carly! You’re here!” I jerkily moved toward her, grabbing her shoulders so I could inspect her for injury. She looked fine—unhurt, undamaged, healthy—and she wore the same clothes as the last time I’d seen her: a cute dress that hugged her curves she’d worn the night I’d confronted Natalie at Crave.

  She blinked hard. “What the hell just happened? I shoved that knife in Natalie and—that black thing grabbed me and...and suddenly I’m here.” She glanced around. “In the middle of freaking nowhere. With that weird homeless guy and...oh, my God. Is that Jordan Fitzpatrick? Can I suck out her soul? Please?”

  She didn’t remember anything about the Hollow. But she was still a gray.

  I’d wanted to save her from the Hollow. Mission accomplished. But now, before I could allow myself a measure of relief that she’d be okay, I had the chance to save her from being a gray.

  Stephen was waking up and I left my best friend to run back toward him, frantic. “I need Carly’s soul. I need it now, Stephen. She can still be saved.”

  He’d crawled over toward Jordan to check on her, but she was still unconscious. He cradled her head in his lap.

  “Stephen!” I yelled, punching him hard in his shoulder. “I need it now.”

  He just shook his head. “It’s gone.”

  That imaginary hand that had been around my throat now clutched my heart. “It can’t be gone. You saved mine, you said you saved hers, too.”

  His expression was grim. “Natalie wanted me to, but it’s different. It was different from yours. Yours was stronger, it survived the transfer. Carly’s was... It fell apart when I was trying to encase it. I lied so she wouldn’t be mad. Carly’s soul is gone, just like mine is, Samantha. I’m sorry.”

  I went cold inside, so cold that I couldn’t even get angry. I couldn’t yell or scream at him. The promise that I could make Carly the way she used to be was gone.

  Now that she was back, soon she’d go through stasis. And knowing how the other grays had fared, she likely wouldn’t survive it.

  “Sam, what the hell is going on?” Carly’s words now twisted with panic.

  The tremor that shook the ground brought my attention back to Nathan. His face was covered in black lines now and he convulsed, bending over as if he couldn’t stand the pain a moment longer. “No time,” he gasped. “You must do it now or everything ends.”

  A demon who had caused so much pain now experienced it himself.

  I should be happy about that. I wasn’t.

  My vision was about become a reality if I didn’t do something to stop it.

  And Nathan was very right about one thing. There was no time. No time to try to contact Bishop through that thread that joined us. For all I knew, it wouldn’t work anymore, now that I wasn’t a gray. Maybe the part of his soul I had inside me was gone now, too, just like the power to help him fight his madness.

  Jordan inhaled sharply as she finally woke up, her gaze darting around the scene before her she probably hoped had been a nightmare. “The demon...the creep. Where’d he go?”

  I shot a look over to where Roth had been. She was right; he’d disappeared. The moment he’d had the chance, he’d taken off and left us all behind to deal with this mess. He didn’t get his end of the bargain, so he’d settle for self-preservation.

  I wasn’t all that surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

  “I think my ankle’s broken,” Jordan groaned, sliding her hand down her leg. Then she glanced at the person sitting on the ground holding her. “Oh, hell. Stephen...it’s you.”

  “Yeah. It’s me.”

  She sat up and quickly scooted away from him, grimacing from the pain in her ankle. “Why— Where did you come from? What are you doing?”

  He looked at her bleakly, shrugging. “I have this weird impulse to protect you.”

  That earned him a dark look of disdain. “When you’re not knocking me unconscious and holding me prisoner while asking someone else to devour my soul? Based on recent experience, the only person I need protection from is you. Well, and the homeless demon dude who’s about to go all apocalyptic.”

  “Good point. And yet, here I am anyway, when I should be anywhere else.”

  “Sam,” Carly said, drawing close enough to touch my arm. “Can you please explain to me what’s going on?”

  I looked into the face of my best friend since we were little kids, playing in sandboxes and swimming pools. Running through sprinklers. Catching frogs and kissing them, hoping they might turn into princes.

  It was a phase when we were ten. It passed.

  I thought I’d be able to save her.

  At the moment, it seemed as if there was only one person I might be able to save. And it was the last person who deserved it.

  The tremors were growing more intense. The entire city shook as if the earth was about ready to split open and swallow it whole.

  I took a deep breath in. “You know how I’ve always been a realist, despite loving monster movies? How I’ve always looked at facts and figures and tried to understand things in black-and-white terms?”

  “Yeah. So annoying.” Carly laughed shakily. “Why?”

  I hugged her hard. “If I was a dreamer, I’d believe there was another solution. But there’s not. Not this time.”

  “Wait, Sam, what are you talking about?”

  I let go of her and walked straight over to Nathan. The lines on his skin were alive, writhing, and in between, there was a glow emanating from them, as if the energy inside him was ready to burst free and shatter him into a million sharp and hungry pieces.

  I reached my hand out to him. It trembled.

  He grabbed it so tightly, I winced.

  “Do it,” he gritted out. “Save me, Samantha.”

  “I’m not doing this for you.”

  This ability was still new to me and it had happened with Connor by accident. Still, that hunger woke up again now the moment I touched Nathan. Supernatural energy surged beneath my touch, bigger and brighter than anything I’d ever felt.

  Dark energy. It had no purity to it, no true light. It was messy, cluttered, angry and filled with muck. And yet, I hungered for it anyway.

  Nathan had said he was in control of this ability—and so was I.

  I guessed we’d soon find out if that was true.

  A greediness rose up inside of me and I began to absorb that energy into myself. So natural, it was as if I’d done this all my life—same as drinking a milkshake. And it was much different from being a gray. This ability—this anomaly—felt right.

  After a minute, Nathan’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s right, beautiful star. You’re doing so well.”

  I gripped his other hand and we stood there, face-to-face, as I absorbed his supernatural energy—the energy of the Hollow he’d taken so he could control it; that had begun to control him, to destroy him.

  I took enough of it to save him and keep him from destroying the world.

  But then I kept taking some more.

  My stomach roiled from the darkness of it, like mounds of junk food, full of fat and sodium, with no nutritional value. This was the Hollow. Bad things had been cast inside. This was the essence of that.

  No wonder it had changed Nathan so much. After all, you are what you eat.

  I could still think, still
reason. This wasn’t controlling me, I was controlling it.

  Good.

  “You said before that there are those destined to create,” I said, “and those destined to destroy.”

  He managed a smile. “I did say that. Which are you?”

  I locked gazes with him. “Let’s just say, I think I take after my father.”

  I tightened my grip on him and his grin faltered at the edges. “You’ve taken enough now. Let go of me.”

  I didn’t let go. I continued to absorb his energy. And the more I took, the more I wanted.

  He hissed, trying to pull away, but failing. “Let go of me. I told you already, you can’t take too much or it will kill you.”

  “Yeah, you did say that, didn’t you? But this is the only way you’ll be stopped. The power of the Hollow—the part that you were able to control—is going to die with me.”

  “Samantha, no! Don’t do this!” Jordan yelled this while the other two looked on with shock.

  “Get out of here!” I yelled over my shoulder at them as I felt the moment when I’d taken everything I could from Nathan. “I honestly don’t know how this is going to end. Get somewhere safe where you can—”

  Then something hit me, grabbing hold of me and pulling me to the side and away from the demon. I landed on the ground and Bishop was there, staring down at me.

  “Samantha, what did he do to you? Are you all right?”

  Funny, I felt fine. I felt really good, all satiated and satisfied. But that feeling began to fade as soon as it arrived.

  “How did you know to come here?” I said, not answering his question.

  “Roth came for us, told us what was going on.”

  I tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a sob. “I thought he’d taken off, abandoned us. Of course not. He really cared for Cassandra... He has a heart buried deep down somewhere. Even though he’s a demon, he isn’t a monster. He’s not like my father.”

  Bishop pulled me up into a sitting position. His expression was etched in worry. “You don’t sound right.”