“I’ll do it. I’ll make the deal.” Sabine shrugged. “I’m not giving up my soul, but other than that, I’m flexible. How bad could it be?”
I stared at her in horror. “That’s the scariest question I’ve ever heard.”
Em frowned. “Sabine, he already tried to kill you.”
“Actually, he wasn’t trying to kill her,” I admitted, reluctantly aware that they might misinterpret that as my support for her kamikaze mission. “He was trying to piss us all off.”
“That’s not the point.” Nash took Sabine’s hand. “I don’t want any of you putting yourselves in danger. She’s my mom. This is my responsibility. I’ll do it.” He let go of Sabine and stood, facing me. “Kaylee, how the hell do you summon a hellion?”
“I can’t...” I took a deep breath, then started over—he wasn’t going to like my answer. “Nash, I can’t tell you that. I can’t let you summon Ira.” He’d get himself killed, and it would be my fault.
His eyes churned with swift currents of brown and green, with flashes of anger like lightning splitting the storm. “Does it give you some kind of perverse pleasure to tell me no? Because that’s all I ever hear from you anymore. Actually, that’s all I’ve ever heard from you.”
“Okay, stop it, Nash.” My gaze clashed with his, and I wondered what he saw in my eyes. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“Who appointed you defender of mankind? I don’t need your protection! None of us do!”
“I do, kind of,” Em said, but no one was really listening. “Sometimes...”
I stood, facing Nash across the coffee table. “I’m not going to let you summon a hellion, especially when you’re so desperate to find your mother that you’d give him whatever he wants.”
“That’s my call. You have no right to stand in my way.”
“I may not have the right, but I have the responsibility. You’re my friend—you’re more than a friend—and you have a less-than-stellar record with human-to-hellion interactions. I’m not going to give you what you need to make another mistake, and, frankly, I don’t think it’s fair of you to ask me to, considering that if something happens to you, we’ll all have to put ourselves in even more danger to rescue you. Don’t you think we’re missing enough loved ones already?”
Yes, I was aware of my own hypocrisy, even as the words left my mouth. But putting myself in danger was different than letting him do the same thing, because Nash was a hellion addict. And because he was too emotional to think clearly. And because he’d never even met Ira. And...
And because I was terrified of losing him. Of losing any of them. I wasn’t willing to take risks with my friends’ lives like I was with my own, because I loved them. All of them. Even the ones I didn’t always like. I couldn’t give Nash the means to get himself killed via hellion bargain any more than I could hand him a loaded gun and watch him point it at his own head.
But Nash didn’t see it that way.
“I can’t win with you, can I?” He threw his arms up in frustration. “If I stay safe on the sidelines, I’m not helping, but if I try to do anything, I’m putting myself and everyone else in danger. You’re going to be mad at me no matter what I do—or don’t do—so I’m done worrying about what you think!”
“Guys, calm down,” Emma said. On the edge of my vision, I saw Sabine watching me and Nash like we were on opposing sides of a volleyball net.
“This isn’t about me being mad at you, Nash. This is about me trying to protect you.”
“For the last time, I don’t need you to protect me! So just tell me how to contact this Ira asshole and let me decide how much I’m willing to pay to get my mother out of the Netherworld. Let me deal with the consequences of my own decisions!”
“That’s not how it works!” My cheeks were flushed, and my heart pounded so hard I was almost dizzy—my body was no longer accustomed to such a rapid flow of blood. “This is a team sport, Nash. We’re in it together, and we can’t afford for you to run off half-cocked playing hero and get yourself killed. You have to think about the group. About what’s best for all of us!” I couldn’t believe how rash he was being. How selfish!
“Kaylee. Nash. It’s too tense in here....” Em put both hands over her ears, as if she could physically stop herself from syphoning our anger.
“The group?” Nash was shouting now. “Is that what you were thinking about when you summoned Ira all by yourself? How come when you do it, it’s noble, but when I want to do it, I’m ‘running off half-cocked to play hero’? You didn’t even tell anyone what you were doing. You just disappeared. If something had gone wrong, we would never have known what happened to you. How is that acting in the best interest of the group?”
“That’s different,” I insisted, reeling from the sting of his words. “I’ve dealt with Ira before. I’ve dealt with summoning before.” Only once, but that was one more time than he’d done it. “And I know where my boundaries lie. He can’t tempt me with—” I bit off the next words before I could say them and almost bit my tongue in the process.
Why was I so angry? Was this because Ira had been feeding from my wrath, or was my wrath what attracted him to me in the first place? Could that much rage have been there all along, buried, just waiting for a chance to burst through my emotional armor, like lava through the crust of the earth?
“With what?” Nash’s voice was soft now, but anger roiled beneath the surface of the sound, like water about to break into a boil. “With his breath? Is that what you were going to say? At least he can’t tempt you with drugs?” He spat the last word at me from across the room, and I flinched.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Why not?” Nash demanded. “At least that part was the truth. The rest of it is you lying to yourself and to us. I may be an addict, but I didn’t exactly choose that path for myself, in case you don’t remember. And I’m fighting it every single day. But you’re lying and hiding things from the people who care about you the most, and you don’t even have addiction as an excuse. How do you justify that?”
“Shut up!” Emma shouted, sitting stiff and straight on the center couch cushion, staring from him to me, then back. “Shut the hell up, both of you! Are you trying to drive me crazy?”
“Em, I’m sorry.” I sat next to her, hoping that my rapidly fading anger would ease her burden. I hadn’t meant to trigger abilities she couldn’t control yet.
“Me, too.” Nash’s irises swirled with amber threads of regret, but he didn’t sit. He hadn’t backed down. “I’m sorry, Emma.” He turned to me again. “But I’m going after my mother, and, Kaylee, I swear on my immortal soul that if you stand in my way I will never forgive you.”
“Whoa, what did I miss?” Tod said from the kitchen, and I looked up to find him staring at all of us.
“More fireworks,” Sabine said. “And what we’ve learned from this little episode is that Kaylee and Nash are like those rocks ancient cave people used to make fire. Bang them together, and you get sparks.”
“Let’s never again use the phrase ‘bang them together’ in reference to my brother and my girlfriend,” Tod mumbled.
“She means their heads,” Emma said. “And I’d like to bang them together right now.” She scowled at me, then turned her disapproval on Nash. “You two are fighting for no reason. You both want the same thing—to protect people you love. You just don’t agree about how to do it.”
“She won’t tell me how to summon a hellion,” Nash explained.
“Good for her.” Tod smiled at me, but I couldn’t smile back. He hadn’t heard the whole thing yet. “I fully support any efforts to keep you and hellions on separate planes of existence.”
“So, she can do it, but I can’t? That’s bullshit! Did she tell you she saw Ira today?” Nash demanded. Tod blinked. The colors in his irises betrayed none of what he was feeling, but I could tell he was hurt, and I felt like the world’s biggest jerk. “She said she wanted everyone to go to school for strength in numbers,
but when Emma was possessed and Avari was demanding to talk to Kaylee, she was gone. She was off summoning a demon, without telling anyone what she was up to or that she might need help. But when I want to contact Ira to find out where our mother is, with full knowledge of the entire group, she won’t even tell me how to get in touch with him.”
Tod blinked again, and I would have given anything to know what he was thinking. What he was feeling. He leaned against the doorway into the kitchen and crossed both arms over his chest, then met his brother’s gaze. “Is that really what you’re mad about? That you’re not getting quality time with a hellion?”
“No! And yes. But only because she didn’t even get the information she went to him for. I’m pissed off that she would put herself in that kind of danger, then walk away with nothing to show for it. That means she could have died or worse—we all could have lost her—for nothing. I’m pissed off that she wasn’t willing to do for our mother what she did for her father. I’m pissed off that Mom’s gone and there’s nothing I can do about it. You can all cross over whenever you want. You can all search and sacrifice and bleed to try to save her, but all I can do is sit here and wait.”
“I can’t,” Em whispered, tears in her brown eyes. “I’m pretty useless, too....”
I took her hand and squeezed it, but Nash didn’t seem to hear her.
“I’ve never felt so worthless in my entire life, and every time I try to do something about that, one of you cuts me off at the kneecaps. I’m pissed at you all for standing in my way. For letting my mom suffer in the Netherworld when I could be helping get her back. I’m pissed at her for going to the Netherworld in the first place. I’m pissed at Avari for...relentless existence and nefarious consistency. So I’ve made a decision.”
Tod’s pale brow arched high over one blue eye. “I think we’re all listening.”
Nash ignored him with obvious effort. “You guys have a choice. Either you can include me in all aspects of the planning and execution of any and all rescue efforts or I’m going my own way. I still know people, you know,” he added, when Tod looked skeptical. “No one I really want to see again, now that I’m clean, but I can find Mom on my own if I have to.”
His eye contact with me was steady and determined. He meant it, and the thought that he might actually rekindle old unhealthy relationships because I wouldn’t let him take risks alongside me made me...it made me sick to my stomach with fear for him.
“I can get myself to the Netherworld,” Nash continued. “And I can get both of us back out again. All three of us—I’m not leaving Brendon there, either. So what’s it going to be? Are you going to let me contribute to the group effort, or are you going to shut me out again ‘for my own protection’?”
Everyone looked at me, not because I was in charge, but because I’d messed up, and she who messes up, cleans up.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not just to Nash but to the whole room. “He’s right, and I’m so sorry, Nash. I never meant to cut you out of...anything. Everything. And I shouldn’t have summoned Ira again without telling anyone what I was up to.”
“Or at all...” Em said, and I nodded in acknowledgment, avoiding Tod’s gaze because I wasn’t ready to see whatever I might find in it.
“Of course we want you to stay.” I did meet Nash’s gaze, because I owed him that much, at the very least. “And of course you’re included in everything. I didn’t mean to be taking liberties that aren’t available to everyone else. I meant to be taking risks. So no one else would have to. I couldn’t live with myself if any of you got hurt again. You’ve all been through so much because of me. Our parents are still missing because of their connection to me. I just... I was looking for a way to fix that without getting anyone else hurt. I’m sorry.”
“Promise,” Nash said, and his voice cracked on that one word. “Promise you won’t do it again. That you won’t put yourself at risk like that again with no one to back you up.”
I looked at him.
I looked hard and deep, and he let me see what he was feeling. He let his eyes swirl so I could understand, and guilt overwhelmed me like heat in the middle of a Texas summer. Relentless. Overpowering. Too much to think through.
He was mad about everything he’d listed. That was all true. But the truest part—the core of an anger that had many heads, like a hydra—was the thought that I could have died in one horrible moment of my own recklessness. I could have died—again—and he’d never know how it happened, or why, or even what happened to my body.
Fear. The root of his anger was fear of losing me, not as his girlfriend—that part of our lives was over, and he loved Sabine; we could all see that—but as his friend. As his more-than-a-friend. As a confidante. As one of the people who’d been with him through life, and death, and addiction, and relapse, and countless moments of imminent threat from untold forms of evil.
And now he wanted to know that I’d never do it again. That I’d never put him through the fear of losing me again.
“Don’t make her do it, Nash.” Tod’s voice was so soft and deep I had to concentrate to understand what I was hearing. “She will if you ask her to, but I’m asking you not to make her promise something she can’t keep. That’s not a promise any of us could keep. Like it or not, we’re not going to get our parents back without putting ourselves in danger, and Kaylee knows that. She knew it before any of the rest of us came to that conclusion.”
But that wasn’t true. Tod had known before I’d ever met him. Before I’d met Avari or Invidia or Belphegore. Before I even knew I wasn’t human. He’d known what you have to be willing to sacrifice for the people you love long before I’d truly understood the meaning of the words risk and sacrifice.
He’d known since the moment he’d given up his life so Nash could live.
“What Kaylee doesn’t understand is that she’s not alone in this.” Tod stepped forward and held his hand out to me, and I reached for it like a plant reaches for the sun. Like I couldn’t bloom without him there to shine on me. He pulled me up, then he pulled me close, and when he looked into my eyes, I couldn’t look away.
“What Kaylee needs to understand is that we all feel just like she does. Like if we make the sacrifice or take the risk, the others won’t have to. Ira, Avari, and all the rest of them, they want each of us to believe that because they know we’ll make that sacrifice if we think that’s the only way to save the people we love. But it’s a lie. This is too big for any one of us alone. We can only do this as a team—if we have one another’s backs.”
His eyes were all for me again then, and I could see how hurt he really was. Beneath that, I could see his fear.
Fear of losing me, just like I’d felt when he’d died. When I’d thought I’d lost him and that my afterlife would be hundreds—maybe thousands—of years spent mourning him.
“What that means is that when we take risks, if they can’t be avoided, we let everyone else in on the plan so that if something goes wrong, we can do what we do best. Rescue each other. Got it?”
I nodded. Then I wrapped my arms around him and we held each other until Em started clearing her throat awkwardly.
Sabine was less subtle. “Okay, if you two could form separate people again, we have a fairly serious evil scheme to discuss. Also, I’m hungry.”
Tod squeezed me tighter for a second, then let me go. “Are you guys tired of pizza? ’Cause I could have dinner here in about five minutes....”
“Free?” Sabine perked up with interest.
Tod rolled his eyes. “Sure.”
“I’m in. Pepperoni, beef, and green bell peppers.”
“The free pizza is whatever’s ready and not yet claimed,” Tod said. Sabine pouted, then shrugged. She finally seemed to be coming to terms with the relationship between beggars and choosers. Which would have been great, if only her other appetite were as easy to satisfy.
Chapter Twenty
Luca and Sophie showed up while Tod was on his pizza run, and when he got back with
two greasy boxes, I set a stack of paper plates on the table and Em dug the last of our cans of soda from the fridge.
If my dad wasn’t back soon, I’d have to get a second job just to put food on the table. Er...Coke in the fridge.
I refused to think about the possibility that he might never be back. Losing him was not an option.
We got Luca and Sophie all caught up over dinner.
“So, ‘ticktock’ is, like, the clock running out? So, he’s giving us a deadline?” My cousin picked a pepperoni off her slice and dropped it on an extra plate designated as the dumping ground for foods she wouldn’t eat, which included pepperoni, sausage, onions, and crust. At first, she’d refused pizza, until Sabine pointed out that “picky little bitches” go hungry.
“Yeah,” Nash said around a bite of supreme. “But we don’t know when that deadline is.”
Luca ate Sophie’s pepperoni slice, then followed it with a gulp from the can of diet soda they were sharing. “Why would Avari go to the trouble of possessing Emma with a message for Kaylee, then not deliver the entire message?”
“My theory is that he didn’t know how to control Lydia’s syphoning abilities any better than Emma does. I’m thinking they overwhelmed him, and that made his message come out all garbled and incomplete.”
Em frowned. “But if he hadn’t spent enough time in her body to learn to control her abilities, how was he able to use her voice?”
“Crap. I don’t know.” There was so much we still didn’t know. So much we might never know.
Nash shrugged. “I kinda got the impression that he only wanted to give the message to you, and that’s why he was so pissed off. Because you weren’t available.”
“Because she was summoning the competition?” Sophie said. “Like, his archnemesis?”
“They’re demons, not comic-book villains,” Emma said.
Soul Screamers Volume Two Page 26
