Soulmates

by Nadine Nightingale

  He scans the room, ready to spring into action. “Where do you keep that stuff?”

  Bonnie hauls him to the kitchen cabinet. “Here,” she says, opening a drawer.

  “Alex?” I caress his cheek. “Open your eyes.”

  He doesn’t.

  “Stay with me, Alex.” I honest to God can’t remember the last time I sounded so fucking desperate.

  The absinthe bottle in Jesse’s hand trembles. “Amanda, is he…is he—”

  “He has a pulse,” I assure him, index finger pressed against Alex’s carotid artery. Not sure for how long, though.

  Jesse hands me the absinthe, a silver needle, and plenty of black thread. “What exactly are you going to do?”

  What’s it look like? “We need to stop the bleeding. The only way to do that is to patch him up.”

  Bonnie puts the stuff I asked her to get on the table. When she sees the funky expression on Jesse’s face, she says, “C’mon,” and pulls him away so I can work. “She knows what she’s doing.”

  God, I wish I had her faith in me.

  “You sure?” He doesn’t sound convinced.

  Bonnie cocks a brow. “We’re talking about Amanda Bishop, right?”

  For some inexplicable reason, Jesse relaxes. “You’re right,” he mutters under his breath. “She won’t let him die.”

  Miracles aren’t exactly my expertise, but I’ll try my best.

  Alex is still out cold when I pour the fiery, high-percentage alcohol over his torn chest. It must hurt like a motherfucker, ’cause his eyes pop open. “Fuck,” he whines as surely the burning sensation rushes through him.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” I say, choking back a shitload of unpleasant emotions.

  “Always the bitch, huh?” He coughs.

  “Hey,” I bark when he shuts his eyes. “Look at me.”

  “Tired.”

  “I know, but you gotta keep those pretty eyes open.” I can’t have him go into shock or fall into a coma.

  “O…kay,” he whispers. I’m not sure he can keep his word.

  I wipe the booze off his chest. Hands shaking like crazy, I examine the cleaned cuts. It’s bad, life-threatening, if-he-doesn’t-bleed-out-he’ll-die-from-sepsis bad.

  “Manda?” Alex’s voice is hoarse and weak.

  “Shhh…Don’t talk, okay?” I open the rosemary oil and pour the thick liquid over his chest wound. It’s the best antibacterial fluid I have. Unfortunately, it stings like hell.

  Alex flinches. He stiffens under my hand as the fresh pain sinks its claws into his skin. “You…” His eyes lock with mine. “Like that?”

  “Are you kidding?” I say, watching the oil drip into the cuts, covering the torn flesh like a protective film. “You bleeding onto Chelsea’s pope pillow? That’s a freakin’ dream come true.”

  He tries to smile. Gasps for air instead.

  “Someone get me a lighter,” I order.

  “Here.” Jesse hands me Alex’s Zippo.

  I reach for the scissors in the first-aid kit and hold the tips in the flame.

  “Have you done this before?” Jesse asks as I move on to the needle.

  “Yeah.” I was seventeen when I cut my hand on broken glass. Since fortune-telling didn’t come with insurance, I’d Googled how to stitch someone up and found a few videos. Even with painkillers, it had hurt like hell, but I’d done it.

  He doesn’t believe me. His stare tells me so. I wouldn’t either.

  Once the needle is sterile, I try to thread it, but my hands are too shaky. “A little help?” Bonnie is right there. I show off my trembling hands. “I can’t do it.”

  “I got it.” She threads the needle like a pro and hands it back in seconds. “You good?” she asks, concern filling her cognac eyes.

  I’m a lot of things—terrified, desperate, confused, angry—but good isn’t one of them. “Peachy,” I mumble, looking for any debris in the wounds. There’s none.

  Bonnie squeezes my shoulder. “You got this.”

  I almost laugh, but when I see Jesse’s horrified expression, I keep my mouth shut and reach for the scissors. I remember the video said something about cutting away loose or jagged flesh to prepare the edges, and that’s exactly what I do.

  Bonnie wraps an arm around Jesse’s shoulders. “She’s not gonna let anything happen to him. Trust her.”

  God, I hope she’s right.

  I push self-doubt and fear to the back of my mind and focus on Alex. “Hey.” I snap my fingers in his face. “You still with me?” He nods, but the emptiness in his irises scares the living shit outta me.

  Open eyes, restless soul. I ignore Gram’s voice. No way Alex is going to die. Not today. Not here. Not now.

  “Say if you need me to stop, okay?” I push the needle through his skin.

  He doesn’t even flinch. He just lies there, unresponsive.

  I use my thumb and index finger to press the torn skin together and keep stitching. “B? Can you prepare some lavender-rosemary tea?”

  “Sure.” She circles Jesse’s wrist and pulls him along. “C’mon, I could use a hand.” Bonnie is perfectly capable of brewing tea, but Jesse needs distraction, and despite her deep-rooted hate for hunters, she tries to give him some.

  An hour later, my fingertips burn like hell, but Alex is stitched up. He went in and out of consciousness the entire time. Forcing the tea down his throat wasn’t easy, but I managed. I stare at my masterpiece of red flesh and black thread. Not bad for a rookie. “Done,” I mutter, rubbing the St. John’s wort on his chest before adding Band-Aids.

  “Sure he’s still breathing?” Jesse’s voice is shallow, his eyes clouded. “He’s asleep.”

  “It’s the tea,” Bonnie explains. “The stuff is almost as good as an anesthetic.” I brush Alex’s hair back. “His head needs a few stitches, too.” It’s not nearly as bad as his chest. With all the practice I’d had, I manage to close it within minutes.

  “Is he going to be okay?” The sorrow in Jesse’s voice is heartbreaking.

  “Dunno.” I wipe my bloody hands on a clean towel. “He lost a lot of blood.”

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Jesse kicks the wall like a maniac, causing the plaster to crumble. “This is my fault. I should have come to you sooner.”

  My gaze shoots up. “What do you mean sooner?”

  Jesse scrubs his fingers through his un-styled hair and frowns. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  My belly hurts, and my heart pounds painfully fast. “What’s going on, Jesse?” I’m not sure I really want to know.

  His gaze drops to the floor. “It’s complicated.”

  I swear, if I hear that word one more time, I’ll lose my fucking mind and strangle him. Hands balled into fists, I advance toward him. “You better open your mouth before I start throwing punches.”

  “He’s going to kill me.” He glances at Bonnie. “I promised him not to.”

  I bring my fist up, ready to hit him in the face, but Bonnie steps between us. “Hey. You can kill him later.” She winks at Jesse. “No offense.”

  He shrugs. “Some taken.”

  Bonnie continues, unimpressed. “Point is, if the Nun comes back and sees him”—she points her head at Alex—”she’ll alert campus security. You don’t want that, do you?”

  I frown. Of course, I don’t want that. Campus security would call the cops, and according to Jesse, Alex—a freaking FBI agent—is a fugitive. I draw a deep breath. “All right.” I sound defeated. “Let’s get him to my room and cover up the couch with a sheet.”

  “Good idea,” Bonnie murmurs.

  Jesse shoves his hands under Alex’s arms, and Bonnie and I grab his legs. “Ready?” he asks.

  We nod and lift him. Carrying dead weight is harder than I thought. The three of us barely manage to get him to my bed.

  Out of breath, I tuck Alex in and face Jesse. “You’ve got some serious explaining to do, Little Remington.”

  Chapter 10

  I open the wi
ndows to let in some fresh air. The rusty iron scent of Alex’s blood permeates the place. Add the herbs and absinthe, and I get an idea of what serial-killer-operated B&Bs must smell like.

  I soak my hands in lemon to get rid of the dried crimson while Bonnie pours three cups of coffee. Her curls are still a wild mess, but she’s changed into a pair of old jeans and a shirt that reads, I Don’t Have A Dirty Mind, I Have A Sexy Imagination.

  “You take milk or sugar?” she asks Jesse.

  To say Little Remington looks hung up would be the understatement of the century. His usually tanned skin is snow white. The chocolate eyes are puffy and red. He looks like hell. Nevertheless, he’s trying hard to keep it together. “Just black,” he mutters, leaning against our old recliner.

  I’m still mad at him ’cause of the it’s complicated shit, but seeing him like this breaks my non-existent heart. I wish I could take his pain and desperation away. The thing is, there ain’t no spell in the world to fix his hopeless situation. I might have been able to stop Alex’s bleeding, but without a real doctor, there’s no guarantee he’ll pull through.

  Rubbing my wet hands on my jeans, I trudge toward him and plummet down on the coffee table. I’ve got a million questions. Why the hell is Alex on the run from the police? What did Jesse mean when he said he should have come to me sooner? How the fuck did Alex get hurt in the first place? I wait for the coffee before I go all witch-interrogation-bitch on him.

  “Manda?” Jesse’s voice is broken. I get the feeling it’s pretty much the current status of his soul.

  I look up. “Hm?”

  “Is he…” He clears his throat. “Is Alex going to make it?”

  I rest my elbows on my knees and press the heels of my hands against my tired eyes. For as long as I can remember, I’ve told people what they wanted to hear. Will I be rich? Of course, honey. Am I going to have a breakthrough as an actor? Dude, you’ll be the next Brad Pitt. Does he love me? Until death do you part. Never had second thoughts about lying. Probably because the people I’d lied to wouldn’t have believed the truth anyway. False hope was better than none. But I can’t lie to Jesse. He’s been through enough in the last couple of months. The last thing he needs is false hope.

  “Manda?”“I don’t know, Jess.” Shifting to the edge of the table, I shove my hands between my knees. “I really don’t.”

  Silent tears roll down his cheeks. He doesn’t even bother to wipe them away. “I can’t lose him.”

  “You won’t,” Bonnie says, surprising us. I give her the have-you-gone-mad look, but she hands Jesse his cup and ignores me. “Why don’t you tell us how this happened while we wait for your brother to wake up?”

  Jesse takes a seat on the arm of our recliner. I almost expect another it’s complicated statement, but the expression on his face tells me what I’ll get will be worse. “You remember that friend of mine who sold his soul?”

  How could I ever forget the reason behind Jesse’s zombie excursion? I do, after all, still have the scars caused by it. “Yeah, and?”

  A moment of silence passes. “Well,” he says, covering his face with both hands. “He was less a friend than a brother.”

  A brother? Since when does he have more than one? I cross my arms. “Thought you and Alex were the only Remington boys?”

  His already dark eyes turn black. “We are.”

  I squint. What he’s saying is impossible. I laugh. “You’re kidding, right?” I rest a hand on my belly and laugh some more. “Brother? That would mean—”

  “Alex sold his soul,” he blurts out, his face a picture of misery.

  My heart misses several beats before it slams against my ribcage like a prisoner trying to escape his cell. “Come again?”

  Jesse puts his cup down. “The reason I went looking for someone to break a deal with a demon was Alex, Amanda.”

  His words sink into my soul, causing a total eclipse of my heart. Everything around me ceases to exist—Jesse, Bonnie, the apartment—all swallowed by a black hole. It’s as if someone has pulled the rug out from under my feet or I’m caught in one of those disturbing falling dreams. Only there’ll be no waking before I hit the ground.

  “Manda?” Jesse sounds wretched. “Say something…please?”

  Not a single word leaves my dry mouth.

  Bonnie stands beside me. I think she’s squeezing my shoulder. I’m too numb to be certain. “Let me get this straight,” she says, voice even, eyes sharp. “Alexander ‘I kill everything and anything that’s supernatural’ has…” She takes a deep breath. “Signed a pact with the devil?”

  Jesse nods, and I hit rock bottom. I try to hold my head up, try to be strong—’cause that’s what people say you should do after you fall—but I’m not sure they know how it feels when your world burns and crashes. How could Alex, of all people, make a deal with the devil? He’s a hunter, for Christ’s sake. Righteous, honest, caring—the last person you’d expect to find in hell. No. No. No. No. This can’t be happening. It can’t be true. Then I think of the way Alex acted when I’d asked him why Jesse was working a case by himself, his odd behavior when I’d had that vision of Anna, who had fallen in love with jerk-face. Eventually, I hear Baron Samedi, the rogue reaper who helped Francoise the bokor and Walter the pedophile abduct little girls. “I’m willing to grant you one wish and one wish only…Why don’t you ask your little hunter friend over there? Until we meet again, Alexander.” Fuck. Does that mean I paid with Alex’s soul when I got Isobelle, the ten-year-old the bokor killed because she knew too much, out of purgatory? Could the reaper have saved him from hell?

  “Amanda?” Bonnie is on her knees in front of me. “Are you okay?”

  Angry is what I should be, flaming mad she even asks me such a question. For the very first time in my life though, there’s no spark left inside me. The blazing fire is extinguished, and it left nothing but smoke and ashes.

  “Manda?” Jesse stares at me as if I’m from another planet. “Your silence is fucking terrifying.”

  “I’ve never seen her like this,” Bonnie assures him. “Think she’s in shock or something.”

  “When you fall, baby girl, you gotta get up. Gotta get up and move on.” Gram’s voice thunders in my head.

  I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. My mouth is drier than the Mojave Desert when I speak. “If what you’re saying is true, then how is he still alive?” Demons aren’t exactly famous for mercy. If you sign a deal, they reap your soul. There’s no stopping them.

  “That’s the thing,” Jesse says. “He still has twelve days.”

  Bonnie peeks over her shoulder at Jesse. “What?”

  “His contract ends in twelve days,” he repeats.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” she mutters, confused. “Demons aren’t allowed to reap before your time runs out.”

  He nods. “I know.”

  Bonnie knits her brows. “Then why the hell does he look like a victim of Teen Wolf?”

  Frustration bleeds into Jesse’s features, hardening his jawline. “I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

  “Why?” I hear myself ask.

  Jesse cuts his eyes my way. “What?”

  “Why did he do it?” Money, fame, sex—those are the usual suspects when someone strikes a deal with hell. Not in Alex’s case. He’s too fucking righteous.

  Jesse’s gaze drops to the floor. “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit,” I bark. “You’re his brother. There’s nothing you don’t know about him.” My voice is cold and distant. I blame the ice running through my veins for it.

  “I’m telling you the truth, Manda.” He looks me right in the eye. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

  Bonnie gets on her feet. “How about you start at the beginning? Tell us everything you know.”

  He thrusts his fingers through his hair. “Remember that night when you walked away?”

  I raise my brows. “You mean the night Alex pointed his gun at me ’cause he thought I was a cold-blooded killer
-witch?”

  Jesse nods. “After you were gone, he went through a pretty rough time. Day drinking. Bar fights. Hell, sometimes he disappeared for days at a time.”

  None of that sounds like Alex. He’s no saint, but I’ve never seen him drink during the day or pick a random fight like all the other idiots I used to screw.

  “It was bad,” Jesse says. “He only came around when Carter, our FBI supervisor, threatened to fire him.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” His behavior after we broke up is hardly relevant.

  He sucks in air. “One day, after he’d just come back from one of those mysterious trips, I saw a cut on his palm. At first I didn’t think much of it, but when I got a good look, I recognized it…a sigil.”

  “What happened then?” Bonnie asks.

  “I questioned him over and over about it. Begged him to tell me how he got it, but you know Alex.” He gives me a look. “He’s a stubborn jerk. Told me to mind my own fucking business.”

  Yep, sounds like the Alex I know.

  “Then five months ago,” Jesse continues, “after a very boozy night in a strip club, he finally came clean.” He blinks fresh tears away. “Told me the truth about what had happened that night.”

  “And what truth would that be?” I grumble, growing increasingly impatient with him.

  A pained smile crosses Jesse’s lips. “Over boobs and bourbon, my brother confessed what he’d done. Said he had five months left until the demon would drag his soul to hell, and when I demanded to know why he’d done it, he just said”—he imitates Alex’s husky voice—“‘I love you, little brother, but some things are mine and mine only.’”

  Bonnie heads over to Jesse and folds a hand over his shoulder. “So that’s when you started looking for the bokor, huh?”

  “Yeah. I heard he’d gotten a few guys out of their deals, and since I had to promise Alex not to ask Amanda for help, I figured he’d be my best bet.”

  “He made you promise not to tell Amanda?” Bonnie’s voice is an octave higher than usual. “Why the fuck would he do that?”

  Jesse traces the edge of his cup. “He thought she wouldn’t care if he lived or died. I think he was still mad at her for leaving.”