The Soul's Agent

by Wendy Knight

  We hadn't been fast enough, though. One man lay lifeless in an alley three streets over.

  "What happened to Jesse? Did they—"

  Don shook his head. "I watched Jesse go back to her cell. She was on the beach last night and did not chase them."

  Because of her, a man had lost his life.

  "Why?" My voice was hoarse. I felt like I was split into two agonizing vials of pain—one for the battle I'd just been in, and one for the fight I'd just had with Alec. He'd called me a whore.

  Even the first time, he hadn't stooped to that.

  One vial for night, one for day. My soul was torn.

  "She said she was afraid."

  Well. Wasn't that ironic. Because of that, Death would take her to hell. Then she'd truly know terror.

  "Navi. We can do nothing for the lost tonight. Nothing for Jesse. We must get you treated."

  Yeah. I wasn't sure how to explain this kind of wound. Dog attack? Not feasible. Hit and run? No… I wished I had a doctor friend who could fix me and wouldn't ask questions.

  Oh wait. I did.

  "Konstanz?" I asked as soon as she picked up the phone.

  "Navi?" Her voice was sleep-slow and froggish. "What's wrong?"

  "I need your help."

  "Navi, I don't know what you're involved in, but we need to go to the cops." Konstanz's hands shook as she dabbed at my stomach with already bloody rags.

  "I can't, Konstanz. I'm sorry. This can't go beyond us." My voice sounded robotic in my head. I wasn't sure how it sounded to her.

  "Whoever you're protecting, this isn't worth it, Navi. You could have died. You were unconscious in the middle of a cul-de-sac!"

  "It is worth it, Konstanz. I promise."

  She scowled at me, shoving her hair away from her face. "Why can't you just be a normal girl who goes to school and has a not-scary job and you can grow up and marry Alec…"

  I squeaked in pain and she looked up at me. "What's wrong? I wasn't even touching you."

  "Alec and I…" Hmm. How to explain it? We texted late into the night. Spent an entire day together. I was planning my life with him when he assumed I was already cheating again and called me a whore. "We aren't friends."

  Her busy hands stilled. I couldn't see her face because she had her head bent, but I could imagine her expression. "Seriously? What happened last night?"

  Lots. Lots happened.

  I shook my head, feeling traitorous tears snaking their way down my cheeks.

  "Oh, Navi. I'm so sorry." She rose from her crouch and awkwardly wrapped her arms around me, trying not to touch the gaping wound she'd been cleaning for a half hour. I tried to be strong. I tried not to cry.

  I failed.

  I leaned my forehead on her shoulder and sobbed. "He thinks I'm a horrible person. I was just—" I hiccupped, "I was just trying to keep him safe." So I could cry. Look at that.

  She leaned back and studied my face. "Navi, I was there when he saw what he saw in high school. I couldn't believe it was you. It felt wrong. I don't know what's really going on, but I'm sorry I didn't stand by you then." She blushed, looking down. "I just—I've just felt like I needed to say that. For a long time now."

  She picked up her thick pack of gauze while I gaped at her. "Konstanz, you've always been there. You've always been my friend."

  "I should have argued with him. I should have stood up for you."

  I shook my head, closing my eyes briefly. "You couldn't. I didn't give you anything to argue with."

  "You gave me ten years of knowing what kind of person you are. That should have been enough. Stand up so I can wrap this around you."

  I stood obediently, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over me. "I thought—I thought I was in love with him. After one day. How stupid am I?" Stupid. Very stupid. I hid my face in my hands. Apparently I'd decided my life was a chick flick. With a really crappy ending. Wasn't there a law or something that chick flicks ended happily ever after?

  She shook her head. "You aren't stupid. Everyone at that party could see the connection between you two. It was unreal. Also, you are way easier to fix up than a 100 pound unconscious dog."

  I snorted, giggling despite all the pain. "Thanks?"

  "All done. Go lay down. I'll talk to your professors and get your notes today."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alec

  I stumbled into the apartment through a haze of pain pills and alcohol. "You sure you're okay if I go home?" Josh asked, trying to free my keys from the door. I thought about pointing out that he had to pull up, then sideways to free the key, but he'd figure it out eventually.

  If not, it didn't matter.

  "Are you drunk?" Bryson turned from the TV to stare stupidly. "Is he drunk?"

  "Drunk and drugged, yes. Smashed his hand at work. Then decided alcohol is the best way to deal with pain, not a hospital." Josh shook his head, swearing at the keys. Bryson got up and jerked the keys out of the door while I stood and watched. He looked at me, mouth still hanging open, and I raised my broken hand and waved it.

  "I thought you said Navi hates alcohol."

  "To hell with Navi. Josh, get me a beer."

  Josh shook his head, leaving the doorway to steer me toward my room. "You're gonna be hurtin' in the morning."

  "I'm already hurtin'. She smashed my damn soul with her bare feet."

  "What? What happened?" Did I hear hope in his voice? I tried to turn on him but the world spun and I toppled over, right into Josh's arms.

  "You're a good friend." I patted him on the head and tried to stand up straight.

  It didn't work.

  "I've never seen him drunk before." Bryson's voice sounded like it was moving away, but he was standing right next to me. Although he did seem to be waving in and out of focus…

  "He caught Navi with another guy this morning." Josh tried to keep his voice low but I was inches from his mouth. Like I couldn't hear him.

  "Well… it's not like they're together. She didn't swear off all other guys for him in two days. What's the big deal?"

  "What's the big deal?" Were my words slurring or was that my hearing? "She did swear off all the other stupid guys. She said she didn't want anyone but me. Then she leaves me in her apartment with you"— I jabbed my injured hand at his chest—"and goes off with some other guy. Or guys. And she told me it was work. And I called her a whore."

  Josh groaned. Bryson, even weaving in and out of my field of vision like some kind of colorful ghost, looked like he wanted to punch me. Well let him try. I wouldn't feel a thing, not with these pain pills numbing everything.

  Except my stupid heart.

  "You need to sleep, bro. Come on." Josh pushed me forward, but I dug my heels in. Or at least I tried, but it didn't help.

  "I don't wanna sleep. She's there when I sleep. She dies and she's beautiful and I can't save her. I don't wanna sleep."

  "Dude. If I wasn't holding you up, you'd be on the floor right now. Go to bed."

  I tried to growl at him but it just came out as a moan. I already missed her. It would have been easier if she'd yelled and blamed me or thrown a tantrum that I was following her or anything that involved breaking stuff. But that quiet pleading, the desperation in her eyes… it killed me. What if I was wrong? What if there was an explanation and I'd just blown it with the one girl I'd ever loved? "I was gonna marry her."

  Bryson snorted. Josh sighed. "You were together for two days, Alec."

  "Doesn't matter. I knew it the second I saw her at that party."

  My heart hurt. Maybe I was having a heart attack. Maybe it really was possible to break your heart, and then you just wandered around all broken and crushed and stuff because life with a broken heart was like that.

  No. I glared at the floor and stood up straight. Or attempted to. I knew what I saw. Navi was either trying to kill that guy or she was with that guy. And since she's a tiny little thing with the sweetest disposition ever, I doubted very much that she was trying to kill him.

&
nbsp; I'd like to, though.

  In fact, maybe I'd go back and punch him a few times. That would definitely make me feel better. I turned toward the door, ready to go seek my vengeance, and fell flat on my face.

  This day sucked.

  I woke up with a freight train running through my head. I groaned, pressing my fists to my eyes. What the hell had happened yesterday?

  And then I remembered.

  Navi. The guy. Alcohol, lots of alcohol. And… a hospital? I groaned again, fumbling for my phone through the blur of pain. "Josh?" I mumbled when he finally answered, four skull shattering rings later. "What…" I couldn't even think how to start the conversation.

  "Hey bro. How's the hand?"

  "Hand?" My words were all slurred. Slowly, I raised my other hand, just now noticing that it was throbbing in something resembling agony. "Oh hell."

  "Yeah."

  "I drank a lot."

  "Well, your hand hurt. I guess that's understandable."

  But that wasn't the reason I drank so much. My heart hurt. How Navi could break my heart into so many pieces after only two days together was beyond me. I'd never fallen like that before.

  Or, re-fallen, as it were.

  I hung up. I'm not sure if I said goodbye or not. Mustering all my courage, I sat up. The room spun and my hand throbbed and I just about lost everything I'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours. I cursed in all three languages that I'd ever learned, and then I got up to make coffee.

  "Josh said to give you your pain pills as soon as you got up." Bryson left the TV and followed my stumbling progress to the kitchen, catching me twice when I tried to fall. I found the bottle and fought with the lid for several seconds, until Bryson snatched it out of my hand and shook a pill out. Without a word, he started coffee brewing as I downed the pill. Work fast, pill. Work fast. If only the pill erased memories, too. If only it eased a shattered heart.

  Every time I closed my damn eyes, I saw her. Smiling at me, nibbling her lip, twining her fingers with mine. I saw her eyes falling shut as she leaned toward me, I felt her soft lips opening for mine, felt the stroke of her fingers against my chest.

  And then I saw her standing in front of that house, tears running down her cheeks, arms wrapped around herself. What if I'd been wrong? What if…

  I'd go over there. That's what I would do. As soon as I could see straight to drive, I would go over there and talk to her. No raging emotions this time. I'd give her a chance to explain.

  And then I snorted. Of course there would be raging emotions. There were always raging emotions if Navi was involved.

  It took me several seconds, but I finally realized that Bryson was angry at me. "What's wrong with you?" I asked, peering blurrily at him.

  "What's wrong with me?" His eyebrows shot up and he spun away, jerking the coffee mug out of the cupboard. "What's wrong with me. That's awesome." He sloshed coffee into the mug, missing for the most part, and thrust it at me. "What's wrong with you? When she chose you over me, it hurt. Oh yeah, I felt totally betrayed, Alec. But I should have known—after what you'd said… and I thought, at least he'll take care of her. At least I'll still get to see her and she's happy. If I would have known you were going to hurt her like this, I—I would have fought harder! Or—or something. I would have tried to protect her."

  I stared at him, trying not to spill my coffee with my shaking hands. "She was with another guy, Bryson. I didn't do anything wrong."

  "Did you give her a chance to explain?" He crossed his arms and glared, as if daring me to answer him.

  I closed my eyes and sighed. "No. No, I did not. She wouldn't even if I had, you know."

  "No." Bryson shoved past me, stalking to the TV. "No, I don't know."

  It took an entire pot of coffee and a long, long shower before I could function. It took another hour before I could move my head without throwing up. It was almost two p.m. when I finally got dressed—which was hard one-handed. "You can't drive when you're taking those Percocet, dude," Bryson, still watching TV, said when I emerged with my keys in my hand.

  "I'm fine." I didn't look at him, partly because moving my eyes still made my head feel like it was splitting open down the center. How much alcohol had I had yesterday before Josh convinced me to go to the hospital?

  Bryson got up and blocked the doorway. "I know where you're going. She doesn't want to talk to you."

  I would have punched him, if I didn't think it would hurt my only good hand. Even then, I still considered it. "How do you know?"

  "Because I was over there this morning. She's pissed, Alec. She never wants to see you again. Hell, Konstanz had to talk her out of packing up and going back to Alaska just to get away from you."

  Pain shot from my heart down into my stomach, so fierce it almost brought me to my knees. "No. She wouldn't do that."

  "She's done it before, Alec."

  I shook my head. Big, huge mistake. Pressing my good hand against my skull like it could hold it in place, I said, "She just got back. She has school. And work."

  Her voice slammed through my head. It's just work! It's just work! Sobbing, tear-soaked words. I had to talk to her.

  I shoved Bryson out of the way. "Alec, I can't let you drive. What if you kill someone?"

  I glared at him for thirty whole seconds. "I took the Percocet hours ago. I was supposed to take another one at twelve. I'm fine to drive."

  His brow furrowed and he crossed his arms over his chest. "You need to keep up on your pain pills or the pain will be unmanageable."

  "The pain is already unmanageable, Bryson. And those damn pills aren't gonna touch it." I wrenched the door open and stalked out to my truck.

  It was difficult driving when I had to shift with my injured, bulky hand. I killed the truck twice before I got the hang of it, and I swore more times than I could count. I blew through a red light once just so I wouldn't have to shift back down. And then I parked in Navi's apartment carport and sat there.

  She hated me. She'd told me to go to hell. You called her a whore. Technically, no. I hadn't called her a whore. I'd asked if she was a whore. It was a simple question, right?

  I hung my head. No, it wasn't.

  I started the truck again and backed out, feeling like I left half my soul waiting there at her doorstep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Navi

  I stared out the window, pain lancing through my chest. The wound in my stomach had healed when the moon had risen the night before, thankfully. So all I had to deal with now was the broken heart.

  Yeah. No problem.

  Alec's truck roared out of our parking lot, disappearing in a cloud of smoke around the corner as he gunned it. Good. He needed to stay far, far away from me.

  So what, are you a whore now?

  "Hey." Konstanz stroked my hair and I smiled over at her. "Was that—?"

  I nodded. She slid her arm around my shoulders and I laid my head on her chest. "I wasn't with another guy, K."

  She nodded. "I know."

  We stayed that way, watching the cars below, watching people go about their daily lives, completely unaware and ungrateful of the sacrifices Agents made to keep them safe. Alec, completely unaware and ungrateful. I didn't tell him—all this time, all these accusations, and I didn't tell him because I wanted to keep him safe.

  "Bastard."

  Konstanz sucked in a breath because I never swore. Reese could put a sailor to shame, and no one batted an eye. But me, one time, and it stunned the entire apartment.

  "You know what I do to get over a guy?" Terrie asked, reclining on the couch like Cleopatra. I raised my head from Konstanz's shoulder and looked back at Terrie, waiting for her to continue. Heaven knows she had enough experience in the subject. She smiled wickedly. "I do a new guy."

  I cringed at her coarseness. Konstanz sighed. "Navi isn't that type, Terrie."

  She shrugged. "Maybe not that type, but I bet finding her another fella will take her mind off Alec."

  If only she knew of all t
he times I'd dated different guys just to do that exact thing. Four years worth of guys, and not one of them ever made me get over Alec. Not one made me forget him. Even for a second.

  "That's true. Now that you're feeling better, we should go out." Konstanz rubbed her hand briskly up and down my arm like my dad used to do when he was trying to give me a pep talk.

  "I've got homework. And a meeting tonight. I can't go out, and"—I nodded at Terrie—"I'm sure your plan is fabulous and works every time, but I kind of don't want anything to do with guys for a while."

  She rolled her eyes. "That's why I never fall in love. Because it hurts when they inevitably break your heart. Men don't fall in love. They fall in lust."

  "It was two days, Terrie. Navi wasn't in love with him. It was just a crush. Crushes are easy to get over." Reese nodded with finality. Because in this apartment, what Reese said, goes.

  It wasn't a crush. With Alec, it was more of an obsession. It had never been a crush. I had met him, and a week later we were inseparable. For three years, every waking second was spent wherever Alec was. I even rearranged my school schedule so we'd have classes together. That shop class I'd taken junior year had really come in handy.

  And that obsession? It hadn't gone away.

  But Reese was only trying to help, and I wasn't going to correct her. Besides, I suspected we all knew how wrong she was anyway.

  A knock sent hope soaring through my heart that somehow Alec had come back and he would apologize and everything would be okay.

  "Bryson. Hey. Come on in." Reese swung open the door and stepped out of the way. "Welcome to the house of mourning."

  I hadn't seen him since almost forty-eight hours ago when he'd been teaching Reese how to cook and helping Konstanz put out kitchen fires. "Hey, honey. How are you?" He came straight to me, barely nodding at anyone else.

  "I'm fine." I forced a smile and moved away from Konstanz, proving that I could, in fact, stand on my own.

  "I heard what happened. Alec went out last night and got rip-roaring drunk. I figured something was up."

  Ouch.