My Soul to Take (14 page)

“Wait, those are all in different zones.” Tod frowned, and the well-defined muscles of his arms tensed as he leaned against the table. “If you really think none of them were supposed to die, you’re talking about three different reapers involved in this little conspiracy. Which is starting to sound pretty complicated, by the way.”

“Hmm…” I didn’t know enough about reapers to know how far-fetched a theory we were talking about, but I did know that the more people who were in on a secret, the harder it was to keep quiet. Tod was right. So…maybe we were only looking for one reaper, after all. “Is there anything keeping one of you guys from operating in someone else’s zone?”

“Other than integrity and fear of being caught? No.”

Grim reaper integrity…?

“So if a reaper has neither integrity nor fear, there’s nothing to stop him from taking out half the state of Texas next time he gets road rage in rush hour traffic?” I heard my pitch rising, and made myself lower my voice as I screwed the lid off my Coke. “Don’t you guys have to turn in your…um…death ray, or whatever, when you’re off the clock?”

Tod’s perfect lips quirked up in a quick smile. “Um, no. There’s no death ray, though that would be really cool. Reapers don’t use any equipment. All we have is an ability to extinguish life and take possession of the soul. But trust me, that’s more than enough.”

With that, his expression darkened. “In theory, you should never find a reaper without integrity. It’s not like we apply for this job to satisfy some kind of massive power hunger. We’re recruited, and screened for every psychological condition
known to man. No one capable of something like you’re talking about should ever find work as a reaper.”

“You sound less than confident in the system,” I said, watching his face carefully.

He shrugged. “You said it yourself. People aren’t infallible, and the system is run by people.”

“So can you get a look at the lists?” Nash said, watching Tod almost as closely as I did.

Tod bit his lower lip in thought. “You’re talking about three different zones, for three different days—and none of them on the current master list.”

“So can you do it?” I repeated, leaning forward in anticipation.

Tod nodded slowly. “It won’t be easy, but I like a challenge. So long as it pays off.” His blue-eyed gaze zeroed in on me, and something told me he was no longer talking about poking around in his boss’s office. “I’ll get you what you want to know—in exchange for your name.”

“No.” Nash didn’t even hesitate. “You’ll do it because if you don’t, we’ll hang out here and she’ll suspend every soul you try to take until you’re so far behind schedule your boss sends you back to the nursing home. If you’re lucky.”

“Right.” Tod smirked now as his gaze shifted from me to Nash. “She’s so green her roots are showing. I bet she’s never even seen a soul.”

“He’s right,” I said. Nash snatched my hand from the table and squeezed it hard, begging me silently not to give Tod what he wanted. But I saw no reason not to. My name would be easy to figure out, which made it a cheap price for the information we needed. “My first name is Kaylee. You can have my last name when you give us what we want.”

“Deal.” Tod stood, beaming as if his face gave off its own
glow. “I’ll let you know what I find out, but I can’t promise it’ll be tonight. I’m already late for that aneurism.”

I nodded, disappointed but not really surprised.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make some poor woman a widow.” And with that, he disappeared.

There was no chiming of bells, no twinkling of light. No signal at all that he was about to vanish. He was simply there one moment, and gone the next, with no special—or sound—effects of any kind.

“You didn’t tell me he could do that!” I glanced at Nash to find him frowning at the table. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He stood and picked up the paper plate still holding his last bite of cake. “Let’s go.” We threw our trash away on our way out of the cafeteria, and I followed him across the hospital and through the parking garage in silence.
Guess he
really
didn’t want Tod to know my name…

When we reached the car, Nash followed me to the passenger’s side door, where he unlocked and opened it for me. But instead of getting in, I turned to face him and put one hand flat on his chest. “You’re mad at me.” My heart beat so hard my chest ached. I could feel his heart thumping beneath my palm, and for one horrifying moment, I was sure I’d never get to feel it again. That he would simply drive me home, then vanish from my life like Tod had vanished from the cafeteria.

But Nash shook his head slowly. He was backlit by an overhead light near the entrance, and his dark hair seemed to glow around the edges. “I’m mad at him. I should have come by myself, but I didn’t think he’d be interested in you.”

My eyebrows shot up and I stepped to the side to see him better. “Because I’m a shrieking hag?”

Nash pulled me close again and pressed me into the car, then kissed me so deeply I wasn’t sure if I was actually breathing.
“You have no idea how beautiful you are,” he said. “But Tod’s been hung up on someone else for a long time, so I thought you’d be safe. I should have known better.”

“Why didn’t you want him to know my name?”

Nash leaned back to see me better, and the line of his jaw went hard. “Because he’s Death, Kaylee. No matter how innocent he looks, or how desperately he clings to the notion that he’s some kind of afterlife hero, carting helpless souls from point A to point B, he’s still a reaper. One day he might find your name on his list. And while I know that keeping your name a secret won’t save you if that happens, I’m not just going to hand over your identity to one of Death’s gophers.”

“He knows your name.” I let my hand trail from his chest down his arm until my fingers curled around his.

“I knew him before he was a reaper.”

“You did?” It hadn’t occurred to me until then that Tod might have had a normal life once. What were reapers like before they surrounded themselves with death and the dying?

Nash nodded, and I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he laid one finger against my lips. “I don’t want to talk about Tod anymore.”

“Fair enough,” I mumbled against his finger. Then I removed his hand and stepped up on my toes. “I don’t want to talk about him either.” I kissed him, and my pulse went crazy when he responded. His tongue met mine briefly, then his lips trailed over my chin and down my neck.

“Mmm…” I murmured into his hair, as his tongue flicked in the hollow of my collarbone. Chill bumps popped up on my arms, and my hands went around his back. My fingers splayed over the material of his shirt. “That feels good.”

“You taste good,” he whispered against my skin. But before I could respond, an engine growled to life a row away, and light
washed over us both, momentarily blinding me. Nash straightened, moaning in frustration as the car across the aisle pulled toward us before turning toward the exit. “I guess I should take you home,” he said, shading his face with one hand while the other remained on my arm.

I blinked, trying to clear floating circles of light from my eyes. “I don’t want to go home. My entire family has been lying to me my whole life. I don’t have anything to say to them.”

“Don’t you want to know why they’ve been lying to you?”

I blinked at him, taken by surprise for a moment. I hadn’t considered simply confronting them with the truth. They’d
never
see that coming.

A slow smile spread across my face, and I saw it reflected in Nash’s. “Let’s go.”

“Y
OU’RE COMING IN
, right?” I asked when Nash shifted into Park but left the engine running.

There wasn’t enough light in the driveway for me to truly see his eyes, but I knew he was watching me. “You want me to?”

Did I?

A slim silhouette appeared in the front window: Aunt Val, one hand on her narrow hip, the other holding an oversize mug. They were waiting to talk to me. Or more likely
at
me, because they probably had no intention of telling me the truth, since they didn’t know someone else already had.

“Yeah, I do.”

It wasn’t that I needed him to fight my battles. I was actually looking forward to demanding some long-overdue answers, now that the big lie—aka my entire life—had been exposed.

But I could certainly have used a little moral support.

Nash smiled, his teeth a dim white wedge among shadows, and twisted the key to shut down the engine.

We met at the front of the car and he took my hand, then leaned forward to brush a kiss against the back of my jaw, just
below my left ear. Even as I stood in my driveway, knowing my aunt and uncle were waiting, his touch made me shiver in anticipation of more.

I’m not crazy.
I knew that now. And I wasn’t alone—Nash was like me. Even so, dread was a plastic spork slowly digging out my insides as I pulled open the front door, then the screen. I stepped into the tiled entry and tugged Nash in after me.

My aunt stood in the middle of the floor, a frail mask of reproach poorly disguising whatever stronger, more urgent sentiment peeked out around the edges. My uncle rose from the couch immediately, taking us both in with a single glance. To his credit, the first expression to flit across his features was relief. He’d been worried, probably because I hadn’t answered any of the twelve messages he’d left on my silenced cell.

But his relief didn’t last long. Now that he knew I was alive, he looked ready to kill me himself.

Uncle Brendon’s anger lingered on me, then more than a bit of it transferred when his focus shifted to Nash. “It’s late. I’m sure Kaylee will see you at the memorial tomorrow.”

Aunt Val only sipped her coffee—or maybe “coffee”—offering me no help.

Nash looked to me for a decision, and my tight grip on his hand demonstrated my resolve. “Uncle Brendon, this is Nash Hudson. I need to ask you some questions, and he’s going to stay. Or else I go with him.”

My uncle’s dark brows drew low and his gaze hardened—but then his eyes went wide in surprise. “Hudson?” He studied Nash more carefully now, and sudden recognition lit his face. “You’re Trevor and Harmony’s boy?”

What?
My gaze bounced between them in confusion. On my left, Aunt Val coughed violently and pounded on her own chest. She’d choked on her “coffee.”

“You know each other?” I asked, but Nash looked as clueless as I felt.

“I knew your parents years ago,” Uncle Brendon said to Nash. “But I had no idea your mother was back in the area.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans, and the uncertain gesture made my uncle look even younger than usual. “I was so sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you, sir.” Nash nodded, his jaw tense, both his motion and words well practiced.

Uncle Brendon turned back to me. “Your friend’s father was…” And that’s when it hit him. His face flushed, and his expression seemed to darken. “You told her.”

Nash nodded again, holding his gaze boldly. “She has a right to know.”

“And obviously neither of you were going to tell me.”

Aunt Val sank into the nearest armchair and drained her mug, then almost dropped it onto a coaster.

“Well, I can’t say this is entirely unexpected. Your dad’s already on his way here to explain everything.” My uncle’s hands hovered at his sides, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Then he sighed and nodded to himself, like he’d come to some kind of decision. “Sit down. Please. I’m sure you both have questions.”

“Can I get anyone a drink?” Aunt Val rose unsteadily, her empty mug in hand.

“Yeah.” I gave her a saccharine smile. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

She frowned—for once unconcerned with the wrinkles etched into her forehead—then made her way slowly into the kitchen.

“I’d love some coffee,” Uncle Brendon called after her as he sank into the floral-print armchair, but his wife disappeared around the corner with no reply.

I dropped onto the sofa and Nash sat next to me, and in the sudden silence I realized my cousin hadn’t come out to interrogate me or flirt with him. And no music came from her room. No sound at all, in fact. “Where’s Sophie?”

Uncle Brendon sighed heavily and seemed to sink deeper into the chair. “She doesn’t know about any of this. She’s asleep.”

“Still?”

“Again. Val woke her up for dinner, but she hardly ate anything. Then she took another of those damned pills and went back to bed. I ought to flush the rest of them.” He mumbled the last part beneath his breath, but we both heard him.

And I agreed with him wholeheartedly on that one, if on little else at the moment.

Fueling bravado with my smoldering anger, I pinned my uncle with the boldest stare I could manage. “So I’m not human?”

He sighed. “You never were one to beat around the bush.”

I only stared at him, unwilling to be distracted by pointless chatter. And when my uncle began to speak, I clutched Nash’s hand harder than ever.

“No, technically we’re not human,” he said. “But the distinction is very minor.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes. “Except for all the death and screaming.”

“So you’re a
bean sidhe
too, right?” Nash interjected, oiling the wheels of discourse with more civility than I could have mustered in that moment. At least one of us was calm….

“Yes. As is Kaylee’s father, my brother.” Uncle Brendon met my eyes again then, and I knew what he was going to say from the cautious sympathy shining in his eyes. “As was your mother.”

This wasn’t about my mom. So far as I knew, she’d never lied to me. “What about Aunt Val?”

“Human.” She answered for herself, stepping into the living room with a steaming cup of coffee in each hand. She crossed the carpet cautiously and handed one mug to my uncle before sinking carefully into the armchair across from his. “And so is Sophie.”

“Are you sure?” Nash frowned. “Maybe she just hasn’t had an opportunity for any premonitions yet.”

“She was there with Meredith this afternoon,” I reminded him.

“Oh, yeah.”

“We’ve known from the moment she was born,” my aunt said, as if neither of us had spoken.

“How?” I asked, as she slowly, carefully crossed one leg over the other.

Aunt Val lifted the mug to her lips, then spoke over it. “She cried.” She sipped her coffee, her eyes not quite focused on the wall over my head. “Female
bean sidhes
don’t cry at birth.”

“Seriously?” I glanced at Nash for confirmation, but he only shrugged, apparently as surprised as I was.

Uncle Brendon eyed his wife in mounting concern, then turned back to us. “They may have tears, but a
bean sidhe
never truly screams until she sings for her first soul.”

“Wait, that can’t be right.” I’d cried plenty as a child, hadn’t I? Surely at my mother’s funeral…?

Okay, I couldn’t actually remember much from that age, but I knew for a fact that I’d screamed bloody murder when I rode my bike off the sidewalk and into a rose bush, at eight years old. And again at eleven, when I accidentally ripped a hoop earring through my earlobe with a hairbrush. And again when I’d been dumped for the first time, at fourteen.

How long had I been making fatal predictions, without even knowing it? Had I thrown inconsolable fits in preschool?
Or had my youth largely kept me away from death? How long had they been treating me like I was crazy, when they knew what was wrong with me all along?

My spine stiffened, and I felt my cheeks flush in anger. Every answer my uncle provided only brought up more questions, about things I should have known all along. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded, teeth clenched to keep me from yelling and waking Sophie up. I’d missed so much. Wasted countless hours doubting my own sanity.

When what I really should have been doubting was my humanity!

“I’m so sorry, Kaylee. I wanted to.” Uncle Brendon closed his eyes as if he were gathering his thoughts, then met mine again, and to my surprise, I realized I believed him. “I started to tell you last year, when you were…in the hospital. But your dad asked me not to. The damage was already done, and he hoped we could wait a little longer. At least until you finished high school.”

That’s what they’d hoped I’d have more time for! Not life, but a normal, human adolescence. A noble thought, but somewhat lacking in the execution…

“I’m surprised your little farce held up this long!” I found myself on the edge of the couch as I spoke, Nash’s hand still grasped in mine. He was the only thing keeping me seated as I vented the geyser of anger and resentment threatening to burst through the top of my skull. “How long did you think it would be before I’d run into someone on the verge of death?”

Uncle Brendon shrugged miserably but held my gaze. “Most teenagers never see anyone die. We were hoping you’d be that fortunate, and we could wait and let your dad explain all this…later. When you were ready.”

“When I was ready? I was ready last year, when I saw a bald
kid in a wheelchair being pushed through the mall in his own private death shroud! You were waiting for
him
to be ready.” For my father to finally step up and earn his title.

“She’s right, Brendon,” Aunt Val slurred, now slumped in her chair, her linen-clad legs splayed gracelessly. I watched her, waiting for more, but turned back to my uncle when she lifted her mug to her mouth instead of speaking.

“Why keep it a secret in the first place?”

“Because you—” Aunt Val began again, gesturing in grand sweeps with her half-empty mug. But my uncle cut her off with a stern look.

“That’s for your father to explain.”

“It’s not like he hasn’t had time!” I snapped. “He’s had sixteen years.”

Uncle Brendon nodded, and I read regret on his face. “I know—we all have. And considering how you wound up figuring it out—” he glanced apologetically at Nash “—I think we were wrong to wait so long. But your dad will be here in the morning, and I’m not going to step on his toes with the rest of it. It’s his story to tell.”

There was a story? Not just a simple explanation, but an actual story?

“He’s really coming?” I’d believe that when I saw him.

Yet my chest tightened, shot through with a jolt of adrenaline at the thought: my dad had answers no one else seemed willing to give me. But I might have known it would take an all-out catastrophe to get him stateside again. He wasn’t coming to see me. He was coming to do damage control, before my aunt reversed the charges.

Uncle Brendon frowned at my obvious skepticism—he could probably see it swirling in my eyes. “We called him this afternoon—”

“
I
called him,” Aunt Val corrected. “I told him to put his ass on a plane, or I’d…”

“You’ve had enough.” My uncle was on his feet before I could blink, and an instant later he held his wife’s mug. She slouched in her chair, eyes wide in sluggish surprise, hand still curved, as if around the cup handle. “I’ll get you some fresh coffee.” He stopped in the threshold between the living room and dining room, Aunt Val’s mug gripped so tightly his knuckles were white. “I’m sorry,” he said to Nash. “My wife isn’t taking any of this well. She’s worried about the girls, and she’s a friend of Meredith Cole’s mother.”

Yeah, but she and Mrs. Cole were gym buddies, not conjoined twins. And I’d hardly ever seen my aunt drink more than a single glass of wine at a time—she said alcohol had too many calories.

Nash nodded. “My mother would be upset too.”

Yeah, but I bet she wouldn’t be drowning in brandy….

“How is your mother?”

“She still misses him.” Nash glanced at our entwined hands, obviously uncomfortable talking about his own family.

Uncle Brendon’s expression softened in sympathy. “Of course she does.” Then he turned into the kitchen and let the subject rest.

For a moment, we stared at the carpet in silence, not quite sure what to say next. We’d hit a lull in the single most awkward conversation of my life, and I wasn’t exactly eager to pick it back up.

But Aunt Val obviously was. “She wouldn’t have liked this.” Her gaze was focused on the floor several feet in front of her chair, her arms draped over the sides, hands dangling. I’d never seen her look so…aimless. Limp.

“My mom?” Nash asked, confused, but I knew what she meant. She was talking about
my
mother.

“Wouldn’t have liked what?” I asked, curious in spite of my
lingering anger. No one ever seemed willing to talk about my mom in front of me.