My Soul to Steal (8 page)

“Well, let’s not borrow trouble until we come up short. I can ask around.” Meaning he’d talk to Harmony Hudson and
my uncle Brendon. “But I want you to stay out of it. Just in case. Got it?”

I nodded and poured milk into my bowl. That’s what I was hoping he’d say. And now that I’d been expressly forbidden from investigating the massively coincidental teacher deaths, I should have felt free from the compulsion to do just that. Right? So why was it so hard to get Mrs. Bennigan out of my head? Why did the soft rise and fall of her back haunt my memory?

Alec trudged into the kitchen and I shook off my morbid thoughts and sank into a chair at the table with my cold cereal. He headed straight for the coffeepot.

“You, too?” my dad asked, with one look at the bags under his eyes.

Alec shrugged and scrubbed one hand over his close-cropped curls. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

My dad’s brows furrowed as he glanced from Alec to me, obviously leaping to a very weird conclusion. “Is there something I should know?” he half growled, glaring at Alec as he spooned sugar into his mug, completely oblivious to my father’s suspicion and sudden tension.

I could only roll my eyes. “
He’s
still adjusting to a human sleep cycle, and
I
had a…bad dream. Two completely separate, unconnected neuroses,” I insisted, but my dad looked unconvinced.

He stepped too close to Alec, who looked up in surprise. “I haven’t forgotten that you helped get me out of the Netherworld. But if you think that gives you some kind of claim on Kaylee, you’re gravely mistaken. You lay one inappropriate finger on my daughter, and you’ll learn that Avari isn’t the scariest thing you’ve ever faced.”

Alec stumbled backward, away from my father, and winced
when his back hit the corner of the counter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Cavanaugh.”

“Dad!” I stood, pushing my chair out of the way with the backs of my legs. “Back off! Why are men so suspicious? Is it hardwired into your brain? Jeez, he’s forty-five years old!”

Alec actually frowned at that, and I felt bad about throwing his lost youth in his face.

“Not that you’re not hot…” I backtracked. Totally tall, dark, and crush-worthy, if we’d been anywhere near the same age. Especially with the bonus haunted-past mystique.

Alec dared a faint grin, and my father scowled. “I’m not kidding, Kaylee. I know you and Nash just broke up, but that doesn’t mean you need to…”

I dropped my spoon into my half-full bowl and grabbed my mug, already stomping out of the kitchen in humiliation. “I am not having this conversation with you.” My dad didn’t know exactly what had happened between me and Nash, but he knew Nash had been taking frost and he knew—and loved—that I’d taken a step back, at least while Nash recovered.

My father groaned, then called me back before I’d made it to the hall. “Wait, Kaylee. Please.” The magic word. I stopped and turned to face him. “You’re right. I’m overreacting. There are so many things I can’t protect you from that I tend to go overboard in cases where I can actually make a difference. Come finish your breakfast. I’m sorry.”

“You’re trying to protect her from
me?
” Alec frowned into his cup of coffee.

Instead of answering, my father changed the subject, already on his way to the front door when he glanced back at Alec. “Don’t forget the interview at one. Don’t be late.” My dad was trying to get Alec a job at the factory where he worked. With better pay and more hours than he got at the theater, Alec
could afford his own apartment and really start to get his life back together. “And you owe me four chocolate cupcakes.”

“Cupcakes? Is that the fee for getting me an interview?” Alec pulled off a very convincing confused look, and I couldn’t quite hide my smile. But there was no way my dad would fall for that.

As soon as the front door closed behind my father, Alec turned to me, coffee mug halfway to his mouth. “You faced down a hellion to rescue three people from the Netherworld. Why the hell is he trying to protect you from me?”

I could only shrug. “He’s my dad. That’s what he does.” And lately, that seemed to be the only normal aspect of my entire life.

I
PULLED INTO
the parking lot fifteen minutes before the first bell, hoping I’d beaten Nash to school. Hoping he’d find some way to school that didn’t include Sabine, after what she’d done the night before. But four minutes after I arrived, her car pulled into a space two rows in front of mine, with a very familiar silhouette showing through the passenger’s side window.

Maybe he was telling her to stay away from me. Maybe he was threatening her. Normally, I’m not big on physical threats. But normally, I don’t have my dreams invaded by psychotic nightmare demons. Or whatever. I was willing to compromise a little on the former to get rid of the latter.

I followed them toward the building, hanging back so they wouldn’t see me. When Sabine turned to brush hair from Nash’s forehead, laughing at something he’d said, I dropped into a crouch next to a beat-up old Neon with faded blue paint. It certainly didn’t
look
like he was telling her to back off, or else.

I wanted to see more tears. Less laughter and fewer you-
light-up-my-life smiles. Nash had dumped countless other girls in his two and a half years at Eastlake, so why was he having trouble getting rid of this one? Had he forgotten how?

When Sabine’s laughter was swallowed by the clang of the glass doors swinging shut, I stood, fuming, and kicked the front tire of the car I’d been hiding behind. Inside, I stomped straight to Nash’s locker, intending to tell them both off before I lost my nerve. But to my unparalleled relief, Nash was alone, stuffing books from his bag into his locker. I leaned against the locker next to his and crossed my arms over my chest, frowning up at him.

“You really told her off, huh? I could tell by how hard she was laughing.”

Nash glanced at me, then turned back to his locker. “I made her promise not to feed off you anymore.”

“Just me?” I dropped my bag on the ground at my feet. “What about the rest of the school?” Or the rest of Texas, for that matter. “She can’t just go around slurping up fear from the general population while they sleep.”

Nash closed his locker door, then drew me into the alcove by the first-floor restrooms and water fountain, where we were less likely to be overheard. “Actually, she kind of has to. If she doesn’t feed, she’ll starve to death.”

Stunned, I blinked at him. “You’re serious?”

He frowned. “Why else would she do it?”

“I thought—”
hoped…
“—maybe it was recreational. Something she could quit, if she wanted to.”

His frown deepened as my point sank in—a little too close to home. “Kaylee, she’s not getting high. She’s surviving. It’s not her fault that food and water aren’t enough to keep her alive.”

“You seriously expect me to believe she doesn’t enjoy it?”

Nash started to answer, then his mouth snapped shut as two freshmen came out of the girls’ restroom, talking about some song one of them had just downloaded. When they were gone, he turned to me again, leaning against the painted cinder-block wall.

“I’m not saying she hates it. I’m just saying she has to do it, whether she likes it or not. Besides, what’s wrong with liking what you eat? Don’t tell me you hate pizza and chips and ice cream…” He did
not
just compare me to junk food. My temper flared. “I’m not draining someone’s life force every time I have a slice of pepperoni.”

“She’s a predator, Kaylee. She can’t help that, and you can’t change it. She has to eat something.”

“You mean some
one,
” I snapped, and Nash nodded, unfazed by my blunt phrasing. “But it doesn’t have to be classmates, right? Why can’t she eat bad guys? You know, feed from criminals. She could power up and serve society at the same time.”

Nash laughed, and I gritted my teeth in irritation. He’d taken me seriously before she’d shown up, hadn’t he? “Great idea, Kay. How would you suggest she identify these bad guys?”

“I’m thinking jail would be a good place to start.” She’d probably feel right at home there. “Or Fort Worth gang territories. It can’t be too hard to find someone worth scaring the crap out of, either way.”

Nash’s expression went hard. “I’m not going to tell her to drive downtown by herself in the middle of the night, to look for someone who deserves to be eaten in his sleep! She could get killed.”

“But what about that whole astral projection thing? If she doesn’t have a physical presence, she can’t be hurt, right?”

“What do you want her to do, walk her astral self twenty miles and back? She can’t
fly,
even when she’s Sleepwalking. Plus, there’s a limit to how far her astral form can wander from her actual body, so she’d still be in physical danger.”

“Nash, she’s a walking Nightmare. She’s probably the scariest thing out there, even in the middle of the night.”

“That doesn’t make her bulletproof!” He ran one hand through his hair and leaned back against the wall, obviously frustrated. “Look, I don’t expect you two to braid each other’s hair and share lip gloss, but you sound like you’re trying to get her killed!”

I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the wall next to the water fountain. “I don’t want her dead, I swear.”
Though I might not object to a light maiming…

But if she poked one more metaphysical finger into my dreams, I’d probably be singing a different tune.

“Good. Because no matter how tough she talks, she’s really not that different from anyone else here.” His wide-armed gesture took in the whole school.

“Yeah. Except for that whole creep-into-your-dreams-and-ruin-your-life angle.”

Nash studied me, like he was weighing some options I didn’t understand. “You know how you got creeped out just from looking at her a couple of times?”

“Like I’m gonna forget.”

“She did that on purpose, because she’s threatened by you. But she used to have no control over it. Until she learned to quit dripping creepy vibes like a leaky faucet, everyone she ever met had the same reaction to her. Her parents left her on the front steps of some big church in Dallas when she was a
toddler. She’d creeped out twelve sets of foster parents before she was fourteen. And she’s literally never had a friend, other than me. All because she was born a
mara
.”

I blinked, confused. “Wait, why would her parents give her up? Weren’t they
maras,
too?”

Nash shook his head, but didn’t explain until a throng of girls in matching green–and-white letter jackets crossed between us and into the bathroom.

“It’s different for
maras
than it is for us. They are always born to human families. Every seventh daughter of a seventh daughter is a Nightmare, and so is her life, until she figures out what she is and how to feed herself without driving off the rest of humanity. What do you think
your
life would have been like without your family? Or Emma?”

I didn’t even want to imagine it. “Fine. I get it. She’s had it rough. But that’s all in the past. She can control herself now, so if she chooses not to, the consequences are all hers.” And those consequences would include whatever happened when she eventually pushed me past my limit.

“I agree,” Nash conceded, pulling his bag higher on his shoulder. “But I’m not going to send her to jail or to inner-city Fort Worth to feed. She doesn’t deserve to get hurt just because you don’t like what she eats.” After another moment’s hesitation, he exhaled and shrugged, like our argument wasn’t worth fighting anymore. “It’s not like she’s hurting anyone. She’d never take too much.”

My inner alarm flared to life inside my head, like a warbling siren. “Too much? What happens if she takes too much?”

“Kaylee, she’s not going to…”

“What happens, Nash?” I demanded, stepping closer as the girls jostled their way out of the bathroom and into the hall.

“Not that Sabine’s ever done this, but taking too much
during a nightmare can leave the sleeper sick, unconscious, or…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.

“Dead?” Chill bumps popped up on my arms at the memory of the dreams she’d woven for me.

Nash nodded. “But Sabine wouldn’t…”

“So you keep saying. But if you’re so sure she’s not dangerous, how come I don’t see you offering up
your
dreams to keep her sated?”

Nash’s irises exploded into motion, and his brows rose. “I could do that…” he began. “But I didn’t think you’d want Sabine—even her astral form—straddling me in my sleep, literally riding my dreams.”

Damn it.
My cheeks flamed. But I couldn’t help being a little relieved by the fact that he hadn’t let that happen.

“Fine. Then let’s find her something more appropriate to eat. Okay?”

He shrugged. “At least that’ll give us something to do, other than think about what we can’t have.”

I was confused for a moment, until his meaning sank in. “By ‘us,’ you mean you and Sabine, not you and me, don’t you?” Of course he did. I’d just given them another reason to be together. Maybe I should have just let her snack on my cousin’s dance team.

“Kaylee, no matter what she thinks she wants from me, what she
needs
is a friend.” Traffic had picked up in the hallway, a sure sign the warning bell would soon ring. “You’ll just have to believe me when I say her problems are bigger than a bitchy cousin, an absentee dad, and a species identity crisis.”

I blinked and felt my face flame.

“I’m sorry…” Nash said, before I could recover from shock enough to even think about responding. “But the truth is that you’ve got it pretty good right now. Good grades, good
friends, a decent place to live, and a dad who loves you so much he hardly wants to let you out of his sight. Sabine doesn’t have any of that, and I don’t have…” He swallowed, then met my gaze and continued. “I don’t have you, and without you, it feels like what I
do
have doesn’t matter.”

The sudden sentimentality and the yearning clear in his eyes threw me off and dampened my anger. I didn’t know how to respond. “I miss you, too,” I said finally, and the swirling in his irises became frantic at my admission.

And suddenly we were talking about us.

“Then what’s wrong?” Nash asked, trying to read the answer in my eyes.

“I just… I can’t help thinking about how much she must mean to you, for you to go through so much trouble for her.”

Nash let his bag slide to the floor and stepped close to me. I could feel the delicious heat from his body and had to look up to see the urgent swirling in his eyes.

“I love you, Kaylee. Nothing’s going to change that, including Sabine. But she does mean a lot to me—as a friend I thought I’d lost. Sabine and I have a history we can’t just erase, and I’m not going to drop her, like everyone else in her life has done. I don’t
want
to drop her, because when she looks at me, she doesn’t see an addict or a football player, or any of the other labels people keep trying to stick me with. She sees me. She sees what I was before, and she knows I’m trying, and that’s enough for her. I really need someone who’s okay with me the way I am right now, Kay, and I know that can’t be you. So why can’t you let it be her?”

I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to be able to give him what he wanted—what he needed—to get through this and
get back to the person he’d been when we’d met. But it wasn’t that simple.

“Because you’ll never see her coming, Nash. You think you know her, but you don’t know how far she’ll go to get what she wants, because back when you knew her, she didn’t have to chase you. She already had you. But now she has to work for what she wants, and she’s
really good
.” That was obvious, based on the fact that she’d seamlessly sewn herself back into his life and he’d accepted her like she’d never been gone.

“You’ll just be sitting there one day, alone with her, talking about someplace you went back in the day, and the next thing you know it, you’ll be looking into each other’s eyes, and it’ll feel just like it used to. She’ll kiss you—or maybe you’ll kiss her—and it’ll feel so good and familiar you won’t even remember that you should stop it. So you won’t. And then she’ll have you, and I’ll have lost you, all because I did the right thing, and she was willing to play dirty.”

Nash shook his head slowly. “That’s not going to happen, Kaylee. I wish you’d let me show you.” He leaned into me, watching me so closely he seemed to see right through my eyes and into my soul.

He bent toward me, and my lips parted, my heart and body ready to take him back right then, even while my mind screamed in protest of abandoned logic.

My pulse raced, and his lips touched mine, just the slightest warm contact. Then a familiar voice at my back drenched our rediscovered heat with an auditory bucket of ice water.

“Well, this looks promising!”

I jerked away from Nash and turned to find Emma watching us both, her Cheshire cat grin firmly in place. “It
was,
” Nash mumbled, retrieving his bag from the floor.

“Yeah, well, timing is everything, and Coach Tucker is standing right over there, waiting to bust you for the public display. I just saved you both from detention.”

I glanced over her shoulder to see that she was right. The girls’ softball coach stood in the doorway across the hall, pink detention pad ready and waiting.

“And…” Em continued, thrusting a thick, worn textbook at me. “I brought you this.”

I took my Algebra II book from her, frowning. “Why…?”

She shrugged, looking smug. “I noticed your heart-to-heart, so I stopped by your locker on the way to mine. I had a feeling you wouldn’t be done in time to get your books.”

Emma and I had known each other’s locker combinations since our freshmen year. Just for occasions like this. “And I was right,” she added, when the warning bell shrieked from the end of the hall.

In the event of a power outage, her smile could have powered the entire school for a week.

“Thanks, Em.”

“You can thank me later by translating our French homework.”

“No problem,” I said, my heart still beating too hard over the almost-kiss, and the possibility it hinted at. “I better go. See you at lunch?”