Before I Wake

14

“SOPHIE.” I KNELT in front of my cousin and Luca on the spring grass, but she wouldn’t look at me. She wouldn’t look at anything. She just clung to Luca, staring at the letter jacket that had remained after Meredith disappeared. Her name was on the back and several dance-themed pins were attached to the green letter E. “Sophie, I need you to focus.”

Finally she blinked and started to look up. But then her gaze snagged on the bloody dagger still in my hand—I couldn’t put it in my backpack until I’d cleaned it—and she turned away from me and buried her face in Luca’s shoulder.

“Was that him?” she said, her words muffled by the material of his shirt. “Was that the hellion we saw in the Netherworld?”

I thought I’d heard her wrong until Luca answered, stroking her hair with one hand. “I couldn’t swear to it, but my guess would be yes.”

“What? When were you two in the Netherworld?” I asked, and Luca shrugged.

“The day we met. That’s kind of…how we got together. She’s stronger than you think she is, you know.”

I certainly hoped he was right. “I’m gonna want to hear that story when things calm down. But for now, Sophie, Sabine’s going to take you to Nash’s house and I want you to stay there with her. We’ll tell the school you went home sick.” Nash could make them believe it without question, at least long enough to excuse her absence, and Avari would be less likely to look for her at his house than at mine. “I’ll drive your car home later. Okay?”

Sophie shook her head sluggishly, but her eyes were clearer. “I’m not going anywhere with her.” Her gaze flicked up to where Sabine watched her over my shoulder.

“You’re not my idea of a good time, either,” Sabine snapped. Then she glared at the rest of us. “You guys need me here.”

“No, I need you to stay with Sophie in case Avari goes after her.” I needed someone who could fight, if necessary. Luca had volunteered for the job, but we needed him to take us to the corpse in the parking lot.

“If she makes one snotty comment, you won’t have to worry about the hellion killing her. I’ll save him the trouble.”

“Sabine!” I stood and turned on her, but she only shrugged and held her ground, not the least bit intimidated by the bloody dagger in my hand or the fact that I’d just killed Avari. Again.

“I’m a Nightmare, Kaylee. You want me to scare someone to death? I’m your girl. But I’m not cut out to be a babysitter.”

“Just don’t let anyone kill her. It’s not that complicated,” I snapped, and Sabine scowled at me. “Look, lunch will be over in a few minutes, and I need to get her out of here. Just take her to Nash’s, and I’ll be there as soon as I can. If you’re really my friend, you’ll do this.”

The mara’s scowl deepened. “You know, you were much less work as a nemesis.” Then she stomped off toward her car with my cousin in tow, and too late I realized I should have specified that she wasn’t allowed to feed on my traumatized cousin’s fears.

While Nash went to the office to influence the attendance secretary into signing Sophie out, I blinked into the teachers’ restroom and locked the door, then cleaned the dagger and put on the letter jacket Nash had lent me to cover the blood on my shirt.

At my current rate of consumption, I wouldn’t have a shirt left in my closet by the end of the next week.

When I was fit to be seen again—just in case—I met Nash in the parking lot and Luca led us to a dusty blue compact car, where Brant Williams was slumped behind the wheel.

“No!” Nash reached for the door handle, but I stepped in front of him and refused to move when he tried to reach around me. “Kaylee, get the hell out of my way!” He and Brant had been teammates in both football and baseball since Nash transferred to Eastlake. There were tears in his eyes, and even more half-choking his voice, but I stood my ground.

“No fingerprints, Nash.”

“I’ll say I found him,” he insisted. “They’d expect me to try to help him.”

“You can’t be the one to find him.” I waited for understanding to surface among the agonized twists of brown and green in his eyes, and when it didn’t, I said what I’d been trying to avoid. “You were arrested as a suspect in a double homicide a month ago. You don’t need to pop up on the police department’s radar again this soon. The line between witness and suspect can get really thin.”

Nash flinched like I’d slapped him, and he couldn’t quite hide the twist of resentment in his eyes. It was my fault he was on their radar in the first place. “How long am I going to be paying for the fact that I didn’t kill you, Kaylee?”

Before I could even make sense of what he was asking, the bell rang, and all three of us jumped, and when I tried to make Nash go to class, he refused. I couldn’t really blame him.

A glance into Brant’s car told me the doors were locked and he wasn’t breathing, but I blinked into the car to check his pulse just in case, careful not to touch anything else.

He was dead. And I wanted to throw up. We’d never been close, but I’d known Brant since the third grade. He was one of the basketball team captains and one of few Eastlake baseball players other than Nash that I’d ever spoken to outside of school. He was a nice guy. And now he was dead. Because of me.

My hands were shaking when I rejoined Luca and Nash next to the car. “I’m sorry, Luca, but you have to find the body.” I couldn’t do it. My shirt was covered in blood.

Luca looked sick. But he nodded. “What do I say about why I was in the parking lot?”

“Do you have a license?” I asked, and he nodded again. “Tell them you told Sophie you’d drive her car home, and you found Brant just like this.”

“Okay.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, ready to call either 9-1-1 or the front office. I didn’t ask which.

“You sure you’re good with this?” Nash asked, his voice grim, his forehead deeply furrowed.

“Yeah.” Luca started pressing buttons. “You two get out of here. And call my aunt.”

I promised him I would, then I took my backpack in one hand and Nash’s hand in the other and blinked us into his living room, after a stop behind a convenience store about halfway between.

Sophie sat on the couch in tears, and she nearly jumped out of her own skin when we appeared right in front of her. “Where’s Luca?” she said, frowning when he didn’t appear with us.

“At school discovering Brant’s body.”

“Brant Williams?” More tears filled her eyes. “Brant’s dead? How? What happened?”

“That hellion you saw? That’s Avari. He tortures and kills people for fun. Which is why he pretended to be Meredith—to hurt you.” I couldn’t tell how much of that she’d actually heard over her own sniffling, but she had enough to process already. “Where’s Sabine?” I asked when a cursory glance into the kitchen revealed no disgruntled mara.

“Back there somewhere.” Sophie gave a tearful glance down the hall, and I turned to look just as Sabine stepped out of Nash’s room with a half-full bottle of tequila.

“Hell, no.” I grabbed for the bottle as she stepped into the living room, but she pulled it out of my reach. “The last thing we need right now is a drunk Nightmare.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, your cousin’s a bit of a delicate flower.” Sabine gestured toward Sophie, who still sat curled up on one end of the couch, in spite of Nash’s best efforts to comfort her. “So you can give her a shot, and hope that makes her a little easier for me to stomach, or you can give me a shot and hope that makes her a little easier for me to stomach. Otherwise, I’m outta here.” The mara shrugged. “Your call.”

I sighed, digging my phone out of my pocket. “Fine. Give her a shot. One.” Was that really any worse than the pills her mother had given her when Meredith died the first time? At least you don’t need a prescription for tequila.

Sabine produced a shot glass from her pocket, and while I texted Tod, I tried not to worry about the fact that Nash had a bottle of tequila in his room and Sabine carried a shot glass in her pocket.

@ Nash’s. Can u come?

Tod appeared in front of the television just as Sabine handed the full shot glass to Sophie. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing new,” Sabine said as my cousin took a sip from the shot glass, then grimaced. “Just getting a cheerleader drunk.”

“She’s not a cheerleader. She’s a dancer,” I said, sliding my phone into my pocket.

“Wow. Look how much of a damn I don’t give.” Sabine pushed the shot glass back at Sophie. “What, you’re too precious to drink it straight?” She twisted to glance around the room. “Anybody got some lime and a cute little paper umbrella?”

“I’ll get her a chaser.” Nash headed for the kitchen without a word to his brother.

Tod glanced at me with one brow raised, and I sighed. “Avari showed up at school as Meredith Cole, another one of the girls Marg killed for Belphegore. Meredith was on Sophie’s dance team, and we all saw her die last September.”

“Seeing a classmate return from the dead would freak anyone out,” Tod said as we both watched Sabine try to get my cousin to drink.

“Yeah, but he made an effort to upset Sophie specifically. I’m worried he’ll go after her next.”

“What’s with the jacket?” Tod asked as Nash crossed the room with a glass of soda.

“Oh.” I’d forgotten I was wearing it. “I ruined another shirt.” I unsnapped Nash’s letter jacket and pulled it off, then laid it over the arm of the nearest chair.

“You know, there’s a much easier, simpler way to sedate her,” Tod whispered as Sophie downed half the shot, then gulped the soda Nash handed her.

I rolled my eyes. “No, you can’t knock her out. She’s traumatized, but she’ll come around.” She’d evidently survived a trip to the Netherworld, which told me that as upset as she was about Meredith, Luca was right. She was stronger than she looked. She had to be. “I have to text Madeline.” I sank into the chair, typing with both thumbs, and Tod sat on the arm opposite Nash’s jacket.

“I get that that was a hellion.” Sophie leaned back on the couch, clutching the glass of soda as she stared at the shot glass standing empty on the coffee table. “But why did it look like Meredith? Why did it sound like Meredith?”

Sabine picked up the shot glass and refilled it. “It looked and sounded like your dancing chick because it was wearing her soul like a raincoat.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” I insisted as Sabine tossed the shot back.

“Sure we do. But on the bright side, Kaylee freed her soul, so she’s no longer being tortured in the Netherworld.”

“Tortured?” Sophie’s chin quivered, and Sabine nodded, pouring another shot.

I stood and grabbed the bottle from her, and tequila splashed onto the coffee table. “We can’t afford for you to be at less than your best right now.”

“Kaylee, we just watched you stab the undead cheerleader who threatened to drag your cousin into hell. I think we could all use a drink.”

“You just had one.”

Sophie was sniffling again. “Why would a demon want to torture Meredith? Or send me to hell?”

“Can’t imagine,” Tod said. “Got any sins you wanna confess? Something in the vein of narcissism and cruelty?”

“It’s not hell,” I said, elbowing him. “It’s the Netherworld.”

“What’s the difference?” Sophie wiped her nose, glaring at Tod.

Sophie’s question was rhetorical, but Sabine huffed in reply anyway. “Hellions vacation in hell to cool off.”

“Not helping, Bina.” Nash sank onto the couch next to Sophie and took her hand. “It has nothing to do with you, personally. This particular hellion has been around for thousands of years and has been directly or indirectly responsible for more deaths than any of us can even imagine. His breath killed Doug Fuller. He killed Mr. Wesner, Mr. Wells, and Mrs. Bennigan at school. This afternoon, he killed Brant Williams in his own car. And even if he didn’t personally kill Scott, he’s ultimately responsible for his death.”

“Why?” Snot dripped from Sophie’s nose and she wiped it with the back of one hand. “He tried to lock me up in the Netherworld and now he’s killing everyone I know. Why is this happening to me?”

Sabine rolled her eyes. “Because you’re the beautiful fairy princess and the evil Lord of Hell can’t secure his kingdom until he’s feasted from your flesh and slaked his thirst with tea brewed from the ashes of your incinerated bones.”

Nash groaned, and Tod laughed out loud.

Sophie hiccuped and turned to me, frowning. “Is she serious?”

“This isn’t happening to you, princess,” Sabine snapped before I could do more than shake my head. “This is happening to us. While you spent the past few months prancing around in ignorant bliss, we were all being possessed, or kidnapped, or stalked by this hellion. So dry your tears and take off the tiara, because this is a call to arms, not a pity party. You’re not going to find any sympathy here.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I said. “She’s still new to the horror.” And the truth was that she’d been involved in most of this from the very beginning. She just hadn’t known it.

“I’m only showing her the bigger picture,” Sabine insisted. “She needs to understand what’s really going on.”

“I understand.” Sophie reached for the shot glass and held it out to me with one shaky hand. “So I’m gonna need one more of those.”

I hesitated, until I noticed that Sophie’s eyes were already glazed with shock. “Fine.” I poured one more shot for her, then screwed the lid on the bottle. “But that’s it. I’m not putting my life in the hands of a bunch of drunks.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket so I handed the bottle to Tod and dug my cell out so I could answer it. “Hello?”

Luca’s number was on the screen, but I couldn’t understand whatever he whispered into my ear, so I had to shush the rest of the room so I could hear him. “Sorry. I’m in the office, so this’ll have to be quick. Is Tod with you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

His voice dropped even lower, and I glared at Sabine, who was still talking to Nash. “There’s someone at your house. Someone like you, and it’s not Aunt Madeline. If it’s not Tod, either, my guess is Thane… .”

“Shit. Okay, thanks.”

“How’s Sophie?” he asked, before I could hang up.

“Shaken. But she’s dealing.”

“What’s up?” Tod asked as I pocketed my phone.

“Luca says there’s a walking corpse at my house. His guess is Thane.”

I stood already heading for the door before I remembered that I hadn’t driven, and that walking would be a ridiculous waste of time. I held my hand out and Tod took it. “Ready?”

Nash stood. “I’m coming, too.”

“No way.” Sabine scowled. “You are not leaving me here with Ballerina Barbie.”

“Call her dad,” I said. “But if she’s drunk when he gets here, you can explain how that happened.” I glanced at Nash, holding up the half-empty bottle. “Any more where this came from?”

He shook his head. “You still have my whiskey.” Because he’d left it at my house the night he showed up on my porch, and my dad had confiscated it.

“Good. Let’s go.” I took Nash’s hand and glanced at Tod. “See you on the other side.” Then I blinked us both into my living room, which I could only do over short distances. Fortunately, Nash only lived a few blocks from my house.

Tod appeared in my living room as I let go of Nash’s hand and set the tequila on the coffee table.

“Good thinking,” Thane said, and I whirled around to find him standing in my kitchen, holding an open bag of my dad’s favorite tortilla chips. “I was getting thirsty.” His empty white eyes made it impossible to tell what he was looking at, and my skin crawled as I stared at him.

Nash and Tod started across the living room toward him, and their combined rage made the hairs on my arms stand up. In that moment, watching them face a mutual enemy, I caught a glimpse of just how powerful a force they could be together—if I could keep Nash busy fighting someone other than his brother.

But Thane held up one hand. “I’ll be gone before you get halfway here, and then you’ll never know what I came to tell you.”

“Did Avari send you?” Tod stopped and hauled his brother back by one arm when Nash didn’t stop on his own. Nash jerked free of his grip, but stayed put.

“Where’s the other one? That feisty little mara?” Thane said. “Is she going to jump out of a closet somewhere and yell ‘boo’?”

“Are you going to deliver whatever threat Avari sent you with, or are we going to have to start guessing?” Tod said. “I gotta warn you, I’m insanely good at charades.”

“There’s no message. I’m jumping ship. But I need your help.”

“Why the hell would we help you?” Nash demanded as I edged around them for a better view.

“Because I know what Avari’s doing, and how he’s doing it.”

“And, what?” I said. “You’ve reached the limit on how many secret evil schemes you can keep a lid on? We’re supposed to trust you because you conveniently show up with answers when we need them most?”

Thane set the chip bag on the counter behind him and shrugged. “You’re going to trust me because I’m all you have. Unless you want Avari to keep picking off your friends and family one by one until he gets what he wants.”

“Start talking,” Nash growled, but Thane shook his head slowly.

“I’m not saying a word until you swear you’ll help me.”

“Help you with what?” I asked, arms crossed over my chest. I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t just playing another of Avari’s games. But I believed that he hated the hellion as much as we did, and that gave us a common goal. Potentially.

“He has my soul. I want you to swear you’ll get it back for me.”

“Why would you trust us to do that?” Nash said.

“I wouldn’t trust the two of you to hit the pot when you piss. I trust her.” He pointed at me, and they both turned to follow his blank-eyed gaze. “If she gives me her word, she won’t break it.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because you’re trustworthy and you have a hero complex. That’s why Avari wants you—you’re everything he’s not, and he doesn’t understand that. You protect people with lies, and he manipulates people with the truth. You keep saving those who’ve hurt you—” his empty eyes rolled in Nash’s direction briefly “—and he hurts people who’ve done him no harm. Avari wants to dissect you, physically, mentally, emotionally.” Thane shrugged. “I just want to offer you a fair exchange of services. My information for your help getting my soul back.”

“He’s lying, Kay,” Nash said, fists clenched at his sides. “Hellions can’t lie, but we all know reapers can.”

“Careful, pot,” Tod said. “Someone might notice your resemblance to the kettle.”

Tod only shrugged when I tried to scold him with a frown. “He started it. As for this clown—” he glanced at Thane, then back at me “—I’m with you, whatever you decide.”

I didn’t want to rescue Thane—or his soul—from Avari. There was a large part of me that thought he deserved to be tortured for all of eternity for all the poor souls he’d condemned to that very fate. And for killing my mother when it wasn’t her time. But Thane was our best shot—maybe our only shot—at stopping Avari from going through everyone I knew or loved to get to me.

“Okay,” I said at last, and Nash groaned. “I’ll help get your soul away from Avari. But there are conditions. The first is that you have to help yourself, too. I’m not doing it on my own.”

Thane nodded eagerly. Maybe a little too eagerly.

“Second, you tell us everything you know first. Right now.”

He shook his head and leaned against the end of the short kitchen peninsula. “That’s not how this works. You give a little, I give a little.”

“I can’t give you a little of your soul, and I’m not going after it until I know exactly what’ll be waiting for me. So start talking now, or we’ll take our chances without you.”

Thane’s brows rose. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the grave.”

I shrugged, afraid to admit that I wasn’t sure I’d woken up yet at all—most of the past month felt like a nightmare. “What’s it gonna be?”

“Fine. But I have a couple of conditions of my own.”

“Hell, no. You don’t get to make up the rules,” Nash said.

Thane ignored him. “First of all, keep your assorted collection of authority figures out of it. Levi will kill me the minute he sees me, and I don’t trust Madeline. There’s something in her eyes…”

“I believe that’s integrity and dedication to her job.”

“Yeah. It’s disturbing.”

“What about my dad?”

“I don’t know how much help he’ll be in the Netherworld, but sure, bring him along.” Thane shrugged. “If he gets hurt, that’s all on you.”

I had no plans to take my dad to the Netherworld, but he and my uncle could be helpful on this side of the world barrier. If I could keep them from tattling to Levi and Madeline.

“Second—and you’re gonna want to pay attention here,” Thane said. “If you go back on your word and I’m stuck with that hellion bastard, I will help him torture and kill everyone you’ve ever even said hello to.”

“That’s a big threat,” Tod said. “Someone’s compensating for inadequacies.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“No.” I sank onto the arm of my father’s recliner. “We have an agreement and a bunch of pointless threats. If you’re going to talk, start now. I have no idea how long it’ll be before Madeline checks in.”

“So, should I just make myself at home, like company?” Thane started toward the living room, but Nash stepped into his path.

“No, you should stay right where you are, or my estranged brother and I will settle our differences by seeing who can break more of your bones.”

Tod glanced at him, brows raised. “You want to settle our differences?”

Nash frowned. “No, I want to break every bone in his body, and I didn’t think you’d let me do it alone.”

Tod nodded. “Good call.”

Thane glanced at me, brows arched over empty white eyes. “Are they always like this?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes they’re less subtle. Let’s get this thing moving.”

Thane nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“Who killed Scott?” Nash demanded. That wasn’t where I would have started, but I couldn’t blame him for jumping in, and honestly, I was glad to see him participating in something other than his own self-destruction.

“That was me, but I was under orders,” Thane said, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed over his chest. Like he was comfortable. “Avari needed a form that would traumatize her, and psycho-boy fit the bill.”

“How’d he know we’d go see Scott?” I asked.

“He didn’t. He was going to bring the party to you, but Scott died with no shoes on, so Avari went looking for some in his room. Then you two showed up and saved him the trouble of hunting you down.”

“So it was a possession, then? Is that why he needed the shoes?” I asked.

“No. Hellions can’t possess the dead. Avari figured out how to cross over. But that comes with both requirements and limitations.”

“Requirements?” Tod said.

“Souls,” Thane said. “A pair of them, specifically. One is to get him through the fog, like a ticket for a train ride. The other provides his physical form on the human plane. But here’s the catch. That first one—the one that lets him cross over—has to be a resurrected soul.”