If I Die

21

Panic swelled in my chest, numbing me to the point that I could barely breathe. I couldn’t think fast enough to process what he’d just said. All I’d understood was that I was going to die because he was going to kill me. And take my soul.

“No.” I slid off of the counter, terrified to realize that my legs no longer wanted to support me—they were shaky from shock. “I am not going to die without my soul.”

“You’ll be dead—what does it matter? It’s not like you’re going to be tortured for all of eternity. You’re simply giving life to my son. Could be worse, right?”

“No. It couldn’t.” Call me crazy, but I didn’t want to be reincarnated as the hell spawn of a lust-demon. “You don’t need me,” I insisted, edging slowly along the counter, silently counting the drawers my fingers skimmed over, headed toward the last one. “I’m not the only nonhuman girl in town, you know. I’m not even the only one in the school. This soul doesn’t have to come from a girl, right?”

No, I wasn’t selling out Nash and Sabine. But if I could get rid of Beck long enough to make sure Em, Sophie and I were safe, I could call Tod and he could get Sabine and Nash somewhere safe. We could call my dad and meet up for safety in numbers. Or something.

“Oh, I know.” Beck’s brows rose in mild interest. “This town has become quite the hotbed of nonhuman activity. But neither your mara friend—Sabine is a mara, right?” he asked, and I could only nod. “Smart girl, but a little too eager. I never would have figured out her secret if she hadn’t tried to read my fears. But my point is that neither she nor your boyfriend will suffice. I haven’t figured out what Nash is, thanks to the dissimulatus, but I can tell that he isn’t pure, and neither is Sabine. They won’t work.”

“Pure?” That’s all I could manage, from the litany of questions firing from my overloaded synapses like sparks from a dying flame.

“Oooh, missed that part of the homework, did you?” Beck stepped closer, cutting off my escape. “The baby’s soul has to be pure. Untouched, in one way or another, because it comes directly from the source, without all the purification, sterilization, or whatever they do to souls that are turned in to the proper authority. And pure souls get harder and harder to find, with each passing generation.”

“They do?” Pointless question. Keep him talking…

“Nash and Sabine have been around the block a few times—I can tell that even with their psychic shields. And your boyfriend’s soul is bruised and battered from something else. Something dark that he tries to hide.”

Addiction to frost, of course. That was a soul-smudge if I’d ever heard of one.

“And like every predator, Ms. Campbell drinks from the fount of life. Even if she were virginal and blushing, you can’t just buff off a soul that survives by skimming from others.”

But I couldn’t think past Nash and Sabine, and the block they’d both been around….

“Virginity? That’s what makes a soul pure?” Oh, the irony stung. My fingers found the last drawer and I pulled it open behind me, relieved when it rolled silently.

Beck shrugged. “It’s among the qualifiers, as is a selfless desire to do what’s right, despite the personal consequences. Ironic, isn’t it, considering your soul will soon belong to a perfect little predator.”

“A virgin sacrifice? I’m your virgin sacrifice? Seriously?” I couldn’t get my hand into the drawer from my current angle. Not without him seeing.

“Oh, I’m quite serious. And grateful for how tightly you’ve clung to antiquated virtue. That couldn’t have been easy, in today’s world.”

“Stay away from me!” I stepped to the side and grabbed the butcher knife from the open drawer, surprised by how steady my two-handed grip felt. I’d said I could kill in self-defense, but I hadn’t really believed it until that moment. Until the thought of facing death with no soul scared me far beyond the loss of my own life.

“Most donors don’t provide their own sacrificial weapon, so I hope you don’t mind, but…I brought my own.” Beck reached back and pulled a small, double-bladed wavy dagger, presumably from a sheath at his back.

My heart tried to beat its way out of my chest. I couldn’t breathe.

Think, Kaylee! My dad wasn’t home, Tod was gone, Nash was messed up, Sabine was taking care of Nash, and Emma and Sophie were unconscious, being drained as we spoke. I was truly on my own, for the first time ever.

Beck came closer, and I couldn’t take my gaze off the double-bladed knife. My kitchen lights gleamed on old metal, still visibly sharp and etched with words I couldn’t read, in some language I didn’t know. Even if the shape alone hadn’t told me, the writing would have: this was no ordinary blade. It meant something.

It meant my death, and the theft of my soul.

“Shouldn’t the soul harvest wait until you have an actual baby to put it in?” I said, still clutching my own knife.

Beck shrugged, an oddly casual gesture, considering what he held and what he planned to do. “I’m willing to wait another eight or nine months. Those Marshall girls are quite a fertile brood.”

Nooo. “Traci?” I fought nausea at the thought. “How is that even possible?” He’d only met her a few hours ago, at most.

“A little luck, fortunate timing and some very eager swimmers.”

Ew, ew, ew…!

“Of course, it’s too early to tell about gender—that’ll take a few weeks at best—but it’s never too early to start planning.”

“Yes it is! It’s way too early to start planning. Won’t my soul, like, go stale or something between now and then?”

“Well, fresh is best, of course, but that’s not always possible. Which is where this comes in.” He turned the dagger over, and it reflected bright spots of light all over the room. “Handy little gadget I just acquired from one of the local hellions. Cost me an arm and leg—neither of them mine, of course—but well worth it. If I’ve learned anything from losing Lydia’s soul, it’s that a father can never be too prepared.”

“What is that?” I whispered, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

“Hellion-forged steel. So long as this is in your flesh when your heart stops beating, it’ll collect your soul and hold it for up to a year. Like supernatural Tupperware.”

Fighting encroaching panic, adrenaline burning in my veins, I edged to the right, along the counter, desperately wishing I hadn’t blocked myself into the kitchen.

He reached for me, and I lunged to the left. But there was nowhere else to go—I was cornered by the cabinet and the fridge.

Beck grabbed my left arm and jerked me forward. I screamed and shoved my knife into his side, as hard as I could.

For one moment, neither of us moved. Each ragged breath seemed to burn my throat, all the way into my lungs. Something warm and sticky flowed over my hand, and I looked down to find blood pouring from his shirt and trailing down his pants.

I gasped and let go of the knife, scrambling backward until I hit the fridge. Blood dripped from my fingers onto the floor, and even when I closed my eyes, the pattern they formed remained on the insides of my eyelids.

Then Beck laughed, and my eyes flew open again. I stared in shock as he pulled the butcher knife from his stomach and tossed it into the sink, where it clattered into the popcorn bowl. Through the hole in his shirt, I could see the two-inch gash seal itself, like it was never even there. And if not for all the blood, I would have thought I’d imagined the whole thing.

“Stainless steel isn’t much of a problem for me, either.” In the next second, he was there, pinning me to the fridge, one hand around my wrist, the other pressing the dual dagger tips into my chest, just below my rib cage. “I think we’re done with this now…” He slid one finger beneath the braided dissimulatus bracelet, tugging my arm toward the top dagger blade.

Every breath I took, every panicked beat of my adrenaline-flooded heart demanded action. Resistance. Struggle, at least. But I’d never fought anyone in my life. The closest I’d ever come was slapping Sabine, and if I was in over my head against Nash’s nightmare of an ex-girlfriend, I didn’t stand a chance against an incubus who healed his own wounds. Especially not with his knife poised to slide beneath my ribs, taking my life and my soul in one vicious stroke.

Beck lowered my arm against the dagger so that the top blade slid between my skin and the bracelet. The knife sliced through the braided fiber like it wasn’t even there.

The bracelet fell from my arm, and Beck caught it with out removing the dagger from my chest. He turned it over in his hand, studying it, eyes alight with interest. “Wonderful craftsmanship,” he said. “Where did you get this?”

I said nothing, furious tears standing in my eyes, mercifully blurring a face most of my classmates had swooned over.

He wadded up the ruined fiber and tossed it across the kitchen, where it hit the far wall and fell to the floor, too far away to continue “jamming” my psychic signature and hiding my species. Then he stared down at me from inches away, studying me critically through narrowed eyes.

“Not a harpy…” he said, with a glance at my ears. “But then, dissimulatus wouldn’t have hidden the pointy ears, would it?”

I didn’t answer, and he didn’t seem to care.

“Not a mara…” he said, studying my eyes, no doubt noting my complete inability to read and inspire fear with them. “Not alluring enough to be a siren, though that was my guess for Emma, and you’re definitely not a succubus… Which only leaves a couple of possibilities, considering your human appearance and your psychic signature. So, maybe…bean sidhe?”

My eyes must have given it away, because he nodded decisively, eyes flashing in triumph. “Does it matter?”

“Only to verify that you are not, in fact, human. Though I must admit, I am curious—I’ve never met a bean sidhe before.” Beck stared down at me almost longingly. “It’s a shame that getting to know you properly would smudge that shiny purity. Bean sidhes are so rare, and you’re not bad-looking…”

Evil and flattering. “Wow, who wouldn’t want to be murdered by such a charmer?” I said, my mind racing along with my heart as he began to lightly trace the bottom of my rib cage with the lower blade.

Beck laughed, and his knife hand jiggled. I gasped as the point of the blade poked me through my shirt, almost firm enough to break my skin. “I like your spirit. But letting you go would be an unconscionable waste of resources.”

“So you’re just going to stab me in the kitchen?” I demanded, mining my terror for remaining fiery threads of anger to keep panic at bay. “Shouldn’t you at least try to make it look like an accident? I mean, this whole stabbing thing sounds messy, and you’ll never get all that blood out of the tile grout.”

“I’ll be done with your body before it even cools, and mine is the only blood I plan to dispose of.” But he glanced around the kitchen, as if he were truly seeing it for the first time. “However, now that you mention it, the kitchen does seem a bit…cold. Why don’t we take this to your room? You’d like to die in your own bed, right?” he said, and chill bumps burst to life on every inch of my body. “Then your dad can find you, and it’ll look like a crime of passion. Maybe they’ll even blame Nash. Didn’t the two of you have a big, public fight the other day?”

Oh, nooo. Beck was right. The whole world had seen me kiss someone else, then seen Nash stomp out. Em and Sabine would know he hadn’t killed me, and our families would believe him, obviously. But if he couldn’t stay off frost, the police would know he was messed up on something, and even if they couldn’t pin down the actual substance, he’d look unstable, at the least.

“No.” I felt my eyes go wide, but Beck only grinned in return, clearly enjoying my misery. “Please, no, Mr. Beck. Nash didn’t do anything to you. You can’t let people blame this on him.”

“Oh, I think that wraps things up nicely, and it’ll throw the school into fear and chaos, which should keep the local hellion population happy.” He grabbed my arm in his free hand and before I could blink, he’d spun me around, the twin knife points now poking into my back, on either side of my spine. “It never hurts to pay tribute to the local hellions, if you ever plan to revisit their haunts.”

“You’re paying tribute to Avari?” Terror tightened my throat, and I could barely force the words out, but I had to keep talking. Keep trying to distract him long enough to…do something drastic.

“You know him?” Beck pushed me forward, and I didn’t dare resist, with death so close at my back. Where the hell was my dad? Or Tod?

I held my arms stiff at my side, wondering if I could grab a makeshift weapon before he could shove the knife through my spine… “I know he’s going to be pissed if I die and he doesn’t get my soul.”

On the dusty mirror over the couch, Beck’s brows rose, and he glanced at me in sudden interest. “Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m planning to leave him a tribute, huh?”

Crap. Had I just given him another reason to blame Nash?

“No!”

“Shh. I don’t think you want to wake Emma and your cousin.” Beck pushed me across the living room and into the hall, where I took one last look at my best friend, still passed out on the couch, before he shoved me toward my room.

“Sit.” Beck nodded at my desk chair as he marched me through my own door—it hadn’t been hard to find in a two-bedroom house.

Huh? But I sat, the knife now pressed into my side, only more confused when he leaned over me to open my laptop. I hadn’t shut it down when I closed it, so it flared to life instantly, my email inbox greeting me with unnerving normalcy while I sat with a mystical two-bladed knife pressing into my ribs.

“You’re going to send Nash an email, begging him not to come over. Tell him to calm down, and you’ll talk to him tomorrow, at school, but you’re not going to let him in while he’s this angry.”

My teeth clenched together so hard my jaws ached in protest, and I had to force my mouth open to speak. “No.”

“Do it. It has to be in your own words, with only your prints on the keyboard.”

I craned my neck to look up at him, wishing he could see the fury surely raging in my irises. “You want to kill me? Fine. Kill me. But I’m not going to help you frame Nash.”

Beck leaned so close I felt his breath on my ear. The tip of one blade bit into my skin. I gasped at the sharp pain and couldn’t help wondering how much worse the real thing would hurt. “You’re going to do it, or when I’m done with you, I’ll take Emma and your cousin back to Emma’s house and we’ll have a little fun while your soulless corpse cools.”

A bitter, black pain settled into my stomach, and threatened to swallow me whole. “Don’t touch them,” I whispered furiously, with all the volume I could manage.

“You have my word that I won’t, if you do exactly what I tell you to.”

Hellions can’t lie; did the same thing go for incubi? I didn’t know, but I had no doubt that if I didn’t write the email, he’d do to Em and Sophie what he’d done to Danica. Or maybe what he’d done to her mother.

He was making me choose. Nash or Emma and Sophie.

If I wrote the letter and the police found it—no doubt Beck would leave it open on my laptop—Nash would probably spend the rest of his life on the run. As would Harmony, because she and Tod wouldn’t let him go down for my murder.

But if I didn’t write the letter, Emma and Sophie would die, either from the energy Beck would drain from them, or to give his demon children life.

I couldn’t let them die. Not again. Not because of me. So I started typing.

Tears blurred out the screen. I blinked, and they trailed down my cheeks in hot rivers of my own terror, and anger, and remorse. But I did what I had to do. I begged Nash not to come over. I promised I’d talk to him at school, but not until he calmed down. And at the end of the letter, I told him he scared me when he was like “this,” as Beck ordered. Tears dripped on the keyboard when I typed my name at the bottom of the screen. More dripped from my chin while my pointer hovered over the send button.

“Do it,” Beck whispered into my ear, and I could hear his breathing escalate, like he was turned on by what he was making me do. By the pain and chaos he was creating. “Do it, or I swear they will die screaming in both pleasure and pain. Tonight.”

My entire body shook with sobs. But I clicked Send. And ruined everything, for everyone I’d ever loved.

“Good girl…” Beck crooned, pulling up on my arm until I had to stand. My legs almost refused to hold me. Shock settled over me, blurring things. Numbing me. I couldn’t think through the fog swirling in my head, like my brain had given up and crossed over into hell without the rest of me.

“Sit down,” he murmured, and I only realized I’d sat on the bed when I felt the mattress sink beneath me.

I may as well have killed him. I’d ended Nash’s life just the same, with the press of a few buttons and a single click of the mouse.

“Here, let’s take your shirt off—just a little scene setting. Small-town cops usually need it spoon-fed to them, and we don’t want to leave any doubts.”

Would Tod forgive me? He’d never know why I did it, but he’d know it wasn’t true. Would he hate me for eternity for what I’d done to his brother? To his mother?

I barely felt Beck unbutton my shirt, but vaguely I was aware that he did it one-handed, because those twin points of pain—promise of an end to this new misery—never left my side.

“Lie down now…” There was gentle pressure on my bare shoulder, and the bed rose up to meet me. I was drowning in guilt, so cold and bitter I could no longer feel the fear I’d been living with for the past five days. Fear didn’t matter anymore—I was going to die whether I was afraid of death or not.

The only things that mattered were the people I loved, and I’d just betrayed every last one of them. My life was a series of small lies, but my death was the biggest one of all.

Beck leaned over me, his head backlit by the light on my ceiling. His cheek brushed mine, an intimate invasion I hated, even on the verge of death. “This’ll only hurt for a minute,” he promised. “And since you’re not going to make a last confession, maybe I should.” He sat up then, and I forced my gaze to focus on the cruelty and joy shining in his eyes. “I’m still going to take Emma and your cousin. They’ll die screaming my name.”

I blinked, and my room roared back into focus, so sharp and crisp my eyes burned. Rage blazed through me, igniting my every nerve ending, sparking in every synapse. And suddenly I realized I had nothing left to lose.

“The hell they will.” I smacked his knife hand away from my chest, and one blade sliced across my left palm. Blood flowed, and the pain was sharp, but I’d caught him by surprise. I sat up, my right fist already flying, and through sheer luck, the blow actually glanced across his chin.

Stunned, Beck reached for me. I dropped beneath his grasping hand and rolled off the other side of the mattress, reaching for Nash’s bat. But it had rolled too far under the bed, and Beck was there in an instant, my incompetent fighting skills no match for his supernatural speed. He threw me against the wall, one hand around my neck. Gagging, I tried to shove my knee into his groin, but he blocked the blow with the fist still clenching the knife.

“No…” I croaked, desperate for a breath—just enough to wail my way into the Netherworld. Beck would follow me, but at least then I’d be running, and I could lure him away from Emma and Sophie. At least then, I’d have a chance. But Beck only tightened his grip.

“You stupid little bitch,” he spat, swinging me away from the wall by my throat. “You couldn’t just play nice, could you? I was going to make it fast—both blades straight through your heart. But now I think I’ll let you suffer.”

My vision darkened. My throat burned. My terror knew no limits.

Beck pushed me backward, his fingers flexing around my neck until my ears rang. The backs of my legs hit the mattress, and he kept pushing until I had to sit, clawing at his fingers with both hands.

He shoved again, and I fell onto my back with him straddling me. But finally his grip on my throat loosened, just enough for me to suck in a shallow, unsatisfying breath—not enough to scream, just enough to live. The fresh air burned all the way down, and Beck clucked his tongue. “Can’t let you suffocate,” he said, raising the double-bladed knife for me to see, twisting it so that the light overhead glinted off every shiny surface. “You have to die by hellion-forged steel, or you’re no good to me.” The knife disappeared from sight, and an instant later I felt both tips press into my skin, in the center of my stomach. “Any last words?”

He relaxed his grip on my throat a little more, just enough that I could croak out a couple of words. And a couple was all I had for him.

“Fuck—” I gasped, ignoring the pain “—you.”

“Well said.” His right arm flexed. My pulse roared in my ears. And the blades sank slowly, steadily into my stomach, bringing with them a fiery pain like nothing I’d never felt.

I gasped, and his hand fell away from my throat. My world shrank to encompass nothing but the agony spreading out from my center, spilling from my flesh in warm rivers of blood.

Beck crawled onto the bed next to me, on his knees, watching in fascination as I blinked up at him. My hands shook as they reached for my stomach, hovering over both the devastating damage and the hated instrument.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, eyes shining with eagerness.

I pulled in an agonizing breath and licked my lips with a tongue that was suddenly dry. “You tell me.” Then I grabbed the hilt and pulled, screaming as the blades slid free of my flesh. And with the last of my strength, I shoved the dual dagger up beneath his rib cage, straight into his heart.