My Soul to Keep

9

“DID SCOTT SAY WHERE he got it?” I asked, bending to dip my paintbrush in white latex paint.

Nash had roped me into helping with the carnival booths after school to keep him company, so I’d pulled the same thing on Emma. Which was how she, Nash, Doug, and I wound up in the school gym at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, slopping white paint and fake snowflakes on booths made of plywood and construction staples. Along with twenty other bright-’n’-shiny cheerleaders, basketball players, and student-council members I’d rarely ever spoken to.

“He said he got it from Fuller again.”

I sank to my knees on the canvas drop cloth protecting the gym floor from my subpar artistic efforts and glanced across the basketball court to where Emma and Doug were working on the ice-carving registration booth. And by “working,” I mean making out, half-hidden by their booth, with dried-stiff brushes dangling from paint-speckled hands.

“I assume he got it from that same guy? Everett?”

Nash shrugged and used his brush to smooth out a drip on my side of the hot-chocolate stand. “I guess.”

“We have to find this guy. Can you get Doug to introduce you? Maybe pretend you want to buy some from him?”

He frowned, critically eyeing the giant marshmallows he was painting on top of a cutout of a mug full of brown liquid. “But then wouldn’t I have to sample the product?”

Crap. “Probably. Can’t you just fake it?” I sighed, already rethinking my request. Did I want to put Nash in that kind of danger? What if he couldn’t fake it and had to take a hit? What if he accidentally inhaled Demon’s Breath? Either way, his exposure would be my fault. And I couldn’t live with that.

“You know what? Never mind. I’ll do it.” I stood, trailing my damp brush along the corner of the booth, where I’d evidently left streaks on my first pass. “I’ll meet him, and pretend to sample the product, and find out where he gets it. And whether he knows what it really is—”

“No,” Nash said. I turned around, and he was so close onlookers would think he was either challenging me to a dance battle, or staring down my shirt.

“Why? Because I’m a girl?”

His irises churned with…panic? But as I watched, he made them go still—obviously an effort—and there was nothing left to read on his face but the angry line of his jaw. “Because you don’t seem to understand that the world isn’t yours to save. This isn’t a game, Kaylee. You’re not an undercover cop. You’re just a little girl who’s in way over her head, and I’m not going to let you get yourself killed over some stupid hero complex.”

I stepped back and my cheeks flamed like I’d been slapped. “I’m not a little girl.” And he’d never spoken to me like that. Not ever. “I don’t know what your problem is, but unless you pay the rent on my house or wear the black suspenders at the Cinemark, you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“Or what? You’ll slop paint all over my jacket?” Nash lighthearted grin irritated me.

“Stop smiling. I’m serious,” I insisted.

“Yeah. I can see you’re fully prepared to deface my letter jacket. Which is exactly why you should let me do this. A Netherworld drug dealer isn’t going to be scared of your drippy paintbrush.” He tried to take it from me, and when I refused to relinquish the handle, Nash wrapped his hand around both my fingers and the paintbrush and slowly pushed my arm down to my side. “Just let me do this. I don’t want you anywhere near Everett.” He let me see truth in his eyes, but that did little to placate me. You don’t have to be a jock to know when you’re being sidelined.

“What if I don’t want you near him, either?”

He shrugged. “I’m bigger than you, and I’ve been taking hits from guys bigger than me for the past six years.”

“Well, that experience should come in handy, so long as you’re both wearing football helmets and pads. Assuming Everett’s even human.”

“So long as he’s not a hellion, I can take him if I need to.” And hellions couldn’t cross over, so the chances of that were good. “And Fuller will be there, too.”

Though I had serious doubts that Doug would choose Nash over his dealer if he ever wanted to see another hit of frost.

“Fine,” I relented. Nash kissed my nose, then let go of my hand, and I glanced up to find Emma dipping her brush into her paint can, grinning at Doug like he’d invented kissing. My stomach churned at the very real possibility that he wasn’t what made her feel so good. “Look, they came up for air. This is your shot.”

Nash laid his brush carefully across the top of his open paint can. “Be right back.” He walked across the gym, exchanging greetings with friends and teammates, and I dipped my brush into the can, wishing I could read lips. I was about to put the finishing touches on the top of our booth when sharp words from the hallway caught my attention through the open doorway several feet to my left.

“Get your ass back in there. Now.” It was Sophie, her voice low and unusually soft with anger. I’d never heard her so mad, and she got mad at me a lot. “You are not going to bail on us again.”

“I’ll be right back,” Scott snapped, and I knew from the rough edge to his voice that he’d come down from his high. And was getting desperate to regain it. “I have to get something from my football.”

“What?” Sophie snapped, and I edged closer to the door, backing along the canvas until I could see Scott, though my cousin remained out of sight.

“I mean my car.” Scott rubbed his forehead in frustration.

“I can’t think with all that noise!” He glared toward the gym, and I ducked out of sight, glancing around the gym at the other volunteers. Yes, everyone was chatting while they worked, but the gym was huge, and it was nowhere near capacity. Nor were we very loud.

Scott was hearing things. Auditory hallucinations? Not good…

“I need to get something…” he mumbled, and I risked scooting forward again to see him staring at the wall to his left, as if something were about to burst through it.

“Yeah, and then you won’t come back,” Sophie spat. “You promised you’d help, and every time you walk out, I look like an idiot in front of my friends.”

“Then you need better friends. Or maybe you’re not the only one clawing to be crowned Ice Bitch this year.”

“It’s Snow Queen. And what good would it do me to win if no one’s there to escort me?”

Nash had reached Doug and Emma by then, and had drawn Doug closer to the bleachers for their private chat, and it felt weird to be watching them while I eavesdropped on my cousin and her boyfriend.

“I said I’d be there.” Scott spoke through gritted teeth that time, and my pulse jumped at the intensity of the anger in his voice.

“You also said you’d help us all week, and this is the first time you’ve shown up. And now you’re ready to bail.”

His sneakers squeaked on the tile as he turned and stomped away from her, and her flats clacked after him. “Damn it, Sophie, get off!” Then I heard a thud, and a stunned oof from Sophie. I whirled back toward the hall to see her sitting on the floor, propped up by both hands, legs splayed in front of her.

“You ass!” she hissed, cloth rustling as she picked herself up.

He exhaled slowly, looking both sorry and impatient. “You just…you never know when to quit.”

“That sounds like your problem,” she snapped, and I almost applauded, surprised to find that for once she and I agreed. And I was just as surprised that she’d picked up on his problem. But I shouldn’t have been. She was mean, not stupid.

“You’re acting like more of a freak than Kaylee.”

And…there she’d lost me again.

“Whatever.” Scott stomped off, his left arm twitching violently, and just before he passed out of my line of sight, he glanced over his shoulder one last time, not at Sophie, but at the row of lockers to his right. As if he saw something that no one else could see.

Sophie straightened her blouse and I hurried back to the hot-chocolate stand as Nash started across the basketball court toward me. An instant later, Sophie clacked into the gym—and stopped short when her gaze met mine.

Her face paled when she realized I’d heard their argument. Then, in true Sophie style, her critical eye took me in from head to toe and a sneer formed on her perfectly made-up mouth. “You’re dripping on your shoe,” she said, then stomped off to join a group of dancers gathered around the temporary Snow Queen stage with handfuls of fake snow.

“What’s wrong with her?” Nash bent to pick up his paintbrush.

“I heard her fighting with Scott. Who just left for another huff from his balloon. I swear, he and Doug are like babies with pacifiers. And Scott’s sounding less coherent by the minute.”

“Great.” Nash’s jaw tightened, but then his gaze caught on the white paint splattered all over my right foot, and he smiled. “You look like you’re bleeding milk.”

“So I hear.” Disgusted, I dropped my brush into my half-empty bucket and knelt to work on my shoe. “What did Doug say?”

Nash sat on the canvas to touch up the bottom of the booth. “He’s having a party Friday night, and Everett’s going to be there. He said I can buy my own then, but he’s not selling any more of his.”

I dabbed at the paint on my shoe with a damp rag, but only smeared it. “So, we’re going to the party?”

“Looks like.” He sighed and glanced around to make sure we weren’t being overheard. “But I don’t see how that will help. Even if we meet Everett, what are we supposed to do? Haul him out the back door and demand he stop selling in the human world? If he’s selling Demon’s Breath, he must have a supplier, and there nothing we can do against another hellion.” He grabbed the rag I’d dropped to wipe another drip before I could sit in it.

“I know.” Or rather, I didn’t know. I had no solution. No way of stopping Everett—or the hellion backing him—and no way of knowing that cutting off the supply and sending them into withdrawal would actually help Scott and Doug, rather than hurt them. But we couldn’t stand by and watch a couple of incidents turn into the epidemic I’d originally feared. “We’re gonna have to bring in someone else.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. My dad? Your mom? Uncle Brendon?” I held my breath in anticipation of Nash’s argument.

“Kaylee…”

“Wait, I know how that sounds.” I set my brush across the top of the can, like I’d seen him do, and edged closer to him on the canvas so I could lower my voice. “But we wouldn’t really be ratting anyone out. No cops, no arrests. Nash, if we don’t do something, Scott’s going to go insane. Like, talking-to-himself, showing-up-half-dressed, cowering-in-the-shadows insane. And that’s just the beginning. The same thing will happen to Doug, and everyone he passes a balloon to. And possibly to Emma and Sophie, and anyone else who breathes too deeply near someone who’s just inhaled. We have to get rid of Everett and his supply, and we can’t do that on our own.”

“Okaaay…” Nash frowned. “So what’s your dad going to say when he finds out you’ve known about this for nearly a week and didn’t tell him? When he finds out your car was totaled by a guy wasted on Demon’s Breath? He’ll never let you out of the house again. You want to be grounded for the rest of your life?”

“Of course not. But so what if he does ground me? At least Scott and Doug will still be alive.” And hopefully sane. And frankly, being grounded again seemed like a small price to pay in exchange for someone else’s life. “Not to mention Emma, and even Sophie. What happens if we don’t say anything, and Sophie gets drawn into this? How can I ever look my uncle in the eye, knowing I let his daughter die? Again?”

Nash closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and he didn’t look at me until his knuckles were no longer white around the paintbrush he clutched like a lifeline. “Fine. It’s not like I can argue with that logic.” But he certainly looked like he wanted to. “But let’s try it ourselves first, okay? Let’s go to the party and meet Everett. Let me see what kind of system he has going before we go tattle. I’m only asking you for two more days. All right?”

I hesitated. I understood Nash’s reluctance to rat out his friends, but I did not understand his reluctance to keep them alive. “Fine. But if we can’t do anything about him, I’m telling my dad. That night. I’m not kidding, Nash. This has already gone too far.”

Nash nodded and dropped his paintbrush on the white-splattered canvas. “I agree with you there,” he whispered, eyes swirling slowly with frustration and a little fear. “This whole thing has gone way too far.”