My Soul to Steal

18

“KAYLEE!”

Someone grabbed my shoulder and my head flopped forward as he shook me.

My eyes flew open. Alec stood over me, his hair rendered even darker by the halo of light shining around his skull from the fixture overhead. His brown eyes were wide and worried, his generous lips thinned into a tight frown.

“What?” I wasn’t even dreaming, much less having a nightmare. In fact, he’d interrupted the first almost-peaceful sleep I could remember getting in the past few days.

And even as that thought faded, I realized the problem—I was supposed to be watching him, not dozing. I’d insisted that he take the first shift sleeping under the assumption that my dad would get back from my uncle’s house—where they were conferring about the sudden spike in the teacher mortality rate at Eastlake—while Alec was still asleep. That way I could explain about Avari’s murder-by-proxy without having to break my promise to Alec to his face.

Obviously I’d underestimated my own exhaustion.

“Sorry.” I sat up and wiped an embarrassing dribble from the corner of my mouth. “Is my dad home yet?”

“No,” Alec said, and I glanced at my alarm clock in surprise. It was just after midnight. “Kaylee, this isn’t going to work.” He sank onto the edge of my rumpled bedspread, broad shoulders sagging in frustration and obvious fatigue. “How are we supposed to watch each other if neither of us can stay awake?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, standing to stretch. “I just need some coffee.”

“If you guzzle caffeine, you won’t be able to sleep when it’s your turn, either, and that’ll just make everything worse.” Alec hesitated, and I read dread clearly in his expression. “You’re gonna have to tie me up.”

“What? No.” I sat on the edge of my desk and pushed tangled hair back from my face, hoping I’d heard him wrong. “I’m not going to tie you up, or down, or any other direction!”

“Kay, I don’t think we have any choice. Avari’s just waiting for a chance to get back into my head, and how happy do you think Sabine’s going to be with you, after her little stunt tonight failed?”

I’d given him the short version of my visit with Nash, skipping my promise to fill my dad in on everything.

“If either of us falls asleep at the wrong time, things are going to get a whole lot worse.”

My tired brain whirred, trying to come up with a viable alternative, but in the end, I was too worn out to think clearly, much less argue. Survival and a good night’s sleep trumped my deep-seated aversion to restraints—born of my week-long stay in the mental health ward—so I finally relented and trudged into the garage for the coil of nylon rope looped over a long nail on the wall.

In my room again, I turned my stereo on and cranked the volume, hoping the noise would keep me awake. Then Alec helped me cut the rope into workable sections and showed me how to tie a proper knot. Evidently he’d had practice restraining…things…for Avari in the Netherworld.

I bet the hellion never thought that particular skill could be used against him, and that thought made me smile, in spite of encroaching exhaustion, and the disturbing reality of what I was about to do.

The plan was for me to tie Alec to the chair in one corner of my room—the one I’d woken up in—but the back was one solid, padded, curved piece of wood, with nothing to tie his hands to. The desk chair was no better, and since I wasn’t willing to tie him up in the living room, where my dad would see him before I’d had a chance to explain, our only other option was my bed.

I cannot begin to describe my mortification—or the flames burning beneath every square inch of my skin—when I knelt at the head of my bed to secure Alec’s right arm to my headboard. “It’s okay, Kaylee,” he insisted, head craned so he could watch me while he voluntarily submitted to something that would have sent me into a blind panic. “This’ll keep us both safe.”

“I know.” But I didn’t like it, and my revulsion didn’t fade when I tied his other hand, or bound his first foot to the metal frame beneath the end of my mattress. I had trouble with the final knot, but had almost secured his right ankle when a sudden hair-prickling feeling and a subtle shift in the light told me that someone was behind me.

“What in the hell are you doing?” my father demanded, his voice low and dark.

I whirled around so fast I fell onto one knee, and the end of the rope trailed through my fingers to hang slack. My dad stood in my doorway, his irises swirling furiously in some perilous combination of anger and bewilderment.

The music had covered his footsteps, and evidently the sound of his car.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Alec mumbled at my back, and my father’s harsh laugh sounded more like an angry bark.

“Considering your current predicament, I’m betting that’s the first smart thing you’ve said all night!”

“This isn’t what it looks like.” I frowned and shoved myself to my feet, then glanced back at Alec, who could only stare at me in humiliation. “Actually, I’m not sure what it looks like,” I admitted, turning back to my father. “It’s to keep us both safe…” I ended lamely, wishing I could just melt into my bedroom carpet and disappear.

“Safe from what?” my father demanded softly.

“From…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then met his stare again and started over. “I was gonna tell you everything when you got home. Nash made me promise.”

Behind me, Alec shifted on the bed—as best he could, with three limbs bound to it—and I could practically taste his anxiety.

“What does Nash have to do with you tying Alec to your bed?” But honestly, he looked like he didn’t really want to know the answer to that.

I perched on the corner of my desk and turned off my stereo. “I’m assuming you want the short version….”

“That would be good.”

So I sucked in another deep breath, then spat the whole thing out. “Avari’s been possessing Alec and killing my teachers—we have no idea why he picked teachers—so we’ve been sleeping in shifts for the past couple of nights, to stop it from happening again. But now I’m so tired that I can’t stay awake—” no need to tell him about Sabine just yet, since she wasn’t immediately relevant to the hellion or the dead teachers “—so Alec thought I should tie him up, in case I fall asleep and Avari gets back into his body. You know, to keep everybody safe.” I shrugged miserably, then watched my father, waiting for the fireworks.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he said. But he got over that pretty quickly. “Avari’s the one killing teachers?” he said, and I nodded. “And he’s using Alec to do it?” Another nod from me. “And you’ve known this for two days without telling me?”

“I was afraid you’d kick him out. And even if it were okay to do that to a friend—and it’s not—if you kick him out, there won’t be anyone around to make sure Avari can’t use him as a murder weapon again,” I finished, proud of my own coherence, considering how incredibly tired I was.

For several moments, my father stood mute, obviously thinking. Then his focus shifted from me to Alec. “Those teachers died without a mark on them,” he said, and I could see in the angry, frustrated line of his jaw that he’d come to the right conclusion, with far fewer clues than I’d needed. “What are you?”

“I’m half hypnos.” Alec met my father’s gaze unflinchingly—his species wasn’t his fault, after all—but looked genuinely sorry for the danger he’d involuntarily exposed us all to.

“Please tell me your other half is human,” my father said, and Alec and I both nodded.

My dad sighed and pulled a folding knife from his back pocket. “Well, Kaylee, you’re right about one thing—we can’t leave him on his own. Not unless we want the next blood spilled to fall on our hands.”

My relief was almost as strong as my confusion when he strode forward purposefully and cut Alec’s left ankle free.

“Mr. Cavanaugh, it’s not safe to let me sleep free,” Alec insisted, as my father rounded toward the head of the bed.

“Which is precisely why you won’t be sleeping in my daughter’s room.” He slashed the rope around Alec’s left arm, then leaned over him to repeat the process with the remaining knot. “Ever.”

A few minutes later, we all stood in the living room, my father unwinding a new rope he’d produced from a pile of not-yet-unpacked cardboard boxes in the garage. Alec sank into my dad’s recliner and positioned a pillow beneath his head, then my father tied his feet to the metal frame of the foldout ottoman. While I spread a blanket over our poor houseguest, my dad pulled Alec’s arms toward the back of the recliner, where he tied his wrists to each other, linked by a taut length of nylon spanning the back of the chair.

But even with this new precaution and my dad’s much sturdier knot work, he wasn’t willing to let Alec sleep alone, just in case. So when I finally headed to bed at almost one in the morning, my father was settling onto the couch with his pillow and a throw blanket, determined to protect us all from the most recent Netherworld threat. Even in his sleep.

“HE KICKED HER OUT topless?” Emma shoved her spoon into the pint of Phish Food and dug out a chocolate fish, her brown eyes shining in the light pouring in through the kitchen window. After a long, mostly sleepless night, Saturday morning had dawned bright and clear, in blatant disrespect of my foul mood.

Fortunately, Emma had come bearing ice cream. Two reserve pints sat in the freezer.

I nodded, letting my bite melt in my mouth. Chocolate may not cure everything, but it goes down a lot better than any other medicine I’ve ever tasted.

The front door opened before I could respond, and Alec walked in, carrying a newspaper under one arm, nose dripping from the cold. He closed the door, then noticed us in the kitchen.

Before he could speak, I pointed the business end of my spoon at him and said, “Where were you? You weren’t on the schedule today.” He’d been gone when I woke up, both the ropes and bedding stowed somewhere out of sight.

Alec dropped the newspaper on the kitchen counter. “Apartment shopping.”

My eyes narrowed. “I thought you didn’t have the money yet.”

“I don’t. But I will soon, thanks to the new job.” And I had a feeling that after the big revelation, my father had suggested Alec move forward with his plans for financial and residential independence.

Still… I wasn’t taking any chances after meeting Avari at the theater. “Just humor me. What color was my first bicycle?”

“White, with red ribbons,” he replied, without hesitation.

“What’s with the twenty questions?” Em asked, scraping the inside edge of the carton with her spoon.

I shoved another bite in my mouth, buying time to think. But Alec was faster. “It’s this stupid trivia game.” He winked at me. “I’m winning.”

“Oh, I wanna play!” Em said, sitting straighter. “What was the name of my first bra?”

I nearly choked on my bite. “You named your first bra?”

She frowned. “You didn’t?” When I could only laugh, she turned to Alec. “You gonna guess?”

He hesitated, pretending to think. “I gotta go with Helga.”

She threw the ice cream lid at him. Alec laughed, then dropped it into the trash. “One carton of Ben & Jerry’s, two girls, two spoons. I’m guessing this is about Nash?”

Emma nodded, watching as Alec took off his jacket and draped it over the half wall between the kitchen and the entry. She’d made no secret of the fact that she thought he was hot, and I couldn’t exactly tell her he was nearly three times her age.

Alec raised one brow and grinned. “Isn’t the ice cream therapy thing kinda cliché?”

I shook my head. “It’s a classic for a reason.”

“And that reason is ’cause we’re underage,” Em insisted. “If I could’ve gotten my hands on anything stronger last night, we’d be recovering from strawberry daiquiri therapy this very moment.”

He laughed, heading for the silverware drawer. “So, is this girl-only ice cream, or can a sympathetic guy get a bite?”

Emma leaned over the table much farther than she had to for her next bite, to be sure he could see down her shirt. “What’s mine is yours.”

I kicked her under the table, as Alec dug in the fridge for a soda. He was older than her mother! And he was currently being used as the murder weapon for a Netherworld demon. Not that she knew any of that.

One more point in favor of full disclosure. I was probably going to have to tell Emma soon….

“What?” Em pouted, then licked ice cream from her spoon with it inverted over her tongue.

“That’s all you’re gonna share with him,” I whispered

She stuck her tongue out at me, then took another bite.

“What were you doing at Nash’s, anyway?” Alec asked, taking the chair on my other side. I think Emma scared him. Thank goodness.

“Makin’ up.”

Em grinned. “More like makin’ out.”

“Not that it matters now.”

“Why?” Alec dug in, his small spoon dwarfed by both of ours. Obviously an ice cream drama rookie. “If she kissed him, what’s the problem?”

I stared at him like he’d just volunteered for a lobotomy. “He kissed her back. I saw it. He didn’t push her away. He let her take her shirt off and stick her tongue down his throat.”

Alec licked his spoon, then set it on the table and popped his drink open. “Okay, I may be breaking some kind of girl-bonding rule or something, but can I offer you a guy’s perspective on this?”

I frowned, my spoon halfway to my mouth. “Is this gonna make me want to hit you?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s the truth. Here goes: kissing back is instinct. Unless the girl smells like a sewer or has tentacles feeling you up independently, a guy’s first instinct is to kiss back. That’s how it works. What’s important is how long that kissing back lasted. So…how long?”

“You can’t be serious.” I could feel my temper building like the first spark in what could soon be a roaring blaze. “You think it’s okay for him to kiss her back just because she isn’t hideous? Aesthetically speaking.” I was no suffragette, but I was pretty sure the he-can’t-control-himself defense was a big, stinky load of horseshit.

“No.” Alec held up one hand defensively. “But I also don’t think it’s okay for you to condemn him, if he was the innocent kissee, rather than the instigator of said kiss.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. He wasn’t the instigator.”

Alec nodded, obviously pleased with the progress. “Did she know you were there?”

“She parked right behind my car.”

“And he kicked her out, right?” Emma added, catching on.

“Yeah. And he told her not to come back.”

Alec turned to Emma, and she couldn’t resist another grin. “Are you hearing what I’m hearing?”

“Yup.” Alec met my gaze. “This was for your benefit, not his. She set you both up, and did everything she could to make you think he wanted it. And you…”

My frown deepened. “You think I’m overreacting?”

Alec shrugged again and dug in for another bite. “I wasn’t there. But it sounds to me like you at least owe him a chance to explain.”

I hesitated. Long enough for two more bites. “Maybe.” But I just wasn’t sure I had any more chances for Nash left in me.

I’M AT MY DESK with my laptop open, scouring the internet for a good price on a spray can of mara repellent, when the room suddenly feels wrong at my back. I don’t turn. I don’t even look up, because I know neither one will help. For several long seconds, we both pretend I don’t know he’s there. That the back of my neck isn’t prickling with fear.

Finally he says my name and I can’t ignore him. I slowly close my laptop and swivel in my rolling desk chair to confront the impossible.

“You can’t be here.” Yet me knowing that hasn’t prevented it from happening.

“Surprise,” Avari says, and he sounds truly thrilled. Somehow he’s managed to cross into the human world in his own body, and as far as I’m concerned, he brought hell with him.

The hellion looks different than I remember him, but that’s no surprise. Hellions can look like whatever they want, with one exception: they cannot replicate the exact form of any other living or deceased being. There will always be some small difference—finding that difference is the key.

At least, that used to be the rule. But if he can cross over now, do any of the other rules still apply?

Avari is now shorter than I remember him, with lighter hair. But he hasn’t bothered to change his voice, and his eyes are still the featureless ebony orbs I can’t forget—spheres of chaos and infinity. Madness at a glance.

“Get out.” It’s all my overwhelmed brain can come up with while the rest of me fights the waves of fear and despair emanating from him like radiation from ground zero.

“Not until I have what I want.”

I don’t ask, because I know what he wants: me. But I don’t know why, and he’s never felt inclined to explain. Hellions can be bargained with—I’ve seen that firsthand—but they never give information for free, and I’m not willing to pay.

“So how does this work?”

He takes a step toward me, and I stand, my heart beating frantically. I want to retreat, but there’s nowhere to go. My desk is already cutting into my spine. “I grab you, then I drag you kicking and screaming into the Nether, where I’ll take good care of you—until the next new toy comes along.”

“And how are you planning to keep me there?” I’m impressed by my own nerve. I was stalling—for what? The cavalry? A brilliant idea?—but also digging for important information.

“Oh, after a couple of hours with me, you won’t have the strength to cross over. You won’t sleep and you won’t eat until I’ve broken your mind as well as your body, and after that… Well, it simply won’t matter what happens to you after that. You’ll never know the difference.”

“You won’t break me.” I sound much more sure than I really am. I have this strange calm now. It almost feels like acceptance. I can’t fight him, and I won’t scream for help and doom my would-be hero. And that means he’s won, before the fight even begins. So what’s the point in fighting?

Then he’s in front of me, and his hands have become wicked claws. He grabs my arm and his claws sink through my wrist, and suddenly I remember the point in fighting.

Pain, the moment he touches me, and not just where he rips through my flesh. I double over, struggling to breathe through an agony like electricity being run through me. He is the lightning and I am the rod, and the strike never ends.

Pain everywhere. I smell my skin cooking, hear my hair crackle as the follicles pop from the heat. In the mirror, I see no change, but I feel every single bit of it, like life is fire and I am the fuel, forever burning but never quite consumed. He can make me hurt in every cell of my body with a single touch. He will do this for eternity, if I go with him.

And he hasn’t even started on my mind yet.

NO! I’m screaming now, the magic word. They teach us in preschool. If something bad happens, shout NO! and parents will come running. If a stranger touches you, shout NO! and the police will take him away. You can always shout NO! and there will always be someone there to protect you.

But that’s a lie. No one comes. NO! is a lie, and safety is a lie, and the only truths are pain and forever, and pain is everywhere, and forever has already begun.

He pulls my arm, and the pain doubles, though that shouldn’t be possible, because how can you double infinity? I fall to the ground, because I can no longer stand. I can no longer think. I can only feel, and hurt, and scream, and know that it will never end. And that my grand delusions of resistance are like wielding a breath of air against a brick wall. There is nothing I can do. Giving in will not stop the pain. Begging will not stop the pain. In the end, even dying will not stop the pain.

And as my world fades beneath a swirl of gray fog, I know that I am lost, and that I will never, ever be found….

IT WAS STILL DARK when I opened my eyes, and the only sound I could hear was my own breathing, too hard and too fast. Still panicked from the nightmare. I stared up at the ceiling without seeing it, more afraid of the understanding now burrowing its way into my head than the dream I’d just escaped.

It wasn’t Sabine. My nightmare about Avari didn’t feel like her work—which I was definitely starting to recognize. It wasn’t personal enough. There was no angst and no self-doubt, the primary colors of her dream palette.

This dream felt like…Avari. Like the hellion was playing with my mind, messing with my very psyche. But that was impossible, right? Hellions couldn’t give people nightmares. Could they?

In the dark, as my breathing gradually slowed and my pulse calmed, I became aware of another sound, soft and even. Someone else was breathing. In my room.

I turned my head slowly, my heart thumping painfully, and could barely make out a familiar silhouette outlined by the creepy red glow from my alarm clock.

Alec sat in the corner chair. Silent. Watching me, like he’d been watching me for quite a while.

Why was he watching me? Why wasn’t he tied to the recliner in the living room, which is how he’d started the second night in a row? Where was my dad?

Uh-oh.

“Alec?” But I knew before he answered. I knew from the creepy smile Alec would never wear, and the way his eyes seemed to focus on something inside me.

“Bad dream?” he asked, leaning forward to study me closer in the dim light, and I froze at the sound of his voice. Because it wasn’t his voice. It was Avari’s.

No pretense this time; the hellion was all business. Just like in my dream.

“How did you…?” I started, clenching the top of my comforter.

“How did I get Alec free from those sad little ropes?” Avari finished, and I nodded. I didn’t bother ordering him to leave, because I didn’t have anything to threaten him with this time without involving—and endangering—my dad. Who’d probably already been both involved and endangered, considering that Avari had somehow gotten past both him and the restraints.

“Waking up bound was a bit of a surprise, I must concede,” the hellion said, leaning forward to peer at me through my friend’s eyes. “Regrettably, this body does not come with extraordinary strength. Fortunately, your father—or rather, his unconscious form—proved quite useful.”

“You possessed my dad?” My hands were damp, and I resisted the urge to wipe cold sweat on my covers. My father was eligible for hellion possession by virtue of having spent time in the Netherworld when Avari had him kidnapped the month before.

“Only long enough to free our dear Alec in his sleep. Your father is now unconscious, and both bound and gagged with his own restraints for my convenience. But he is otherwise unharmed, and I suggest you give me no reason to change that.”

My chest ached, and each breath felt like a knife to my heart. There was no one left to help me, and very few ways for me to help myself, without making things worse for both my dad and Alec. Even if I’d been willing to leave my dad, I couldn’t run, because if the hellion knew Alec’s physiology well enough to make his voice work, he could certainly catch me in the older, stronger body.

Why had he stayed to watch me sleep instead of going out for his usual murder-by-proxy? He couldn’t really drag me back to the Netherworld. Not using Alec’s body, anyway.

“You did that? My dream?” I asked, stalling for time to come up with a plan as my heart thudded in my ears. My only real hope was to knock Alec unconscious, which would expel the hellion from his body. But I’d never hit anyone that hard in my entire life. At least, not without a weapon to wield…

The hellion nodded magnanimously, an artist reluctantly taking credit for his masterpiece. “What did you think? Dreams are a new medium for me, and I may have used just a bit too much terror, when a little suspense would have sufficed.”

Fear and fury coiled within me, a startled snake about to strike, but I’d have to time my move perfectly to disable him with one unpracticed blow. “How?”

Avari shrugged nonchalantly, and it was almost as disturbing to see him in Alec as it had been to see him in Emma less than a month before. “There is a bit of a learning curve, but I’m sure I will get the recipe right next time.”

“How did you get into my head?” I snapped. “And there won’t be a next time.” There wasn’t supposed to be a this time. Depriving Avari of his proxy was supposed to keep him too weak to possess anyone. But not only did he clearly have the strength, he’d somehow picked up a new skill set!

“I’ve discovered several new talents since your last visit to the Nether, Ms. Cavanaugh. And there certainly will be a next time. Talents unpracticed are talents wasted, you know.”

“What do you want?” I asked, fully aware that this confrontation was now mirroring my bad dream. But that was the best I could do with the memory of the nightmare-hellion’s hands on me, his claws digging through my flesh, his power singeing my every nerve ending.

Avari cocked Alec’s head to one side, lending him a look of vacant curiosity. “You know, I’ve never had trouble answering that question in the past. And now it seems I want so many things that I can’t decide what to take first.”

I nodded, going for bravado. “Makes sense, considering you’re a demon of greed.”

“Lately, that’s not as much fun as it sounds like. What I really want to do is shove my hand down your throat and rip your heart out the long way. But I’m not sure if this body can accomplish such a physically demanding feat. And even if it can, if I give in to such immediate gratification, I’ll lose your precious, innocent little soul. And I think I might want that even more than I want your deliciously painful death.”

Don’t show him fear. Don’t shake and don’t sweat. Hold on to your anger, Kaylee. But that was all much easier said than done. “Lucky me.”

“Not in the slightest. Once I have your soul, I’ll be able to kill you over, and over, and over. It’s immensely entertaining—for me. Just ask Ms. Page.”

Addison. My chest ached just thinking about her and the very real torture she endured daily at Avari’s hands, er…claws. Because she’d sold him her soul, and we hadn’t been able to get it back for her.

“So, while I’m not quite ready to kill you yet, and I rather like having Alec on this side of the barrier now that I’ve had time to consider the benefits, I have no reason at all to leave your father breathing, if I cannot bring him into the Nether.”

No! A jolt of adrenaline shot through my chest. I lurched toward the door, all thoughts of patience and timing forgotten. But I didn’t even make it to the end of the bed before Alec’s hand closed around my arm. He jerked me backward with more strength than a human should have had, and I had half a moment to disagree with the hellion’s assessment of Alec’s power before Avari threw me back onto the mattress. My head slammed into the headboard, and he was on me in an instant.

He pinned me with his weight, propped on his elbows with my wrists trapped in his fists.

“Get off me!” I fought the suffocating panic building inside me as I struggled to free my arms. Flashes of four-point restraints and men in hospital scrubs played in my memory, with an all new fear born of the sheer delight in not-Alec’s eyes.

“Shhhh…” Avari whispered, as Alec’s cheek brushed mine. “Your father is fine, for the moment. I simply haven’t yet decided what to do with him.”

And that had to be true, because a hellion couldn’t lie….

I went still, my heart racing, terror lapping at my fragile control.

“Would you believe that while I’m in this body, I can feel everything it feels? And it likes this arrangement.” He shifted over me, and I bit my lip against a scream, knowing Avari enjoyed every single moment of my fear. “Have you and my Alec done this before?”

I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t do anything but ride the horror in silence, desperately hoping I was still dreaming. That this was part of the nightmare.

He let go of my left wrist to brush hair from my face, then wedged one leg between my knees.

Pulse racing in panic, I acted without thinking. Without stopping to consider what would happen if my rash plan didn’t work. My free arm shot out. I grabbed the first thing my hand landed on. My alarm clock.

I swung as hard as I could. The cord ripped from the wall. The clock slammed into Alec’s head. Avari blinked, stunned. So I did it again, grunting with the effort.

His eyes fluttered shut and he collapsed on top of me.

Tears of relief and belated terror blurred my view of the ceiling. I shoved him off of me and scuttled off the bed into one corner of my room. Alec rolled over the edge of the mattress and thumped to the floor on the other side.

For several long moments, I could only breathe, fighting not to hyperventilate. My legs shook when I stood, and my hand trembled as I wiped my eyes, determined not to give in to sobs. I crossed my room slowly, watching Alec, half convinced Avari was playing possum just so he could catch me again, and start the whole sadistic game all over. But he didn’t move, other than the steady, slow rise and fall of his chest.

Once I’d crossed the threshold of my room, I raced down the hall and into the living room, where I dropped onto the floor next to my dad. He lay on the carpet on his left side, with his back to the couch, his ankles tied together, wrists bound at his back. There was a piece of duct tape over his mouth, and when I ripped it off—hoping in vain that the pain would wake him up—I found an entire ratty dish rag stuffed into his mouth.

I couldn’t find my dad’s pocket knife—there was no telling what the hellion had done with it—so I got a steak knife from the kitchen and carefully cut the ropes, but my father’s eyes wouldn’t open. And I had no idea what to do.

I should do something. I should call someone, but an ambulance seemed risky. What would I tell the police? Technically, Alec had attacked us both, but even if I denied that, the evidence wouldn’t support whatever desperate lie I made up.

But I didn’t want to be alone in the house with two unconscious men, both of whom had been possessed by a vengeful hellion in the past hour. So I fumbled for the phone on the nearest end table and speed-dialed the second number on the list.

I hadn’t forgiven Nash, and I did not want to go groveling back to him when I needed help. But I did want to hear his voice. And welcome a touch that could replace the feel of Avari’s unwelcome, surrogate hands on me.

The phone rang and rang, and when Nash finally answered, I sank onto the floor in relief. “Hello?” He was still half-asleep, and I wished I could join him. Just curl up next to him and forget about the constant terror my own nights had become.

“I need help.” I was proud of how steady my voice sounded, but he knew me too well.

“What happened?” Bedsprings creaked and a light switch clicked softly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just a little freaked out, and I don’t really want to be alone. Could you… Would you come over?”

“Give me five minutes.” The phone clicked in my ear, then buzzed with a dial tone. He didn’t even know what had happened, and it didn’t matter. If I needed him, he would come. No matter what.

I sat there for a moment, still reeling from the trauma of the past few minutes. Then I stood and did the only thing I could think of to protect myself while I waited: I grabbed the duct tape lying on the floor near my father’s head, then headed into my room, where I rolled Alec onto his side and taped his hands together behind his back and his feet together at the ankles. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was all I had. Duct tape, and the desperate hope that Avari wouldn’t have the strength or the opportunity to possess either Alec or my dad again before the end of the longest night in history.

Then I unlocked the front door and sat on the floor next to my father’s head. And waited.

A minute and a half later, my front door flew open. Nash stood on the porch, panting, wearing only jeans, a short-sleeve tee, and sockless sneakers. He stepped inside and shoved the door closed, and I stood. “You ran the whole way?”

“Mom has the car.” He folded his arms around me, and I let him, even though his chilled limbs stole my warmth and made me shiver.

I was warm on the inside.

“What the hell happened?” he asked finally, pulling away to kneel beside my dad, two fingers pressed against the pulse in his neck.

“Avari. Dad’s been making Alec sleep tied to the recliner, so tonight Avari used my dad to cut Alec free, then he possessed Alec and…”

“And what?” Evidently satisfied by my dad’s pulse, Nash stood, his irises churning with green twists of fear and amber swirls of protective anger.

“Nothing.” I shrugged miserably. “Nothing happened. I hit him with my alarm clock, and now I might need a new alarm clock, but I think Alec’s okay.”

“I don’t give a shit about Alec.” More fierce colors flashed in his eyes. “What about you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just a couple of bruises.” I held up my arms so he could see the faint handprints around my wrists, and Nash clenched his teeth so hard I was afraid he’d crack them. “I taped him up, so I think we’re pretty safe. I just… I didn’t want to be alone.”

Nash wrapped one arm around me, and his hands felt warm now, through the tee I slept in. “Where is he?”

I pointed toward my room, and Nash stomped off down the hall. A second later, he reappeared, dragging a still-bound and unconscious Alec behind him. He dropped Alec on the floor and stared at him, and I understood that he was fighting a violent impulse I could only vaguely understand. He wanted to kick Alec while he was down—I could see it in his eyes.

“Nash, none of this is his fault. He hates Avari as much as we do. Maybe more.”

“No. More isn’t possible. Not after that,” Nash insisted, gesturing toward my bruised arms. He helped me lay my father on the couch, then we curled up together in the recliner and watched them both, waiting for morning.

NASH STAYED UNTIL my father finally woke up around dawn and thanked him, then sent him home. Over coffee, I explained what had happened—my dad didn’t remember anything—then I tried to pretend I couldn’t see the slow swirl of fear in his eyes. If Avari had the power to possess him—a one-hundred-thirty-year-old bean sidhe—then his limits were few. And that was enough to scare anyone.

Alec woke up half an hour later, while my dad was in the shower.

“Kaylee?”

I rubbed sleep from my eyes, but stayed in my chair, across the room from where he still lay on the floor. “Are you…you?”

“Yeah. Shit. My arm’s asleep.” He tried to move, but could only shrug awkwardly with his hands bound, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “What happened?”

I brushed hair back from my face, but stayed in my corner. “What color was my first bike?”

Guilt flooded his features when he saw my face and recognized the remnants of my recent trauma. “Kaylee, what happened?”

“Just answer the question. What color?”

“Red. No!” He shook his head when my eyes widened in panic. “White, with red ribbons. Sorry.”

My gaze narrowed on him. I wanted to trust him, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fully trust anyone who was in a position to actually help me. I’d never felt more alone in my life.

“Give me a break, Kaylee, please. My head feels like it’s the size of a pumpkin and I’m tied up on the floor and I don’t know how I got here. I’m not exactly thinking straight.”

I exhaled slowly, fighting for calm. Avari had fooled me too many times. “What did you guess Emma named her first bra?”

A flicker of amusement lit his features for just an instant. “Helga,” he said, and I finally stood. “What the hell happened?”

I crossed the room carrying the steak knife, but hesitated to cut him free. I was sure it was Alec now, but when I looked at him, I saw Avari staring down at me through Alec’s eyes, pinning me. And every time I thought about that, fear gave way to a miniburst of panic, deep in my chest.

“Kay?”

“You…” I stopped and started over, squatting to cut the tape so I wouldn’t have to look at him. It wasn’t Alec’s fault. “He… He tied up my dad, then came into my room and…” I couldn’t finish, so I finally just showed him one bruised arm.

“Oh, damn, Kaylee, I’m so sorry.” Alec looked like someone had just punched him in the face. Then followed up with a kick to the groin. “You know I’d never…”

“I know.” I sank onto the floor and leaned against the couch with my knees pulled up to my chest. “I don’t know what to do. He’ll come back. I don’t think we can stop him.”

“Yes, we can.” Alec sat up and used the knife to free his feet. “We’ll find a way.” He peeled off the last piece of tape, then his hand rose to the back of his head and came away smeared with blood. Alec winced. “I guess your dad’s pissed?”

I forced an uneasy grin at that. “Yeah, but I did that. Also, I’d steer clear of Nash for a while. And you should probably stay away from Tod, for good measure.” Because one way or another, the reaper would hear about what happened.

And that’s when I noticed the dark red stain on the carpet. I could have killed Alec. And none of this was his fault.

“This has to stop.”

“I know. We’ll find a way. I swear, Kaylee, this will never happen again.”

But it was hard to take heart in his words, because they sounded more and more hollow every time I heard them.