Read My Soul to Take Online

Authors: Rachel Vincent

My Soul to Take (3 page)

BOOK: My Soul to Take
5.02Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

He grinned and opened his door, and the overhead light flared to life. His pupils shrank to pinpoints in the sudden glare, and as my heart raced, he leaned forward like he would kiss me. Instead, his cheek brushed mine and his warm breath skimmed my ear as he whispered, “That’s half the fun.”

My breath hitched in my throat, but before I could speak, the car bobbed beneath his shifting weight and suddenly the passenger seat was empty. He closed the car door, then jogged up the driveway to slam his mother’s.

I backed away from his house in a daze, and when I parked in front of my own, I couldn’t remember a moment of the drive home.

 

“G
OOD MORNING
, K
AYLEE
.” Aunt Val stood at the kitchen counter, bathed in late-morning sunlight, holding a steaming mug of coffee nearly as big as her head. She wore a satin robe the exact shade of blue as her eyes, and her sleek brown waves were still tousled from sleep. But they were tousled the way hair always looks in the movies, when the star wakes up in full makeup, wearing miraculously unwrinkled pajamas.

I couldn’t pull my own fingers through my hair first thing in the morning.

My aunt’s robe and the size of her coffee cup were the only signs that she and my uncle had had a late night. Or rather, an early morning. I’d heard them come in around 2:00 a.m., stumbling down the hall, giggling like idiots.

Then I’d stuck my earbuds in my ears so I wouldn’t have to listen as he proved just how attractive he still found her, even after seventeen years of marriage. Uncle Brendon was the younger of the pair, and my aunt resented each of the four years she had on him.

The problem wasn’t that she looked her age—thanks to
Botox and an obsessive workout routine, she looked thirty-five at the most—but that he looked so young for his. She jokingly called him Peter Pan, but as her big 4-0 had approached, she’d ceased finding her own joke funny.

“Cereal or waffles?” Aunt Val set her coffee on the marble countertop and pulled a box of blueberry Eggos from the freezer, holding them up for my selection. My aunt didn’t do big breakfasts. She said she couldn’t afford to eat that many calories in one meal, and she wasn’t going to cook what she couldn’t eat. But we were welcome to help ourselves to all the fat and cholesterol we wanted.

Normally Uncle Brendon served up plenty of both on Saturday mornings, but I could still hear him snoring from his bedroom, halfway across the house. She’d obviously worn him out pretty good.

I crossed the dining room into the kitchen, my fuzzy socks silent on the cold tile. “Just toast. I’m going out for lunch in a couple of hours.”

Aunt Val stuck the waffles back in the freezer and handed me a loaf of low-calorie whole wheat bread—the only kind she would buy. “With Emma?”

I shook my head and dropped two slices into the toaster, then tugged my pajama pants up and tightened the drawstring.

She arched her brows at me over her mug. “You have a date? Anyone I know?” Meaning, “Any of Sophie’s exes?”

“I doubt it.” Aunt Val was constantly disappointed that, unlike her daughter—the world’s most socially ambitious sophomore—I had no interest in student council, or the dance team, or the winter carnival–planning committee. In part, because Sophie would have made my life miserable if I’d intruded on “her” territory. But mostly because I had to work to pay for my car insurance, and I’d rather spend my rare free
hours with Emma than helping the dance team coordinate their glitter gel with their sequined costumes.

While Nash would no doubt have met with Aunt Val’s hearty approval, I did not need her hovering over me when I got home, eyes glittering in anticipation of a social climb I had no interest in. I was happy hanging with Emma and whichever crowd she claimed at the moment.

“His name’s Nash.”

Aunt Val took a butter knife from the silverware drawer. “What year is he?”

I groaned inwardly. “Senior.”
Here we go…

Her smile was a little too enthusiastic. “Well, that’s wonderful!”

Of course, what she really meant was “Rise from the shadows, social leper, and walk in the bright light of acceptance!” Or some crap like that. Because my aunt and overprivileged cousin only recognize two states of being: glitter and grunge. And if you weren’t glitter, well, that only left one other option…

I slathered strawberry jelly on my toast and took a seat at the bar. Aunt Val poured a second cup of coffee and aimed the TV remote across the dining room and into the den, where the fifty-inch flat-screen flashed to life, signaling the end of the requisite breakfast “conversation.”

“…coming to you live from Taboo, in the West End, where last night, the body of nineteen-year-old Heidi Anderson was found on the restroom floor.”

Nooo…

My stomach churned around a half slice of toast, and I twisted slowly on my bar stool, dread sending a spike of adrenaline through my veins. On screen, a too-poised reporter stood on the brick walkway in front of the club I’d snuck into twelve
hours earlier, and as I watched, her image was replaced by a still shot of Heidi Anderson sitting in a lawn chair in a UT Arlington T-shirt, straight teeth gleaming, reddish-blond hair blown back by the relentless prairie wind.

It was her.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Kaylee? What’s wrong?”

I blinked and sucked in a quick breath, then looked up at my aunt to find her staring at my plate, where I’d dropped my toast jelly-side down. It was a miracle I hadn’t lost the half I’d already eaten.

“Nothing. Can you turn that up?” I pushed my plate away and Aunt Val turned up the volume, shooting me a puzzled frown.

“No cause of death has yet been identified,” the reporter said on-screen. “But according to the employee who found Ms. Anderson’s body, there was no obvious sign of violence.”

The picture changed again, and now Traci Marshall stared into the camera, pale with shock and hoarse, as if she’d been crying. “She was just lying there, like she was sleeping. I thought she’d passed out until I realized she wasn’t breathing.”

Traci disappeared and the reporter was back, but I couldn’t hear her over Aunt Val. “Isn’t that Emma’s sister?”

“Yeah. She’s a bartender at Taboo.”

Aunt Val stared at the television, her expression grim. “That whole thing is so tragic…”

I nodded.
You have no idea.
But I did.

I also had chill bumps.
It really happened.

With my previous panic attacks, my aunt and uncle had had no reason to heed my hysterical babble about looming shadows and impending death. And with no way to shush me once the screaming began, they’d taken me home—coincidently away from the source of the panic—to calm me down. Except for
that last time, when they’d driven me straight to the hospital, checked me into the mental-health ward and begun looking at me with eyes full of pity. Concern. Unspoken relief that I was the one losing my mind, rather than their own, blessedly normal daughter.

But now I had proof I wasn’t crazy. Right? I’d seen Heidi Anderson shrouded in shadow and known she would die. I’d told Emma and Nash. And now my premonition had come true.

I stood so fast my bar stool skidded against the tiles. I had to
tell
somebody. I needed to see confirmation in someone’s eyes, assurance that I wasn’t imagining the news story, because really, if I could imagine death, how much harder could it be for my poor, sick mind to make up the news story? But I couldn’t tell my aunt what had happened without admitting I’d snuck into a club, and once I’d said that part, she wouldn’t listen to the rest. She’d just take away my keys and call my father.

No, telling Aunt Val was out of the question. But Emma would believe me.

While my aunt stared, I dropped my plate into the sink and ran to my room, ignoring her when she called after me. I kicked the door shut, collapsed on my bed then snatched my phone from my nightstand where I’d left it charging the night before.

I called Emma’s cell, and almost groaned out loud when her mother answered. But Emma had gotten home more than an hour early for once. What could she possibly be grounded for
this
time?

“Hi, Ms. Marshall.” I flopped onto my back and stared at the textured, eggshell ceiling. “Can I talk to Em? It’s kind of important.”

Her mom sighed. “Not today, Kaylee. Emma came home
smelling like rum last night. She’s grounded until further notice. I certainly hope you weren’t out drinking with her.”

Oh, crap.
I closed my eyes, trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make Em sound like a delinquent by comparison. I drew a total blank. “Um, no, ma’am. I was driving.”

“Well, at least
one
of you has a little sense. Do me a favor and try sharing some of that with Emma next time. Assuming I ever let her out of the house again.”

“Sure, Ms. Marshall.” I hung up, suddenly glad I hadn’t spent the night at the Marshalls’, as had been my original plan. With Emma grounded and Traci probably still in shock, breakfast could
not
have been a pleasant meal.

After a minute’s hesitation, and much anticipatory panic, I decided to call Nash, because in spite of his reputation and my suspicion about his motives, he hadn’t laughed at me when I told him the truth about the panic attack.

And with Emma grounded, he was the only one left who knew.

I picked up my phone again—then I realized I didn’t have his number.

Careful to avoid my aunt and uncle, who was now awake and frying bacon, based on the scent permeating the entire house, I snuck into the living room, snagged the phone book from an end table drawer and took it back to my room. There were four Hudsons with the right prefix, but only one on his street. Nash answered on the third ring.

My heart pounded so hard I was sure he could hear it over the phone, and for several seconds, silence was all I could manage.

“Hello?”
he repeated, sounding almost as annoyed as sleepy now.

“Hey, it’s Kaylee,” I finally blurted, fervently hoping he remembered me—that I hadn’t imagined dancing with him the
night before. Because frankly, after the night’s premonition and the morning’s newscast, even
I
was starting to wonder if Sophie was right about me.

Nash cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was husky with sleep. “Hey. You’re not calling to cancel, are you?”

I couldn’t resist a smile, in spite of the reason for the call. “No. I…Have you seen the news this morning?”

He chuckled hoarsely. “I haven’t even seen the
floor
yet this morning.” Nash yawned, and springs creaked over the line. He was still in bed.

I stamped down the scandalous images that knowledge brought to mind and forced myself to focus on the issue at hand. “Turn on your TV.”

“I’m not really into current events….” More springs squealed as he rolled over, and something whispered against his phone.

My eyes closed and I leaned against my headboard, sucking in a deep breath. “She’s dead, Nash.”

“What?” He sounded marginally more awake this time. “Who’s dead?”

I leaned forward, and my own bed creaked. “The girl from the club. Emma’s sister found her dead in the bathroom at Taboo last night.”

“Are you sure it’s her?” He was definitely awake now, and I pictured him sitting straight up in bed. Hopefully shirtless.

“See for yourself.” I aimed my remote at the nineteen-inch set on my dresser and scrolled through the local channels until I found one still running the story. “Channel nine.”

Something clicked over the phone, and canned laughter rang out from his room. A moment later, the sounds from his television synched with mine. “Oh, shit,” Nash whispered.
Then his voice went deeper. Serious. “Kaylee, has this happened to you before? I mean, have you ever been right before?”

I hesitated, unsure how much to tell him. My eyes closed again, but the backs of my eyelids offered me no advice. So I sighed and told him the truth. After all, he already knew the weirdest part. “I don’t know. I can’t talk about it here.” The last thing I needed was for my aunt and uncle to overhear. They’d either ground me for the rest of my natural life or rush me back to the psych ward.

“I’ll come get you. Half an hour?”

“I’ll be in my driveway.”

3

I
SHOWERED IN RECORD
time, and twenty-four minutes after I hung up the phone, I was clean, dry, clothed, and wearing just enough makeup to hide the shock. But I was still straightening my hair when I heard a car pull into the driveway.

Crap. If I didn’t get to him first, Uncle Brendon would make Nash come in and submit to questioning.

I pulled the plug on the flatiron, raced back to my room for my phone, keys and wallet then sprinted down the hall and out the front door, shouting “good morning” and “goodbye” to my astonished uncle all in the same breath.

“It’s early for lunch. How ’bout pancakes?” Nash asked as I slid into the passenger seat of his mother’s car and closed the door.

“Um…sure.” Though with death on my conscience and Nash in my sight, food was pretty much the last thing on my mind.

The car smelled like coffee, and Nash smelled like soap, toothpaste, and something indescribably, tantalizingly yummy. I wanted to inhale him whole, and I couldn’t stop staring at his chin, smooth this morning where it had been deliciously rough the night before. I remembered the texture of his cheek
against mine, and had to close my eyes and concentrate to banish the dangerous memory.

I’m not a conquest, no matter how good he smells. Or how good he tastes.
And the sudden, overwhelming need to know what his lips would feel like made me shiver all over, and scramble for something safe to say. Something casual, that wouldn’t hint at the dangerous direction my thoughts had taken.

“I guess the car started,” I said, pulling the seat belt across my torso. Then cursed myself silently for such a stupid opening line. Of course the car had started.

His brief gaze seemed to burn through me. “I have unreasonably good luck.”

I could only nod and clench the door grip while I forced my thoughts back to Heidi Anderson to keep them off Nash and…thoughts I shouldn’t have been thinking.

When he glanced my way again, his focus slid down my throat to the neckline of my tee before jerking back to the road as he clenched his jaw. I counted my exhalations to keep them even.

We wound up at a booth in Jimmy’s Omelet, a locally owned chain that served breakfast until three in the afternoon. Nash sat across from me, his arms resting on the table, his sleeves pushed up halfway to his elbows.

Once the waitress had taken our orders and moved on, Nash leaned forward and met my gaze boldly, intimately, as if we’d shared much more than a rhyme in a dark alley and an almost-kiss. But the teasing and flirtation were gone; he looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. Somber. Almost worried.

“Okay…” He spoke softly, in concession to the crowd talking, chewing, and clanking silverware around us. “So last night you predicted this girl’s death, and this morning she showed up on the news, dead.”

I nodded, swallowing thickly. Hearing it like that—so
matter-of-fact—made it sound both crazy and terrifying. And I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“You said you’ve had these premonitions before?”

“Just a few times.”

“Have any of them ever come true?”

I shook my head, then shrugged and picked up a napkin-wrapped bundle of silverware to have something to do with my hands. “Not that I know of.”

“But you only know about this one because it was on the news, right?” I nodded without looking up, and he continued. “So the others could have come true too, and you might never have known about it.”

“I guess.” But if that were the case, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about it.

When I drew my focus from the napkin I’d half peeled from the knife and fork, I found him watching me intently, as if my every word might mean something important. His lips were pressed firmly together, his forehead wrinkled in concentration.

I shifted on the vinyl-padded bench, uneasy under such scrutiny. Now he probably really thought I was a freak. A girl who thinks she knows when someone’s going to die—that might be interesting in certain circles; it definitely presented a certain morbid cachet.

But a girl who really could predict death? That was just scary.

Nash frowned, and his focus shifted back and forth between my eyes, like he was looking for something specific. “Kaylee, do you know why this is happening? What it means?”

My heart thumped painfully, and I clutched the shredded napkin. “How do you know it means anything?”

“I…don’t.” He sighed and leaned back in the booth, dropping his gaze to the table as he picked up a mini-jar of
strawberry preserves from the jelly carousel. “But don’t you think it should mean something? I mean, we’re not talking about lottery numbers and horse-race winners. Don’t you want to know why you can do this? Or what the limits are? Or—”

“No.” I looked up sharply, irritated by the familiar, sick dread settling into my stomach, killing what little appetite I’d managed to hold on to. “I don’t want to know why or how. All I want to know is how to make it stop.”

Nash leaned forward again, pinning me with a gaze so intense, so thoroughly invasive, that I caught my breath. “What if you can’t?”

My mood darkened at the very thought. I shook my head, denying the possibility.

He glanced down at the jelly again, spinning it on the table, and when he looked back up, his gaze had gone soft. Sympathetic. “Kaylee, you need help with this.”

My eyes narrowed and a spike of anger and betrayal shot through me. “You think I need counseling?” Each breath came faster than the last as I fought off memories of brightly colored scrubs, and needles and padded wrist restraints. “I’m not crazy.” I stood and dropped the knife on the table, but when I tried to march past him, his hand wrapped firmly around my wrist and he twisted to look up at me.

“Kaylee, wait, that’s not what I—”

“Let go.” I wanted to tug my arm free, but I was afraid that if he didn’t let go, I’d lose it. Four-point restraints or an unyielding hand, it was all the same if I couldn’t get free. Panic clawed slowly up from my gut as I struggled not to pull against his grip. My chest constricted, and I went stiff in my desperation to stay calm.

“People are looking…” he whispered urgently.

“Then let me go.” Each breath came short and fast now, and sweat gathered in the crooks of my elbows. “Please.”

He let go.

I exhaled, and my eyes closed as sluggish relief sifted through me. But I couldn’t make myself move. Not yet. Not without running.

When I realized I was rubbing my wrist, I clenched my hands into fists until my nails cut into my palms. Distantly, I noticed that the restaurant had gone quiet around us.

“Kaylee, please sit down. That’s not what I meant.” His voice was soft. Soothing.

My hands began to relax, and I inhaled deeply.

“Please,” he repeated, and it took every bit of self-control I had to make myself back up and sink onto the padded bench.

With my hands in my lap.

We sat in silence until conversation picked up around us, me staring at the table, him staring at me, if I had to guess.

“Are you okay?” he asked finally, as the waitress set food on the table behind me, and I felt the tension in my shoulders ease as I leaned against the wooden back of the booth.

“I don’t need a doctor.” I made myself look up, ready to stand firm against his argument to the contrary. But it never came.

He sighed, a sound heavy with reluctance. “I know. You need to tell your aunt and uncle.”

“Nash…”

“They might be able to help you, Kaylee. You have to tell someone—”

“They know, okay?” I glanced at the table to find that my fingers were tearing the shredded napkin into even smaller pieces. Shoving them to the side, I met Nash’s gaze, suddenly,
recklessly determined to tell him the truth. How much worse could he possibly think of me?

“Last time this happened, I freaked out and started screaming. And I couldn’t stop. They put me in the hospital, and strapped me to a bed, and shot me full of drugs, and didn’t let me out until we all agreed that I’d gotten over my ‘delusions and hysteria’ and wouldn’t need to talk about them anymore. Okay? So I don’t think telling them is going to do much good, unless I want to spend fall break in the mental-health unit.”

Nash blinked, and in the span of a single second, his expression cycled through disbelief, disgust, and outrage before finally settling on fury, his brows low, arms bulging, like he wanted to hit something.

It took me a moment to understand that none of that was directed at me. That he wasn’t angry and embarrassed to be seen out with the school psycho. Probably because no one else knew. No one but Sophie, and her parents had threatened her with social ostracism—total house arrest—if she ever let the family secret out of the proverbial bag.

“How long?” Nash asked, his gaze boring into mine so deeply I wondered if he could see right through my eyes and into my brain.

I sighed and picked at the label on a small bottle of sugar-free syrup. “After a week, I said all the right things, and my uncle took me out against doctor’s orders. They told the school I had the flu.” I was a sophomore then, and nearly a year away from meeting Nash, when Emma started dating a series of his teammates.

Nash closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. “That never should have happened. You’re not crazy. Last night proves that.”

I nodded, numb. If I’d misread him, I’d never be able to walk tall in my own school again. But I couldn’t even work up any irritation over that possibility at the moment. Not with my
secrets exposed, my heart laid open and latent terror lurking in the drug-hazy memories I’d hoped to bury.

“You have to tell them again, and—”

“No.”

But he continued, as if I’d never spoken. “—if they don’t believe you, call your dad.”

“No, Nash.”

Before he could argue again, a smooth, pale arm appeared across my field of vision, and the waitress set a plate on the table in front of me, and one in front of him. I hadn’t even heard her approach that time, and based on Nash’s wide eyes, he hadn’t either.

“Okay, you kids dig in. And let me know if I can get you somethin’ else, ’kay?”

We both nodded as she walked off. But I could only cut my pancakes into neat triangles and push them around in the syrup. I had no appetite. Even Nash only picked at his food.

Finally, he put his fork down and cleared his throat until I looked up. “I’m not going to talk you into this, am I?”

I shook my head. He frowned, then sighed and worked up a small smile. “How do you feel about geese?”

 

A
FTER A BREAKFAST
I didn’t eat, and Nash didn’t enjoy, we stopped at a sandwich shop, where he bought a bag of day-old bread. Then we headed to White Rock Lake to feed a honking, pecking flock of geese, a couple of which were gutsy little demons. One snatched a piece of bread right out of my hand, nearly taking my finger with it, and another nipped Nash’s shoe when he didn’t pull food from the bag fast enough.

When the bread was gone, we escaped from the geese—barely—for a walk around the lake. The wind whipped my hair
into knots and I tripped over a loose board in the pier, but when Nash took my hand, I let him keep it, and the silence between us was comfortable. How could it not be, when he’d now seen every shadow in my soul and every corner in my mind, and hadn’t once called me crazy—or tried to feel me up.

And why not?
I wondered, sneaking a glimpse at his profile as he squinted at the sun across the lake. Was I not pretty enough?

No, I didn’t want to be the latest on his rumored list of conquests, but I wouldn’t mind knowing I was worthy.

Nash smiled when he noticed me watching him. His eyes were more green than brown in the sunlight, and they seemed to be churning softly, probably reflecting the motion of the water. “Kaylee, can I ask you something personal?”

Like death and mental illness weren’t personal?

“Only if I get to ask you something.”

He seemed to consider that for a moment, then grinned, flashing a single deep dimple, and squeezed my hand as we walked. “You first.”

“Did you sleep with Laura Bell?”

Nash pulled me to an abrupt halt and arched both brows dramatically over long, beautiful boy-lashes. “That’s not fair. I didn’t ask you who you’ve been with.”

I shrugged, enjoying his discomfort. “Ask away.” I wouldn’t even need any fingers to tick off my list.

He scowled; he obviously had another question in mind. “If I say yes, are you going to get mad?”

I shrugged. “It’s none of my business.”

“Then why do you care?”

Grrr…
“Okay, new question.” I tugged him into step again, working up the nerve to ask something I wasn’t sure I really wanted the answer to. But I had to know, before things went
any further. “What are you doing here?” I held our joined hands up for emphasis. “What’s in this for you?”

“Your trust, hopefully.”

My head spun just a little bit at that, and I stifled a dazed grin. “That’s it?” I blinked up at him as we stepped onto the pier. Even if that was true, that couldn’t be all of it. I donned a mock frown. “You sure you’re not trying to get laid?”

BOOK: My Soul to Take
5.02Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Dancers in the Dark by Ava J. Smith
Eden Burning by Deirdre Quiery
Action: A Book About Sex by Amy Rose Spiegel
Loonglow by Helen Eisenbach
Songs of the Dancing Gods by Jack L. Chalker
Demons by John Shirley
The Pretender by Celeste Bradley
Undeath and Taxes by Drew Hayes
Survival by Joe Craig