Soul Screamers Volume Four: With All My Soul\Fearless\Niederwald\Last Request: 4 (34 page)

He was mad about everything he’d listed. That was all true. But the truest part—the core of an anger that had many heads, like a hydra—was the thought that I could have died in one horrible moment of my own recklessness. I could have died—again—and he’d never know how it happened, or why, or even what happened to my body.

Fear. The root of his anger was fear of losing me, not as his girlfriend—that part of our lives was over, and he loved Sabine; we could all see that—but as his friend. As his more-than-a-friend. As a confidante. As one of the people who’d been with him through life, and death, and addiction, and relapse, and countless moments of imminent threat from untold forms of evil.

And now he wanted to know that I’d never do it again. That I’d never put him through the fear of losing me again.

“Don’t make her do it, Nash.” Tod’s voice was so soft and deep I had to concentrate to understand what I was hearing. “She will if you ask her to, but
I’m
asking you not to make her promise something she can’t keep. That’s not a promise
any
of us could keep. Like it or not, we’re not going to get our parents back without putting ourselves in danger, and Kaylee knows that. She knew it before any of the rest of us came to that conclusion.”

But that wasn’t true. Tod had known before I’d ever met him. Before I’d met Avari or Invidia or Belphegore. Before I even knew I wasn’t human. He’d known what you have to be willing to sacrifice for the people you love long before I’d truly understood the meaning of the words
risk
and
sacrifice.

He’d known since the moment he’d given up his life so Nash could live.

“What Kaylee doesn’t understand is that she’s not alone in this.” Tod stepped forward and held his hand out to me, and I reached for it like a plant reaches for the sun. Like I couldn’t bloom without him there to shine on me. He pulled me up, then he pulled me close, and when he looked into my eyes, I couldn’t look away.

“What Kaylee needs to understand is that we all feel just like she does. Like if we make the sacrifice or take the risk, the others won’t have to. Ira, Avari, and all the rest of them, they want each of us to believe that because they know we’ll make that sacrifice if we think that’s the only way to save the people we love. But it’s a lie. This is too big for any one of us alone. We can only do this as a team—if we have one another’s backs.”

His eyes were all for me again then, and I could see how hurt he really was. Beneath that, I could see his fear.

Fear of losing me, just like I’d felt when he’d died. When I’d thought I’d lost him and that my afterlife would be hundreds—maybe thousands—of years spent mourning him.

“What that means is that when we take risks, if they can’t be avoided, we let everyone else in on the plan so that if something goes wrong, we can do what we do best. Rescue each other. Got it?”

I nodded. Then I wrapped my arms around him and we held each other until Em started clearing her throat awkwardly.

Sabine was less subtle. “Okay, if you two could form separate people again, we have a fairly serious evil scheme to discuss. Also, I’m hungry.”

Tod squeezed me tighter for a second, then let me go. “Are you guys tired of pizza? ’Cause I could have dinner here in about five minutes....”

“Free?” Sabine perked up with interest.

Tod rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

“I’m in. Pepperoni, beef, and green bell peppers.”

“The free pizza is whatever’s ready and not yet claimed,” Tod said. Sabine pouted, then shrugged. She finally seemed to be coming to terms with the relationship between beggars and choosers. Which would have been great, if only her
other
appetite were as easy to satisfy.

Chapter Twenty

Luca and Sophie showed up while Tod was on his pizza run, and when he got back with two greasy boxes, I set a stack of paper plates on the table and Em dug the last of our cans of soda from the fridge.

If my dad wasn’t back soon, I’d have to get a second job just to put food on the table. Er...Coke in the fridge.

I refused to think about the possibility that he might
never
be back. Losing him was not an option.

We got Luca and Sophie all caught up over dinner.

“So, ‘ticktock’ is, like, the clock running out? So, he’s giving us a deadline?” My cousin picked a pepperoni off her slice and dropped it on an extra plate designated as the dumping ground for foods she wouldn’t eat, which included pepperoni, sausage, onions, and crust. At first, she’d refused pizza, until Sabine pointed out that “picky little bitches” go hungry.

“Yeah,” Nash said around a bite of supreme. “But we don’t know when that deadline is.”

Luca ate Sophie’s pepperoni slice, then followed it with a gulp from the can of diet soda they were sharing. “Why would Avari go to the trouble of possessing Emma with a message for Kaylee, then not deliver the entire message?”

“My theory is that he didn’t know how to control Lydia’s syphoning abilities any better than Emma does. I’m thinking they overwhelmed him, and that made his message come out all garbled and incomplete.”

Em frowned. “But if he hadn’t spent enough time in her body to learn to control her abilities, how was he able to use her voice?”

“Crap. I don’t know.” There was
so
much we still didn’t know. So much we might
never
know.

Nash shrugged. “I kinda got the impression that he only wanted to give the message to you, and that’s why he was so pissed off. Because you weren’t available.”

“Because she was summoning the competition?” Sophie said. “Like, his archnemesis?”

“They’re demons, not comic-book villains,” Emma said.

My cousin dropped her bare crust on the extra plate and frowned at Em. “Excuse me, but I think I can visualize the forces of evil however I like.”

Luca stifled a laugh. “As long as you’re not expecting them to go ‘Oof!’ and ‘Ka-pow!’ when you hit them.”

“I’m not planning to hit them,” Sophie mumbled, picking a clump of sausage from her second slice.

“Okay, so what’s the plan for tonight?”

I shrugged. “Considering that Emma’s exhaustion led to her being possessable today, I think you guys should let me and Tod do all the Netherworld searching tonight, so you can get some rest.”

“Hell, no,” Nash said.

Sabine’s brows rose in my direction. “I don’t need much sleep. Nash and I will take the first shift. Now, before it gets too late.” I started to object, but she spoke again before I could. “Don’t bother. I’m not asking for permission. I’m letting you know what we’ll be up to, so you won’t worry if you can’t find us. And so you
can
worry if we’re not back in a reasonable amount of time.”

Before any of the rest of us could answer, Nash pulled her closer and kissed her fuller and deeper than I’d ever seen him kiss anyone other than me.

Sabine looked surprised for the second it took her to realize what was happening. That Nash was kissing her in front of people.

Then things got awkward. Fast.

“Are you trying to make my pizza come back up?” Em demanded, and Luca laughed.

After dinner, Nash and Sabine went to the Netherworld together, concentrating on the buildings within walking distance of the hospital—the ones Tod and I hadn’t already searched.

Luca, Sophie, and Emma curled up on the couch with a movie—no one even suggested doing homework—and Tod and I retreated to my room with a promise not to blink to any more private locations without telling them we were leaving.

My heart started beating on its own when I closed the door and turned to see him sitting in my desk chair. Watching me.

“Okay. So. How mad are you?”

“I’m not mad.” He motioned me closer, and I sat in his lap, facing him.

“You’re not mad at all?” I frowned. “You understand that when I left the hospital this morning, I already knew I was going to summon Ira and I didn’t tell you.”

“Yeah. I got that, and it’s not like I’m celebrating the omission. But...I went after Thane without telling you, so I figure I don’t have much of a leg to stand on in an argument about full disclosures.”

“So you’re not mad because we’re even? I don’t want this to be some kind of contest.”

“It’s not. I’m not mad because I know from personal experience that—like me—you did what you thought you had to do, and you didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” His gaze seemed to see straight through to my soul. “So, all I need to know is...did you kiss him?”

“No.” My eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t even ask what his price would be, because I was afraid he would ask for another...taste. Or something worse. I let our parents stay stuck in the Netherworld because I didn’t want him to touch me again,” I confessed. The tears fell, and I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t know whether to feel guilty for my own squeamishness or glad that I didn’t kiss someone else this time.

He took my hand, and his fingers wound around mine. “Kaylee, you didn’t do anything wrong. My mom wouldn’t
want
you to pay for her freedom like that, and I know damn well your dad and uncle wouldn’t, either.” His grip on my hand tightened, and shivers traveled up my arm. “And as selfish as it probably sounds, I can’t stand the thought of him touching you for
any
reason.”

“I don’t think I deserve you,” I whispered as those tingles wound their way from my arm down my spine. “I suck as a girlfriend.”

“That’s not true. The real problem is that hellions suck as nemeses.”

“What?”

Tod shrugged. “A proper villain would know when to start overexplaining his dastardly scheme. He’d actually
look
when you point at the sky and shout, ‘Look!’ When the going gets tough, a real villain would throw one of his minions under the bus and run, or rant against the justice department while he’s being shoved into the back of a cop car. Hell, a real villain would at least wear a mask or creepy clown makeup, so we know at a glance who’s good and who’s bad.” Tod grinned and shrugged. “Face it, Kay. The problem here isn’t you. It’s these subpar villains the universe has thrown at us. Someone should lodge a formal complaint with the bad-guy union.”

I laughed, more grateful than ever for his willingness to make me smile even at the worst of times.

I started to kiss Tod, but then Nash pushed the door open and poked his head into the room. “Hey, sorry to interrupt.” But he didn’t sound
that
sorry—obviously turnabout was fair play. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, holding his cell phone, and I realized I’d misinterpreted his expression.

Something was wrong.

“You have a call.” He held his cell out to me.

“On your phone?”

“Yeah. It’s Marco. Only it’s
not
Marco.”

“Oh, crap.” Tod helped me climb out of his lap without landing on the floor, and I stared at Nash’s phone like it might bite me if I touched it. Sure enough, Marco’s name was at the top of the screen, but...

“Ms. Cavanaugh, I really don’t think you want to keep me waiting.” Avari’s voice sounded distant coming from a phone not held close to my ear, but it was perfectly audible. He either couldn’t work Marco’s vocal chords or wasn’t bothering.

My hand shook when I took the phone. It shook harder when I held it to my ear. “Hello?” The standard human greeting sounded stupid, considering I was speaking to a hellion, but I didn’t know how else to start.

“Ms. Cavanaugh, you’ve become a difficult
bean sidhe
to get hold of. I’ve had to resort to...creative means.”

I pressed the speaker button and set Nash’s phone on my desk, not just so that he and Tod could hear, but so that I could put distance—however worthless—between my ear and the hellion’s voice. “What do you want?”

“The real question is what do
you
want? What would you like me to do with your father? Shall I list your options, or would you like to guess?”

“This isn’t a game.” I leaned against the desk, staring at my feet.

“Of course it’s a game.
Life
is a game, little
bean sidhe,
and you are going to lose. The only choice still yours to make is how soon that happens. For instance, if you were to surrender yourself now, or anytime in the next few hours, your father would be returned to the human world, having suffered no permanent damage.”

“He’s okay?” Was that even possible?

“‘Okay’ is a relative term, in my world as in yours. He has, as yet, suffered no permanent damage. Physically, at least. It is difficult for me to determine how much and what kind of psychological trauma is recoverable.”

Hearing him talk about my father like that made me hate Avari all over again with a loathing rendered raw and fresh, as if the wound were new. But the truth was that he’d cut my heart out months and months ago. Avari kept himself entertained—and fed—by squeezing it whenever he got the chance.

“And if I don’t turn myself in?” It hurt to say the words. To vocally betray my father.

“If you haven’t surrendered your body and soul by midnight, I will begin amusing myself in earnest with your father’s suffering. Physically, at first, and progressing from there. I will push my fingers into his psyche and create excruciating new realities for him. Realities where you are dead and gone, through some negligence on his part, and he drowns in guilt and grief for eternity. Realities where he watches his beloved daughter suffer offenses and indignities beyond human endurance, over and over again while he screams in vain for your freedom and, eventually, for the mercy of your final death.”

My skin crawled. “Stop.” My eyes closed in horror and my voice carried no sound, which was just as well, because it would have made no difference anyway.

Tod rolled the desk chair closer and took my hand, and Nash sank onto the end of my bed, his eyes swirling with angry, despairing shades of green and brown.

“He will have twelve hours of such agony, while you further consider your choices,” Avari continued. “And if you are not in my possession by noon in your human time zone, I will end his life and deliver his soulless corpse—whatever is left of it—into your possession.”