Rachel Vincent - With All My Soul

Tod stopped pacing and sat on the edge of my desk. “I think it’s dangerous to assume there’s anything Avari doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t know what we’d be willing to do to get our mom back.”

“Of course he does. Anything. The same thing Kaylee and Sophie would be willing to do to get their dads back. That’s what Avari’s counting on.”

“He’ll use our parents against us.”

“Yup.” Tod nodded. “He’ll use us all against one another if he gets the chance.”

“Do you think he’s found them?”

“No.” Tod didn’t hesitate. “But he wants to find them almost as badly as we do.”

Nash exhaled slowly. “What do you think he’ll do with them?”

“There are too many possibilities to even guess at.”

Tod was perfectly capable of an educated guess, but listing all the horrible ways our parents could die—or suffer for eternity—wouldn’t help anything.

“Think he’ll kill them?”

“Maybe.”

“Worse?”

“Maybe.”

For a moment—a very long moment—Nash was silent. Then he looked up, and his next words sounded fractured with pain. “We’re never going to see her again. You know that, right? She’s gone. She’s dead, or she’s wishing she were dead, and she’ll never be back.”

Wood creaked as Tod lifted his very corporeal weight from my desk, and a second later he sat next to Nash on Em’s bed. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

Nash laughed, a harsh sound that carried disbelief but no real hostility. “I get that you think you’re all badass, with the undead thing you’ve got going on, but it’s been nearly three years. The mystique has worn off, and we all know the truth. Reapers don’t save people—they kill people. Besides, if she dies in the Netherworld, there’s nothing you can do.” Nash stood, headed for the hall, walking backward, and I scurried away from the door. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m not the little brother anymore. You don’t need to coddle me. The truth is that if Avari wants Mom dead, there’s nothing either of us can do to stop that. Especially you. No offense, but you couldn’t even save Kaylee, and she was in the human world. Hell, she was in your reaping zone.”

A lump formed in my throat, and I pushed my bedroom door open. “Food’s here.” Nash turned, eyes wide with surprise, but Tod looked like he’d known I was there the whole time. He studied me, and I realized he was trying to figure out if I agreed with Nash. If I thought he’d failed me when I’d died. “Sabine’s not back yet,” I said. “Do you think you could go check on her?”

Tod nodded, almost reluctantly, then stood and slid one hand behind my head and into my hair. The goodbye kiss he gave me lingered, and it tasted like sorrow. “Be back in a few.” Then he disappeared.

When he was gone, I closed the door at my back, then leaned against it. Nash’s brows rose. “What are you doing?”

“We need to talk.”

He frowned. “Is it opposite day? ’Cause I think that’s my line.”

“I wish you could trust him as much as I trust him.” I let go of the doorknob and sat on the edge of my desk, where Tod had been moments earlier. “It would mean the world to him to look at you just once and not see contempt and suspicion.”

“Wow, seriously? I kinda thought he was lucky that I’m speaking to him at all, considering...what you two did behind my back. That’s not exactly the kind of thing that inspires trust.”

Granted. And we were obviously never going to be done paying for that. “But you trust me?”

Nash sat on my bed and thought in silence for a minute. “Yeah, actually, I do.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “We were together for so long....”

“Six months. We were together for six months, about a quarter of which I spent grounded.” Since neither of us had to sleep, I’d actually spent more time with Tod in the month and a half we’d been together than I’d spent with Nash during our entire half year as a couple. “But you and Tod have been brothers your whole lives. Why would you trust me but not him? Especially considering that I’m responsible for everything you blame him for. I kissed him, Nash. Not the other way around. I kissed him. ”

“I know. But...” He exhaled in frustration. “I understand why you would do that. I messed things up between you and me. Looking back, I’m surprised it took as long as it did for you to bail on me—”

“I didn’t bail. I—”

He held up one hand. “I know. Just let me finish. My point is that I practically pushed you toward him, so I can’t really blame you for your part in this. But I never pushed him toward you. He went after you all on his own.”

“But he didn’t,” I insisted. “And he wasn’t going to. If I hadn’t kissed him, he’d probably still be watching from the sidelines, holding everything inside because he’s your brother. Because he cares about you. Because he wants to protect you, even from himself.”

“Oh, that’s such bullshit! ” Anger flashed behind Nash’s eyes, and I saw him struggle to control it. Which meant more to me than he could possibly imagine. “I’m sorry, but you’re wearing rose-colored glasses, Kay. You think that just because you have a heart of gold everyone else must, too, but that’s not—”

“I don’t have a heart of gold.” Lately it felt more like I had a heart of steel. Like full-body armor was the only way I could protect the muscle that didn’t always beat anymore but always felt bruised.

“Yeah, you do. What you don’t see is that Tod would do anything for you because he loves you, but he’s not like that with everyone else. He’s not like that with anyone else.”

“You’re wrong. He’s not perfect—none of us are—but he’d do anything for the people he loves, and you’re one of them.”

“Right. I almost forgot that stealing your brother’s girlfriend is the best way to strengthen that fraternal bond,” Nash said. I started to object, but he held one hand up again to stop me. “I know. I have to get over that, and I am getting over it. I’m getting over you, anyway. But he’s my brother. We share the same parents. The same blood. He was willing to die to keep from reaping your soul, but he wasn’t even willing to keep his tongue in his own mouth to keep me from getting dumped. That tells me exactly how much I mean to him.”

I exhaled slowly and sank into my desk chair, one foot on the floor to keep it from turning. Don’t say it, Kaylee. It wasn’t my place. I had no intention of saying it until the words just fell out of my mouth.

“You died, Nash.”

He kind of tilted his head, like he hadn’t quite heard me. “What?”

“You died, when you were sixteen. In a car wreck. Hit head-on by a drunk driver who forgot to turn on his headlights. Your heart stopped beating. You stopped breathing. I know you probably don’t remember all of that, but I’m assuming you remember at least part of it.”

“Is this a joke? That’s how Tod died. I broke a few ribs, but I was fine. See?” He spread his arms, like that would prove he was right and I was wrong, and I only stared up at him, waiting for him to understand. For him to let himself understand what was surely already starting to sink in.

“No.” He shook his head a little too hard, and his thick hair looked like a crazy brown halo for a second. “Kay, no, Tod died. It nearly killed our mom. It nearly killed me. It was my fault, because I went out when I was grounded and my ride got drunk, so I called Tod. If it weren’t for me and that stupid party, he wouldn’t have been on the road that night, but he still would have died, because it was his time. He was on some reaper’s list.”