Rachel Vincent - With All My Soul

Then he held up his other hand, but I couldn’t clearly see what it held. I could no longer clearly see anything. Sight and sound were already fading as I faded, for the lack of a soul. I collapsed to my knees, but didn’t feel the impact.

“Do it!” Tod shouted, and distantly I registered the panic in his voice.

A second later, a blast of something light and warm hit me. It surrounded me like a blanket molded to the shape of my body, then sank into me. Through me.

I didn’t realize how cold I’d been on the inside until the warmth of my own returned soul brought me back to myself for the first time in four interminable years. I gasped, sucking in one great breath, and the Netherworld came into focus around me. Creatures eyeing me like Sabine would eye a hamburger. Avari, simmering with rage eager to bubble up and over him.

And Tod...

Tod pushed his way through the inhuman crowd toward me, trying to see if it was over. If my soul was indeed restored. If I was back.

And I was back.

“Little fury, our business is complete,” Ira said from my left. “I’ve already guaranteed your safe passage to the human world, as part of our agreement, and I suggest you leave now, before you find yourself in trouble you cannot bargain your way out of.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

I raced across the room, and what remained of the crowd split for me. Tod’s eyes widened and filled with tears. His arms opened. My letter fluttered to the ground. I threw myself at him—arms around his neck, legs around his waist—and the moment we touched, fog rolled up from the floor and over us.

The Netherworld faded, and Avari’s bellow of fury faded with it.

The school basement came into focus around us, and I exhaled like I hadn’t had a breath to release in years. And in truth, I hadn’t.

Tod’s arms tightened around me as he lowered us to the floor, my limbs still wrapped around him. Tears poured down my face as I clutched him, feeling the muscles shift beneath his shirt as I ran my hands over his back. He felt so solid. So real. His features didn’t shift into monstrous shapes with each change of temperament. His teeth didn’t bite. His touch didn’t hurt.

I slid my fingers into his hair, and his curls were the softest thing I’d ever felt. He smelled so good—so sweet and clean—and he felt so good, so I kissed my way down his jaw until I found his mouth, then I kissed him. And kissed him. And kissed him some more. And finally I had to make myself stop before I devoured him whole, because I was starving, and he was the first sustenance I’d had in years, and he was exactly the right sustenance, but I would never feed from him like Avari fed from me, and just that thought sent horror rolling through me and...

I opened my eyes. Tod was shaking. His whole body was trembling beneath mine, and when I pulled away to see his face, I realized he was crying. At first I thought I’d hurt him. Then I realized how ridiculous that was. I couldn’t hurt anyone. I was the least threatening thing in the world. In either world. I had no claws, or fangs, or tail, or horns, or any abilities strong enough to command respect or fear....

“Are you real?” He pulled me close again and whispered the halting words into my ear. “Did that really just happen? You’re alive?”

My arms slid around him again. “No more now than I was before, but yes.” My voice was hoarse and I couldn’t stop grinning. I couldn’t remember ever seeing a room as glorious as my grungy high school basement, based solely on the fact that it was in the human world. Beyond the reach of hellions.

“You were dead. Gone. For four years. We mourned you. We grieved, ” he said, and I could see the truth of that in his eyes. In the solemn slant of his mouth. “Everyone else moved on.”

“They moved on.” I blinked, denying fresh tears an exit. That was good. I wanted them to move on. That was why they couldn’t know. “Did you...move on?”

Tod shook his head. “I tried. I tried so hard. But no matter where I went and what I did, I could still feel you. It was... It felt like I could walk into the next room, and you’d be there smiling. Waiting for me. Like I could turn a corner, and you’d be standing there. I missed you so much. I thought I was losing my mind.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He put one hand on either side of my face and kissed me. “It makes sense now. I had part of your soul. You gave it to me. That’s why I couldn’t let you go.”

That’s why he’d suffered for four years, like my father had been suffering for thirteen, since my mother died.

Nope. Seventeen. The past four years in the Nether had felt like an eternity, yet I could hardly comprehend that same passage of time in the human world. I felt like everything in my native plane should have stood still. Like the world should have stopped revolving in my absence, only to resume when I returned. But that hadn’t happened. Tod had lived through those four years without me, suffering a subconscious promise to wait for me. Carrying a bit of my soul with his own.

My eyes closed as I realized the depth of the pain I’d put him through.

But I’d had no choice. If I hadn’t done what I’d done, he’d still be suffering. We all would. And it would never have ended.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and I opened my eyes to find him staring at me. I started to nod, but he continued before I could. “Of course you’re not okay. You’ve been there for four years. Four years of what?” His features twisted with some form of suffering I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around. He wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t hurt. Yet he was clearly in pain.

Empathy. That word came out of nowhere. From deep within the well of things I hadn’t needed in the Nether. Things I hadn’t seen or used.

But that wasn’t it, exactly.

Rage. That one I’d used. That one I’d seen. But that wasn’t quite it, either.

Tod was hurting for me. He was angry for me. He felt...powerless. Helpless. Useless. Those I saw in his eyes, in the moment before I became overwhelmed by the fact that I was staring into his eyes. In my more rational moments, over the past four years, I’d been convinced I’d never see him again.

“Four years of what, Kaylee?” he whispered, and his voice cracked on my name.

I shook my head slowly. “Doesn’t matter. It’s over now.”

“It matters. I need to know what you...what I let...”

“No.” I took his chin in my hand and made him look at me, terrified by what I saw in his eyes now. Guilt. “You didn’t do this. You couldn’t have stopped it. I went through a lot of trouble to make sure you didn’t know about it, because I knew that if you thought I was still here—still anywhere —you would move heaven and the Netherworld to get to me. And I couldn’t let that happen.”

“What happened to you, Kaylee?”

“Listen to me.” I spoke through clenched teeth, desperate to stop the tears standing at the ready. “Forget about that. I plan to.”

“Kaylee...”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t have to think about that. Not ever again. And neither do you. Everything’s okay now, Tod. Everything is amazing now. Perfect.” I smiled. I couldn’t stop smiling. “We’re together.” I kissed him again, and when his tears fell, mine followed, but these tears didn’t hurt. “And this time, forever is real.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. More than anything.” I stood and pulled him up with me, swiping tears from my cheek with my free hand. “Now let’s go bring me back to life. Again.”