Rachel Vincent - With All My Soul

My heart ached. Each beat seemed to bruise me from the inside out.

Nash had grown up, like Tod and I never would. Mental math told me he was twenty-two now, and though I could see it, I couldn’t truly believe it.

The passenger’s-side door opened and a headful of long, straight, dark hair appeared over the roof of the car. A second later, Sabine rounded the front bumper and slid her hand into Nash’s, and I’m sure my eyes nearly bugged out of my head.

She’d grown up, too, and she was gorgeous, in a mature, collected way the teenage mara I’d come to thoroughly tolerate had never been. And she looked...happy. Even with all the eyeliner she still wore and a familiar pair of guys’ khakis hanging low on the swell of her hips.

“This is bizarre, ” I whispered, and Tod’s hand settled at my lower back.

“I guess it must be, seeing it all of a sudden like that.” He shrugged. “They grew up.”

“And they’re...okay? They’re good?”

“Yeah. Better than I would have expected.” His arm slid around my side and pulled me close again, just as the rear door of the car opened, and my breath caught in my throat.

Emma.

Lydia’s body had grown up, too, and Em now wore it like it was her own. She’d cut her thin hair, and it looked healthier than I’d ever seen it, bouncing on her shoulders in light brown waves. Her arms were tanned, and she’d finally figured out how to dress a body with no curves to speak of—a dilemma I remembered well.

I was still watching her walk up the sidewalk when Nash knocked on the door, then opened it and came in without waiting for the key Em had dug from her purse. “Hey, Peter Pan? You in here?”

Sabine followed him inside, and I could tell by the way their gazes passed over us, then settled on the cups of ice lined up on the kitchen counter that they couldn’t see either of us yet. I hadn’t gone spectral on purpose. Evidently—subconsciously, at least—I wasn’t ready to be seen.

“Kay?” Tod said, and they didn’t hear that, either. “You ready?”

I nodded, and I only realized that was the truth at the very last second.

Tod cleared his throat. Nash and Sabine turned our way just as Em stepped into the house.

For a moment, shocked silence reigned.

Nash took off his sunglasses, and his hazel eyes were as wide and still as I’d ever seen them. Emma dropped her purse, and Styx skittered away from the falling debris. Sabine’s mouth widened in a stunning smile. She was the first to believe her eyes, and, somehow, that didn’t surprise me.

“Kay?” She crossed the room in an instant and threw strong arms around me, while I tried to ignore the fact that she’d grown at least two inches taller since I’d last seen her. She towered over me now, and was only a couple of inches shorter than Nash. “Are you real?”

Tod laughed. “I’ve been asking her that for the past three hours. She’s real. Solid and thoroughly functional.”

“Well then.” Sabine let go of me and grinned. “I guess we know how they spent the past three hours, instead of alerting anyone else to the miraculous resurrection.” She shrugged. “Not that I blame you. If it were me and Nash, we’d still be sequestered.”

Obviously some things hadn’t changed....

“I—I don’t...” Em stuttered, and as soon as Sabine stepped back, Emma was there. She’d grown, too, but that put her at exactly my height, and I hugged her so tight I could almost hear her ribs groan. “How...?”

“She didn’t die. Levi lied.” Tod still sounded less than pleased by that, and I couldn’t blame him.

“I asked him to,” I clarified, without letting go of Emma. I couldn’t let her go. I wasn’t ready. And based on the strength of her hug, neither was Em. “I knew that if you guys knew what I was planning, you’d come after me.”

“Come after you where? ” Sabine frowned, and I could tell by the suspicion dripping from that one question that she’d figured at least part of it out.

“The Netherworld.” Tod told them the part I couldn’t make myself say out loud. “She turned herself in. Which sounds really asinine until you hear about the out clause she built into her deal with Avari. That part’s really brilliant.”

“You turned yourself in? To Avari? ” Emma shuddered even as she said his name, and I could see all the questions she obviously wanted to ask hiding just below her surprise and confusion. “You were there the whole time? So you’ve been...? He’s been...?” Horror washed over her face in slow motion as comprehension surfaced. As she realized where and how I’d spent the past four years. And why I’d spent them.

“ Damn, Kay,” Sabine whispered.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tears formed in Emma’s eyes. “ How can you be okay?”

“I made a deal with Ira. I gave him everything I couldn’t handle....” Mostly massive amounts of pain and rage. “And that left me with my...um...sanity.” I shrugged like it was no big deal, but no one bought that.

“Ira. Damn.” Sabine tossed long, dark hair over her shoulder. “I haven’t heard that name in years. And you actually talked a hellion of wrath into sucking the crazy right out of you?”

“It was mutually beneficial. And Ira’ll be munching on Avari’s fury for centuries. That’s really why he agreed to the whole thing.” I blinked and shook my head, mentally changing the subject. “Enough about the Netherworld. We’re done with that now.” I’d put myself through hell for four years to make damn sure of that. “I want to talk about you guys! You’re all...grown!”

Emma laughed. “Yeah. I guess so. You missed prom. Then...everything else.”

“You’re in college?” Tod had told me that, but I wanted to hear it from her.

“Yeah. I’m a junior at A&M. But they’re about to graduate. Both of them!” She gestured to Sabine and Nash, and when my gaze fell on Nash again, it stuck there. He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t said a word. He was still staring at me in shock, and his sunglasses lay on his left foot, where he’d dropped them.

“Nash?”

He blinked, and his eyes swirled with confused, surprised twists of brown and green. I took a step toward him, and he studied me. Like he didn’t dare believe the signals his eyes were sending him.

So I closed the distance between us on my own, then went up on my toes to hug him.

He felt...different. Bigger. More solid.

Healthy.

Slowly, his arms closed around me. His hug tightened steadily until I couldn’t have breathed if I’d needed to. He shook in my arms, and his tears soaked into the shoulder of my shirt.

“It’s okay,” I said with what little breath remained in my lungs. “It’s okay, Nash.”

When he finally let me go and wiped tears from his face, I wanted to hug him all over again.

“You know, there are easier ways to make an ex get over you, Kay. You didn’t have to fake your own death. Again.”

I laughed through my own tears, and I hugged him again. Then I escaped into the kitchen to pull myself together while I poured soda into the cups, hoping they wouldn’t see how surreal this was for me. Four hours earlier, I hadn’t known my own name. I’d forgotten this world existed. I’d been lost in a hell from which there should have been no mistake.

And now...

I turned and found them all watching me, so I took a long drink from my cup to buy time. To think of what to say.

Tod’s hand slid into mine, and he smiled. Without saying a word, he told me that everything was okay. That everything would come back to me, in time. That the world may have moved on without me, but he hadn’t.

And that’s when I realized what I wanted to talk about. The world had moved on without me, but ignoring that fact wouldn’t help me adjust to it. I had to hit it head-on.