Rachel Vincent - Before I Wake

“He can’t see me,” Tod whispered against my chin. “Can he see you?”

“Nope. He can’t hear me, either.” I didn’t dare move, for fear of confirming what was surely only a hunch for my father at the moment. And somehow, sharing that moment of stillness and silence with Tod made me feel closer to him than ever.

My father sighed. “It’s suspiciously quiet in here, and there’s a Tod-shaped dent in the bean bag. For the sake of both my sanity and my temper, I’m going to pretend I can’t tell that you’re in his lap, so could you pretend that this is still my house and you are still my daughter, and I’m within my parental rights to kick your boyfriend out after 11:00 p.m.?”

“Shit,” I whispered, and Tod laughed out loud.

I could feel my face flame as I crawled off his lap and stood, and only then did I let my father see me. He may have known what we were doing, but that didn’t mean he needed to see it.

“Sorry,” I said as Tod stood behind me, and when my dad’s gaze focused on him, I knew he was visible, too.

“Sorry, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Tod said, and at first, I didn’t think my dad was going to answer.

Then he took a deep breath and his gazed narrowed on Tod. “I’ve been avoiding this conversation for a while now, because considering the circumstances, and the fact that my daughter is technically dead, it seems a little ridiculous for this to even be an issue. But she is still my daughter. So here goes…”

He took another deep breath, and I wanted to interrupt—to somehow stop what we all knew was coming—but I didn’t want to make the whole thing any more awkward than it already was.

“I like you, Tod. There was a time when I couldn’t have pictured myself saying that, but I know what you went through for Kaylee, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you refused to reap her soul, knowing what that would cost you. But none of that changes the fact that if you were still alive you’d be, what? Twenty?”

Tod nodded, and I squirmed.

“That’s still a kid, by bean sidhe standards, but twenty is considered fully grown in the world we live in, and Kaylee’s not even seventeen. Under normal circumstances, I would have already contemplated a dozen different ways to make sure your body never surfaces. Now, I’m not saying I’d kill any other twenty-year-old who touched my daughter. But I’d probably let the fantasy play out in my head. Just food for thought.”

I wanted to let myself fade from sight. Permanently.

“She’s not a kid anymore, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Tod said.

“I know.” My father nodded. “But she’ll always be my little girl, and I expect you to respect that fact, at least while you’re in my house. Okay?”

To his credit, Tod only hesitated for a second. “We didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“I know that, too.” My dad crossed his arms over his chest. “Now please go to work.”

Tod nodded and gave me an awkward hug, and neither of us bothered pointing out that his shift didn’t start for another half hour. “See you in, what, an hour?”

I nodded, and Tod disappeared.

“Why will he see you in an hour?” My father settled into my desk chair as I sank onto the bed, trying to pretend the past few minutes never happened.

“Because according to the newspaper, Scott Carter died around twelve hours before we saw him possessed by Avari, and even considering all the impossibilities that make up my own afterlife, I can’t figure out how that’s possible. So I need to go verify that he is indeed dead. By one definition or another.”

“Any particular reason you have to be the one to do that?”

I shrugged. “Through no choice of my own, I’m a central figure in this madcap little adventure, and I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. My homework’s all done. See?” I pointed to the stack of books on the desk behind him. “And I’m not gonna let Tod take all the risks by himself. He’s already died for me once.”

My father sighed. “Being dead doesn’t make you invincible, Kaylee.”

“I know. It hasn’t made Tod invincible, either, which was kind of my point.” Death hadn’t made me stronger, or smarter, or faster, except for that whole blinking in and out thing. It had also failed to improve my stealth, as we’d all just discovered. “But being dead makes it much easier for me to get in and out of restricted spaces.”

“Somehow, that fails to comfort me.”

“Sorry. But I’ll be fine. I’ll be with Tod. He’s a good guy, you know.” He just hides it under all the sarcasm and curls.

“I know. I also know that he would do anything to be with you, and that kind of limitless devotion tends to snub caution in favor of action, and that is enough to scare a poor father to death.”

“I don’t get it.” How could devotion to each other be bad?

“Kaylee, I know what I would be willing to do to protect you, and I see the same kind of commitment in him when he looks at you. There is nothing—no one—he wouldn’t be willing to go through for you.”

“That’s mutual, Dad. I’d do the same for him.”

“I know.” He blinked, and his eyes stayed closed so long I thought he might be praying. “That’s the scariest part of all.”

When my dad went back to bed, I texted Emma. One word.

Incoming…

Her response came a minute later—OK—and I blinked into her room just as she turned on her bedside lamp. Toto, another of Styx’s littermates, started growling less than a second after I arrived. Evidently being dead made me suspect.

“It’s twelve-thirty in the morning, Kay,” Emma grumbled, sitting up in the bed in a purple polka-dot pajama top. “Some of us actually have to sleep.”

“Sorry. I need to borrow something and I wanted to check on you.”

“Why?”

“Because Avari knows who you are and where you live.”

“Yeah. That’s why Toto’s here.” She patted the bed and Toto jumped onto it, then curled up in her lap, a fierce little ball of fur with sharp teeth and small, dark eyes that watched me closely.

“Yes, but we don’t understand what we saw when we talked to Scott last night, which means we don’t know what kind of restrictions Avari has in this form. For all we know, Toto may not even recognize him as a hellion.” And even if he did, if Avari had a physical presence in the human plane, what was to stop him from bashing in the poor dog’s head just to shut him up? What good was an early warning system when it couldn’t prevent the thing it was warning you about?

“Would it creep you out if I pop in a couple of times during the night to check on you?”

Emma frowned. “Yes. But do it, anyway. I’d rather be creeped out than possessed or dead. No offense to recently departed.”

I smiled. “None taken.”

“So what did you want to borrow?”

“Okay, promise you won’t laugh…”

She threw the covers back and crawled to the end of the bed. “No way. Spill.”

“Do you still have your Halloween costume from last year?”

Her brows rose in interest. “The candy stripper? Yeah, I think it’s still in there.” She was already halfway across the room, headed for the closet. “Why?”

“It’s kind of a bribe.”

“For Tod?” She glanced at me as she pulled the closet door open, and I nodded. “Not that I don’t totally approve of the intent, but I doubt you’d have to bribe Tod into doing anything for you.”

“Okay, then, it’s a reward.”

“Wow. Somebody must have been a very good boy.” She dug into the clothes hanging in her closet, all the way at the back, on the right.

“It’s probably a stupid idea. I just thought…” But I couldn’t explain what I’d thought, and I wasn’t sure I should. I didn’t want her to know about the emptiness that swelled inside me in the middle of the night, when I was all alone. I didn’t want her to know that giving into the emptiness was so much easier than fighting it, and that the only way I’d found to fight it was to keep living. Keep being a student, and a friend, and a daughter, even when sometimes those roles no longer seemed to fit.