Rachel Vincent - Before I Wake

“Don’t you think that’s a bit overblown?” I asked.

“Well, I guess we could skip straight to the young lovers on the run part, but do you really want to leave all your friends and family behind?”

He was joking—hopefully—but his point was as serious as the fear in his eyes. Fear for me.

“I’m not going to lose you, Kaylee. No matter what I have to do, or whom I have to fight. Even if that means quashing your vexing tendencies toward self-sacrifice.”

“Did you just say ‘vexing’?” Nash asked.

Tod scowled. “Nothing else seemed to fit. I stand by my word choice.”

“Are you going to be like this for eternity?” I demanded, trying to resist when he pulled me close again.

“If you mean protective, and devoted, and perfectly preserved, then, yes. That is the burden I bear.”

“I mean stubborn. I mean unrelentingly, infuriatingly stubborn.”

“That, too. But have you looked in the mirror lately, because we happen to share that particular personality flaw.”

“I’m not going to lie to my dad, Tod. Not again. Not about this. He won’t tell anyone.”

The reaper exhaled slowly. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

Nash huffed. “Never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth… .”

“Wanna hear some really colorful ones?” Tod started to turn to Nash, but I swiveled his face back in my direction with one hand on his cheek.

“Play nice or go home.”

Tod lifted one brow and glanced pointedly around the room. His room.

“Oh. Well, then, take me home.”

“WHY CAN’T EVERYONE stay at our house?” Sophie’s voice greeted me from the direction of the living room the moment Tod, Nash, and I appeared in my empty bedroom. “We have more space and better accommodations, and squinting at this tiny television is giving me a migraine.”

“You’re not going to be watching TV, you’re going to be sleeping,” my uncle Brendon said, and I realized the party had grown since I’d left.

“Or you could be unconscious,” Sabine said. “I could make that happen.”

“What the hell?” I muttered on my way down the hall, with Tod and Nash right behind me.

“Kaylee…” My dad pulled me into a hug as soon as I stepped into the living room. “Are you okay?”

“No.” That question was starting to sound pointless. Would any of us ever be okay again? “What’s going on?”

“We’re circling the wagons a little more thoroughly. If Avari can get to Alec, he can get to anyone else.”

“So we’re just going to camp out in Kaylee’s living room until…? Until what?” Sophie demanded, glaring at the room in general from the center cushion of the couch. “Hellions are immortal, remember? He’s not going to be done screwing with us until we’re all dead. Permanently,” she added with a contemptuous glance at me and Tod.

“This is just until we figure out how to keep hellions from crossing over,” my uncle said from the kitchen doorway. “And you’re not all going to stay here. The guys will stay at Nash’s. Harmony already okayed it.”

The barrage of objections was loud and unanimous.

“What are we, twelve?” Sabine scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. “This isn’t a junior-high dance, and frankly, dividing us down the gender line reeks of sexism. And if that isn’t enough to change your minds, I’ll be forced to point out that Nash is of age, and I have my legal guardian’s permission to stay at his house.”

“But you don’t have Harmony’s,” my dad said, and Sabine’s glower seemed to dim the whole room.

“I think we should all stay together,” Sophie said, glancing less than subtly at Luca, who heartily agreed with her. “If our strength is in numbers, why would we divide?”

“To keep us from grouping into pairs, right?” Sabine said, glancing from my father to my uncle, then back. “But let me point out that if you separate the guys from the girls, you’ll be awake all night trying to make sure no one sneaks in or out. Whereas if you let us all stay here, we have no reason to go anywhere else. And it’s not like anything’s going to happen with us all stuck in one room, anyway,” she pointed out. And in the end, it was Sabine’s unprecedented show of logic that won the case.

My dad glanced at Sophie’s dad, who shrugged. Then my father sighed. “Fine. But this is a strategic maneuver, not a slumber party. Everyone will be fully dressed in modest nightclothes. And there will be no ingesting anything that didn’t come from my kitchen, no sharing sleeping bags, and no complaining when at least seven of us have to share the shower in the morning. Speaking of which, I call the first shower.”

No one argued.

Luca and Sophie followed her dad back to their house to grab extra air mattresses and sleeping bags, then came back without him. Having never died or been to the Netherworld, Uncle Brendon didn’t qualify for hellion possession and he had to be at work at eight in the morning. Sophie was happy to leave him behind.

I was happy that staring at Luca distracted her from complaining about my small house, small TV, and small bathtub.

While they were gone, Tod went to check in at the hospital—he’d missed the last third of another of Mareth’s shifts to help me with Alec—and Em closed my bedroom door and plopped onto the bed next to me. “Is it true about Alec?” she asked, her eyes shiny with unshed tears. “Avari got to him?”

I nodded. That much was true.

“How? What about Falkor?”

“Avari killed him. I don’t have the details. All I know is that hellions being able to cross over changes everything. No one’s safe.” And the people I knew and loved were practically walking around with targets on their backs.

“I have a really bad feeling, Kay. Like I should be looking over my shoulder. But that’s pointless, because suddenly evil looks like our friends. How can we fight it if we don’t even know it’s there?” But I had no answer for her. She picked at a thread on my comforter for several seconds, then finally looked up. “Is it going to be like this forever? I mean, now that they know how to cross over, what’s to stop them from doing it any time they want?”

“Us, Em. We’re what’s going to stop them. I don’t know how yet, short of reclaiming every resurrected soul they have. That may be what this comes down to, and if so, this will be an ongoing battle. But it’s not your battle. I’ll do everything I can to keep you out of it.” She’d suffered enough, just because she was my friend.

“It is my battle.” She blinked, and the first two tears rolled down her cheeks. “Avari made it my battle when he possessed me, and poisoned my boyfriend.” Doug had died of a frost overdose back in December, just days after Scott was arrested and hospitalized. “He made it my battle when he killed my friend.” She sniffled, and I had to brush away more tears of my own. “Alec. Do you think…?” She blinked again and wiped mascara from beneath her eyes with both hands. “Do you think he suffered?”

“I think he was caught by surprise, and it was over quickly. I think that’s the only way it could go down.” His eyes had only focused on me for a second. And as grateful as I was that Alec didn’t suffer for long, I hated it that the last thing he saw and knew—his very last thought—was that he’d been murdered by a friend.

By midnight, Sabine, Nash, Emma, Luca, and Sophie were all sprawled out in my living room, taking up every bit of available floor space as well as the couch and my dad’s recliner. I stood in the hall for a minute, listening to them whisper to one another like they were camping out under the stars. Their whispers were sad, and angry, and scared, but those were things they shared, even in the worst of times—and this night definitely qualified. But I couldn’t share those with them. Even if I were to clear a place for myself on the floor next to Em, I wouldn’t be one of them. Not anymore. Not knowing what I’d done.