Rachel Vincent - If I Die

Tod started to respond—probably ready to convince me that true death was a mercy—but then his phone rang from his pocket, cutting off whatever he’d been about to say. “It’s Sabine,” he said, glancing at the display. “Shit.”

An uneasy feeling settled into my stomach, worry for him amplifying my guilt.

“Go ahead,” I said, when he looked unsure about answering. “She wouldn’t call if she didn’t need something.”

Tod flipped open his phone, and though I only heard his half of the conversation, the gist of it was clear. Nash had become too much for her to handle, at least for the moment. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” The reaper hung up and met my gaze, irritation swirling slowly in his. “His temperature keeps dropping and he can’t keep anything down. They need me to go get my mom.” Because he could blink her home from work faster than she could drive.

“Isn’t that a little severe? He’s only been sober for, like twelve hours.”

“The relapse seems to be hitting him harder than the original addiction. That could mean he’s using a different source this time—not Avari—or that he’s taking a stronger dose. Or that his body’s less able to fight the physical backlash this time because none of this is new anymore.”

The possibilities did nothing to lessen my fear for him, settling onto me like a physical weight. This was my fault, even if I hadn’t popped a balloon in his face this time.

“I have to go,” Tod said, and my hand tightened around his involuntarily while my heart thudded in my ear.

“I know. It’s fine.” But it wasn’t. Not really. It was almost midnight. Almost Thursday. Almost the day of my death. My dad wasn’t back yet, my cousin and best friend were sleeping peacefully without the crippling fear I couldn’t shake free from, and death was looming over my shoulder, lurking in every shadow I glanced at, every panicked beat of my heart. “Nash needs you.” I knew that. But letting go of Tod’s hand was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.

“I’m so sorry, Kaylee. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised, confliction stirring the blue depths of his eyes, like a storm over the ocean.

I nodded mutely. It meant a lot to me that he didn’t smile and try to pretend like everything was okay. Everything was almost over, and every breath I took brought that reality closer. Soon, I’d take a breath and it would turn out to be my last. And the world wouldn’t care.

“Okay, then, I’ll be back as soon as I can talk someone into taking my shift.” He leaned in for a goodbye kiss, and I held him with one hand behind his head when he tried to pull away, determined to make this kiss last a while, in case it was my last. Because over his shoulder the microwave clock taunted me from the kitchen, blinking 12:04 over and over.

Thursday had come.

Today I would die.

With Tod gone, I curled up under the blanket, only half watching the movie while Emma slept beside me on two of the couch cushions, Styx snoring softly in the crook of her arm. In spite of my determination not to waste any of my last day, I was starting to nod off when Em’s phone buzzed on the coffee table. She had a text.

I picked it up, debating waking her, and read the message on the screen, from her sister, Traci.

Got dumped. Need sugar. Where r u?

Crap. Traci was home alone. She’d probably be fine—surely Beck had come and gone hours ago—but I wasn’t willing to take a chance with Em’s sister.

Come to Kaylee’s, I typed. We have junk food.

Traci’s next text asked for the address, so I gave it to her. When she said she’d be right over, I unlocked the front door, then threw away the candy wrappers and half-eaten popcorn from our own binge, secretly kind of glad for the excuse to wake up Emma when her sister arrived.

Usually when Traci got dumped, she and her best friend would binge drink, bad-mouthing the new ex with drunken abandon, so the thought that she wanted comfort this time from her little sister and her sister’s best friend was…unexpected. And the coincidental timing was…too much to believe. And Traci already knew where I lived…

I stopped halfway to the kitchen with three empty, sticky glasses. That text wasn’t from Traci…

Shit! I set the glasses on the nearest end table and ran to the front door, where I twisted the dead bolt and threaded the chain lock through its channel. Then I raced across the living room and through the kitchen to double-check the locks on the back door, but even with the house relatively secure, I couldn’t make my pulse slow into the normal range.

I rounded the kitchen table, glancing around in search of my phone, then stopped cold with one glance into the living room.

“Kaylee Cavanaugh.” Mr. Beck stood in the middle of the room in snug jeans and a T-shirt, staring at me. No, glaring at me.

Fear raced along my spine and into every nerve ending in my body. I wiped sweat from my palms onto my jeans, and fought for enough calm to think clearly. “How’d you get in here?”

“Doors and locks aren’t much of a problem for me.” He’d come in through the Netherworld, which explained how he’d gotten in to see Farrah so many times….

Escape options flittered through my head, as worthless as a swarm of moths, mostly because Em and Sophie were still sleeping, and Beck stood between us. I couldn’t leave without them. “I don’t suppose you’d go away, if I ask nicely?”

“Not without what I came for,” he said, his voice low, and angry, and very un-teacherlike. “My plan was to call your bluff this evening, but Emma’s house was deserted. Any idea how that happened?”

“We know what you are,” I said, unwilling to answer his questions and unable to quiet the cold foreboding swelling inside me.

“Yeah, I picked up on that during your little role-playing exercise yesterday, and at first I couldn’t figure out how you knew. Then I noticed your bracelet.” He glanced at my wrist, and I realized I was twisting the braided fiber nervously. “And I noticed that Emma wore one, too. Dissimulatus, right? Which means you’re trying to hide something. Your species, maybe?”

“Emma’s human.” That was the exception in my no-revelation policy. I wanted no mistake about the fact that she would not be the best walking incubator.

“Yes, I figured that out when I met her sister. And your other friend…?” He glanced at Sophie over his shoulder.

“She’s not a friend. She’s my cousin. And she’s human, too.”

“But you’re not human, are you?”

“Where’s Traci?” I demanded, glancing at the clock on the microwave. 12:10. My dad or Tod could show up anytime. I just had to stall….

“She’s safe in her own bed.” Beck stepped into the kitchen doorway, and I stepped back, and too late I realized I’d just blocked myself into the U-shaped kitchen. “And—not to flatter myself—it looks like she’s going to sleep straight through till morning. At least. But on the bright side, she’s forgotten all about that loser boyfriend.”

Shitshitshit! “You…fed from her?” I could hear my own heartbeat echo in my ears, a cadence of fear and fury that had no outlet.

Beck leaned against the kitchen door frame, arms crossed over the lines of a perfectly sculpted chest barely hidden beneath his snug T-shirt. “I prefer to think of it as a mutual exchange of services. She was well compensated. Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

His meaning sank in, and revulsion crawled over me like an army of flies buzzing beneath my skin. “She’s alive?”

“She is. And whether or not she stays alive depends on you.”

I blinked, running down the clock with my silence. Waiting for help, because I was in over my head. I couldn’t fight an incubus. I didn’t even know how. But I couldn’t let Traci die, if there was any way I could stop it. And even if I was willing to leave Emma and Sophie—and I wasn’t—I couldn’t escape into the Netherworld because he’d only follow me. Or take my best friend or my cousin.