Rachel Vincent - My Soul to Steal

Sabine reached out and brushed one finger slowly, deliberately across my cheek, but her gaze never left mine. In fact, it strengthened, as if she was trying to see through my eyes into the back of my skull.

I wanted to pull away, but I couldn’t. I could only stare back as that instant stretched into eternity, and I stood frozen.

And for a second—just a single moment—her eyes suddenly looked darker, and that horrified, humiliated pain from my dream flashed through my head and throbbed miserably in my heart.

“Sabine…” Nash whispered, in the warning tone he usually saved for Tod.

She blinked, then smiled. “There. Got it.” She held her finger up, then let her hand drop too fast for me to see the alleged eyelash. “Later, Kay…” she said, and I stood in shock as she sauntered down the hall without a glance back.

For a moment, Nash and I just looked at each other. I couldn’t think past the surreal second that his ex-girlfriend’s finger had lingered on my cheek. “What the hell was that?”

Nash sighed. “She’s… Kaylee, Sabine’s had it pretty rough. She doesn’t remember her real parents, and she’s been in more than a dozen foster homes, and she’s never had many friends, so—”

“Maybe that’s because she’s a creepy bitch!” I spat, and Nash’s eyes widened. He was almost as surprised by my snap judgment as I was. It usually took much longer than that for me to decide I didn’t like someone, but Sabine had definitely found a shortcut.

“She’s rough around the edges, I know, but that’s not her fault.”

“Tod told me her sob story,” I snapped. “He also said she’s a convicted criminal.”

He frowned and his eyes narrowed slightly. He was looking for more. “He say anything else?”

“Yeah,” I said, and Nash’s eyes swirled in panic. “He said she was your first, and you two practically shared the same skin for, like, a year.”

“Oh.” Nash sagged against his locker, but he looked oddly relieved. “That was years ago, Kaylee. I haven’t seen her since the summer before my sophomore year.”

“You were with her last night,” I reminded him, hating the warble in my voice.

“We were just talking,” he insisted. “I swear.”

“All night?”

He shrugged. “We had a lot to catch up on.”

“Like, her latest felony and your latest conquest? Did you two laugh about me?” My heart throbbed, and suddenly I was sure that’s exactly what they’d done. They’d laughed at me all night long. “Am I your little inside joke? ‘Poor, frigid Kaylee has to be possessed before she’ll let anyone touch her.’”

I started to walk away, tears forming in my eyes in spite of my best effort to stop them. But Nash grabbed my arm. “Kaylee, wait.” He pulled me back, and I let him because I wanted him to deny it. Desperately.

What the hell was wrong with me? I wanted to be wrong, but I was terrified I was right. So scared of the truth that I could hardly breathe.

Nash looked down into my eyes, like he was looking for something specific in the shades of blue that were probably twisting out of control at the moment. “Damn it, Sabine…” he mumbled. Then, to me, “I’ll talk to her. She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just habit.”

“What’s habit?” I was obviously missing something.

He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Nothing. Never mind.” When he looked at me again, his eyes were infuriatingly still. “Look, Sabine and I haven’t seen each other in a long time, and we were just getting caught up. Nothing happened, and nothing’s going to happen. I know I messed up with you, but I’m trying to make it right, and I’m not going to let anything get in the way of that. Not even Sabine. Okay?”

“I…” I wanted to believe him. But I was so scared that he was lying. And if he was, I’d never know it. “Yeah. I just… I have to get to algebra.”

“I’ll see you at lunch?” he asked, as I walked away.

“Yeah.” But he’d see her, too.

I dropped into my chair in Algebra II and stared at the wall, trying to ignore the whispers around me. No one knew the truth about what had happened to Doug and Scott, but they all knew that Nash and I had been involved. And that we’d broken up. And half of them had probably seen him getting out of Sabine’s car.

Emma thought our classmates’ theories were hilarious, and probably much worse than what had actually happened. But she was wrong. They couldn’t begin to imagine anything as awful as how Doug had died. How Scott was now living.

After wallowing in unpleasant thoughts for a while, I looked at the clock. Class should have started eight minutes ago, but Mr. Wesner hadn’t shown up. And neither had Emma. But just as I glanced toward the door, Emma came in from the hall, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

She dropped into the chair next to mine, and I started talking, eager to share my misery with someone I knew I could trust. “You’re not going to believe what just happened,” I said, leaning in so no one else would hear.

“You’re not going to believe this, either,” she interrupted. “Mr. Wesner’s dead. The custodian found him this morning, slumped over his desk.” She turned and pointed toward the front of the class. “ That desk.”

AT FIRST, I JUST sat there. Stunned. Staring at Mr. Wesner’s desk. And before I could ask for details, a crowd had formed around us, everyone looking at Emma.

“Wesner’s dead?”

“He died here?”

“No way,” one of the girls from the pom squad—Leah something or other—insisted. “I was here early to sell raffle tickets, and I didn’t see anything. No police. No ambulance. No body. It’s just a stupid rumor.”

Em shook her head and gestured for silence. “It’s true. I heard Principal Goody telling Mr. Wells in the office when I went in for a late slip. One of the custodians came in at six this morning to let a repairman into the cafeteria before breakfast, and he found Mr. Wesner. Right there.” She pointed at the desk again, and every head pivoted, all voices silenced now, except for Emma’s.

“Goody said the custodian called her, and the ambulance was already here by the time she got here at, like, dawn. They took him before any of us got here, but they’re still in the office scrambling for a sub.”

“Damn,” someone said from behind me, and while I watched, the same stunned, vaguely frightened expression seemed to spread from face to face.

“How’d he die?” Brant Williams asked, clutching the back of my chair.

Emma shrugged and glanced at the desk again, and again, all eyes tracked her gaze. “I don’t know. A stroke or something, I’m guessing. He was probably here all night.”

“Ugh. That is so morbid,” Chelsea Simms said, yet never paused in the notes she was taking for the school paper. But I couldn’t help wondering if they’d actually let her run the story. “This whole year has been morbid,” Leah added, eyes round and a little scared, and everyone else nodded.

You have no idea….

Ironically, Mr. Wesner’s stroke, or heart attack, or whatever, was the only normal death our school had experienced so far. Yet it was the one that most creeped people out.

Before anyone could ask any more questions, Mr. Wells, the vice principal, came in and officially announced Mr. Wesner’s unfortunate, unexpected demise, then said that he’d be watching the class until a substitute could be found.

Wells seemed disinclined to dig through Mr. Wesner’s desk for his lesson plan, though, so he gave us a free period. Which meant we were free to spend the period imagining Mr. Wesner slumped over the desk our vice principal obviously didn’t want to sit behind.