Rachel Vincent - My Soul to Keep

“Isn’t that Carter’s car?”

Nash shrugged. “He gave me a ride.”

Actually, Nash had ridden with me, in my new loaner. But Coach Rundell wasn’t going to question his first-string running back. Even if he didn’t believe Nash.

“Well, get what you came for and get back to class. You need a pass?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Nash said, and I rolled my eyes as he bent into the backseat behind the headrest, where the coach couldn’t see him clearly.

That figures. The football player steals a friend’s key and breaks into his car, and he winds up with a free hall pass for his trouble. I’d probably be expelled.

Nash pressed Scott’s car key into my hand. “Wait until we go in, then lock the balloon in your trunk. Got it?”

I shook my head, pocketing the key reluctantly. “I’m just going to pop it. That way no one else can get ahold of it.”

Sudden panic whirled in Nash’s irises. “You can’t pop it, Kaylee. What if you accidentally breathe some of it in?”

My pulse raced at the thought, fear chilling me almost as badly as the balloon I was trying not to crush. “Is it…as dangerous to bean sidhes as it is to humans?” I whispered.

Nash sighed. “No, but…” He stopped and shook his head sharply, as if to clear it. “I don’t know. It’s a controlled substance for a reason. It has to be disposed of carefully. I’m going to give it to Tod to take to the disposal facility in the Netherworld. Okay?”

I nodded grudgingly. “Fine.”

Nash kissed me quickly on the cheek, then leaned past me to grab the chemistry book I’d brought to lunch. “I’ll give it back to you after school.” Hopefully the coach wouldn’t know Nash was taking physics this year….

He backed out of the car, held the book up for the coach’s benefit, then closed the door, leaving me alone in the quarterback’s car, with his stolen key and his stash of a rare, expensive inhalant.

No pressure, Kay.

I peeked between the headrests until Nash and the coach disappeared around the corner of the gym, then I sat up and shoved the frigid black balloon off my lap and onto the floor. I zipped Scott’s duffel and put it back exactly where I’d found it, then glanced around the lot again before easing the door open. When I was sure I was alone, I grabbed the balloon, lurched out of the car, and shoved the door closed, then clicked a button on the key to lock it. Then I raced across the lot holding the balloon by its clip, to keep the unnaturally cold latex from touching my skin.

On my way across the asphalt, I slid Scott’s key into my back pocket, then dug my own from my hip pocket, holding it ready as I skidded to a stop behind the rental. I jabbed the key into the trunk lock and twisted, relieved when the trunk popped open an inch on the first try. I’d never opened it and, according to Murphy’s Law—which they might as well rename after me—it would malfunction when I needed it most.

I dropped the balloon into the carpeted compartment, glad when it sank with the weighted clip. Then I slammed the trunk closed and made myself walk toward the building, concentrating on regulating my breathing and heartbeat with each step.

The last thing I needed was to arrive for class flushed and out of breath.

Although now that I thought of it, that would give me an interesting alibi. Everyone would assume Nash and I had been occupied, and had missed the bell.

I smiled at that thought, and the smile stayed in place until I opened the door to my fifth-period English class, where every head in the room swiveled to look at me. And that’s when I realized I’d forgotten to stop by my locker for my book.

“Miss Cavanaugh,” Mr. Tuttle said, perched on the edge of his desk with one sockless loafer dangling a foot from the floor. “How nice of you to join us. I don’t suppose you have a late pass? Or a textbook?”

I shook my head mutely and felt myself flush. So much for avoiding rumors…

“Well, now you do have detention.”

Naturally. Because detention seems like an appropriate reward for someone trying to save her school from a deadly Netherworld toxin, right?

“DETENTION FOR YOUR FIRSTtardy?” Nash looked skeptical as he slammed his locker and tossed his backpack over one shoulder. All around us, other lockers squealed open and clanged closed. The hall was a steady din of white noise—the constant overlap of voices. The final bell had rung three minutes earlier and the entire student body had split into two streams: most of the underclassmen flowing toward the front doors and a line of long yellow buses, and most of the upperclassmen toward the parking lot.

“It was my third,” I admitted, turning with Nash as he wrapped his free arm around my waist. “I was late twice last month, since some body thought it would be fun to take a private tour of the gym equipment closet while Coach Rundell was out for lunch.”

Nash looked pleased with himself, rather than penitent. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“I bet you weren’t counted tardy for either of those, were you?”

He shrugged. “No one cares if you’re late to study hall.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not so long as you’re wearing a green-and-white jacket.”

“You want to borrow it?” He grinned and made a show of pulling one arm from his sleeve. He seemed much more relaxed now that we’d relieved Scott of his Netherworldly burden.

“No thanks. I have too much self-respect.”

“For school spirit?” He frowned, but his eyes still sparkled with mischief.

“For being the unmerited exception to the rules the rest of us plebeians have to follow.”

“What rules?” Doug Fuller walked toward us with one arm around Emma, his hand splayed over the band of bare hip visible between the hem of her tee and the low waist of her jeans.

I scowled. “My point exactly.”

“Hudson, your girlfriend’s too serious.” Doug dropped his duffel and ran one hand through a wavy mop of thick dark hair, pulling Emma closer.

“She can’t help it,” a familiar, cold-edged voice said from behind me, and I turned to find Sophie and Laura Bell leaning against the lockers, malice glinting in their eyes like sunlight off the point of a sharp knife. “The staff in the psycho ward shocked the fun right out of her.”

Simultaneous waves of anger and humiliation surged through me, and for just a minute, I considered letting her take a hit from her boyfriend’s balloon. Why was I trying so hard to save someone who would rather see me dead than return the favor?

“Don’t look now, Sophie, but your insecurity’s showing like the roots on a bad bleach job.” Emma smiled sweetly, then glanced pointedly at Sophie’s hairline. Then she turned on one wedge-heeled foot and headed down the hall toward the parking lot exit. Laughing, Doug jogged to catch up with her.

Nash and I trailed them while Sophie stood speechless. “You know, she loves it when you let her piss you off.”

“Gee, thanks, Dad,” I snapped, bending beneath the weight of my own sarcasm. “You think if I just ignore her, she’ll go away?”

“No.” Nash’s hand tightened around mine and I glanced up to find him eyeing me steadily. “I think she’s going to be a bitch no matter what you do. But you don’t have to make it so easy for her. Make her work for it.”

“Yeah.” But that was a lot easier for him to suggest than for me to do. “It kills me that she has no idea that we saved her life. Or that she’d be just like me, if not for winning the genetic lottery.” Sophie’s father—my dad’s younger brother—was a bean sidhe, and because her mother was human, Sophie could have been born like either of her parents. Fate, or luck, or whatever unfair advantage ruled her privileged life, had given her the normal, human genetic sequence, and a snottier-than-thou disposition that seemed to grow more toxic by the day.