Never to Sleep (8 page)

Another thud shook the shed, and I jumped, my next question forgotten.

Luca lifted my chin and kissed me again, and this time instead of pulling away, I pulled him closer. His hand slid around my neck, his fingers curling in my hair.

“What was that one for?” I asked, when he finally let me go.

“Just for fun. Because I’m not sure I’ll get another chance.” He lifted my cut palm, and I stared at it, wondering if all that cutting and bleeding and running had been for nothing. What was the point, if I was just going to die anyway? If we both were?

“That’s unacceptable.” I pulled my phone from my pocket to check the time, but the lit screen was blank, like cell signals weren’t the only things missing in the Netherworld. Like maybe time had no meaning here either. “We’re not going to die here, or anywhere else in this nightmare of an alternate dimension. Addison said I could go home, and I believe her.”

“And Addison would be…?”

“The dead pop star,” I said, and that time Luca looked skeptical, but I hardly noticed, because I was going over everything Addison had said. Again. “She said I could go home, but I had to want it, more than anything else. She said to go back the way I came. But what does that mean?”

“It sounds like she thinks you brought yourself—and maybe me—here,” Luca suggested, reseating another loosened bat.

“But I didn’t do anything. That dead guy just appeared there, and his eyes were empty. I started screaming and closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, we were here, and nothing made any sense.”

“There has to be something else,” Luca said. “You must have done something we’re not remembering.”

Something heavy slammed against the door, and I shrieked when the top hinge ripped free from the wall. And just for a second, everything changed. The floor of the shed was suddenly filled with thick, rolling gray fog, and through it, I could see the ghosts of things—mostly sports equipment—that didn’t exist in the Netherworld. But they existed in our world, in this very shed.

In an instant, that flash of impossible things was gone, and Luca hadn’t seen it. He jumped to his feet and stepped over two bats to hold the door closed with his body. His eyes focused on me, shining in the glare from my phone screen, and I could see fear in every line of his face. And as I watched him, clutching my cell in my good hand, swimming in my own fear, some crazy bit of understanding slid into place in my head.

I’d listened, not just to Addison, but to myself. I’d seen what she wanted me to see. And I could do what she’d said I could do. I could take us home. And I didn’t need any help.

“Sophie.” Luca’s voice pulled me out of my own head and back to the reality where each blow to the door jarred his entire body. “Kiss me. This really is our last chance.”

“No way,” I said. “We’re getting out of here. Give me your hand.” I stepped over one of the fallen bats and reached for him, but he hesitated. It took all of his strength to keep the door closed, and giving me his hand would weaken that effort. “Trust me, Luca. Addison was right. I got us into this, and I can get us out of it.”

“How?” He had to raise his voice now, to be heard over the violent chuffing sound echoing through the door as some great beast dragged in air, then spit it out. “What did you do?”

“I screamed. That’s what brought us, and that’s what’ll take us home.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he insisted.

“Neither does this!” I waved a hand at the door to indicate every monster trying to break it down. He couldn’t hold them off forever. “Give me your damn hand!”

And finally he did. His fingers curled around mine and I opened my mouth. Then I screamed harder and louder than I’d ever screamed in my life.

Nothing happened. The scratching, clawing, and pounding never paused, and I didn’t see so much as a curl of fog on the ground.

“I don’t understand!” I had to shout to be heard above the ruckus by then. “Why didn’t it work?”

Before Luca could answer—assuming he had an answer—something hit the door hard enough to shove him forward. He lost his balance and went down on his knees on one of the bats, and I know it hurt, because I could hear the impact, even over the noise from outside. The next blow to the door ripped the middle hinge free, and Luca shoved himself to his feet. He planted his palms on the door and pushed, and the muscles stood out on his arms and his neck as he strained from the effort.

I put my hands next to his and pushed with all of my strength, but I had dancer’s legs, not football arms, so I wasn’t much help.

My arms ached, and fear felt like ice crawling up my spine. Each breath burned in my lungs, and sweat rolled into my eyes. And all of our effort was pointless. The next big blow to the door threw us both backward. I tripped over a bat and went down on my hip. Luca landed half on top of me, then scrambled away from the door, pulling me with him. He grabbed a bat on the way, and we didn’t stop until our backs hit the wall at the end of the shed.

One last blow knocked the door down and the end of it landed inches from my toes.

Luca grabbed my chin and turned me to face him. “Look at me,” he said, but I could hardly hear him over the race of my own pulse in my ears and the huffing, inhuman breathing from the beasts hovering in the open door. “Don’t look at them. Just look at me,” he insisted, and my heart beat so hard and fast my chest felt like it was going to burst.

I nodded, but that was easier said than done. The monsters smelled awful and sounded even worse. Claws scratched on the fallen door, and I started to turn for a glimpse of what would kill me.

Luca put one hand on the side of my face and kissed me again. This one was short, but intense, and for one amazing moment, nothing else mattered.

Then something swung on the edge of my vision and Luca pulled away from me, shouting in pain. He swung the bat, but it was wrenched from his grip. He grabbed my hand and I turned to see what was hauling him away from me, but they were backlit by red moonlight from the doorway, so I saw only a tangle of arms and legs—too many to make sense of—and eyes that glowed without any real light to reflect. There were teeth and claws and fur, and the shed was full of it all.

There was nowhere to go. There was nothing left to do. And Luca was being pulled away from me, in spite of the foot he’d jammed onto the end of the door to hold himself in place.

Then one of them reached for me—a humanoid hand with thick, curved black claws.

I screamed again, and the sound that ripped free from my throat was both terror and rage, mindless in its intensity. Merciless in its volume. I clung to Luca’s hand and kicked at the claws that raked my leg, but I was helpless against the scream scraping my throat raw with the power of pure sound.

Fog rolled around us, but the sound didn’t stop.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. The fog was gone, and with it the monsters. The shed was still there, but I now sat on a mesh bag full of soccer balls. Luca clung to my hand, his legs stretched out behind him, where the monsters had tried to haul him away, but the door here was intact, hanging from all three hinges, and the only signs of what we’d done and where we’d been were the scratches on my shin and the blood dripping from his ankle.

“Sophie?” Luca sat up and stared at me in the light leaking into the shed from around all four sides of the door. That light was too white to come from the Netherworld, and too bright to come from the moon. “Holy shit, you did it!”

“Yeah.”
Yeah.
I’d done it. “But what about the monsters? They were touching you when we…left.” Hell, they’d been trying to rip his leg off.

“Most things can’t cross out of the Netherworld. We’re safe.”

But I couldn’t think past the part he wasn’t saying. If “most” couldn’t cross, that meant “some” could. Like that soulless reaper.

Before I could question the miracle I’d accidentally delivered, Luca pushed himself to his feet, then pulled me up with him. He kissed me again, and tears rolled down my face, and I tasted them, but that kiss lasted forever and ever, and it was the best thing I’d ever felt in my life.

When he finally pulled away, he was laughing, and I knew how he felt, even though nothing was funny. Survival was joy, and joy was laughter, and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate reaction to having escaped an evil alternate dimension a single second before we both would have been literally devoured alive.

I was high on life. On still having mine. On still having his.

“What
are
you?” he whispered, staring down at me in the shadows as if I was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen. That was the second time he’d asked the question, and I had no better answer now than I’d had the first time.

I’m a sophomore. A dancer. An only child. A half orphan.

All of that was true, but none of it felt like the answer he was looking for. I didn’t
know
what he was looking for, but I hoped he’d found it, somewhere in me.

“I don’t know,” I said at last.

“I do. You’re amazing.”

My chest ached, and my head swam. I’d never been called amazing before. I’d been called hot, and bitchy, and talented, and spoiled, and entitled, and stuck-up, and pretty, and a princess. But I’d never been called amazing.

Luca squeezed my hand. Then he let go and turned to the door. “Let’s get out of here.” It took him three tries to kick the door open, and what eventually gave way wasn’t the padlock, but the bolts that had held the lock in place. He’d ripped them right out of the wood.

“Uh-oh.” The first thing I noticed was the sun, warm, and half-blinding. I dug my cell phone from my pocket to look at the time—7:34 a.m. School started in less than an hour, and I had eight missed calls, probably all from my father. “How…? I don’t…” I frowned, and words deserted me. “It’s supposed to be the middle of the night!”

Luca flinched. “Time moves differently there. It’s inconsistent. I meant to tell you that.”

“My dad’s going to
kill
me!” I took off toward the parking lot, where I could see my car, sitting all alone.

“Sophie, wait!” Luca called, and when I didn’t stop, he ran after me. “You can’t tell anyone about…any of that.”

I stopped, stunned by what should have been an obvious conclusion. He was right. People would think I was crazy. Like Kaylee. Only I wasn’t crazy. What I’d seen and done was
real.
And I hadn’t once gone into hysterics or uncontrollable shrieking. Kaylee couldn’t even go through her normal, boring life without bouts of uncontrollable shrieking.

We had nothing in common. Sometimes I wondered how we could possibly be related.

“I can tell my dad. He’ll believe me.” Normally my father wasn’t top on my list of confidants. But I couldn’t tell any of my friends. Most of them were stressed-out by broken nails and crash diets. Seeing the Netherworld would scar them for life.
I
would never be the same after barely surviving it—that was for sure.

“No, Sophie,” Luca insisted, and my temper flared, but he spoke before I could tell him how much I hated being told what to do. “No one’s supposed to know. People would freak out. The less the general public knows about the Netherworld, the better off we’ll all be.”

“But it’s just my dad.” And I had to tell him
something.
How else was I going to explain being out all night, and coming back covered in grass stains and my own blood?

“It’s not that simple. There’s more to this than what you saw last night. A lot more. It’s not just the Netherworld. There are things here—in our world—that you don’t know about yet. Things like me. Like
you.
I don’t know what you are yet, but you’re more than you think you are. And what you’ve seen is just a fraction of what’s out there. Don’t tell your dad yet. At least wait until I’ve had a chance to tell you what I know, and a chance to figure out what you are.”

I nodded slowly. Luca couldn’t give me the answers I’d wanted twelve hours ago—he couldn’t tell me what happened to my mom—but at least he wanted to tell me
something.
Something about me. Something he thought was amazing and extraordinary. I wanted to know what he knew, and suddenly I wanted to keep it to myself, just for a little while, so it could be our secret. Something no one else knew. Something special.

People called Kaylee special, but what they really meant was “special.” In that straitjackets and padded walls kind of way. She wasn’t special like Luca thought I was special. She could never handle what I’d just seen and done. She wasn’t stable enough.

“Okay,” I said finally, and his smile burned a hole right through me.

“Tonight? Dinner and Netherworld talk? You can ask anything you want.” He lifted both brows, trying to tempt me. But he’d had me before he even opened his mouth.

“Yeah. But I have this stupid family dinner with my uncle and cousin tonight. After that?”

“Sure…” But before he could ask for my phone number, someone called my name.

“Sophie?” I turned to see Peyton getting out of her car. Which was when I remembered that we had an early team practice, because of the competition. And that I’d left the box of new uniforms in the middle of the science hall.

“What the hell happened to you?” Peyton demanded, stomping toward us with her duffel strap over one shoulder. “Your dad called my mom, and neither of them believed I didn’t know where you were, and Mrs. Foley’s pissed that you just disappeared yesterday. You are in
so
much trouble, and there’s no way you’ll be voted team captain now. People want a captain they can depend on, not someone who ditches her team to roll around on the ground all night with some strange guy.” Peyton glanced pointedly at my dirty clothes and tangled hair, and I knew what she was seeing, and what she was thinking.

And I didn’t give a damn.

I’d just survived monsters, and bloodthirsty plants, and an entire world full of bizarre and terrifying. Peyton didn’t even register as a threat anymore.

“Okay, let’s keep this in perspective,” I said, as she gloated, secure in her imaginary victory. “We’re talking about dance team captain, not Captain America. Even if you win, all you get is a little gold pin on your letter jacket. It’s not like you saved the world. It’s not even like you saved the day. It’s a pin, and a footnote in the yearbook.
Beyond
forgettable, in the grand scheme.”