Soul Crossed (18 page)

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too,” is my response. And we are kissing again.

I can hardly stop myself. It’s as if I’m starving. I will not be satiated easily. I work my way down his body, listening to his breathing. How it grows rapid and shallow.

I don’t know how much time we spend in his bed. As far as I’m concerned, the world has stopped spinning just for us. But when I finally lay still in his arms again, reality comes creeping back in, and I feel a foreboding in the air.

“Are you cold?” Josh asks.

“No. It isn’t that.” I look into his eyes, and I see the fire lit inside them once again. I smile because no matter what else happens, even if I fail with Cam, I’ve somehow managed to save my Josh—at least for now.

“Are you feeling all right?” He leans in close, lifting my chin to examine my face, and I laugh at his intensity.

“I’m fine. I’m going to the bathroom,” I say, getting up. I lift up his shirt, crumpled on the floor, and slip it on as he watches me. His scent is in the fabric, and its like he’s holding me still. If he had Keira’s master suite I wouldn’t have even bothered with clothing, but somehow crossing the entire apartment naked to get to the bathroom seems wrong. I blow him a kiss and walk out to the living area.

I’ve cleared the front of the couch when the door opens. They’re so wrapped up in sucking each other’s faces off, they don’t see me for a minute. I will myself to move, but I am frozen in place while ice pours down my spine. Keira finally disengages from his face, giving Cam a clear view. Our eyes meet, and I see Keira glance at me while still busy with Cam’s neck. I know she’s enjoying this moment.

Cam drinks me in. Josh’s shirt on my body, my dress on the floor. He follows my guilty eyes toward the bedroom, and his face turns to stone. I shake my head, unable to form words, and he pushes Keira away from him roughly. I reach out a hand, and he backs away, out the door. He’s gone, and it will be impossible to recover his trust.

Keira starts to laugh, and I run for the bedroom, diving in next to Josh and throwing the covers over us both. He’s clearly confused, but I still cannot speak. Keira enters the room and looks down at us with a superior smile. For some reason I hug Josh tight, afraid we are about to be thrown apart like when the club exploded. Only this time, I fear the bomb can kill us.

“Well, well, well. Looks like you two finally got it on.” Josh is angry with her, I can tell, but I hold him tighter, clamping down with all my might so he won’t rise to her challenge. I know no good will come of it.

“Get out,” he says. The menace in his voice is beyond human.

“Oh, but the party’s just getting started.” She comes over and leans on the foot of the bed, speaking directly to me. “I can’t believe you caved. I mean, you know what he is, what he’s done, and you still had to jump his bones.”

“I don’t care that he’s a Demon. It isn’t his fault. Not really. He isn’t like you.” I’ve found my voice, but it still sounds meek. Outside of the window, the snow rushes down fast and hard.

“Not like me? No. He’s not. Not yet, anyway. But as much as you’d like to deny it, it is most definitely his fault.”

“He isn’t a bad person. He never really hurt anyone. I know it in my heart.”

“See,
that
,” Keira laughs, “is what you call the inexperience of youth.” She waits for my reaction, and I swallow, stealing a glance at Josh. “You mean to tell me Joshy here didn’t share his deepest, darkest secrets with you? I’m shocked.” She fans herself in mock horror.

“Keira,” Josh warns, but it only seems to egg her on.

“You didn’t tell her how you got your one-way ticket to Hell?” she asks.

“I got behind the wheel, drunk off my ass,” Josh says to me. He’s trying to prove he’s hiding nothing. It isn’t necessary. I trust him.

“Where?” Keira prompts, licking her lips like a hungry lion.

“What difference does it make?” I say. I sound hysterical. I want her to stop. Some part of me knows what’s coming.

“Some little suburb near Seattle.” Why did Josh have to answer her? My heart sinks to my stomach.

“June fourteenth,” I say, trying to look anywhere but at him.

“How did you know?” he asks. It’s like Keira isn’t in the room anymore. But she is. She’s practically glowing with triumph.

“Because that was the night I died. Hit by a car in my hometown, Bothell, Washington.”

It just isn’t possible. Grace wilts like a petal in my arms. I am too shocked to be any comfort to her. I can’t even muster the strength to throttle Keira, who sits there grinning from ear to ear, feeding off our pain and anguish.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I say. I would remember hurting Grace. I’m sure of it.

“You were drunk off your ass and don’t remember, what a shock!” Keira says. “Come on, Joshy. Think. You, too, Pollyanna. You weren’t drinking, were you? What do you recall?”

“I was standing at the crosswalk with my friend Emily,” Grace says. She has a far off-look in her eyes. “We were on our way home from a party. The light changed. We were about to cross, and this car came out of nowhere, barreling around the corner, tires squealing. I remember the headlights blinded me and then…and then…nothing. I was in Heaven.”

“Keep thinking,” Keira says. For whatever reason, Grace listens. She screws up her face in concentration, and as she speaks, I see it as well. From my viewpoint inside the car.

“I was on the curb, and I think Emily tried to push me out of the way because the car was headed toward us, but it was swerving wildly. I ended up on the ground in front of it. The headlights were bright, and I squinted. I thought for a moment I would be OK because it looked like the driver was trying to stop and was turning away from me. But then the car careened out of control and I—
oh my God
.” She gasps, and I know she remembers now, just as I do.

I was changing songs on my iPhone; I had connected it to the radio so I could blast my music through the car. But I was concentrating way too hard, probably because there were two phones swimming in my drunken vision, and I had to figure out which one was real.

I almost missed the turn, and I pulled hard to the right. The tires scraped against pavement, and I saw two girls. They weren’t in the road yet, so I was OK. But then one of them stumbled out into the crosswalk, her friend’s hands reaching for her. I almost went up on the sidewalk and hit the friend, but I spun the wheel and slammed on the brakes. I thought I missed them both, but the car lost control, and I looked right at her before I hit her. I was helpless to stop it.

I remember her big doe eyes and honey-colored hair. A girl I would have wanted to date. And then there was a hideous bump. I hit a deer once when I first got my license, and this felt the same. The car kept going—the accelerator was stuck, or maybe I hit the wrong pedal, and I flew off the road, right into a tree. No seatbelt, fifty miles an hour, and a seventy-year-old oak make a bad combination. Even now, I can almost feel the slicing pain as I crashed through the windshield.

Grace stares at me. She shrivels away from my arms like we are forced apart by some unseen hands. All I can do is stare back. Those eyes. They can see right through me. I felt it then, and I feel it now.

I killed Grace. She’s here because of me. I took her life, and now I’ve damned her from Heaven. I never meant to hurt her, yet I keep doing it over and over again.

Grace’s heart is breaking in front of me. I watch as she struggles to reconcile the truth with her feelings for me. I can’t even try to plead my case. I hate myself. I don’t deserve her.

“I think you’d better leave now,” I manage to say to Keira. But before she can respond, Grace is up and out of the bed.

“No. No. I’m the one who needs to leave, right now,” she tells me.

She has every right to get as far away from me as possible.

I’m a monster.

I’m sure the room is shrinking. I have to get out. I can’t think with Keira there, gawking at me like some lab rat. I grab my coat, discarded on the floor, and fish out my cell phone from the pocket.

I look up in time to see Josh, stark naked, running toward me. The pressing ball of light obstructs my vision, but his face remains imprinted on my retinas like a photograph after a flash. Forever frozen in torment and pain. I still love him, I realize, despite the memories flooding through my head. Tears spill from my eyes as I am deposited before Ms. Alvarez.

She barely glances up at me as she pours her tea. I’ve noticed the last few nights she hasn’t offered me any. Perhaps she’s noticed I don’t like it very much. I glance down to find I am still wearing Josh’s shirt, and I quickly will it to change into something modest, but it doesn’t work.

“You will find it most difficult to use the powers of Heaven once you’ve been cast out,” Ms. Alvarez says. She waits, sipping her tea, for me to speak.

“Cast out?” I ask. My voice is barely louder than a breath.

“You’ve soiled yourself. With a Demon from Hell, nonetheless. I’m afraid my hands are tied.”

“How…” I cannot finish the question. I collapse into the desk chair that has become my second home.

“How did I know? Silly girl, do you think I would let you loose on a project this big without keeping a proper eye on you? Hmm. Proper. Perhaps I ought use a different word. You clearly have no knowledge of the definition.” She smiles at her own convoluted joke.

“He’s—” I’m going to say good, but Ms. Alvarez finishes my sentence.

“A murderer? An agent of Hell? Consort of Beelzebub? Do tell what attracted you.”

I flush with embarrassment. “It isn’t like that, Ms. Alvarez. He isn’t evil.” She laughs, and I find it cold and frightening. Worse than Keira’s.

“He helped torture and murder your dog. Then he took his sweet time before bringing it to you to heal.”

“
What
?”

“And countless others. He buried them himself in the woods behind Camden’s condominium. How’s that for evil, Ms. Howard?”

“He couldn’t have—”

“He knew you would be cast out. He coveted your body.” I pull the shirt tighter around myself, feeling exposed.

“He loves me.” Even as I say it, I know I sound like a frightened child, unable to accept the painful truth.

“He killed you.” I swallow hard. “Clearly that wasn’t enough for him, though. I thought better of you than falling for a pretty face. You see, even I can misjudge.”

“Ms. Alvarez, please.” I don’t have words to express what I want to say. He let Cam kill Tommy Two? I try to picture it, but I can’t. Still, Josh did bring Tommy to me, he’d be forever dead otherwise. I couldn’t picture Josh hurting an innocent creature. Especially one I love.

My plea turns into a garbled sob.

“You are relieved of duty, Miss Howard. We will no longer be needing your services.”

My inner torment turns to anger. “
Services
? Yes. That’s exactly what this is. Indentured servitude in the guise of earning some made-up reward.” I spit the words at her through my pain, wanting to strike at the woman who never made me feel like I was in Heaven. “The thing I want more than anything is the one thing I can never have, no matter how hard I try. How can this be paradise if I cannot see my family?” I cry, raising my voice in despair. I have nothing left to lose.

“Well, you certainly won’t be seeing them now. If you step one foot in Washington State, you will be struck down by lightning.”

“I thought you were casting me out?” I whimper, tears still dripping onto Josh’s shirt.

“I am. But you cannot be sent to Hell until this case is closed.”

“So, I have another chance?”

“No. You have a tiny bit of time to wait for Cam’s soul to be claimed and for Satan to come for you. I could care less what you do down there while you’re waiting—but maybe you’ll have one more chance at carnal pleasure with your murderous boyfriend.”

My cheeks burn as hard as my eyes. “I can prove Josh isn’t evil. I know it. He can’t be.” If he is, if he really did just sleep with me to cast me out from Heaven, then nothing matters anymore. My eternal torture has already begun. But if he’s who I believe him to be, there must be a way he can be saved…

“I’m not interested in your denial. This is about Camden. The moment he either commits murder or sees the light, so to speak, is the moment you are forfeit to Hell. And sadly for us, with no Angel to help, there is little hope for the latter.” Ms. Alvarez snaps her fingers, and I’m swallowed up in light. My last view of Heaven is Ms. Alvarez stuffing a raspberry scone into her mouth.

I throw my arms up over my head to shield my eyes from the light. I am forcibly reminded of another image of Grace, squinting in the headlights of my oncoming car, and I cry out. But she is gone.

Why couldn’t I move? Why couldn’t I say anything? I was frozen with fear and self-pity. And now it might be too late.

“You really should make a habit of wearing more clothes.” I spin around to find Lucifer grinning at me from the edge of my bed. He’s picked up Grace’s bra and is examining it.

I stride forward to meet him and find myself dressed in a black and white tuxedo. I do my best to ignore this and choose my words with care.

“You knew I killed her.”

“Of course I did. I know more than that, too. I know where she is right now.”

“You said we could be together if I did it,” I say, gesturing toward the bra. He tosses it to me, and I catch it out of instinct.

“I believe what I said was
if
we convince her to join us, you can screw her for all eternity.”

“So, she has a choice?” I ask.

“Just like you. You chose the easy road. You asked me if people actually choose the hard one. The straight answer is no. No one has ever chosen differently. But then again, if you’re talking to me, you’ve probably been taking the easy road, one way or another, your whole life.”

“Can I go now?” I almost forgot Keira was in the room.

“Sure. Go visit our little friend. Make him feel better, and by all means, bring him a gift.” Lucifer nods to her in dismissal, and she disappears in a puff of smoke. “Now, Joshua. I want to have a little chat with you.”