Soulless (The Heartless Series Book 2) (13 page)

Clouds are rolling in.

None of them know.

None of them.

What happened three days ago. About Hell on Earth. About how the world almost ended and would have ended if Lucien hadn’t stopped it. Now he’s in Hell, I have evil inside me, Hart is being weird, and they are living their merry lives with no idea that it could have ended.

That it still might if I’m allowed to live.

Except I can’t die, according to Hart.

What kind of thing can’t die?

I don’t want to find out.

If I can’t die and I can’t run away, then the only thing I can do is fight. Fight the evil inside for as long as I can. Until Hart finds a way to deal with me. Hart or the angels… or God. If I’m not meant to be here, then I reckon He can make it where I’m not. He’s God after all. He has to have a plan for this.

The book of Jeremiah says that God has a plan for everything… and that God knows it. If He knows the plan for me, I sort of want to have a chat about it because I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want it. I don’t want it… I don’t…

“God also says that He won’t give you more than you can handle. Or something like that,” Hart says, and I realize that either I’ve been mumbling or he’s been reading my mind again.

“Have I been mumbling, or are you reading my thoughts again?”

“Mumbling.” He answers with a smirk.

“Stay out of my head.” There aren’t many perks to being an abomination or drinking demon blood, but one of the biggest ones is that the more I drink the less he can read my mind. I hate to admit it, but maybe I should drain a demon dry so he will stay out of my head for a few hours.

He snickers.

I’ll kill him.

“Calm down.” He says, turning down the radio enough for me to hear him. That means I can also hear my heartbeat, which isn’t a pleasant thing, but at least it has mellowed some. “I can’t help hearing you, you know. You are pushing your thoughts out. Overly emotional and all.”

“I am not…” There is no need to finish that sentence. I
am
overly emotional right now. I am. It tends to happen when one finds out she is the key to opening Hell. And everything else that’s happened. “Okay, you’re right. I am.”

Hart blinks a few times, not taking his eyes off the road. The brick restaurants and scattered boutique stores are lending way to the countryside. In about a mile, we will get to a fork in the road. Left will take us to the interstate and my mother’s house. To the right will take us to a backroad, paved, but very curvy, which will take us to… my mother’s house. Not a whole lot of options here.

“I’m right? You are actually admitting it?”

“As much as it pains me.” I lean back in my seat, like I always do when we go on road trips, and put my knees up against the dash. Prospect isn’t that far away, but it seems like it today. Then again, I wish it were farther. I don’t want to go. Although I want to see my mother, I’m scared of what I’ll do to her.

Stupid nightmare.

Hart sucks on his bottom lip like Sam does when he’s thinking and taps out a few beats of classic rock on the steering wheel. “It’ll be okay. You know that, right?”

The fact that he’s trying to comfort me doesn’t make me feel any better. When a demon tries to make you feel better and take care of you, then something feels wrong.

“You aren’t still working for Seth, are you?”

There it is. The elephant in the room. One of them anyway. Something I haven’t brought up before because I didn’t know how he would take it, and now I don’t care. He needs me for something. That much is certain. So I need answers. Lots and lots of answers.

He coughs, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to have a stroke. He looks at me, his eyes wide and freaked out, all the while the car is veering across the yellow line.

Not the reaction I intended. I yell his name, sit up so fast the seatbelt catches my neck and pulls me backward. Hart catches himself and over corrects.

“Stop!” I yell as I feel the most powerful sensation I’ve ever felt explode from my body. Then there’s light. Bright light. Brighter than all the GE bulbs ever in existence. White… not yellow like the sun. White… brilliant. Just like before. Coming from me.

The light fills the car, and from the corner of my eye, I see Hart shield his face.

I feel the car tires moving from asphalt to gravel and then to dirt as we start going downward.

The light grows brighter as we begin to fall.

There is nothing but darkness.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HART

I
’M ALIVE.

I don’t know how I’m alive, but I am.

I’m actually pretty surprised by that, seeing as that bright light overtook me and I had to make a choice: cover my eyes and hope they don’t burn out or hang on to the wheel and steer away from the people. I’m selfish.

There were lots of bangs and rolls and all sorts of things I could only feel because I refused to take my arm from my eyes. If this was it, if this was my end, I was going down as a coward. Seemed fitting.

Now that the dust has settled and the world isn’t a bright burning ball of Heaven light—which is the only way I can describe it—I take the chance to peek out.

Once I do, I wish I hadn’t.

I’m alive all right. But this ole body has seen better days. I’m fairly sure my right leg is broken, and my head hurts like a mother. If I don’t have a concussion, I’ll be shocked.

Oh, and the tree branch that is protruding through my midsection isn’t a very good thing to see.

Ouch.

It doesn’t matter. Not really. It isn’t like any of it will kill me or the body. The body is dead already. He’s pretty much pieced together with tape and spit as it is. No big loss there—Gracen would probably disagree. She should be thanking me, though. If not for me fishing ole Sam out from the unclaimed lost and found in some Kentucky morgue, he’d be worm food by now. Or, at the very least, some medical student’s boy toy. As it is, Sam’s body has seen things it never imagined. Like the world nearly ending…

And this tree sticking out of his torso.

I pop my leg back in place first. Seems logical. It’s how I made it through all those college football games. Why I got to play so much and never missed a game. Dislocate your shoulder? Pop it back. Have a finger bent all kinds of wrong? Mash that sucker back into place.

That’s what I did with my leg and my hand and my neck. Then, I pushed the knot back into my head… all the while yelling Gracen’s name. I can’t see out of my right eye. More than likely due to all the trauma on the side of my face.

She’s not answering, though. And that’s not a good thing.

I know what I told her about not dying.

I know that it was all a lie to keep her from doing something stupid.

As far as I know, she can very much die. She’s still human. Well, some parts of her are human. And they will stay that way if I have anything to say about it. I’m undoing the damage I did to her all in the name of revenge if it’s the last thing I do. And it might be for all I know… I don’t care. I have to make it right.

“Gracen!”

No answer. Not even a whimper.

“Gracen!” It hurts to yell. It hurts to breathe with the damn tree impaling my innards. I think I have a broken neck, so I snap it back just to be sure. Yeah. Broken. And my car… my poor car.

How am I supposed to get to Prospect now? How am I supposed to save him?

One thing at a time.

One problem.

One thought process at a time, or I’ll go crazy. I can’t afford that.

People are actually counting on me. After all this time…. me… the demon Hart, who has stubbornly held on to his humanity, is getting a second chance. Maybe not a second chance. I don’t see myself going to Heaven after what I’ve done or what I am, but maybe some small redemption.

If only I can get out of this damn car.

And get Gracen.

I wipe the blood from my eye and turn my now non-broken neck toward the passenger side.

She’s there.

Gracen.

I think she’s broken.

After all that time I took fixing her again, Humpty Dumpy has taken another fall.

“Wake up.” I try to sound calm, but I certainly don’t feel it. I want her alive. I need her alive. If I don’t bring her breathing…

It’s not just that, and I know it. I don’t want her alive just because it was what was commanded of me. I want her alive because I feel responsible for her. Because I…

I don’t love her.

I can’t love her.

She doesn’t deserve for me to love her. Not a thing like me.

“Wake up, sweetheart. Come on. You can do it. Open your eyes and yell at me.” She doesn’t budge. If she’s… then what was the light show about? Didn’t she do something to protect us? Did she move time, slow down time, or toss us out of the way of the trees? Didn’t she do anything?

Fed up with being the bitch to a tree, I find the handle next to the seat and pull up. I go backwards. Tree stays still. Finally, with the help of a primal scream and a lot of cussing, I’m no longer impaled. I break the branch and throw it out the window, which has seen better days. Then I survey the damage. So far, all I can see that’s broken—besides me and Gracen—is the windshield. Besides glass lying around the seats and floorboard, everything else is still in order. Hell, the radio is still playing. Bob Dylan is gracing me with “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.”

Irony is alive and well.

I slide over, not caring that the glass is digging into my legs as I do, and don’t stop until I have Gracen’s hand in mine as I check her pulse. Her hands are cold. Ice cold.

“No,” I whisper, not feeling the familiar beats of her heart. After all those times I told her she didn’t have one, all those times I lied. She had a heart. She had a soul. She was good.

None of this is her fault.

I take my fingers, covered in my own sticky blood, and gently rub her cheek. Glass is sticking out of places it shouldn’t, marring her delicate skin. I was in my twenties when I died, but I’ve been around much, much longer. This girl, she’s much too young. Much too young.

Her lips are turning blue, and I know she’s fading fast. I refuse to think she’s already gone. That would be…

No.

I use one of the pieces of glass lying on the seat and slice my wrist. It stings a little, but I don’t care. After you pull a tree out of your freakin’ midsection, a little glass cut is nothing. I put my wrist to her lips and hold her head up so my blood stains her lips.

I need her alive…

I need her alive…

“Drink, baby. Come on. You can do it.” My blood runs down the crease of her lips and falls down onto her chin like a tiny river.

She’s not budging.

“Come on!” I yell and shake her. I haven’t cried in over two hundred years, but I might now. I might. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose him. Not when I’m so close! “Drink it! I don’t have all day. Drink the nice demon blood and get your strength back. Come on!”

Nothing.

I won’t believe it’s over. I can’t. If she’s dead, she gets what she wanted. She won’t destroy the world. If she dies, I’ll never get what I want. A chance at redemption.

I’m selfish enough to care more about myself. That’s what I tell myself. It isn’t that I love her. The tear that falls down my cheek and lands on my arm isn’t because I’m in love with her or because I’d miss the one person I’ve spent time with for the last eighteen years—the one person who loved me back, when she didn’t know I was me. No, this tear is because if she dies, so will he. So will my brother.

I can’t have that.

Not now.

Not after everything I’ve been through.

I close my eyes and lay my forehead on hers. I feel the blood flowing from me, and it makes me weak. I didn’t tell her, but all the blood in the coolers we packed is mine. I didn’t lie. We were out. She drank the very last of the demons’ blood from the fridge earlier. But I knew she’d need it on the trip, so while she packed, I filled up a few bottles which weakened me. I thought I’d have time to get better before she’d need it again.

I was wrong.

With my head on hers, I plead with her to drink. “Don’t do this to me.” I say as I rock her in my arms. Bob needs to stop singing about Heaven. “Don’t…”

I kiss her forehead. Her cool, clammy forehead.

And then I let the tears fall.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

GRACEN

T
HE WEIRD THING IS THAT
I don’t feel any pain.

I don’t even really know what happened, except Hart keeps yelling at me to move or wake up or something. Honestly, his words are jumbled like he’s in a completely other room from me. A fog, I suppose. I feel like I’m in a fog. Floating.

And I’m spent.

Whatever light came out of me, it feels like it’s been replaced, rapidly, with darkness. Darkness that is screaming in my head, pulling at my chest, fighting everything I am on the inside. It’s telling me to live, to wake up, to drink the blood I can smell under my nose. It’s telling me I need to wake up. I have a destiny. Something great to do with my life. It laughs at me, taunts me, tells me it knows what I want. What I crave. That I want the demon blood so bad I can taste it.

It’s all true.

It tells me to live.

I don’t think that’s a good idea.

What if Hart was wrong and I can die? Wouldn’t it be best to do it now? I’m weak. That light that beamed out of me nearly drained me. I’m tired. I’m cold. If not for the darkness filling my veins, flooding my thoughts, I’d feel at peace.

I want peace.

The darkness laughs. I can never have peace.

I have a purpose in this world.

My purpose is to destroy it.

I should fight my destiny.

As hard as I can, I push against the darkness flooding my mind, flooding my body. I want to give up. I want this to be over.

I want the blood.

I smell the blood.

I hear Hart crying, crying for me. Begging me to drink. Begging me not to go.

Why would he care so much?

Why don’t I?

Drink… drink… drink it… live….

The words run through my mind, strong at first, then fainter and fainter. It feels like I’m drowning. Maybe I am. Maybe this is what dying feels like. Drowning until it’s over.