Soulless (The Heartless Series Book 2) (21 page)

For this to work, I have to believe him. I have to believe that, when the time comes, he can be trusted.

“I need to know that when push comes shoving and the time comes for whatever is coming next, you will step up and do what needs to be done.”

Hart doesn’t look at me while he opens the door.

“I always do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

HART

I
DON’T SAY ANYTHING ELSE AS
I throw my bag in my Mustang and wait for Gracen to join me. She’s bound and determined for me to off her. The sad part about it is she actually trusts me to do it. She has no reason to trust me. None. But she does. I don’t know why she does. I don’t deserve it. I guess I’m all she’s got.

I’m the one person, the one thing, she believes will do this for her. She thinks I’ll choose to save the world instead of her. She trusts me to kill her so she won’t turn into the Abomination.

I don’t honk the horn or text her or anything to get her attention. I need some time to myself, to think, to process, to get a game plan, even if it’s different than what I tell Gracen. It’s all messed up, all of it. The world is ending, or it could. I have the one thing that can destroy it in my hand, and I’m going to trade it away for my brother who I’ve hated all these years—who I’ve been jealous of, loathed, wanted to be. The brother I love. The brother I’d do anything for… now.

The brother who needs me. Who trusts me to come and save him. He told me as much on the phone when Willow—well, Amelia—let him talk to me yesterday. He trusts me.

Gracen trusts me.

Seth trusts me.

Hell, I’m an upstanding demon.

Father would be proud.

I wonder where he is. I didn’t see him in Hell. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. It’s a big place after all. Knowing my father, though, he’s in Heaven, and he more than likely gave Jesus a sermon about being kind to your neighbors. It’s all he ever preached about way back in the day.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m still waiting on Gracen. A very smart move on my part. I need time alone. Time to process all this, or at least all I can process.

How in the world can all these people trust me? I don’t even trust myself.

I’m dangerous and evil. I’ve tortured people. I’ve made people kill themselves. I’m not a nice person. Not by a long shot. So why…

Why do they see more than I do?

Do they really? Or am I all they have?

With Gracen, I’m all she has. After all, after what I’ve done to her all these years, killing her with the knife—the same one I’ve used for years to slice and dice her in her dreams—should be easy. There is a difference though. In the dreams, she was in control. In the dreams, I knew she’d wake up. In the dreams, I could convince myself that I really wasn’t hurting her. In the dreams, I knew she would be all right.

I knew it wasn’t the end.

I knew she was good and pure and loved. I knew she would be okay in the end. I knew that, no matter what, she had her whole life in front of her.

Now I know the truth. When we walk into her mother’s house, Gracen won’t walk back out the same person. Either I do something to stop Gracen, or Amelia will do something to make Gracen turn. I remember some of the conversations I had with Amelia in Hell—how she wanted out. How she wanted Hell on Earth. I think that’s part of the reason I went along with Seth. So my mother could get what she wanted. Until I chickened out. Until it became much, much too real.

I don’t want Gracen to die.

I don’t want the world to end.

I don’t want Gracen to destroy it.

I don’t want to have to keep my promise to her.

I don’t want Lucien to die.

Five things I know for facts.

If I don’t focus, I’ll be caught at the most important time in the history of the world with my pants down like in the cave. I’d trusted Seth. I don’t trust him now.

That’s not entirely true. I trust him…. and Amelia… to do whatever they have to do to make today go their way. They both have different agendas, which I’m sure will be fun to watch play out. They can both send each other to Hell for all I care. As an angel, Seth will fall to the bottom… all the way. All the way to where my brother had been.

I don’t want to imagine what they did to him there.

No one should trust me.

I don’t trust myself.

Truth be told, I have no idea what will happen when we get to Prospect. I do know that three of the most powerful supernatural things in the world will be there, in one room, with Gracen’s mother… and me. All hashing it out with different agendas. I’m sure none of this will go wrong.

I keep thinking about Gracen’s dream. Yeah, I put the original dream in her mind to help her sleep. I’ve put it in there before. Me when I was human. The lake. My old farmhouse. I didn’t add the storm. I figured Gracen did. I didn’t add my mother. Again, I figured it had been Gracen.

I didn’t add my death.

We were connected in that dream. Well, in real life and in that dream. I saw what she saw. I felt what she felt. I saw myself die. I felt it. I don’t know why.

The most confusing thing… Why did Gracen care?

I think about texting her and telling her to hit the road when I notice out of the corner of my eye that her phone is in the passenger seat. We got a new one after I broke her old one. A lot of good that did.

Why in the name of all that’s good and holy would she leave it there? Important things happened on phones. I’m older than dirt, and I daresay I never leave home without it.

I take it to mean she doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Not her mother: guilt. Not… well, I guess that’s all she really has is her mother.

Because I’m nosey… and evil… I check her phone to see if anyone has contacted her. If her mother has, I need to know about it. My brother is at her house so that makes it my business. My brother and my mother—all ready for a family reunion.

Her mother hasn’t called, but she has about fifteen messages from Tina.

Tina.

Good lord, I remember her.

Tina, the Facebook friend who was/is Gracen’s only friend. Her only friend in the world. Sad really.

I open the messages to see what she’s written:

You’re scaring me.

Where are you?

I need to talk to you.

Are you okay?

Gracen… answer me.

Do you need help?

Is it Sam?

Did he hurt you?

Are you on your way to Prospect?

Are you on your way to Prospect?

Something hits me about that… why would Tina from California think to ask about Prospect? Why would she even send that many messages to someone she doesn’t know… unless…

Unless…

“I’m here. Let’s go.” I’m pretty sure I jump like I’m shot when Gracen opens the door. Jump like a boy getting caught in his room by his mother during a very early morning sock session. I toss Gracen’s phone down in the console, hoping she doesn’t see that I was checking it, and place both hands on the steering wheel.

I try to look all cool and confident and collected.

I’m sure I look like a dork.

She slides in and shuts the door. “Wow. They did a great job.” She points to the windshield that I had nearly forgotten.

“Yeah… yeah… sure did. An excellent job. Can’t even tell it’s been in a wreck.”

Bart’s had delivered the car last night. Windshield fixed and all. Just like I’d instructed. He didn’t knock on the door. Didn’t wait for any sort of conversation. Didn’t wait for payment.

Sometimes it felt good to do what a demon was made to do, no strings, no feelings attached.

I don’t ask if she’s ready. That would be a stupid question. She’s not ready. I’m not ready. This is a stupid mission we’re on. Whoever chose us to save the world was high on crack or something. Two evils trying to do what’s right won’t end well. I know it won’t. It can’t.

Instead of saying anything, I start the car and throw it in reverse. We have an hour at least to drive before we make it to Prospect. Lots of time to think. Lots of time to chicken out.

Lots of time to turn around.

Lots of time… there’s never enough time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

GRACEN

T
HE CLOSER WE GET TO
P
ROSPECT,
the sicker I get. Maybe I should have eaten something before we left. Maybe I should have drunk some of Hart’s blood—I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. Maybe I should have done… something.

I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep anything down anyway.

I’m sick.

I don’t want to do this.

Every part of me, every single fiber, is screaming at me to make Hart turn around and head back to Crimson Ridge. Or, even better, to head for the West Coast. Somewhere. Anywhere but here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be getting closer to home.

Home.

I can’t even think of it like that anymore. It’s not my home. I don’t have a home.

Home would imply that I have a place to be safe. There’s nowhere I’m safe. Nowhere that’s safe from me.

None.

This car ride is killing me. My legs won’t stay still, and I think I’m going to jar the car off the road while I fidget my legs. Hart takes the backroad instead of the interstate. It’s about fifteen minutes longer, and I appreciate those fifteen minutes. They feel like a reprieve. Fifteen more minutes I have to live. Fifteen more minutes I have to worry my little heart out about everything that’s fixing to happen. It’s about to get ugly. Very, very ugly. I hope I can trust Hart to do the right thing.

Speaking of Hart, he hasn’t said much since we left the hotel room. He has both hands on the wheel, and he’s staring straight ahead. Classic rock is on the radio, as it always is, but unlike every other time we’ve been in the car, he’s not singing along.

If he’s trying to hide how nervous he is, he’s doing a lousy job.

I’ve got to talk to someone. I’ve got to.

I pick up my phone and check my messages. I left it in the car at the mechanic’s so I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, and now it’s all I can think about. I talk a big game. “Kill me, Hart. You have to kill me! I don’t want to hurt anybody.” But when the time comes and it’s time for it to go down, I’ll be freaking out inside.

There are so many things I want to do, so many things I wanted to do before this happened. One day isn’t enough time. Then again, some people don’t get to know when their time is up. They get in car crashes—like we got into—or they go to school and get shot. No warning. No one day
this is your life
. Nothing. I guess in a sense, I’m lucky. I get to know. I get to stop it. I get to save the world.

Not many people can say that.

I’m really trying to put a positive spin on this because, frankly, I’m terrified.

Something like me can’t get into Heaven. I have demon blood in me.

Something like me will be thrown into the bottom of Hell. I have angel DNA in me.

Something like me… something like me isn’t supposed to live.

I never should have lived.

I’m glad I did, though. Just wish I’d done more with my life, that’s all. A lifetime of being scared of everything isn’t a way to live. Hindsight and all.

The phone vibrates in my hand. Hart cuts his eyes to me and watches as I check who it’s from. Tina. She’s sent another message.

Dang, I didn’t know she’d sent that many before now.

Where are you? I’m worried!

I scroll back and look at all her other messages. She’s worried. She’s concerned. She wants to know where I am. Fifteen messages in one night is a bit… much. Maybe not if I was answering her back, but I’m not.

I pull up my phone’s keyboard and start to message her back when Hart grabs my phone and tosses it out the window.

“What the hell?” It takes everything I have not to hit him. “What did you do that for?”

His jaw clenches, and he keeps his damn eyes right on the road. Bastard’s not talking.

“Hart!”

“She’s not real.” His lip twitches.

“She’s not… Damn it,
Sam,
that’s the same thing you used to say. She’s not real. She’s just on the computer. When she gets to know you, she won’t like you. Remember? Glad to know that some things never change.”

“What? No… it’s not. She’s not real, Gracen. Tina. It’s been nagging me and nagging me since I checked your phone this morning.”

“You what?”

“She’s not real.”

I just sort of look at him, and he sighs. “I know you took that yellow sticky note. I saw you. You saw the symbol. Yeah… so?”

Was he expecting me to say I was sorry? “Don’t change the subject.”

“
This
is the subject. I saw those symbols in Seth’s book. In God’s book, or whoever he got it from. That circle with the three lines, two parallel and one perpendicular—”

“Didn’t know you knew such big words…”

He glares for a second before shaking his head in the direction of the road that is slowly becoming more houses and less farmland. I’d seen that symbol before. “I know you recognized it too. Why else would you have chosen it over all the rest in that pile?”

“I knew I’d seen it somewhere before, but I couldn’t remember where…”

“Think about Tina’s profile picture.”

“It would be easier if I had my phone.” I’m hoping he gets my deep, deep sarcasm.

“Good thing you have a brain and a memory. Think about it. What did her picture have? It wasn’t her.”

Well, no it wasn’t. It was a picture. A photo. I always thought of it as some sort of peace sign, only it wasn’t a peace sign. Not in a traditional sense. It was a yellow circle with two roads going through it and a line, like an iron or something, going down the middle.

“A circle with two parallel and one perpendicular one.” No… No.

“Exactly. I hate to be the one to break this to you, sweetheart, but there is no Tina. There never has been.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

HART

I
JUST GET TO DELIVER ALL
the bad news in the world this week, don’t I?
You’re an abomination. Lucien is my brother. My mother is possessing your aunt. Tina isn’t real.