Soulless (The Heartless Series Book 2) (4 page)

The more I think about it, the more my head hurts, so I decide not to think about it. Hart’s plan is… his plan. I have to make one on my own.

“Did you have a vision?” he asks, leaning his back against the sink and crossing his arms. He has on a black V-neck shirt—that he’d never worn as Sam as far as I recall—and dark wash, boot cut jeans.

So not Sam. Sam would have had on a pair of worn out, comfortable jeans and a flannel shirt.

I have to wonder how else they are different.

“I… no.” I lie because I have to. I don’t want Hart knowing what’s going on inside my crazy, screwed up mind. I’ve thought I was crazy for as long as I can remember. My mother thought I was crazy. My therapist thought I was crazy. Tina, my Internet friend, would have thought it if she’d known me long enough. The less I tell Hart, the less he can hold over me—if he ever wanted to hold something over me. Not sure what he wants to do with it, but I’m not taking any chances.

“You’re not fine. You were yelling for your mother.”

I shrug. “A girl needs her mother when she’s not feeling well.”

“Gracen, you were screaming. Literally screaming. I had to hold you down so you didn’t hurt yourself.”

So that’s why I felt like I couldn’t move. It had been Hart holding me down.

Of course it had…

“It was just a nightmare. That’s all.” In all my life, I’d never had just a nightmare. Ever. In fact, if Hart’s not in my dreams, I don’t dream at all.

I didn’t dream the entire five years he was drugged out of my mind. The entire time!

I read somewhere, or saw it on television or something, that a person who can’t dream turns into a psychopath. I don’t remember the reasoning behind it, but I think of myself every time I see that meme posted on the Internet. I didn’t miss dreaming. Not at all. I’ve never had a pleasant dream, save for when I dreamed of a life with Sam. I don’t trust that I won’t have nightmares again. I’ve lived with them too long.

“You don’t dream.” He lets me go just enough for me to lean back a little.

I can’t look at him. I don’t want to look at anything really. Sitting in my room alone seems a preferable thing to do. In my room alone, staring at a wall until my eyes either bleed, my brain explodes, or my mind turns to mush. Honestly, any of those choices seems preferable to this.

“I… sort of dream. You are in them.” Like he needs reminding.

“I think those are technically nightmares,” he says. “But if you think I’m a dream, I won’t question it.” He’s trying to make me laugh, like Sam used to do. It’s so hard not think of him as Sam, my once perfect boyfriend turned semi-jerk turned demon.

I want him back.

“You know what goes on inside my head better than I do. You’ve been in there long enough. I don’t know. I don’t know what any of it is or what any of it means. I just know I’m tired. I’m tired of everything, and I just want it to stop.” This is probably the most honest I’ve been with him—with anyone—ever. I want it over. All of it. I don’t even know if I’d try to stop it if someone came and…

“Hey, don’t you dare talk like that.” He places his finger gently under my chin and pushes it up until I’m looking directly into his eyes.

Funny how, now that I’m actually looking, I can see a hint of red in them. Only a little fleck in the brown. But still there. Still Hart, the real Hart, peeking out.

“You are going to fight this. I haven’t invested eighteen years of my afterlife into you for you to quit now. Think about me for a change. Stop being selfish.” He winks in that over confident way he has about him. I can tell, just by being this close to him, that he’s nervous about something. It could be a million things, really. Anything could be bothering him. The world nearly ended after all. It still might.

“Now, tell me what you saw. What did you dream about?” He does something I never thought he’d do. Heck, I don’t even know if he notices it. He takes both of my hands in his. My breath catches, and I don’t want to feel anything for him. I don’t want a tingle or a sigh or any sort of positive feelings for Hart. I don’t….

I do.

“Gracen…” He says, his voice husky and deep. I think he already knows. He might not know exactly what I’ve dreamed, but he has a pretty good idea. I’ve had a vision. Something bad is going to happen. The world is ending. Blah. Blah. Blah.

“Fine. I dreamed about…” The rest of the words won’t come out of my mouth. How do you tell someone you saw yourself kill your mother? No, that’s not right. I didn’t see myself killing her, just that she said I’d done it. Maybe I didn’t… Maybe.

“Dreamed about what? I can help you, you know?”

I want to believe him. I want to tell him every little thing and every little detail about the alley and the pizza and the dumpster and the damn rat. And Seth. I really want to tell him about Seth. “I dreamed about Seth. He was with me. We were somewhere. I don’t remember where. He said he… he said next I’d kill the world.”

True, he did say it. He also said I’d kill my mother, which wasn’t true. I’d never kill her. Never hurt her, so it can’t be real, right? So why can’t I tell Hart about it? Can it be because I don’t trust him? That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.

Hart’s eyes narrow at me like he’s trying to solve a great riddle. I lean back on the sink and dab the washcloth under my nose, trying to ignore his accusing glare. He knows I’m lying. Of course he knows me, he’s lived in my head for years. I might as well wipe the blood away while he figures out how to confront me on it.

“Seth, huh.” He clears his throat and looks away from me. I can see his jaw tighten like it’s taking every bit he has inside himself not to acknowledge the elephant in the room. “Well, you haven’t killed anybody.”

“I killed those girls.” As if he needed reminding. I guess he did.

“You didn’t. The thing inside you did. The think you can’t control, remember? Besides, I took care of that with the police. They won’t bother us again.”

“What did you do?”

He avoids the question. “You aren’t even a full abomination yet, and you won’t be if I have anything to say about it. So whatever you dreamed, whatever he put or whoever put in your mind, it isn’t real.”

“Wait, people can still put things in my mind?” I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before now. “You?”

He smirks. “Not me. I’ve tried, but not me. But someone or something has to be giving you these visions, right? Not just the angel blood. Or the demon blood. Or the whatever blood…”

“The whatever blood?”

“Never mind. It stands to reason that whatever is putting these things in your brain is doing it for a reason. You saw those girls die to drive you crazy, right?”

“Something like that,” I say, not wanting to think of those poor girls who died because of me. They deserved better. Heck, the world deserves better than to be stuck with me. If I truly was put on Earth to destroy it, I wish I’d never been born. That way, everyone would just go on with their lives. Happy. Grateful. Selfish. Alive… complaining about their meaningless job and that one coworker no one likes, but everybody has to like. They’d never have missed me. But oh, will they know I’m around when I turn into that thing, that thing I don’t even really understand, and, according to Seth, destroy everything.

“How do I turn? Completely, I mean. You said you’d keep me from it. I should probably know how too so I can avoid it.” I sigh and throw the bloody washcloth in the sink. My head is still pounding, but it’s a bit better. Now instead of a thousand bass drums pounding out the cowbell part of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in my brain, I only have several dozen playing “We Will Rock You.” So… better.

Hart clears his throat, and his eyes meet mine. “I don’t know what you do and don’t remember from the Hell gate. It isn’t like we’ve talked about it very much. Three days ago…”

“Three days!” I say, my hand automatically going to my stomach. It’s only been three days. “Then I shouldn’t be able to walk. Seth…”

“Stabbed you. Yup. Right in the gullet. Thought he killed you, he did. But I brought you home and started feeding you my blood.” He doesn’t look like he wants to tell me the next part, so I do the best thing I know to do—stare at him until he talks. “Fine. I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Demon blood heals. Angel blood heals. Human blood is poison. Imagine that. But you weren’t healing fast enough, and I couldn’t let you die, so I threw a… house party.”

I don’t have to say the words that are swimming around my mind. I’m fairly sure Hart can read it all over my face. “I haven’t cleaned up the mess yet downstairs.” He cringes. At least he has the decency to do that.

“Oh my gosh.” I want to be sick. How many things are dead because of me? How many did he drain dry so I could live?

“It’s just demons, Gracen. God, I didn’t kill any angels, though I bet one of them would have cured you in a day. And besides, you have to have the blood now to heal. You can’t survive—not in any sort of pleasant state—without it?”

“So? What do I care if I die?” I say before I think about it. It sounds so wrong for an eighteen-year-old to say, and I’m not suicidal… I’m not. I
do
want that life with Sam. And I
do
want that farm and kids and grandkids and die at a ripe old age with lots of memories and smiles and happiness.

I want it so bad I could cry.

I am also a realist.

The world will end because of me.

It’s only a matter of time.

If I wasn’t a believer before, then I sure am now.

I saw the gates of Hell open. I helped open them. I saw some of the things that came out though a very thick veil that covered my eyes. I heard the screams, the torment.

I felt the heat.

Hell was real. And if I’m not stopped, I’ll make it look like Disneyland.

I start to say all of this when Hart has me in his grasp. His big hands are on my arms, holding me in place, and he’s looking down at me like I’ve just said the most offensive thing in the world.

“So?” His voice is high and cracks a bit. “So?”

“Yeah.” I try to be strong, but looking at him, with that fear in his eyes, I can’t. I don’t want Hart to care what happens to me. I don’t. He was put on Earth for one thing, like me. Two different things, sure, but still one thing. His job since the beginning has been to watch me. Keep me pure. He’s done his job. Now it’s time to let me go. I’m not good to him now anyway.

“Yeah? That’s all you have to say?” His hands grip me tighter, and if I didn’t think it would hurt my healing stomach, I’d push him away—hard.

“Think about it, Hart. What if Seth was right? What if I’m just something sent here to kill the world? Wouldn’t it be better for me to die now before I hurt anybody or anything? Think about it. Seth said when I fully turn, nobody will be able to stop me. Nothing. Seth said…”

Hart slams his hands against the sink on each side of me. I flinch. The reds in Hart’s eyes glow brighter. “I’m so damn sick and tired of what Seth said. Seth is an ass. Seth said God deserved what he was doing to the world by opening Hell… do you really believe that too?”

When the demon who’s been living in your head for eighteen years makes a point, it’s sort of a bad, defeating moment. “No.”

“No. Right. You don’t believe it because it isn’t true. Whatever beef Seth has with God, I don’t want to be part of it. And he’s not right. He’s crazy, Gracen. Bat shit crazy, and you’d better not give what he says a second thought, understand me?”

I don’t seem to nod fast enough for him. “I’m serious, Gracen. He doesn’t know everything. If he did, he’d have seen that the Hell gate thing was stupid from the start. Hell, it was all stupid from the beginning.”

The beginning
, in my mind, was when my father—Seth, the angel—came to Earth and seduced my mother who, in turn, had me. I’m thinking that’s where the timeline got skewed.

“See, if I weren’t here—”

“Stop it!” Hart orders, his voice very low as he holds his nose inches from mine.

I can smell cinnamon on his breath. It’s a strange smell because I don’t remember Sam eating it much, not that it matters.

“You stop right now. Whatever circumstances you had, whatever you are thinking about doing, you stop. You are here. You are staying. I’m not losing you.”

Before I can ask what he means by that, he lets me go and storms out of the bathroom. I’m alone. I’m confused. My head hurts. I should crawl into bed. I should never get up.

Instead I make my way down the hallway very slowly, careful to hold on to the walls as I go, and blessedly make it to my bed. I fall into it, and instead of going to sleep, I find my laptop. Hart hadn’t moved it, thank goodness. No telling what he did to pass the time since I’d been under.

I open it and immediately shut it again. No. That’s not right. There’s no way…

I open it again and squint at the date and time. It’s been three days since the Hell gate… I knew that. And it’s one in the afternoon.

One.

In the afternoon.

And the sun isn’t out.

The sky is dark.

At one… in the afternoon.

Come to think of it, it was dark when I woke up the first time, wasn’t it?

And has it really been three days?

“Hart!” I yell as loud as I can so he can hear me downstairs. I’ve never yelled his name before, not in the real world—if you can call this that now—and it feels strange to say. In my entire life, I’ve always thought of myself as sort of two people… or rather one person with two lives.

In the daylight I’m the sweet, hopefully sweet, college girl who’s in love with Sam Asher, athlete, all around American guy.

And then there’s the night Gracen, who is tied to a table and tortured in a dingy room by a demon named Hart Blackwell.

It’s like… I know I’m the same person. But it feels different now. The dream has always stayed in the dream world, save for this week at least.

Now that everything is jumbling together, I don’t know. It’s weird. I hate it. I hate the dream I had about my mother. I hate that I can’t tell Hart about it. I hate that I am too weak to stand for very long. I hate that I’m dependent on demon blood to not die.

Demon.

Blood.

To.