With All My Soul (25 page)

But Nash didn’t see it that way.

“I can’t win with you, can I?” He threw his arms up in
frustration. “If I stay safe on the sidelines, I’m not helping, but if I try to
do anything, I’m putting myself and everyone else in danger. You’re going to be
mad at me no matter what I do—or don’t do—so I’m
done
worrying about what you think!”

“Guys, calm down,” Emma said. On the edge of my vision, I saw
Sabine watching me and Nash like we were on opposing sides of a volleyball
net.

“This isn’t about me being mad at you, Nash. This is about me
trying to
protect
you.”

“For the last time, I don’t need you to protect me! So just
tell me how to contact this Ira asshole and let me decide how much I’m willing
to pay to get my mother out of the Netherworld. Let
me
deal with the consequences of my own decisions!”

“That’s not how it works!” My cheeks were flushed, and my heart
pounded so hard I was almost dizzy—my body was no longer accustomed to such a
rapid flow of blood. “This is a team sport, Nash. We’re in it together, and we
can’t afford for you to run off half-cocked playing hero and get yourself
killed. You have to think about the group. About what’s best for all of us!” I
couldn’t
believe
how rash he was being. How
selfish!

“Kaylee. Nash. It’s too tense in here....” Em put both hands
over her ears, as if she could physically stop herself from syphoning our
anger.

“The
group?
” Nash was shouting now.
“Is that what you were thinking about when you summoned Ira all by yourself? How
come when you do it, it’s noble, but when I want to do it, I’m ‘running off
half-cocked to play hero’? You didn’t even tell anyone what you were doing. You
just disappeared. If something had gone wrong, we would never have known what
happened to you. How is that acting in the best interest of the group?”

“That’s different,” I insisted, reeling from the sting of his
words. “I’ve dealt with Ira before. I’ve dealt with
summoning
before.” Only once, but that was one more time than he’d
done it. “And I know where my boundaries lie. He can’t tempt me with—” I bit off
the next words before I could say them and almost bit my tongue in the
process.

Why was I so
angry?
Was this
because Ira had been feeding from my wrath, or was my wrath what attracted him
to me in the first place? Could that much rage have been there all along,
buried, just waiting for a chance to burst through my emotional armor, like lava
through the crust of the earth?

“With what?” Nash’s voice was soft now, but anger roiled
beneath the surface of the sound, like water about to break into a boil. “With
his breath? Is that what you were going to say? At least he can’t tempt you with
drugs?
” He spat the last word at me from across
the room, and I flinched.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“Why not?” Nash demanded. “At least that part was the truth.
The rest of it is you lying to yourself and to us. I may be an addict, but I
didn’t exactly choose that path for myself, in case you don’t remember. And I’m
fighting it every single day. But you’re lying and hiding things from the people
who care about you the most, and you don’t even have addiction as an excuse. How
do you justify
that?
”

“Shut up!” Emma shouted, sitting stiff and straight on the
center couch cushion, staring from him to me, then back. “Shut the hell up, both
of you! Are you
trying
to drive me crazy?”

“Em, I’m sorry.” I sat next to her, hoping that my rapidly
fading anger would ease her burden. I hadn’t meant to trigger abilities she
couldn’t control yet.

“Me, too.” Nash’s irises swirled with amber threads of regret,
but he didn’t sit. He hadn’t backed down. “I’m sorry, Emma.” He turned to me
again. “But I’m going after my mother, and, Kaylee, I swear on my immortal soul
that if you stand in my way I will
never
forgive
you.”

“Whoa, what did I miss?” Tod said from the kitchen, and I
looked up to find him staring at all of us.

“More fireworks,” Sabine said. “And what we’ve learned from
this little episode is that Kaylee and Nash are like those rocks ancient cave
people used to make fire. Bang them together, and you get sparks.”

“Let’s never again use the phrase ‘bang them together’ in
reference to my brother and my girlfriend,” Tod mumbled.

“She means their heads,” Emma said. “And
I’d
like to bang them together right now.” She scowled at me, then
turned her disapproval on Nash. “You two are fighting for no reason. You both
want the same thing—to protect people you love. You just don’t agree about how
to do it.”

“She won’t tell me how to summon a hellion,” Nash
explained.

“Good for her.” Tod smiled at me, but I couldn’t smile back. He
hadn’t heard the whole thing yet. “I fully support any efforts to keep you and
hellions on separate planes of existence.”

“So, she can do it, but I can’t? That’s bullshit! Did she tell
you she saw Ira today?” Nash demanded. Tod blinked. The colors in his irises
betrayed none of what he was feeling, but I could tell he was hurt, and I felt
like the world’s biggest jerk. “She said she wanted everyone to go to school for
strength in numbers, but when Emma was possessed and Avari was demanding to talk
to Kaylee, she was
gone.
She was off summoning a
demon, without telling anyone what she was up to or that she might need help.
But when I want to contact Ira to find out where our mother is, with full
knowledge of the entire group, she won’t even tell me how to get in touch with
him.”

Tod blinked again, and I would have given anything to know what
he was thinking. What he was feeling. He leaned against the doorway into the
kitchen and crossed both arms over his chest, then met his brother’s gaze. “Is
that really what you’re mad about? That you’re not getting quality time with a
hellion?”

“No! And yes. But only because she didn’t even get the
information she went to him for. I’m pissed off that she would put herself in
that kind of danger, then walk away with nothing to show for it. That means she
could have died or worse—we all could have lost her—for nothing. I’m pissed off
that she wasn’t willing to do for our mother what she did for her father. I’m
pissed off that Mom’s gone and there’s nothing I can do about it. You can all
cross over whenever you want. You can all search and sacrifice and bleed to try
to save her, but all I can do is sit here and wait.”

“I can’t,” Em whispered, tears in her brown eyes. “I’m pretty
useless, too....”

I took her hand and squeezed it, but Nash didn’t seem to hear
her.

“I’ve never felt so worthless in my entire life, and every time
I try to do something about that, one of you cuts me off at the kneecaps. I’m
pissed at you
all
for standing in my way. For
letting my mom suffer in the Netherworld when I could be helping get her back.
I’m pissed at her for going to the Netherworld in the first place. I’m pissed at
Avari for...relentless existence and nefarious consistency. So I’ve made a
decision.”

Tod’s pale brow arched high over one blue eye. “I think we’re
all listening.”

Nash ignored him with obvious effort. “You guys have a choice.
Either you can include me in all aspects of the planning and execution of any
and all rescue efforts or I’m going my own way. I still know people, you know,”
he added, when Tod looked skeptical. “No one I really want to see again, now
that I’m clean, but I
can
find Mom on my own if I
have to.”

His eye contact with me was steady and determined. He meant it,
and the thought that he might actually rekindle old unhealthy relationships
because I wouldn’t let him take risks alongside me made me...it made me sick to
my stomach with fear for him.

“I can get myself to the Netherworld,” Nash continued. “And I
can get both of us back out again. All
three
of
us—I’m not leaving Brendon there, either. So what’s it going to be? Are you
going to let me contribute to the group effort, or are you going to shut me out
again ‘for my own protection’?”

Everyone looked at me, not because I was in charge, but because
I’d messed up, and she who messes up, cleans up.

“I’m sorry,” I said, not just to Nash but to the whole room.
“He’s right, and I’m so sorry, Nash. I never meant to cut you out of...anything.
Everything. And I shouldn’t have summoned Ira again without telling anyone what
I was up to.”

“Or at all...” Em said, and I nodded in acknowledgment,
avoiding Tod’s gaze because I wasn’t ready to see whatever I might find in
it.

“Of course we want you to stay.” I did meet Nash’s gaze,
because I owed him that much, at the
very
least.
“And of course you’re included in everything. I didn’t mean to be taking
liberties that aren’t available to everyone else. I meant to be taking
risks.
So no one else would have to. I couldn’t live
with myself if any of you got hurt again. You’ve all been through so much
because of me. Our parents are still missing because of their connection to me.
I just... I was looking for a way to fix that without getting anyone else hurt.
I’m sorry.”

“Promise,” Nash said, and his voice cracked on that one word.
“Promise you won’t do it again. That you won’t put yourself at risk like that
again with no one to back you up.”

I looked at him.

I looked hard and deep, and he let me see what he was feeling.
He let his eyes swirl so I could understand, and guilt overwhelmed me like heat
in the middle of a Texas summer. Relentless. Overpowering. Too much to think
through.

He was mad about everything he’d listed. That was all true. But
the truest part—the core of an anger that had many heads, like a hydra—was the
thought that I could have died in one horrible moment of my own recklessness. I
could have died—again—and he’d never know how it happened, or why, or even what
happened to my body.

Fear. The root of his anger was fear of losing me, not as his
girlfriend—that part of our lives was over, and he loved Sabine; we could all
see that—but as his friend. As his more-than-a-friend. As a confidante. As one
of the people who’d been with him through life, and death, and addiction, and
relapse, and countless moments of imminent threat from untold forms of evil.

And now he wanted to know that I’d never do it again. That I’d
never put him through the fear of losing me again.

“Don’t make her do it, Nash.” Tod’s voice was so soft and deep
I had to concentrate to understand what I was hearing. “She will if you ask her
to, but
I’m
asking you not to make her promise
something she can’t keep. That’s not a promise
any
of us could keep. Like it or not, we’re not going to get our parents back
without putting ourselves in danger, and Kaylee knows that. She knew it before
any of the rest of us came to that conclusion.”

But that wasn’t true. Tod had known before I’d ever met him.
Before I’d met Avari or Invidia or Belphegore. Before I even knew I wasn’t
human. He’d known what you have to be willing to sacrifice for the people you
love long before I’d truly understood the meaning of the words
risk
and
sacrifice.

He’d known since the moment he’d given up his life so Nash
could live.

“What Kaylee doesn’t understand is that she’s not alone in
this.” Tod stepped forward and held his hand out to me, and I reached for it
like a plant reaches for the sun. Like I couldn’t bloom without him there to
shine on me. He pulled me up, then he pulled me close, and when he looked into
my eyes, I couldn’t look away.

“What Kaylee needs to understand is that we all feel just like
she does. Like if we make the sacrifice or take the risk, the others won’t have
to. Ira, Avari, and all the rest of them, they want each of us to believe that
because they know we’ll make that sacrifice if we think that’s the only way to
save the people we love. But it’s a lie. This is too big for any one of us
alone. We can only do this as a team—if we have one another’s backs.”

His eyes were all for me again then, and I could see how hurt
he really was. Beneath that, I could see his fear.

Fear of losing me, just like I’d felt when he’d died. When I’d
thought I’d lost him and that my afterlife would be hundreds—maybe thousands—of
years spent mourning him.

“What that means is that when we take risks, if they can’t be
avoided, we let everyone else in on the plan so that if something goes wrong, we
can do what we do best. Rescue each other. Got it?”

I nodded. Then I wrapped my arms around him and we held each
other until Em started clearing her throat awkwardly.

Sabine was less subtle. “Okay, if you two could form separate
people again, we have a fairly serious evil scheme to discuss. Also, I’m
hungry.”

Tod squeezed me tighter for a second, then let me go. “Are you
guys tired of pizza? ’Cause I could have dinner here in about five
minutes....”

“Free?” Sabine perked up with interest.

Tod rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

“I’m in. Pepperoni, beef, and green bell peppers.”

“The free pizza is whatever’s ready and not yet claimed,” Tod
said. Sabine pouted, then shrugged. She finally seemed to be coming to terms
with the relationship between beggars and choosers. Which would have been great,
if only her
other
appetite were as easy to
satisfy.

Chapter Twenty

Luca and Sophie showed up while Tod was on his pizza
run, and when he got back with two greasy boxes, I set a stack of paper plates
on the table and Em dug the last of our cans of soda from the fridge.

If my dad wasn’t back soon, I’d have to get a second job just
to put food on the table. Er...Coke in the fridge.

I refused to think about the possibility that he might
never
be back. Losing him was not an option.

We got Luca and Sophie all caught up over dinner.

“So, ‘ticktock’ is, like, the clock running out? So, he’s
giving us a deadline?” My cousin picked a pepperoni off her slice and dropped it
on an extra plate designated as the dumping ground for foods she wouldn’t eat,
which included pepperoni, sausage, onions, and crust. At first, she’d refused
pizza, until Sabine pointed out that “picky little bitches” go hungry.

“Yeah,” Nash said around a bite of supreme. “But we don’t know
when that deadline is.”

Luca ate Sophie’s pepperoni slice, then followed it with a gulp
from the can of diet soda they were sharing. “Why would Avari go to the trouble
of possessing Emma with a message for Kaylee, then not deliver the entire
message?”

“My theory is that he didn’t know how to control Lydia’s
syphoning abilities any better than Emma does. I’m thinking they overwhelmed
him, and that made his message come out all garbled and incomplete.”

Em frowned. “But if he hadn’t spent enough time in her body to
learn to control her abilities, how was he able to use her voice?”

“Crap. I don’t know.” There was
so
much we still didn’t know. So much we might
never
know.

Nash shrugged. “I kinda got the impression that he only wanted
to give the message to you, and that’s why he was so pissed off. Because you
weren’t available.”

“Because she was summoning the competition?” Sophie said.
“Like, his arch nemesis?”

“They’re demons, not comic book villains,” Emma said.

My cousin dropped her bare crust on the extra plate and frowned
at Em. “Excuse me, but I think I can visualize the forces of evil however I
like.”

Luca stifled a laugh. “As long as you’re not expecting them to
go ‘Oof!’ and ‘Ka-pow!’ when you hit them.”

“I’m not planning to hit them,” Sophie mumbled, picking a clump
of sausage from her second slice.

“Okay, so what’s the plan for tonight?”

I shrugged. “Considering that Emma’s exhaustion led to her
being possessable today, I think you guys should let me and Tod do all the
Netherworld searching tonight, so you can get some rest.”

“Hell, no,” Nash said.

Sabine’s brows rose in my direction. “I don’t need much sleep.
Nash and I will take the first shift. Now, before it gets too late.” I started
to object, but she spoke again before I could. “Don’t bother. I’m not asking for
permission. I’m letting you know what we’ll be up to, so you won’t worry if you
can’t find us. And so you
can
worry if we’re not
back in a reasonable amount of time.”

Before any of the rest of us could answer, Nash pulled her
closer and kissed her fuller and deeper than I’d ever seen him kiss anyone other
than me.

Sabine looked surprised for the second it took her to realize
what was happening. That Nash was kissing her in front of people.

Then things got awkward. Fast.

“Are you trying to make my pizza come back up?” Em demanded,
and Luca laughed.

After dinner, Nash and Sabine went to the Netherworld together,
concentrating on the buildings within walking distance of the hospital—the ones
Tod and I hadn’t already searched.

Luca, Sophie, and Emma curled up on the couch with a movie—no
one even suggested doing homework—and Tod and I retreated to my room with a
promise not to blink to any more private locations without telling them we were
leaving.

My heart started beating on its own when I closed the door and
turned to see him sitting in my desk chair. Watching me.

“Okay. So. How mad are you?”

“I’m not mad.” He motioned me closer, and I sat in his lap,
facing him.

“You’re not mad at all?” I frowned. “You understand that when I
left the hospital this morning, I already knew I was going to summon Ira and I
didn’t tell you.”

“Yeah. I got that, and it’s not like I’m celebrating the
omission. But...I went after Thane without telling you, so I figure I don’t have
much of a leg to stand on in an argument about full disclosures.”

“So you’re not mad because we’re even? I don’t want this to be
some kind of contest.”

“It’s not. I’m not mad because I know from personal experience
that—like me—you did what you thought you had to do, and you didn’t mean to hurt
anyone.” His gaze seemed to see straight through to my soul. “So, all I need to
know is...did you kiss him?”

“No.” My eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t even ask what his
price would be, because I was afraid he would ask for another...taste. Or
something worse. I let our parents stay stuck in the Netherworld because I
didn’t want him to touch me again,” I confessed. The tears fell, and I couldn’t
stop them. I didn’t know whether to feel guilty for my own squeamishness or glad
that I didn’t kiss someone else this time.

He took my hand, and his fingers wound around mine. “Kaylee,
you didn’t do anything wrong. My mom wouldn’t
want
you to pay for her freedom like that, and I know damn well your dad and uncle
wouldn’t, either.” His grip on my hand tightened, and shivers traveled up my
arm. “And as selfish as it probably sounds, I can’t stand the thought of him
touching you for
any
reason.”

“I don’t think I deserve you,” I whispered as those tingles
wound their way from my arm down my spine. “I suck as a girlfriend.”

“That’s not true. The real problem is that hellions suck as
nemeses.”

“What?”

Tod shrugged. “A proper villain would know when to start
overexplaining his dastardly scheme. He’d actually
look
when you point at the sky and shout, ‘Look!’ When the going
gets tough, a real villain would throw one of his minions under the bus and run,
or rant against the justice department while he’s being shoved into the back of
a cop car. Hell, a real villain would at least wear a mask or creepy clown
makeup, so we know at a glance who’s good and who’s bad.” Tod grinned and
shrugged. “Face it, Kay. The problem here isn’t you. It’s these subpar villains
the universe has thrown at us. Someone should lodge a formal complaint with the
bad-guy union.”

I laughed, more grateful than ever for his willingness to make
me smile even at the worst of times.

I started to kiss Tod, but then Nash pushed the door open and
poked his head into the room. “Hey, sorry to interrupt.” But he didn’t sound
that
sorry—obviously turnabout was fair play. He
stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, holding his cell phone,
and I realized I’d misinterpreted his expression.

Something was wrong.

“You have a call.” He held his cell out to me.

“On your phone?”

“Yeah. It’s Marco. Only it’s
not
Marco.”

“Oh, crap.” Tod helped me climb out of his lap without landing
on the floor, and I stared at Nash’s phone like it might bite me if I touched
it. Sure enough, Marco’s name was at the top of the screen, but...

“Ms. Cavanaugh, I really don’t think you want to keep me
waiting.” Avari’s voice sounded distant coming from a phone not held close to my
ear, but it was perfectly audible. He either couldn’t work Marco’s vocal chords
or wasn’t bothering.

My hand shook when I took the phone. It shook harder when I
held it to my ear. “Hello?” The standard human greeting sounded stupid,
considering I was speaking to a hellion, but I didn’t know how else to
start.

“Ms. Cavanaugh, you’ve become a difficult
bean sidhe
to get hold of. I’ve had to resort to...creative
means.”

I pressed the speaker button and set Nash’s phone on my desk,
not just so that he and Tod could hear, but so that I could put distance—however
worthless—between my ear and the hellion’s voice. “What do you want?”

“The real question is what do
you
want? What would you like me to do with your father? Shall I list your options,
or would you like to guess?”

“This isn’t a game.” I leaned against the desk, staring at my
feet.

“Of course it’s a game.
Life
is a
game, little
bean sidhe,
and you are going to lose.
The only choice still yours to make is how soon that happens. For instance, if
you were to surrender yourself now, or anytime in the next few hours, your
father would be returned to the human world, having suffered no permanent
damage.”

“He’s okay?” Was that even possible?

“‘Okay’ is a relative term, in my world as in yours. He has, as
yet, suffered no permanent damage. Physically, at least. It is difficult for me
to determine how much and what kind of psychological trauma is recoverable.”

Hearing him talk about my father like that made me hate Avari
all over again with a loathing rendered raw and fresh, as if the wound were new.
But the truth was that he’d cut my heart out months and months ago. Avari kept
himself entertained—and fed—by squeezing it whenever he got the chance.

“And if I don’t turn myself in?” It hurt to say the words. To
vocally betray my father.

“If you haven’t surrendered your body and soul by midnight, I
will begin amusing myself in earnest with your father’s suffering. Physically,
at first, and progressing from there. I will push my fingers into his psyche and
create excruciating new realities for him. Realities where you are dead and
gone, through some negligence on his part, and he drowns in guilt and grief for
eternity. Realities where he watches his beloved daughter suffer offenses and
indignities beyond human endurance, over and over again while he screams in vain
for your freedom and, eventually, for the mercy of your final death.”

My skin crawled. “Stop.” My eyes closed in horror and my voice
carried no sound, which was just as well, because it would have made no
difference anyway.

Tod rolled the desk chair closer and took my hand, and Nash
sank onto the end of my bed, his eyes swirling with angry, despairing shades of
green and brown.

“He will have twelve hours of such agony, while you further
consider your choices,” Avari continued. “And if you are not in my possession by
noon in your human time zone, I will end his life and deliver his soulless
corpse—whatever is left of it—into your possession.”

My heart went still, and its last beat echoed the hollow length
of my body. “You’re going to kill him?”

“Yes, of course. Unless you are willing to trade yourself for
him. And if you have not surrendered by that next midnight—thirty of your human
hours from now, if I understand your maddeningly consistent method of keeping
time—I will begin to torture his immortal soul.”

“Torture?” I heard the word, but I couldn’t process it. Not
truly. My mind was a maelstrom of chaos and fear, rapidly sucking me into a
pinpoint of darkness from which I was afraid I might never return.

“It’s a general term, of course. It reveals nothing of my true
intent, or the specific levels of pain I can achieve in one so...attached as
your father. You are his weakness, you know. You are the thing he would die for.
The thing he would suffer for. The thing he
will
suffer for. And when his sanity starts to slide, he will not be able to
differentiate between reality and the mental projection of his worst fears and
imaginings. I believe your cousin saw the result of that particular technique
when she met Addison in the Nether.”

Sophie met Addison?

“She’s a clever little thing, your kin. More like you than you
think. And when your father sinks too far into insanity to suffer for me—for
you
—I will move on to your cousin.”

“You won’t get that chance,” I said, and Avari laughed out
loud.

“She isn’t a pure-blood
bean sidhe,
and her wail is largely pointless, but the pain that sound could carry... She
will be my consolation prize while I wait to acquire you. Her screams will whet
my appetite for yours. A most appropriate substitute for however long you are
willing to let her suffer. Do you have an estimate of how long that might be? It
would really help with my planning....”

“Hang up,” Tod said. “We’ve heard more than enough.” Avari had
officially delivered his horrifying ultimatum.

“Well, if it isn’t the knight in tarnished armor. How is that
breastplate fitting these days? Has Ms. Cavanaugh discovered how readily you
shed the costume of honor when ethical compromise produces faster results—or
greater profit?”

Tod glared at the phone, fists clutching the sides of the
rolling desk chair like they were the only thing holding him there. “She knows
everything I’ve done.”

And I knew that everything he’d done—supernatural drug
trafficking and feeding certain criminal elements to the Netherworld—had been
done to protect someone else. Tod’s methods may have been flawed, but his heart
was in the right place. Always.

“How large is my audience?” the hellion said. “Is the other Mr.
Hudson listening? The one with the bruised soul and wounded eyes?”

Nash didn’t answer. None of us did. We only stared at the
phone, and with each new word my hand inched closer, my finger hovering over the
button that would end the call.

“I look forward to resuming our business relationship. I’ve
always found you to be the most pragmatic of your peers,” the hellion continued.
“The one who best understands business and is least likely to let emotions
interfere.”

“Not gonna happen,” Nash said so softly I wasn’t sure Avari
could hear him. “We won’t be doing any more business.”