Before I Wake

“Nash…” I said when she was gone. I wanted to help.

I should have known better.

“Get out. Both of you, just go away.” Then Nash stomped down the hall and slammed his door, leaving me and Tod alone in the living room.

* * *

Tod had to go back to work, so when I left Nash’s, I returned Emma’s costume, grateful that she was sleeping when I got there, so I wouldn’t have to recount the story that started with me dressing up like an idiot and ended with Nash acting like one. For now. But she’d probably want the details in the morning.

Alone in my room, I knew I should be grateful that the action was over, at least for the moment, but with nothing to do but think and pet Styx while she slept, the night passed slowly. Excruciatingly slowly.

I couldn’t sleep and I wasn’t hungry, and it turns out there’s nothing good on television in the middle of the night when you don’t subscribe to the movie channels. I considered ordering something On Demand, but my dad had already threatened to kill me—an ironic word choice, for sure—if he got one more bill from the satellite company.

Also, I’d already watched everything that was available.

Around four in the morning, I realized I didn’t want to move. The end of my nose itched, but scratching it seemed like too much trouble, so I let the itch continue, because feeling an itch was better than feeling nothing, right?

So I lay there, listening to my own thoughts race through my head so fast I could hardly focus on them. I wondered how long Sabine could stay mad at Nash before she took him back, because we all knew she’d take him back. I wondered why Nash couldn’t see what he was doing to her, and how long it would take him to realize that loving her wasn’t enough. He had to love her more than anything else in the world. More than he loved me. More than he loved frost. More than he loved his own life. He had to love her like nothing else existed for him, ever, and I wished there was some way for me to tell him that without making him hate me more.

Then I wondered why Avari wanted Tod. Was one reaper not enough for him?

Of course it wasn’t. One of anything was never enough for Avari, and asking why a hellion of greed wanted something was pointless. Avari existed to want things. He’d probably obsessed over the souls of thousands of people in the eons of his existence. Surely I was just the latest in a long line of obsessions, and I wondered if he’d gotten any of the others.

I wondered if he’d get me.

But by the time the sun came up, even my thoughts had started to slow, and I wasn’t sure I even cared if Avari got me. What did it matter? I was already dead. He would make my afterlife hell if he got my soul, but he was clearly prepared to do that, anyway, so maybe it would be easier for everyone if I just…let him.

I couldn’t beat him. I couldn’t outlive him. I couldn’t outrun him. So why fight the inevitable?

My dad came into my room at seven-fifteen—I know, because I’d been staring at my alarm clock for the past fifty-three minutes. “Kaylee, where are you?”

That’s when I realized he couldn’t see me. Because I had no desire to be seen.

With a sigh, I concentrated just enough to slip into the physical plane, and that took a great deal more effort than rolling over, which I’d been putting off for the past few minutes.

“Why are you still in bed? You have to be at school in half an hour!”

“I’m not going.”

“The hell you aren’t. Get up. Get in the shower and wash your hair. You look like…”

“Death warmed over?” I blinked when I realized my eyes were dry. “’Cause that’s how I feel. Minus the warming over.”

“Kaylee, please.” My father shoved Styx over and sank onto the side of my bed. “This is normal, but you have to fight it. You’re not going to feel alive until you start acting like you’re alive. Tod says—”

I rolled onto my back and glared up at him. “You’ve been talking to Tod behind my back?” A spark of irritation flared deep in my gut and swelled for a moment before sputtering out.

“No, I’ve been talking to Tod in your absence. I’m worried about you, and he’s the resident expert on afterlives. He says you have to want to live—so to speak. That you have to find a reason to be here. I understand that I can’t be that reason, but you have to find one. Find something that makes you want to get out of this bed.”

“I have plenty of reasons to get out of bed. School just isn’t one of them.”

“Bullshit,” my dad said, and I blinked at him in surprise. “Your life isn’t over.”

“Um, yeah. Actually, it is. My death kind of coincided with the end of my life. Funny how that works.”

“You know what I mean. I know you, Kaylee. I know that a simple change in your state of being isn’t enough to make you lose interest in the rest of the world. So get up. There are friends at school waiting to see you smile and hear you talk. There are stolen souls out there waiting for you to liberate them. There’s even a grim reaper who loves you more than his afterlife itself, and if that’s not enough to get you moving, you better close your eyes, because I’m coming back with a bucket of cold water.”

I didn’t realize my eyes had watered until tears trailed down my face to soak into my pillow. “It’s enough,” I whispered, pushing myself upright. “You’re enough, even without all the rest of that.” I wrapped my arms around my dad and laid my head on his shoulder, and more tears soaked into his shirt. “I’m sorry. I just get lost in it, in the middle of the night. It’s so quiet, and there’s nothing here but my thoughts, and even those start to repeat after a few hours of nothing else, and then they stop making sense.”

“But it’s better now?” he asked, his arms so tight around me that my ribs ached. I could hear it in his voice, how badly he needed me to say yes. Even if it wasn’t true.

“Yes,” I lied, and more tears fell. “It’s better now.”

I still didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t want to shower, or brush my teeth, or dry my hair, but I did all of that because every time I looked up, I saw my father watching me, and he looked scared. He looked like he wanted to help me, but didn’t know how. Like he wanted to save me, but couldn’t see the threat.

He looked like he’d already lost me.

I blinked into the bathroom at school to save time, and slid into my desk in Advanced Math just as Mr. Cumberland started calling roll. “Are you okay?” Emma whispered, and I wondered if that “death warmed over” descriptor was more accurate than I’d thought.

“Yeah. I just don’t want to be here today.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile. “That makes all of us.” Her smile faded and her eyes narrowed. “You guys didn’t do it, did you?”

“No. Turns out privacy’s kind of hard to come by when there’s a hellion and his psychotic reaper minion out to steal your soul.”

Emma frowned, but before she could demand details, Mr. Cumberland cleared his throat and started class.

Fifteen minutes into the lesson, I would have sworn the clock on the wall was stuck. The hands hadn’t moved in ages. I swear, time was deader than I was.

Sure, my previous math teacher was an evil, soul-stealing pedophile, but he’d never once bored anyone to sleep, which was more than I could say for Cumberland and his Bueller-esque monotone.

Halfway through the fifty-minute period, Emma kicked my desk, and I sat upright, startled. “I can see through your arm!” she mouthed, exaggerating each mimed word.

Crap! I’d forgotten to concentrate on being solid—I’d forgotten to concentrate on anything—and had nearly disappeared in the middle of class. I narrowed my focus and solidified my form, but it took every bit of willpower I had to make my physical form stick. Seriously, if Mr. Cumberland couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for the lesson, how were we supposed to summon the will to be there? Some of us literally…

Sabine was waiting in the hall after class. Alone.

“Hey, have you seen Nash today?” she asked, falling into step beside us.

Em shook her head, and I glanced at Sabine in surprise. “You didn’t pick him up this morning?”

“I decided to let him stew a little longer, but how am I supposed to know when he’s had enough, if he’s not