If I Die

5

“There’s always an exception, Harmony,” my father said, and the raw pain in his voice stole my breath with an almost physical force. I was scared, and pissed off, and riding an unforeseen wave of sexual resolve in the face of certain death. But my father was in serious pain over a loss he refused to accept as inevitable.

The fact that I was that loss was almost too much for me to wrap my mind around.

I inched down the hall silently, aching to see my father’s face, but if they knew I was there, they’d stop talking, and I’d lose this glimpse into his true emotional state.

“Aiden.” Harmony’s whisper was so soft I almost didn’t recognize it. “I am so, so sorry. I wish I could say I know how you feel, but I didn’t have any warning with Tod.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” my dad answered, his voice hard now, like he could hold off the unavoidable with nothing but sheer will. “There’s a way out of this, and I’m going to find it.”

I peeked through the living room and into the kitchen just as Harmony scooted her chair closer to my father’s. They sat at the table with their backs to me, and I could only see them from the shoulders up, over the half wall separating the two rooms.

“Aiden, there’s nothing you can do.” She slid one arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder, and I held my breath to make sure I could hear the rest. “Do you really want to miss your daughter’s last few days of life to chase answers that just aren’t there?”

“I don’t want to miss anything. And I don’t want her to miss anything, either—that’s the whole point. I’ve been such a fool, Harmony. I wasted thirteen years of her life letting my brother raise her because it hurt to look at her. Every time I saw her, I saw her mother. I only got Kaylee back six months ago, and now she’s being taken away. Six months isn’t long enough!”

“No one’s taking her away,” Harmony insisted gently. “Her time’s up. It happens to everyone.”

“What would you do?” my dad demanded, pulling away from her. “If you knew Nash was about to die, would you ever quit looking for a way to stop it? Would you give up on him?”

“I…”

“It doesn’t matter what she would do.” I stepped around the wall, and Tod appeared at my side. Nash’s footsteps squeaked on the hall tile behind me, even though I’d asked them both to stay in my room.

Harmony and my dad stood facing us, but they were both too good at hiding their feelings for me to read anything more than general angst. They were better at that than I would ever be, considering how little time I had left to perfect the art.

“Dad, don’t do this,” I begged, frozen where I stood. “You can’t change this, and if you try, you’ll only be putting yourself at risk. Do you really want me to spend my last six days worrying that we’re both going to die on Thursday?”

“I don’t want you to worry about anything.” He ran one hand through hair that showed no sign of graying, less than a month before his one hundred thirty-fourth birthday. “I want you to finish high school, and break curfew, and keep giving me excuses to toss the Hudson boys out of the house, not necessarily in that order. I want you to have a normal life. A long one.”

I bit my lip, trying to hold back tears as he crossed the room toward me. “Well, that’s not going to happen. And I’m not going to be able to enjoy what life I have left if I’m worried about you getting yourself killed trying to do the impossible.”

“Kaylee…” He reached for me, but I stepped back and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Promise me, Dad. Promise you’ll leave this alone.”

“You know I can’t—”

“Promise,” I insisted, and his stoic expression crumpled beneath a burden of pain and responsibility I couldn’t imagine.

“Fine. I promise,” he said at last, and I let him fold me into a hug.

And as he squeezed me, his heart beating against my ear, I knew only two things for sure: I was going to die, and my father was lying.

I stood on the front porch and knocked again—there was no doorbell—then stared down the rough gravel road at a series of run-down houses and old cars, their age and ruthless depreciation exposed by harsh March sunlight. My own neighborhood was dated—the houses were small with one-car garages and tiny yards. But compared to living in this part of town, I had nothing to complain about.

Finally, the door opened and Sabine raised one dark brow at me, her hand still on the knob. “You look like shit.”

“I wish I could say the same.” And I really meant it. I’d barely gotten any rest the night before—frankly, wasting what little time I had left sleeping felt almost criminal—and I was paying the price with pale skin, dark circles and a generally exhausted appearance. Sabine, on the other hand, only required four hours of sleep a night, yet she constantly walked the fine line between unconventionally hot and darkly captivating. A fact which fascinated and irritated me to no end.

“Any chance you’re here to admit defeat and hand over your boyfriend, like the good little bean sidhe we both know you are?”

My temper flared, but I held it in check, because of what I had to say next. “Actually, I need a favor.”

Sabine turned around and stalked into the darkened house, and I decided the open door was as much of an invitation as I was going to get.

“Is your foster mom home?” I followed her into a living room barely furnished with threadbare furniture smelling vaguely of old sweat.

“Rarely. She stays with her boyfriend most nights. Always comes back to collect the reimbursement check, though.”

“So you’re all alone?”

Sabine propped her hands on hips half-exposed by the low waist of her jeans and the short hem of a thin black tank top. “I’m a nightmare, Kaylee. Anyone who breaks in here would leave screaming. Or not at all.” She sat on the arm of an old brown-and-yellow striped couch. “Besides, I didn’t come here for parental supervision—I came for an address in the Eastlake school zone.” The mara had scared and manipulated her way into this foster home just to be near Nash. And evidently to drive me insane. “Now, if you would just step down and relinquish the prize….”

“Nash isn’t—” but before I could finish insisting that my boyfriend wasn’t a prize to be won, a fierce, low rumbling rolled over the room, raising hair all over my body. I turned to find Sabine’s dog—Styx’s littermate— growling at me from the kitchen doorway, his tiny body tensed and ready to attack. Nothing that small and fluffy should have been able to make such a threatening sound, but thanks to their Nether-hound father, the entire litter sported teeth that could easily shred flesh and jaws that could snap most human long bones.

“What’s his name again?” I asked, careful not to make any threatening moves until Sabine had called the little monster off.

“Cujo.”

Of course it was Cujo. “Any clue why Cujo looks like he wants to chew my face off?”

“Probably because he wants to chew your face off.”

“Funny. Could you call him off?”

Her satisfied grin grated my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “Only because I’m curious. Why the hell should I do you a favor, when you consistently deny me the one thing I want?” She snapped her fingers and Cujo followed her into a tiny galley-style kitchen, where she pulled a package of raw hamburger from the fridge and dropped it on the floor with out even pulling back the plastic. Cujo dug in like he’d never seen meat before, though he looked pretty well fed to me.

I stood at one end of the kitchen, trying to decide if I should sit at the table or wait to be invited. Which probably wasn’t gonna happen. “Because…” I hesitated, trying to make up my mind while she dug a can of generic soda from the snot-green fridge. Then I sucked in a deep breath and spit it out. “Because I’m going to be dead in