If I Die

untouched in both body and mind, in exchange for her soul.”

“She’d rather die than be your ward in hell,” Tod spat, and in my heart, I cheered.

“Two centuries. You could be with her every day. I’ve seen her lifeline, reaper, and in the Nether, it could stretch into forever. You could greet eternity together…”

“You will never have her,” Tod said, and as his footsteps thumped across the floor toward me, Avari’s reply echoed in my head, so soft I wondered if he’d actually said it out loud.

“We share that misfortune, reaper…”

A second later Tod was in the hall, taking my arm above the rubber glove, and that same fog rolled over my feet before I could protest. Before I could do anything but close my eyes. When I opened them an instant later, I stood in the human world, in the middle of the hall, staring at Tod in amazement, my heart still pounding from our narrow escape.

I pulled my arm from his hand just as a group of girls in Eastlake softball uniforms came around the corner carrying equipment bags and duffels. Several of them laughed at my chemistry safety gear, but I hardly noticed. And when Tod reached up to pull the goggles from my face, I only vaguely realized that meant they could see him, too.

“Why are you dressed like a mad scientist?” he whispered, dropping the goggles on the floor between us.

“Why did you give Thane to Avari?” I countered, as he pulled my first neoprene glove off slowly, as if baring my hand meant more than it should have.

“I think you know why.” He took the scissors from my other hand and slid them into his pocket, and when his gaze met mine, he let me see the blues swirling madly in his irises. “I think you heard most of that.”

“You made a deal with him to get rid of Thane?”

“The deal was for evidence against Thane.” Tod pulled my remaining glove off. “If I could find one of the souls he was supposed to have turned in, we’d have proof that he sold it instead. Avari was going to see if any Thane’s recent reapings had turned up in the Netherworld.”

“In exchange for what?”

Tod dropped the second glove on the floor at my feet, but his gaze never left mine. “There’s this guy in the county jail, waiting for his trial. I reaped the soul of the girl he killed. I saw what he did to her. If anyone deserves eternity at Avari’s hands, it’s him.” Tod shrugged. “Now the courts will get that bastard, and Avari gets Thane’s older, more powerful soul.”

My head was still spinning. I could hardly wrap my mind around it all. “When did you set all this up?”

“In Scott’s room, at Lakeside.” He glanced at his feet for a minute, then back at me. “I was there when you came into his room, negotiating with Avari through Scott.”

I blinked, stunned. Scott had been talking to someone else! “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Tod’s brows dipped low over bright blue eyes. “I didn’t want you to know about any of this.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t fix anything. Avari’s right—I can’t save you. But I saw Thane tormenting you at lunch, and I couldn’t wait for evidence that may never come through. That psychotic bastard shouldn’t be anywhere near you, and he damn well shouldn’t be the last thing you ever see.” He glanced at the gloves lying between us on the floor, and when he looked up again, the fierce ache in my heart swelled until I thought it would burst, and that falling feeling was back, like I might never regain my balance. So I did the only thing I could think of to bring the world back into focus and make sense of the waves of confusion lapping at me from all sides. I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck.

Then I kissed Tod.

15

Tod’s arms slid around me like they were always meant to be there, and that sense of belonging was so strong that it took me a second to realize what I was doing. And to remember I wasn’t supposed to be doing it.

I stepped back and stared up at him, and one hand went to my mouth automatically, like covering it up would erase what I’d just done.

“I’m so sorry…” I took another step back, drowning in confusion and guilt, and in the giddy, reckless joy that threatened to overwhelm them both, in spite of my best effort to deny it. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

What the hell am I doing? And why didn’t it feel wrong? Vaguely I was aware that we were both fully visible, in the middle of the school, and those were just two of the many problems with what had just happened.

“Did you mean it?” His eyes churned urgently now, a collision of hunger and uncertainty. “Was that real, or were you just granting my last wish?”

“That was your last wish? A kiss?” Most guys would have wished for…more.

“I could have kissed you months ago, but it wouldn’t have meant anything. I wished for you to see me. And want me. So…did you mean it?” Fragile hope peeked out at me from behind the smug self-assurance I now recognized as his mask. As armor, against a world that no longer claimed or understood him, and suddenly I realized he wasn’t breathing. He was just waiting. For me.

“Yes,” I said, and some unnamed tension inside me eased. “I see you, Tod.”

And in that moment, I saw nothing else in the world.

Tod kissed me, and I fell into that kiss like Alice into Wonderland, headfirst and flailing, heart pounding the whole time. The world spun around me and still I fell, and I only crashed down to earth again when someone called my name.

“Kaylee?” Nash said, and I jerked away from Tod so fast I nearly tripped over the rubber gloves at my feet.

Nash stood at the end of the hall with Sabine, his phone in hand, like he was about to dial. Or like he just had. And before I could even complete that thought, my phone buzzed with a text message, probably a check-in from Nash, who’d thought I was watching Emma and Beck.

Shit! Emma…!

Nash stared at me, his expression cycling through pain and anger so fast I could see the tempest churning in his eyes from down the hall. “You said you weren’t… You said there was nothing…” Then he stopped, like the words had gotten tangled up in his mouth, and he couldn’t spit them out straight.

“There wasn’t,” I said, struggling for a deep breath against the tightening in my chest. “It just happened. I’m so sorry.” Tod had risked his afterlife to give me peace, and suddenly I saw what had been there all along. But the timing could not have been worse.

“I told you he’d do this.” Nash turned his fury on Tod. “How could you do this?” he shouted, storming toward us without waiting for an answer, and a door squealed open around the corner as some after-school club heard the very public fallout of my not-so-private life.

I stepped into his path, trying to hold him back from Tod with both hands on his chest. But Nash just kept coming, and I had to walk backward with him.

“Sabine, a little help?” I called over his shoulder, but she only crossed her arms.

“Nah, I think I’m gonna sit this one out.” Blatant satisfaction glittered in her black eyes, like she’d known about Tod the whole time. Like she’d been waiting for this.

“Nash, please calm down,” I begged softly, mortified to realize the Mathletes could hear us now. They wouldn’t know exactly what had happened, or who Tod was, but rumors would fly the next day—Wednesday. Not that it would matter. With any luck, by Thursday my death would eclipse even the worst of the gossip. “Let’s go outside and talk.”

“It’s okay, Kaylee,” Tod said from behind me, and I could hear the strain in his voice. “You can let him go. He has a right to be mad.”

Nash finally stopped trying to push past me and glared at his brother over my head. “Don’t tell me what I