If I Die

dealing with this. No more frost. Promise me.”

“You can’t make out with my brother, then ask for promises from me. Not that any of that matters now, considering we’re both going to lose you in a matter of hours,” Nash said. “But you’re an idiot if you can’t see what Tod’s really doing. He’s clinging to you for the same reason he hangs around me and Mom—he thinks if he has something to keep him anchored in the human world, he won’t lose his humanity. That’s all you are to him, Kaylee. You’re just another anchor helping him cling to what he can’t let go of.”

“That’s not true.” Unshed tears burned in my eyes and behind my nose, and I refused to let them fall. “Why would he bother? What kind of anchor am I going to be for him when I’m dead?”

Nash huffed in disgust. “Sabine was right—you only see what you want to see. It’s easier for you to cast him as the hero and me as the villain, ’cause then you can justify running away when I needed you. I needed you, Kaylee, and you weren’t there. And now look what’s happened.” He spread his arms to indicate his own frost high, and guilt and anger buzzed inside me like a swarm of wasps in my chest.

“I never cast you as the villain, Nash. You’re doing that to yourself.” My openhanded gesture took in his entire body, currently full of Netherworld poison, and Sabine bristled.

“You know this is at least partly your fault,” she snapped.

“I know.” It bruised something deep inside me to see him on frost again, and it hurt even worse to know I’d driven him to relapse. Frost—Demon’s Breath—was more dangerous to humans than to bean sidhes, but Nash couldn’t dodge permanent damage forever. While he was high, the drug would magnify his emotions—in this case, heartbreak and anger. It would also amplify any aggression—true even in the most even-tempered users—and compromise his judgment. But the long-term effects—insanity and potentially death—were much scarier.

I couldn’t just leave him like that, knowing it might be the last time I ever saw him. “What can I do? You want me to call your mom?” Harmony knew how to help him through this. She’d done it before.

“No.” Something dark and determined stirred in his irises, and an uneasy pressure settled into my chest. “Can you just…give me a ride home?” he said, and Sabine stiffened on my left.

“I’ll take you home!” she insisted, but he shook his head.

“I need to talk to Kaylee. Spend the day with me,” he said, holding my gaze with one so intent I couldn’t look away. “Keep me company.”

My heart tripped unevenly and I glanced at Sabine to find her jaw clenched, her eyes dark with something stronger than fear, more dangerous than anger.

“Both of us?” I wouldn’t go without her. I couldn’t do that to either of us.

Nash shook his head. “Just you and me. One last time.” When I hesitated, he sighed. “Please, Kaylee. I just want to talk.”

“She doesn’t want you!” Sabine shouted, and we both turned to her in surprise. “Not like that. She can’t trust you, but she was scared to admit it and you were scared to face it. But now it’s out, and you both need to just move on.”

“Sabine, let it go,” Nash said, and I could feel the seductive warmth of his Influence, which sent chills skittering up and down my spine, even though it wasn’t directed at me. “I just want more time,” he said, and though he was looking at her, Influencing her, he was really talking to me. “A chance to say goodbye.”

“Stop it!” Sabine spat, visibly shaking free of his words, sunlight glinting off the ring in her upper ear. He couldn’t control her unless she wanted to be controlled. For her, his Influence was a game, and today she wasn’t playing.

Nash reached for me, and when I stepped back, I bumped into the side of a dusty blue sedan. “Just come talk to me. We don’t have to go to my house. We can go to the lake and feed the geese.”

My pulse spiked with a bolt of old fear. I couldn’t be alone with him while he was using. He would never intentionally hurt me, but he wasn’t himself when he was on frost, and things had gotten out of control before.

“Nash, I can’t,” I said, drowning in my own guilt. “Go home with Sabine. Let her take care of you. I promise I’ll check on you later.” With Tod, whether he was visible or not. “I’m sorry.” I edged around the blue car and had taken several steps toward my own when Nash shouted behind me.

“You owe me!”

I flinched, but I didn’t stop. Yes, Tod and I had made a mistake, and yes, we felt horrible about it, but I’d done my best to explain and I’d apologized from the bottom of my soul more times than I could remember. But Nash was asking for something I couldn’t do.

When I didn’t answer, he shouted again. “Come back!”

Confliction burned in my chest for a single instant before his Influence rolled over me in a white-hot wave of compulsion, and suddenly I wanted to turn and walk back to him.

Panic tightened my throat, threatening to choke me. I fought him in my head, but my feet turned and carried me back to him, even as angry tears formed in my eyes. This isn’t happening. He’d sworn he’d never Influence me again!

“Nash…” Sabine said, but he ignored her, staring straight into my eyes.

“Give me your keys,” he said, and my hand slid into my pocket slowly, as the first tears fell.

Fighthimfighthimfighthim…!

But I couldn’t fight, because I wanted to give him my keys.

“Come with me.” He took the keys, then wound his freezing fingers around mine, and I wanted to follow him toward my car, even though I knew that if he’d just stop talking, I wouldn’t want anything but to run far enough away that I couldn’t hear him.

“Stop,” I said, using all the willpower I had left to halt my steps and voice my objection. “You promised you wouldn’t do this.”

“You’re not leaving me much of a choice. I just want to talk.” And every word he spoke washed away a little more of my objection, blurring my thoughts until they were hazy at best.

“Where are we going?” I asked, as my pulse swooshed sluggishly and my feet carried me farther and farther from the school building.

“Somewhere private,” he said with another warm pulse of Influence, and suddenly I wanted to be alone with him—all except for the thin voice of protest in my head whispering that this was a very bad idea. But the rest of me knew better. The rest of me knew that Nash could take care of me and make me happy. And all I had to do was let him.

Sabine grabbed his arm. “Nash, let her go!” She looked scared for only the second time since I’d met her, and I knew I should understand her fear, but it was just out of my grasp. “This is insane. You can’t make her want you. You can’t talk her into loving you.” Sabine flinched, like each word she said actually hurt, and I felt bad for her. She needed someone to make her happy, like Nash made me happy.

“My memories of her are empty, Sabine. The images are there, but I can’t feel anything when I think about them. I can’t feel what Kaylee and I used to be like together. I know that’s my fault, and I’ll never forgive myself for giving that part of her up. But I need today with her. I need new memories of her—good ones—or after she’s gone, I will truly have lost her. All of her.”

He jerked free from her grasp and we were walking again. “I need you to understand that, and give us this one day.” He stopped next to my car and pulled open the passenger’s-side door, but Sabine stepped in front of him, blocking the car, her face a raw display of determination, her eyes dark with bitter pain.

“You’re high,” she said, and he tried to brush her aside, but Sabine wouldn’t go. “Listen to me, Nash. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re hurt, and angry, and you’re already mourning her, and the Demon’s Breath is making all that worse. But I’m telling you right now that she’s gonna hate you for this. And so will Tod.”

“Screw Tod!” Nash shouted, and I jumped, startled. I blinked, and everything looked a little clearer. The world felt a little sharper. “He shouldn’t have been anywhere near her in the first place.”

“Fine. But this isn’t going to fix that. You can’t talk forever, and as soon as you stop, she’s going to realize what you’re doing, and she’ll die hating you. Is that what you want?”

Fear slipped into the vacuum that the departing mental haze left in my head, and my hands started to shake. Something was wrong. I didn’t want to go…wherever he wanted to take me.