My Soul to Take

2

“WHAT?” NASH’S eyebrows rose, but he didn’t roll his eyes, or laugh, or pat my head and call for the men in white coats. In fact, he looked like he almost believed me. “How do you know she’s gonna die?”

I rubbed both temples, trying to wipe away a familiar frustration rearing inside me. He might not be laughing on the outside, but surely he was cracking up on the inside. How could he not be? What the hell was I thinking?

“I don’t know how I know. I don’t even know that I’m right. But when I look at her, she’s … darker than everyone around her. Like she’s standing in the shadow of something I can’t see. And I know she’s going to die.”

Nash frowned in concern, and I closed my eyes, barely noticing the sudden swell of music from the club. I knew that look. It was the one mothers give their kids when they fall off the slide and sit up talking about purple ponies and dancing squirrels.

“I know it sounds—” crazy “—weird, but …”

He took both of my hands, twisting to face me more fully on the flattened box beneath us, and again the colors in his irises seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. His mouth opened, and I held my breath, awaiting my verdict. Had I lost him with talk of creepy black shadows, or did my mistakes start all the way back with the spilled drink?

“Sounds pretty weird to me.”

We both glanced up to find Emma watching us, a chilled bottle of water in one hand, dripping condensation on the grimy concrete, and I almost groaned in frustration. Whatever Nash had been about to say was gone now; I could see that in the cautious smile he shot at me, before redirecting toward Emma.

She twisted open the lid and handed me the bottle. “But then, you wouldn’t be Kaylee if you didn’t weird-out on me every now and then.” She shrugged amiably and hauled me to my feet as Nash stood to join us. “So you had a panic attack because you think some girl in the club is going to die?”

I nodded hesitantly, waiting for her to laugh or roll her eyes, if she thought I was joking. Or to look nervous, if she knew I wasn’t. Instead, her brows arched, and she cocked her head to one side. “Well, shouldn’t you go tell her? Or something?”

“I…” I blinked in confusion and frowned at the brick wall over her shoulder. Somehow, that option had never occurred to me. “I don’t know.” I glanced at Nash, but found no answer in his now-normal eyes. “She’d probably just think I was crazy. Or she’d get all freaked out.” And really, who could blame her? “Doesn’t matter, anyway, because it’s not true. Right? It can’t be.”

Nash shrugged but looked like he wanted to say something. But then Emma spoke up, never hesitant to voice her opinion. “Of course not. You had another panic attack, and your mind latched onto the first person you saw. Could’ve been me, or Nash, or Traci. It doesn’t mean anything.”

I nodded, but as badly as I wanted to believe her theory, it just didn’t feel right. Yet I couldn’t make myself warn the redhead. No matter what I thought I knew, the prospect of telling a perfect stranger that she was going to die felt just plain crazy, and I’d had enough of crazy for the moment.

For the rest of my life, in fact.

“All better?” Emma asked, when she read my decision on my face. “Wanna go back in?”

I was feeling better, but that dark panic still lingered on the edge of my mind, and it would only get worse if I saw the girl again. I had no doubt of that. And I would not give Nash an encore of the night’s performance, if at all possible.

“I’m just gonna head home.” My uncle had taken my aunt out for her fortieth birthday, and Sophie was on an overnight trip with the dance team. For once I’d have the house to myself. I smiled at Emma in apology. “But if you want to stay, you could probably catch a ride with Traci.”

“Nah, I’ll go with you.” Emma took the water bottle from my hand and gulped from it. “She told us to leave together, remember?”

“She also told us not to drink.”

Emma rolled her big brown eyes. “If she really meant that, she wouldn’t have snuck us into a bar.”

That was Emma-logic, all right. The longer you thought about it, the less sense it made.

Emma glanced from me to Nash. Then she smiled and headed down the alley toward the car lot across the street, to give us some privacy. I dug my keys from my pocket and stared at them, trying to avoid Nash’s gaze until I knew what I was going to say.

He’d seen me at my worst, and rather than flipping out or making fun, he’d helped me regain control. We’d connected in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible an hour earlier, especially with someone like Nash, whose one-track mind was a thing of legends. Still, I couldn’t fight the certainty that this evening’s dream would end in tomorrow’s nightmare. That daylight would bring him to his senses, and he’d wonder what he was doing with me in the first place.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My keys jangled, the ring dangling from my index finger, and he frowned when his gaze settled on them.

“You okay to drive?” He grinned, and my pulse jumped in response. “I could take you home and walk from there. You live in the Parkview complex, right? That’s just a couple of minutes from me.”

He knew where I lived? I must have looked suspicious, because he rushed to explain. “I gave your sister a ride once. Last month.”

My jaw tightened, and I felt my expression darken. “She’s my cousin.” Nash had given Sophie a ride? Please don’t let that be a euphemism …

He frowned and shook his head in answer to my unspoken question. “Scott Carter asked me to give her a lift.”

Oh. Good. I nodded, and he shrugged. “So you want me to take you guys home?” He held his hand out for my keys.

“That’s okay, I’m good to drive.” And I wasn’t in the habit of letting people I barely knew behind the wheel of my car. Especially really hot guys who—rumor had it—had gotten two speeding tickets in his ex’s Firebird.

Nash flashed a deep set of stubbly dimples and shrugged. “Then can I have a lift? I rode with Carter, and he won’t be ready to go for hours.”

My pulse jumped into my throat. Was he leaving early just so he could ride with me? Or had I ruined his evening with my freak-tastic hysterics?

“Um … yeah.” My car was a mess, but it was too late to worry about that. “But you’ll have to flip Emma for shotgun.”

Fortunately, that turned out to be unnecessary. Em took the back, shooting me a meaningful glance and pointing at Nash as she slid across the seat, swiping a corn-chip bag onto the floor. I dropped her off first, a full hour and a half before her curfew, which had to be some kind of record.

As I pulled out of Emma’s driveway, Nash twisted in the passenger seat to face me, his expression somber, and my heart beat so hard it almost hurt. It was time for the easy letdown. He was too cool to say it in front of Emma, and even with her gone, he’d probably be really nice about it. But the bottom line was the same; he wasn’t interested in me. At least, not after my public meltdown.

“So you’ve had these panic attacks before?”

What? My hands clenched the wheel in surprise as I took a left at the end of the street.

“A couple of times.” Half a dozen, at least. I couldn’t purge suspicion from my voice. My “issues” should have driven him screaming into the night, and instead he wanted details? Why?

“Do your parents know?”

I shifted in my seat, as if a new position might make me more comfortable with the question. But it would take much more than that. “My mom died when I was little, and my dad couldn’t handle me on his own. He moved to Ireland, and I’ve been with my aunt and uncle ever since.”

Nash blinked and nodded for me to go on. He gave me none of the awkward sympathy or compulsive, I’m-not-sure-what-to-say throat-clearing I usually got when people found out I’d been half-orphaned, then wholly abandoned. I liked him for that, even if I didn’t like where his questions were heading.

“So your aunt and uncle know?”

Yeah. They think I’m one egg shy of a dozen. But the truth hurt too much to say out loud.

I turned to see him watching me closely, and my suspicion flared again, settling to burn deep in my gut. Why did he care what my family knew about my not-so-private misery? Unless he was planning to laugh with his friends later about what a freak I was.

But his interest didn’t seem malicious. Especially considering what he’d done for me at Taboo. So maybe his curiosity was feigned, and he was after something else to tell his friends about. Something girls rarely denied him, if the rumors were true.

If he didn’t get it, would he tell the entire school my darkest, most painful secret?

No. My stomach pitched at the thought, and I hit the brake too hard as we came to a stop sign.

My foot still wedged against the brake, I glanced in the rearview mirror at the empty street behind me, then shifted into Park and turned to face Nash, steeling my nerve for the question to come. “What do you want from me?” I spat it out before I could change my mind.

Nash’s eyes widened in surprise, and he sat back hard against the passenger’s side door, as if I’d shoved him. “I just. Nothing.”

“You want nothing?” I wanted to see the deep greens and browns of his irises, but the beam from the nearest streetlight didn’t reach my car, so only the dim light from my dashboard shone on him, and it wasn’t enough to illuminate his face. To let me truly read his expression. “I can count the number of times we’ve really spoken before tonight on one hand.” I held that hand up for emphasis. “Then you come out of nowhere and play white knight to my distressed damsel, and I’m supposed to believe you want nothing in return? Nothing to tell your friends about on Monday?”

He tried to laugh, but the sound was stilted, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I wouldn’t—”

“Save it. Rumor has it you’ve conquered more territory than Genghis Khan.”

A single dark brow rose in the shadows, challenging me. “You believe everything you hear?”

My eyebrow shot up to mirror his. “You denyin’ it?”

Instead of answering, he laughed for real and propped one elbow on the door handle. “Are you always this mean to guys who sing to you in dark alleys?”

My next retort died on my lips, so surprised was I by the reminder. He had sung to me, and somehow talked me down from a brutal panic attack. He’d saved me from public humiliation. But there had to be a reason, and I wasn’t that great of a conquest.

“I don’t trust you,” I said finally, my hands limp and worthless on my lap.

“Right now I don’t trust you either.” He grinned in the dark, flashing pale teeth and a single shadowed dimple, and his open-armed gesture took in the stopped car. “Are you kicking me out, or do I get door-to-door service?”

That’s the only service you get. But I shifted into Drive and faced the road again, then turned right into his subdivision, which was definitely more than a couple of minutes from my neighborhood. Would he really have walked if I’d let him drive me home?

Would he have taken me straight home?

“Take this left, then the next right. It’s the one on the corner.”

His directions led me to a small frame house in an older section of the development. I pulled into the driveway behind a dusty, dented sedan. The driver’s side door stood open, spilling light from the interior to illuminate a lopsided square of dry grass to the left of the pavement.

“You left your car door open,” I said, shifting into Park, glad for something to focus on other than Nash, though that’s where my gaze really wanted to be.

Nash sighed. “It’s my mom’s. She’s gone through three batteries in six months.”

I stifled a smile as her car light flickered. “Make that four.”

He groaned, but when I glanced at him, I found him watching me rather than the car. “So … do I get a chance to earn your trust?”

My pulse jumped. Was he serious?

I should’ve said no. I should have thanked him for helping me at Taboo, then left with him staring after me from his front yard. But I wasn’t strong enough to resist those dimples. Even knowing how many other girls had probably failed that same task.

I blame my weakness on the recent panic attack.

“How?” I asked finally, then flushed when he grinned. He’d known I’d give in.

“Come over tomorrow night?”

To his house? No way. I was weak-willed, not stupid. Not that I could make it anyway… “I work till nine on Sundays.”

“At the Ciné?”

He knows where I work. Surprise warmed me from the inside out, and I frowned in question.

“I’ve seen you there.”

“Oh.” Of course he’d seen me there. Probably on a date. “Yeah, I’ll be in the ticket booth from two on.”

“Lunch, then?”

Lunch. How much could I possibly be tempted into in a public restaurant? “Fine. But I still don’t trust you.”

He grinned and opened his door, and the overhead light flared to life. His pupils shrank to pinpoints in the sudden glare, and as my heart raced, he leaned forward like he would kiss me. Instead, his cheek brushed mine and his warm breath skimmed my ear as he whispered, “That’s half the fun.”

My breath hitched in my throat, but before I could speak, the car bobbed beneath his shifting weight and suddenly the passenger seat was empty. He closed the car door, then jogged up the driveway to slam his mother’s.

I backed away from his house in a daze, and when I parked in front of my own, I couldn’t remember a moment of the drive home.

“GOOD MORNING, KAYLEE.” Aunt Val stood at the kitchen counter, bathed in late-morning sunlight, holding a steaming mug of coffee nearly as big as her head. She wore a satin robe the exact shade of blue as her eyes, and her sleek brown waves were still tousled from sleep. But they were tousled the way hair always looks in the movies, when the star wakes up in full makeup, wearing miraculously unwrinkled pajamas.

I couldn’t pull my own fingers through my hair first thing in the morning.

My aunt’s robe and the size of her coffee cup were the only signs that she and my uncle had had a late night. Or rather, an early morning. I’d heard them come in around 2:00 a.m., stumbling down the hall, giggling like idiots.

Then I’d stuck my earbuds in my ears so I wouldn’t have to listen as he proved just how attractive he still found her, even after seventeen years of marriage. Uncle Brendon was the younger of the pair, and my aunt resented each of the four years she had on him.

The problem wasn’t that she looked her age—thanks to Botox and an obsessive workout routine, she looked thirty-five at the most—but that he looked so young for his. She jokingly called him Peter Pan, but as her big 4–0 had approached, she’d ceased finding her own joke funny.

“Cereal or waffles?” Aunt Val set her coffee on the marble countertop and pulled a box of blueberry Eggos from the freezer, holding them up for my selection. My aunt didn’t do big breakfasts. She said she couldn’t afford to eat that many calories in one meal, and she wasn’t going to cook what she couldn’t eat. But we were welcome to help ourselves to all the fat and cholesterol we wanted.

Normally Uncle Brendon served up plenty of both on Saturday mornings, but I could still hear him snoring from his bedroom, halfway across the house. She’d obviously worn him out pretty good.

I crossed the dining room into the kitchen, my fuzzy socks silent on the cold tile. “Just toast. I’m going out for lunch in a couple of hours.”

Aunt Val stuck the waffles back in the freezer and handed me a loaf of low-calorie whole wheat bread—the only kind she would buy. “With Emma?”

I shook my head and dropped two slices into the toaster, then tugged my pajama pants up and tightened the drawstring.

She arched her brows at me over her mug. “You have a date? Anyone I know?” Meaning, “Any of Sophie’s exes?”

“I doubt it.” Aunt Val was constantly disappointed that, unlike her daughter—the world’s most socially ambitious sophomore—I had no interest in student council, or the dance team, or the winter carnival–planning committee. In part, because Sophie would have made my life miserable if I’d intruded on “her” territory. But mostly because I had to work to pay for my car insurance, and I’d rather spend my rare free hours with Emma than helping the dance team coordinate their glitter gel with their sequined costumes.

While Nash would no doubt have met with Aunt Val’s hearty approval, I did not need her hovering over me when I got home, eyes glittering in anticipation of a social climb I had no interest in. I was happy hanging with Emma and whichever crowd she claimed at the moment.

“His name’s Nash.”

Aunt Val took a butter knife from the silverware drawer. “What year is he?”

I groaned inwardly. “Senior.” Here we go …

Her smile was a little too enthusiastic. “Well, that’s wonderful!”

Of course, what she really meant was “Rise from the shadows, social leper, and walk in the bright light of acceptance!” Or some crap like that. Because my aunt and overprivileged cousin only recognize two states of being: glitter and grunge. And if you weren’t glitter, well, that only left one other option…

I slathered strawberry jelly on my toast and took a seat at the bar. Aunt Val poured a second cup of coffee and aimed the TV remote across the dining room and into the den, where the fifty-inch flat-screen flashed to life, signaling the end of the requisite breakfast “conversation.”

“ …coming to you live from Taboo, in the West End, where last night, the body of nineteen-year-old Heidi Anderson was found on the restroom floor.”

Nooo …

My stomach churned around a half slice of toast, and I twisted slowly on my bar stool, dread sending a spike of adrenaline through my veins. On screen, a too-poised reporter stood on the brick walkway in front of the club I’d snuck into twelve hours earlier, and as I watched, her image was replaced by a still shot of Heidi Anderson sitting in a lawn chair in a UT Arlington T-shirt, straight teeth gleaming, reddish-blond hair blown back by the relentless prairie wind.

It was her.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Kaylee? What’s wrong?”

I blinked and sucked in a quick breath, then looked up at my aunt to find her staring at my plate, where I’d dropped my toast jelly-side down. It was a miracle I hadn’t lost the half I’d already eaten.

“Nothing. Can you turn that up?” I pushed my plate away and Aunt Val turned up the volume, shooting me a puzzled frown.

“No cause of death has yet been identified,” the reporter said on-screen. “But according to the employee who found Ms. Anderson’s body, there was no obvious sign of violence.”

The picture changed again, and now Traci Marshall stared into the camera, pale with shock and hoarse, as if she’d been crying. “She was just lying there, like she was sleeping. I thought she’d passed out until I realized she wasn’t breathing.”

Traci disappeared and the reporter was back, but I couldn’t hear her over Aunt Val. “Isn’t that Emma’s sister?”

“Yeah. She’s a bartender at Taboo.”

Aunt Val stared at the television, her expression grim. “That whole thing is so tragic …”

I nodded. You have no idea. But I did.

I also had chill bumps. It really happened.

With my previous panic attacks, my aunt and uncle had had no reason to heed my hysterical babble about looming shadows and impending death. And with no way to shush me once the screaming began, they’d taken me home—coincidentally away from the source of the panic—to calm me down. Except for that last time, when they’d driven me straight to the hospital, checked me into the mental-health ward and begun looking at me with eyes full of pity. Concern. Unspoken relief that I was the one losing my mind, rather than their own, blessedly normal daughter.

But now I had proof I wasn’t crazy. Right? I’d seen Heidi Anderson shrouded in shadow and known she would die. I’d told Emma and Nash. And now my premonition had come true.

I stood so fast my bar stool skidded against the tiles. I had to tell somebody. I needed to see confirmation in someone's eyes, assurance that I wasn’t imagining the news story, because really, if I could imagine death, how much harder could it be for my poor, sick mind to make up the news story? But I couldn’t tell my aunt what had happened without admitting I’d snuck into a club, and once I’d said that part, she wouldn’t listen to the rest. She’d just take away my keys and call my father.

No, telling Aunt Val was out of the question. But Emma would believe me.

While my aunt stared, I dropped my plate into the sink and ran to my room, ignoring her when she called after me. I kicked the door shut, collapsed on my bed then snatched my phone from my nightstand where I’d left it charging the night before.

I called Emma’s cell, and almost groaned out loud when her mother answered. But Emma had gotten home more than an hour early for once. What could she possibly be grounded for this time?

“Hi, Ms. Marshall.” I flopped onto my back and stared at the textured, eggshell ceiling. “Can I talk to Em? It’s kind of important.”

Her mom sighed. “Not today, Kaylee. Emma came home smelling like rum last night. She’s grounded until further notice. I certainly hope you weren’t out drinking with her.”

Oh, crap. I closed my eyes, trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make Em sound like a delinquent by comparison. I drew a total blank. “Um, no, ma’am. I was driving.”

“Well, at least one of you has a little sense. Do me a favor and try sharing some of that with Emma next time. Assuming I ever let her out of the house again.”

“Sure, Ms. Marshall.” I hung up, suddenly glad I hadn’t spent the night at the Marshalls’, as had been my original plan. With Emma grounded and Traci probably still in shock, breakfast could not have been a pleasant meal.

After a minute’s hesitation, and much anticipatory panic, I decided to call Nash, because in spite of his reputation and my suspicion about his motives, he hadn’t laughed at me when I told him the truth about the panic attack.

And with Emma grounded, he was the only one left who knew.

I picked up my phone again—then I realized I didn’t have his number.

Careful to avoid my aunt and uncle, who was now awake and frying bacon, based on the scent permeating the entire house, I snuck into the living room, snagged the phone book from an end table drawer and took it back to my room. There were four Hudsons with the right prefix, but only one on his street. Nash answered on the third ring.

My heart pounded so hard I was sure he could hear it over the phone, and for several seconds, silence was all I could manage.

“Hello?” he repeated, sounding almost as annoyed as sleepy now.

“Hey, it’s Kaylee,” I finally blurted, fervently hoping he remembered me—that I hadn’t imagined dancing with him the night before. Because frankly, after the night’s premonition and the morning’s newscast, even I was starting to wonder if Sophie was right about me.

Nash cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was husky with sleep. “Hey. You’re not calling to cancel, are you?”

I couldn’t resist a smile, in spite of the reason for the call. “No. I. Have you seen the news this morning?”

He chuckled hoarsely. “I haven’t even seen the floor yet this morning.” Nash yawned, and springs creaked over the line. He was still in bed.

I stamped down the scandalous images that knowledge brought to mind and forced myself to focus on the issue at hand. “Turn on your TV.”