My Soul to Take

The last part of my shift dragged on at half the normal speed because less than fifteen minutes in, the manager moved Emma to the snack bar, leaving me alone in the ticket booth with an A&M computer science major whose undershirt—which he lifted his uniform to show me—read: My other shirt is a storm trooper uniform.

When the day was finally over, I clocked out and waited for Emma in the employee snack room. As I was zipping my jacket, Emma pushed through the door and stood with her body holding it open, a dark frown shadowing her entire face.

“What’s wrong?” My hand hovered over the hook where her jacket still hung.

“Come on. You have to hear this.” She pushed the door open wider and stood to the side, so I could pass through. But I hesitated. Her news obviously wasn’t good, and I was all full up on creepy and depressing for the moment. “Seriously. This is weird.”

I sighed, then shoved my hands into my jacket pockets and followed her over eight feet of sticky linoleum tile and across the theater lobby toward the snack counter.

Jimmy Barnes was busy with a customer, but once he saw Emma waiting to talk to him, he rushed through the order so quickly he almost forgot to squirt butter on the popcorn. He had a bit of a crush on Emma.

He wasn’t the only one.

“Back already?” Jimmy nodded at me, then leaned with both plump arms on the glass countertop, staring at Em as if the meaning of life lay buried in her eyes. His fingers were stained yellow with butter-flavored oil and he smelled like popcorn and the root beer he’d dribbled down the front of his black apron.

“Can you tell Kaylee what Mike said?”

Jimmy’s goofy, puppy-love smile faded, and he stood, angling his body to face us both. “Creepiest thing I ever heard.” He reached below the counter to grab a plastic-wrapped stack of sixteen-ounce paper cups, and began refilling the dispenser as he spoke.

“You know Mike Powell, right?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I glanced at Emma with both brows raised in question, but she only nodded toward Jimmy, silently telling me to pay attention.

Jimmy pressed on an inverted stack of cups, which sank into a hole in the countertop to make room for more. “Mike took a shift at the snack bar at the Arlington branch today, filling in for some guy who got fired for spittin’ in someone’s Coke.”

“Hey, can I get some popcorn over here?”

I looked up to see a middle-aged man waiting in front of the cash register, flanked by a little girl with her thumb in her mouth and an older boy with his gaze—and his thumbs—glued to a PSP.

“Will that be a jumbo, sir?” Jimmy held up one just-a-minute finger for us and veered toward the closest of several popcorn machines while I dug my phone from my pocket to check the time. It was after nine and I was starving. And not exactly eager for whatever weird, creepy story Jimmy had to tell.

When the customers left with a cardboard tray full of junk food and soda, Jimmy turned back to us. “Anyway, Mike called about half an hour ago, totally freaked out. He said some girl died right in front of his register this afternoon. Just fell over dead, still holding her popcorn.”

Shock pinged through me, chilling me from the inside out. I glanced at Emma, and she gave me a single grim nod. As I turned back to Jimmy, a dark unease unfurled deep inside me, spiraling up my spine like tendrils of ice. “You’re serious?”

“Totally.” He twisted the end of the plastic sleeve around the remaining cups. “Mike said the whole thing was unreal. The ambulance took her away in a freakin’ body bag, and the manager closed the place down and handed out vouchers to all the customers. And the cops kept asking Mike questions, trying to figure out what happened.”

Emma watched me for my reaction, but I could only stare, my hands gripping the edge of the counter, unable to force my scattered thoughts into any logical order. The similarity to Heidi Anderson was obvious, but I had no concrete reason to connect the two deaths.

“Do they know how she died?” I asked finally, grasping at the first coherent thought to form.

Jimmy shrugged. “Mike said she was fine one minute, and flat on her back the next. No coughing, no choking, no grabbing her heart or her head.”

A vague, heavy dread was building inside me, a slow simmer of foreboding, compared to the rapid boil of panic I’d felt when I saw Heidi’s shadow-shroud. The deaths were connected. They had to be.

Emma was watching me again, and I must have looked as sick as I felt because she put one hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, Jimmy. See ya Wednesday.”

On the way home, Emma loosened her seat belt and twisted in the passenger seat to frown at me in the dark, her face a mask of grim fascination. “How weird was that? First you predict that girl’s death at Taboo. Then tonight, another girl falls down dead at the theater, just like last night.”

I flicked on my blinker to pass a car in the right lane. “They’re not the same,” I insisted, in spite of my own similar thoughts. “Heidi Anderson was drunk. She probably died of alcohol poisoning.”

“Nuh-uh.” Emma shook her head, blond hair bouncing in the corner of my vision. “The news said they tested her blood. She was drunk, but not that drunk.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. “So she passed out and hit her head when she fell.”

“If she did, don’t you think the cops would have figured that out by now?” When I didn’t answer, Emma continued, shielding her eyes from the glare of a passing highway light. “I don’t think they know what killed her. I bet that’s why they haven’t scheduled her funeral yet.”

My hands tightened on the wheel, and I glanced at her in surprise. “What are you, spying on the dead girl?”

She shrugged. “Just watching the news. I’m grounded—what else is there to do? Besides, this is the weirdest thing that ever happened around here. And the fact that you predicted one of them is beyond bizarre.”

I flicked on my blinker again and swerved off the highway at our exit, forcing my hand to relax around the wheel. I didn’t even want to think about my premonition anymore, much less talk about it. “You don’t know the deaths are connected. It’s not like they were murdered. At least not the girl in Arlington. Mike saw her die.”

“She could have been poisoned….” Emma insisted, but I continued, ignoring her as I slowed to make the turn onto her street.

“And even if they are connected, they have nothing to do with us.”

“You knew the first one was going to die.”

“Yeah, and I hope it never happens again.”

Emma frowned but let the subject go. After I dropped her off, I pulled into an empty lot down the street from her house and called Nash.

“Hello?” In the background, I heard gunfire and shouting, until he turned down the volume on his TV.

“Hey, it’s Kaylee. Are you busy?”

“Just avoiding homework. What’s up?”

I stared out the windshield at the dark parking lot, and my heart seemed to stumble over the next few beats while I worked up my nerve.

“Kaylee? You there?”

“Yeah.” I closed my eyes and forced the next words out before my throat froze up. “Can I use your computer? I need to look something up, but I can’t do it at home without Sophie snooping.” And I did not want my aunt to bring me laundry without knocking—as was her habit—and see what I was looking up online.

“No problem.”

But second thoughts came fast and hard. I should not be alone with Nash in his house—that whole willpower thing again.

He laughed as if he knew what I was thinking. Or heard it in my nervous silence. “Don’t worry. My mom’s here.”

Relief and disappointment came in equal parts, and I fought to let neither leak into my voice. “That’s fine.” I started the engine, my headlights carving arcs of light across the dark gravel lot. “You hungry?”

“I was about to nuke a pizza.”

“Interested in a burger?”

“Always.”

Twenty minutes later, I parked on the street in front of his house and got out of the car, a fast-food bag in one hand, drink tray in the other. Again, his mother’s Saab was in the driveway, but this time the door was closed.

I crossed the small, neat yard and stepped onto the porch, but Nash opened the front door before I could knock. “Hey, come on in.” He took the drinks and held the door open, and I stepped past him into a clean, sparsely decorated living room.

Nash set the cups on an end table and stuffed his hands in his pockets while I looked around. His mother’s furniture wasn’t new or as upscale as Aunt Val’s, but it looked much more comfortable. The hardwood floor was worn but spotless, and the entire house smelled like chocolate-chip cookies.

At first I assumed the scent was from a candle like the ones Aunt Val lit at Christmas, to give the impression that she knows how to bake. But then I heard an oven door creak open to the left of the living room, and that cookie scent swelled. Mrs. Hudson was actually baking.

When my gaze returned to Nash, I found him looking at my shirt, but in amusement, rather than real interest. Which is when I realized I was still wearing my Ciné uniform. Way to dress the part, Kaylee …

Nash laughed when he saw my surprise, then gestured toward a narrow hallway branching off the living room.

“Come on…” But before he’d taken two steps, the swinging door into the kitchen opened, and a slim, well-proportioned woman appeared in the doorway, barefoot, in snug jeans and a blue-ribbed tee.

I’m not sure what I’d expected Nash’s mom to look like, but this woman did not fit the bill. She was young. Like, thirty. But that couldn’t be right, because Nash was eighteen. She wore her long, dark blond curls pulled into a simple ponytail, except for a few ringlets that had fallen to frame her face.

She could have been his older sister. His very hot older sister. Aunt Val would hate her ….

When Mrs. Hudson’s eyes found mine, the world seemed to stop moving. Or rather, she stopped moving. Completely. As if she weren’t even breathing. I guess I wasn’t what she’d expected either. Nash’s exes were all beautiful, and I bet none of them had ever come over in a shapeless purple polo with the Ciné logo embroidered on one shoulder.

Regardless, the intense way she stared at me unnerved me, like she was trying to read my thoughts in my eyes, and I had an unbearable urge to close them in case that’s exactly what she was doing. Instead, I clutched the fast-food bag in both hands and returned her look with a frank one of my own, because she didn’t look angry. Only very curious.

After several uncomfortable seconds, she flashed a beautiful, un-motherly smile and nodded, as if she approved of whatever she’d seen in me. “Hi, Kaylee, I’m Harmony.” Nash’s mom wiped her right hand on the front of her jeans, leaving a faint, palm-shaped smudge of flour, then stepped forward and reached out for mine. I shook her hand hesitantly. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

She’d heard about me?

I glanced up to see Nash scowling at his mother, and had the distinct impression I’d just missed him shaking his head, or shooting her some other silent “shut up!” signal.

What was I missing?

“It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Hudson.” I suppressed the urge to wipe residual flour onto my work pants.

“Oh, it’s not Mrs.” Her smile softened, though her eyes never left mine. “It’s been just me and Nash for years now. What about you, Kaylee? Tell me about your parents.”

“I …um …”

Nash’s fingers folded around mine and I let him pull me close. “Kaylee needs to borrow my computer.” He gestured to the grease-stained bag I still held in one hand. “We’re gonna eat while we work.”

For a moment, Ms. Hudson looked like she might object. Then she shot Nash a stern smile. “Leave the door open.”

Nash mumbled a vague acknowledgment, then headed down the short, dim hallway with the drink tray. Still speechless, I followed him, the fast-food bag clutched to my chest.

Nash’s room was casual and comfortable, and I liked it instantly. His bed was unmade, and his desk was cluttered with CDs, Xbox games, and junk-food wrappers. The TV was on, but he hit the power button as he passed it, and whatever he’d been watching flashed into a silent black screen.

His desk chair was the only one in the room, and the open can of Coke on the desk said he was sitting there. For a moment, I froze like a rabbit in the crosshairs, staring at the bed, the only other place to sit, while my pulse whooshed in my ears.

Nash laughed and pushed the door to within an inch of closed, waving toward the bed with his empty hand. “It’s not gonna fold up into the wall.”

I was more worried about it swallowing me whole. And I couldn’t help wondering how many girls had sat there before me….

Finally embarrassed into action, I shoved aside an unopened chemistry book and sat on the edge of the bed, already digging in the paper bag. “Here.” I handed him a burger and a carton of fries.

He set the food on the desk and sank into the chair, jiggling the mouse until his monitor flared to life. “What are we looking for?” he asked, then folded a fry into his mouth.

I unwrapped my own burger, considering how best to phrase my answer. But there was no good way to put what I had to say. “Another girl died tonight. At the Ciné in Arlington. A guy I work with was there, and he said she just fell over dead, holding a bag of popcorn.”

Nash blinked at me, frozen in mid-chew. “You’re serious?” he asked after he swallowed, and I nodded. “You think it’s connected to that girl in the West End?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t predict this one, but it’s even weirder than what happened at Taboo. I want details.” So I could prove to myself that the two deaths weren’t as similar as they sounded.

“Okay, hang on.” He typed something into the address bar, and a search engine appeared on the monitor. “Arlington?”

“Yeah,” I said, around a bite of my burger.

Nash typed as he chewed, and links began filling the screen. He clicked on the first one. “Here it is.” It was a Dallas news channel’s Web site—the station that had aired the story about Heidi Anderson the day before.

I leaned closer to see over his shoulder, acutely aware of how good he smelled, and Nash read aloud. “Local authorities are perplexed by the death of the second metroplex teenager in as many days. Late this afternoon, fifteen-year-old Alyson Baker died in the lobby of the Ciné 9, in the Six Flags mall. Police have yet to determine her cause of death, but have ruled out drugs and alcohol as factors. According to one witness, Baker ‘just fell over dead’ at the concession counter. A memorial will be held tomorrow at Stephen F. Austin High School for Baker, who was a sophomore there, and a cheerleader.”

Sipping from my straw, I scanned the article for a moment after he finished reading. “That’s it?”

“There’s a picture.” He scrolled up to reveal a black-and-white yearbook photo of a pretty brunette with long, straight hair and dramatic features. “What do you think?”

I sighed and sank back onto the edge of the bed. Seeing the latest dead girl hadn’t answered any of my questions, but it had given me a name and a face, and made her death infinitely, miserably more real. “I don’t know. She doesn’t look much like Heidi Anderson. And she’s four years younger.”

“And she wasn’t drunk.”

“And I had no idea this one was going to happen.” No longer hungry, I wrapped the rest of my burger and dropped it into the bag. “The only thing they have in common is that they both died in public.”

“With no obvious cause of death.” Nash glanced at the bag in my lap. “Are you gonna finish that?”

I handed him the burger, but his words still echoed in my mind. He’d hit the nail on the head with that one—and driven it straight into my heart. Heidi and Alyson had both literally dropped dead with no warnings, no illness and no wounds of any kind. And I’d known Heidi’s death was coming.

If I’d been there when Alyson Baker was ordering her popcorn, would I have known she was about to die?

And if I had, would telling her have done any good?

I scooted back on the bed and drew my knees up to my chest as my guilt over Heidi’s death swelled within me like a sponge soaking up water. Had I let her die?

Nash dropped the empty burger wrapper into the bag and swiveled in the desk chair to face me. He frowned as he looked at my expression and leaned forward to gently push my legs down, so he could see my face. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

Were my thoughts that obvious? I couldn’t summon a smile, even with his dimples and late-night stubble only inches away. “You don’t know that.”

His mouth formed a hard line for a moment, like he might argue, but then he smiled slyly, and his gaze locked onto mine. “What I do know is that you need to relax. Think about something other than death.” His voice was a gentle rumble as he moved from the chair to sit next to me on the bed, and the mattress sank beneath his weight.

My breath hitched in anticipation, and my pulse raced. “What should I be thinking about?” My own voice came out lower, my words so soft I could barely hear them.

“Me,” he whispered back, leaning forward so that his lips brushed my ear as he spoke. His scent enveloped me, and his cheek felt scratchy against mine. “You should be thinking about me.” His fingers intertwined with mine in my lap, and he pulled away from my ear slowly, his lips skimming my cheek, deliciously soft in contrast to the sharp stubble. He dropped a trail of small kisses along my jaw, and my heart beat harder with every single one.

When he reached my chin, the kisses trailed up until his mouth met mine, gently sucking my lower lip between his. Teasing without making full contact. My chest rose and fell quickly, my breaths shallow, my pulse racing.

More…

He heard me. He must have. Nash pulled back just long enough to meet my gaze, heat blazing behind his eyes, and I realized that he was breathing hard too. His fingers tightened around mine and his free hand slid into the hair at the base of my skull.

Then he kissed me for real.

My mouth opened beneath his, and the kiss went deeper as I drew him in, suddenly ravenous for something I’d never even tasted. My fingers tightened around his, and my free hand found his arm, exploring the hard planes, reveling in the potential of such restrained strength.

Nash pulled back then and looked at me, deep need smoldering behind his eyes. The intensity of that need—the staggering depth of his longing—slammed into me like a wave on the side of a ship, threatening to knock me overboard. To toss me into that turbulent sea, where the current would surely carry me away.

His finger traced my lower lip, his gaze locked onto mine, and my mouth opened, ready for his again.

His hesitance was a terrible mercy. I could barely breathe with him touching me, so overwhelmed was I by … everything. But he smelled so good, and felt so good, I didn’t want him to stop, even if I never breathed again.

This time I kissed him, taking what I wanted, delighted and astonished by his willingness to let me. My head was so full of Nash I wasn’t sure I’d ever think about anything else again …

Until the bedroom door opened.

Nash jerked back so fast he left me gasping in surprise. I blinked, slowly struggling up from the wave of sensations I wanted to ride again. My cheeks flamed as I smoothed my ponytail.

“Dinner, huh?” Ms. Hudson stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest, a fresh smear of chocolate on the hem of her shirt. She frowned at us, but didn’t look particularly angry or surprised.

Nash rubbed his face with both hands. I sat there, speechless, and more embarrassed than I’d ever been in my life. But at least we’d been caught by his mother, rather than my uncle. That, I would never have recovered from.

“Let’s leave the door open for real this time, huh?” She turned to leave, but then her gaze caught on the computer screen, where Alyson Baker’s picture still stared out at the room. Something dark flickered across her face—fear, or concern?—then her expression hardened as she leveled it at her son.

“What are you two doing?” she demanded softly, obviously no longer referring to our social interaction.

“Nothing.” Nash’s expression carried just as much weight as his mother’s had, but I couldn’t read anything specific in his, though the tension in the room spiked noticeably.

“I should go.” I stood, already digging my keys from my pocket.

“No.” Nash took my hand.

Ms. Hudson’s expression softened. “You really don’t have to,” she said. “Stay and have some cookies. Just leave the door open.” She eyed Nash on that last part, and tension drained from the air as her frown melted.

Nash rolled his eyes but nodded. Then they both turned to me, waiting for my answer.

“Thanks, but I have some homework to finish….” And Nash’s mother had just caught us making out on his bed, which felt very much like the end of the night to me.

Nash walked me to my car and kissed me again, his body pressing mine into the driver’s side door, our hands intertwined. Then I drove home in a daze and floated straight to my room, ignoring every less-than-subtle hint for information Sophie tossed my way. And only later would I realize that I had, in fact, forgotten all about the dead girls and was still thinking about Nash when I fell asleep.

5

“INSIDE OR OUT?” Nash set his tray on the nearest table and dug in his pocket. Coins jingled, barely audible over the clatter of silverware and the buzz of several dozen simultaneous conversations, and he pulled out a handful of change, already turning toward the soda machine.

The autumn morning had dawned clear and cool, but by third period, it was warm enough for my biology teacher to open the windows in the lab and vent the acrid scent of chemical preservatives. “Out.” Lunch in the quad sounded good to me, especially considering the swarm of student bodies in the cafeteria, and the dozen or so people who had already noticed his fingers curled around mine in the pizza line.

Including his latest ex, who now glared at me from within a cocoon of hostile cheerleader clones.

I glanced over my shoulder at Emma, who nodded. “I’ll get a table.” She turned and dodged a freshman carrying three ice-cream bars, who almost knocked her tray from her hands.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, then stopped to watch her, his expression a blend of blatant lust and longing. Emma didn’t even notice.

Nash pulled two Cokes from the machine and set one on my tray, then we wove our way around two tables to the center aisle, headed straight for the exit. I could practically feel the eyes of my classmates trained on my back, and it was everything I could do not to squirm beneath their scrutiny. How could he stand people watching him all the time?

We were two feet from the double doors leading into the quad when they swung open, only inches from smacking into my tray. A gaggle of slim girls in matching letterman jackets brushed past us, several pausing to smile at Nash. One even ran her fingers down his sleeve, and I was startled by the sudden, irrational urge to slap her hand away. Which proved unnecessary when he walked past her with nothing but a distracted nod.

Sophie was the only one who even glanced my way, and her expression could hardly be considered friendly. Until it landed on Nash. She let her arm brush his as she passed, glancing up into his eyes, a carnal smile turning up one corner of her perfectly made-up mouth in blatant, unspoken invitation.

Seconds later, the dancers were gone, leaving behind a cloud of perfume strong enough to burn my eyes. I stomped through the still-open doors and down the steps. Nash jogged to catch up with me. He carried his tray in one hand, and his opposite arm snaked around my waist, fingers curling around my hip with an intimate familiarity that made my pulse spike. “She’s just trying to piss you off.”