Before I Wake (28 page)

I couldn’t help but notice my father’s look of surprise. And
respect. And a tiny ray of hope shined through the clouds thick on my emotional
horizon. I wanted my dad to love Tod as much as I did. Just not in the same
way.

“Okay?” Tod said, and I nodded. Letting go of the pain would be
much harder than embracing the anger, but he was right. Avari didn’t deserve
even a
taste
of my grief over Alec.

I took another tissue and wiped my face, and my father looked
at Tod, fresh worry twisting in his irises. “How much trouble are we looking at
from the police?”

“None, hopefully.” Tod met my dad’s gaze boldly. “I took care
of it. They’ll never know she was there.”

“Thank you.”

I tossed both tissues in the trash and glanced at the time on
my alarm clock. It was after midnight. “You’re late for work,” I said, and Tod
shrugged.

“Levi’s taking this shift for me, to give me a break.”

I had no words to express my relief. I didn’t want to be awake
all night, alone, even for the few hours Sabine would actually sleep. “Will you
stay?” I turned to my dad. “Can he stay the night? Please? We’ll leave the door
open, I swear.”

My dad actually chuckled. “Considering everything that’s
conspired to take my little girl away from me in the past few weeks, I have to
admit I’m thankful that you’d actually ask for permission. Of course he can
stay. But I’m going to hold you to that open-door promise.” He was looking at
Tod then, not me.

Tod nodded.

A few minutes later, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth
and froze in surprise when I heard my dad and Tod talking in the hall. Curious,
I pressed my ear against the crack between the door and its frame, careful not
to let the wood creak.

“I hate it when she cries,” my father said, his voice low and
soft, and difficult to hear.

“Me, too,” Tod said. “Nothing makes me feel more helpless. I’d
kill anyone who tries to hurt her, but I can’t save her from herself.”

“You’d kill for her?” My father’s voice was still. Deliberate.
This was a test, and I didn’t know the right answer. But Tod didn’t
hesitate.

“In a heartbeat.” There was a moment of silence, and I peered
through the crack, desperately trying to see them, but I couldn’t even see their
shadows. “Mr. Cavanaugh, I know this isn’t the future you wanted for Kaylee, and
I know I’m not who you wanted for her. And I’m not even going to pretend to
think I’m good enough—I know I’ve made mistakes, and I’m probably going to make
more. But I love her with every single cell in my body. She’s the reason my
heart beats—literally. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. There’s no one I’d
put ahead of her. And I will never, ever leave her, as long as she wants me.
Kaylee’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. She can make it through eternity on
her own. But I swear on my soul that as long as I’m here, she’ll never have
to.”

Fresh tears filled my eyes, and my heart ached like it no
longer fit inside my chest. I wanted to throw open the door and tell him I felt
the same way. Exactly the same. But those words weren’t meant for my ears. He
was talking to my dad, and as hard as it was to respect his intent instead of
rushing into the hall to kiss him harder and longer than he’d ever been kissed,
in either his life or his afterlife, I took a deep breath instead.

But I wasn’t noble enough to stop eavesdropping.

“Tod…” my dad began, and my breath caught in my throat.
Please don’t ruin it, Dad… .

“I don’t need your acceptance to be with her,” Tod said, like
he’d read my mind. “She wants me, and that’s enough for me. But if you don’t
disapprove of the two of us together, it would be really nice to hear that
someday.”

My dad cleared his throat. “The world lost something when you
died, Tod, and I know that wasn’t easy for your family. But the world’s loss was
Kaylee’s gain. I hope the two of you have the forever her mother and I never
got.”

“I will do my damnedest to make sure of that.”

“I know you will.”

My tears spilled over, and when I sniffled, the sudden silence
from the hall made my heart jump. I turned on the faucet to hide my sniffles and
remind them that I was only a door away. Then I finished brushing, and when I
emerged from the bathroom, the hall was empty and my dad’s bedroom door was
closed.

Tod was in my desk chair when I shuffled into my room in my
Grinch slippers. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough. You were cute.”

He scowled. “I am not cute. I am the dreaded Grim Reaper.
People fear me, you know. There’s a whole song about it.”

“Only because they don’t know about the dimples. People don’t
fear a man with dimples.”

“Levi’s a nine-year-old with red hair and freckles, and you’d
have to be crazy not to fear him.”

“I have been called crazy a few times.”

“Seriously. What did you hear?”

I turned and gave him a secretive smile. “I heard you ask my
dad for his blessing to be with me, in your own way.”

Tod covered his embarrassment with a heated glance at the tank
top and shorts I slept in. Back when I used to sleep. “You should have heard the
things I
didn’t
ask his blessing for… .”

“What things would those be?”

“Things we’re not allowed to do under his roof.” He stood and I
let him pull me close, and little sparks shot through my stomach, like they had
the very first time we’d kissed, and I hoped that it would always be like this.
That every time either of us lost something or someone, we’d still have each
other, and that would be enough to make forever worth shooting for.

“Is that why you got a roof of your own?” I teased, watching
the lazy swirls of contentment in his eyes, and beneath those, the tighter,
faster coils of blue that said how badly he wanted me, in every possible sense
of the word.

“Well, that, and so I’d have somewhere safe to plug in my cell
phone. Someone turned it in to the lost-and-found at the hospital last
week.”

“Mr. Hudson, if you can’t keep up with your own cell phone, how
is my father supposed to trust you not to lose his only daughter?”

“Are you suggesting I clip you to my waistband, like a
phone?”

“I don’t think I’d fit.”

“Let’s give it a try.” He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs
around him, glad no one else could hear us, because we needed this. This one
moment of happiness in the midst of so much pain and fear. “Feels like a good
fit to me,” he said, and the heat in his eyes made me burn inside, all over, but
instead of putting out the fires, I wanted to stoke the flames.

I kissed him, feeding from his mouth as he walked us toward the
bed, and I knew in that moment that I would never need another sustenance. Tod
was more than enough, and he was all I wanted. And I wanted all of him.

He lowered me to the bed, and my heart raced, and only when he
stood to pull his shirt off did I realize we were no longer in my room. Or
anywhere else in my house. I propped myself up on my elbows and lifted both
brows in question, and Tod shrugged with a wicked smile. “I respect your dad too
much to do this under his roof, but I love you too much not to continue this
under my own.”

“We promised not to…” I started, but then he crawled onto the
bed with me and I ran my hands over his stomach. I couldn’t help it.

“
You
promised. I never promised.
Besides, I told him I’d probably make more mistakes. But my hands are in the
right place.”

“Heart,” I corrected. “Your heart’s in the right place.”

“Yeah, but my hands are in an even better place.”

And so they were.

19

BY SOME
MIRACLE,
no one noticed us missing, and when we blinked back into my
room an hour later, everyone else was sound asleep. So Tod and I borrowed some
of my dad’s DVDs and we watched a
Predators
marathon
on my laptop, curled up together on my bed.

In the morning, my dad made good on his threat to take the
first shower, then he started frying bacon. I pitched in with the pancakes while
Tod fried eggs, and the morning was off to a surreal start.

Em woke up at a quarter to eight and started to panic over the
late hour. She’d woken up both Nash and Sophie before my dad could explain that
no one had to go to school. Which was news to me, too.

“We’re taking the day off,” he announced from the kitchen
doorway, wielding a greasy spatula and wearing the apron I’d given him for his
birthday. “Since Avari showed up at school, I’m deeming the campus unsafe—at
least for the moment.” He, Uncle Brendon, Harmony, and Madeline had called in
sick for me, Sophie, Nash, and Luca. Then my dad had used his Influence over the
phone to get the attendance secretary to write in medical absences for both
Sabine and Emma.

“Today, we’re spending the day at the lake,” my father said.
“All together, for safety in numbers, to make sure that what happened to Alec
won’t happen to any of the rest of us.”

Tod’s hand slipped into my grip and squeezed. He was reminding
me not to blame myself—not to let Avari benefit from what he’d done—but that was
hard, because Avari hadn’t done it alone. I’d helped.

“Doesn’t that seem kind of…cold?” Em asked. “Taking a day off
to go to the lake when Alec hasn’t even been buried yet?”

My father nodded and set his spatula on the counter. When he
turned to face us again, I read confliction in his frown lines and determination
in the smooth swirls of color in his eyes. “I know most of you are probably very
upset over Alec’s death. As am I. That’s how I know that the temptation to mourn
him is overwhelming, and that’s normal.”

“I never even met him,” Sophie mumbled, and Sabine shoved her
in the shoulder, a wordless warning to shut the hell up and respect the
dead.

“But today should be about celebrating his life and remembering
what he meant to those of us who knew him. That’s what he’d want, and that’s
exactly what Avari and his hellion pals will
not
want, and this is a really good chance to piss them off.” My father glanced at
me then, and I was surprised to see a hint of a smile haunting the corners of
his mouth. “Also, today is Kaylee’s birthday.”

“Oh, shit!” I said, and my dad frowned at me. Seventeen and
dead, and I still wasn’t allowed to cuss in front of him. “I forgot about my
birthday.” Again.

“Well,
I
didn’t. I rented one of
the picnic areas at the lake. Harmony’s going to meet us there at eleven with
burgers and hot dogs, cupcakes, and enough brownies to exhaust the world’s
supply of cocoa powder for a month. We’re bringing chips, soda, buns, and this
very spatula.” He picked up the spatula on the counter for emphasis. “So,
everybody get up, deflate your air mattresses and roll up your sleeping bags,
take showers—one at a time, please—and get dressed. Food’s on the bar. Serve
yourselves.”

“Can I invite Jayson?” Emma asked, and my father glanced at me,
deferring to my judgment. Because it was my party. Evidently.

I shrugged. “Sure.” There’d be plenty of room at the lake to
avoid the one human who wasn’t supposed to hear about the basket of crazy trauma
my life had become.

While Sabine, Em, and Sophie argued over bathroom access, Tod
snagged a slice of bacon and pulled me aside. “I’m gonna go shower at my place
to save time,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He kissed me, and I took a bite of
his bacon. “Happy birthday.”

But instead of blinking out of the kitchen, he dropped onto the
couch next to Nash, and I had to strain to hear them over the three-way
girl-squabble in the hall. “Did you know it was her birthday?”

“Of course, I knew,” Nash said, meeting the reaper’s gaze
boldly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you not-steal my girlfriend the day before she
died?”

I sighed and went into the kitchen for another slice of bacon.
Some things were just going to take a while.

* * *

We didn’t actually make it to the lake until nearly
noon, and by the time we got there, Harmony already had charcoal stacked like a
pyramid in the grill attached to the covered picnic area my dad had reserved.
“This is how my husband used to do it,” she said when my dad approached wielding
a spatula and a set of tongs. “But that’s as far as I go. The grill’s all
yours.”

“Is Brendon coming?” my dad asked softly, and I glanced at them
in surprise. Why would he need to ask her if his own brother was coming to the
lake? Had he and my uncle had an argument?

“He said he’d swing by after work,” Harmony said, and the
slight flush to her cheeks said much more than her words had.

“What’s wrong?” Tod asked, snatching a chip from the open bag
on the table in front of me.

I pulled him close enough to whisper, though no one else could
hear me, anyway. “I think your mom’s going out with my uncle.”

Tod laughed. “Yeah. For a couple of months now. Do
not
ask me how I know.”

“See something you didn’t want to see?”

“Occupational hazard.”

“Is that why he left Sophie at my house last night?”

“He left at, what, nine?” Tod asked, and I nodded. “Mom doesn’t
have to be at work till eleven.” He scowled. “Great. Now I need something more
pleasant to purge the unwanted visual. Kittens on fire should do the trick.”

“Does Sophie know?” I asked, and Tod shrugged, but I knew the
answer before I’d even finished the question. She didn’t know. Nash didn’t,
either. If either of them knew, we’d have heard about it during the
sleepover.

While my dad and Harmony talked over the grill, Tod, Em, and I
sat at the end of the dock with our feet dangling over the water, staring out at
the lake while we waited for the burgers to cook. “This is weird,” Em said. “I
can’t believe he’s gone.” She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and pulled
her knees up to her chest. “If Alec were here, what do you think he’d be
doing?”

“Sitting on the picnic table, eating all the cupcakes,” Tod
said.

“Telling us how, in the Netherworld, cupcakes are stuffed with
entrails and bile instead of cream,” I added, and I could see him saying that so
clearly in my head I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“That’s kinda true, though,” Tod said with a sad smile. “Over
there, we are the cupcakes. Human cupcakes.”

And Alec would have been able to make us laugh about even such
a horrific truth—if I hadn’t cut him open and spilled his bloody filling all
over us both.

Fresh tears filled my eyes and I was trying to wipe them away
without looking like I was wiping them away when a dark blue sedan squealed into
the parking lot, spitting gravel beneath its wheels before swinging into the
space between my car and my dad’s. Em stood and took off down the dock.
“Jayson’s here!” she called over her shoulder, and I was glad, because now there
was someone to comfort her, too, even though Jayson had never met Alec.

“What do you think the appeal is?” Tod said as we watched
Jayson get out of his car, grinning like he’d just ridden his first roller
coaster. Evidently skipping school was a new thrill for him.

Emma threw her arms around him and kissed him, and he looked
surprised by the enthusiasm of her greeting. I wasn’t, though. She’d felt like a
fifth wheel—or maybe a seventh wheel—for the past eighteen hours.

“I don’t know, but I hope the appeal is that he’s normal. Both
human and alive. I’ve dragged her into enough weird and dangerous crap this
year.”

“She would have come willingly, if you hadn’t dragged her,” Tod
insisted. “She’s your best friend. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for
her?”

“No…”

“Well, that’s obviously mutual.”

When I looked up, I found Emma dragging Jayson down the pier,
their footsteps shaking the boards beneath us. Em dropped onto the end of the
dock next to me, and Jayson sat on her other side with a nod and a “Hey” to
Tod.

Tod returned the casual greeting, and I almost laughed out
loud. His regular-guy act was good enough to fool anyone who didn’t know him,
but I couldn’t think of him as a regular guy. Yes, I knew he’d gone to a regular
high school before he died, and he’d played regular-guy football, just like
Nash. And he’d probably done regular-guy stuff like watch sports, and break
curfew, and kiss girls—one of my least favorite visuals
ever.
But I couldn’t see him like that. Tod was anything but normal
to me.

“Happy birthday, Kaylee,” Jayson said, leaning around Emma to
look at me. “I brought you a gift, but I didn’t see any others, so I left it in
my car… .”

“Oh, you didn’t have to bring anything!” I could hear surprise
in my own voice. “This is a gift-free party, except for my dad. Because he’s my
dad.”

Jayson shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want it, maybe Emma
will.”

“Yes. Kaylee’s rejected birthday present.
That’s
what I want.” She laughed, then pushed him playfully, and Tod
pulled me up by one hand.

“Let’s give them some privacy,” he said.

“What about our privacy?” I asked as he tugged me down the
pier.

“We can make our own privacy.” His fingers slid between mine,
his hand warm in contrast to the cool breeze coming off the lake. “You weren’t
serious about the no-presents rule, were you?” he asked.

“Why? Did you get me something? You didn’t have to get me
anything.”

“Well, it’s not a present in the traditional sense. But it’s
something I’ve never given anyone else, and I want you to be the first.”

“We’re not talking about your virginity, are we? Because I
happen to know that ship has sailed.” Long before I’d been seaworthy.

“Ha, ha.” We stepped off the dock and onto the sand, and Tod
let go of my hand to slide his into his pocket. “Please excuse the lack of
wrapping and girlie ribbons… .” He handed me a folded scrap of paper, and the
nervous twists of bright blue in his eyes said this gift—whatever it was—was
worth as much to him as he obviously hoped it would be to me. In spite of its
modest appearance.

My hands shook as I unfolded the paper. It held an address,
written in pencil, in Tod’s handwriting. “What is this?”

“This is my place. This is the local reaper headquarters. No
one other than my coworkers is supposed to have this address, and I could get
into a lot of trouble for giving it to you. But my room is in this building, and
I want it to be your room, too, for whenever you need it, whether I’m there or
not. If you need to rest, or hide, or cry, or scream, or just want to be by
yourself for a little while, you can go there, day or night. No one else can get
there. Not even Levi—he doesn’t know which room is mine.”

I felt dizzy, for the first time since I’d died. My stomach was
twisting in knots, but they were good knots. “This is like the key to your
apartment… .” Only there was no key, because there was no door.

“Yeah. Only more secure. This is a safe place. This is a place
no one else can find us. Later tonight, I’ll show you how to find my room inside
the building, but for now… Just know it’s your room, too. Our room.”

“You gave me privacy. For my birthday.”

“Um, yeah. Did I mess this up? You’re not really the flowers
and jewelry type.”

“It’s perfect. It’s so far beyond perfect it gives all other
presents a bad name.” I stood on my toes to kiss him—in public, for the first
time since the kiss that had started all the trouble—but my birthday kiss was
cut short when someone cursed on my left.

“Well, shit, that can’t be good,” Sabine said.

I dropped onto the balls of my feet, ready to snap at her to
leave me and Tod alone. But neither she nor Nash was even looking at us. I
turned to see what they were staring at and found an unfamiliar car parked next
to Emma’s at the end of the row, a too-thin woman in jeans and a faded T-shirt
stepping out of the driver’s seat.

“Who is that?” I asked, and Sabine scowled.

“Tina. My foster mother,” she said through gritted teeth,
already stomping toward the woman, leaving me, Tod, and Nash to catch up.

We jogged after her, and were still shouting-distance away when
the woman propped skinny hands on bony hips and tossed short brown hair over one
shoulder. “Sabine, I
specifically
forbade you from
coming here today,” she said, and Sabine stopped walking so suddenly I almost
plowed into her.

“Kaylee, please tell me you brought that magic knife,” she
whispered, throwing one arm around my waist like we were good friends.

“It’s a hellion-forged steel dagger,” I said, squinting at the
woman now glaring across the grass at us. Beneath the pavilion, my dad handed
his spatula to Harmony, took off his apron, and started across the grass toward
the new arrival, obviously ready to make introductions.

“Whatever it’s called, go get it.
Now,
” Sabine whispered fiercely.

I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten, but my stomach seemed
intent on tossing the food back up. “Why?” I asked, sliding Tod’s address into
my pocket, but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.

“That’s not Tina.”

“Not again…” I groaned. We’d had too much death already. Too
much vicious, personal, life-wrecking death. “Not on my birthday.”

“Are you sure?” Nash asked.

Sabine nodded. “Beyond sure. Get the damn knife.”

I let go of Tod’s hand and shrugged out from under Sabine’s
arm, then headed for my car. When my father reached Tina and offered her a hand
to shake, she turned to look at him and I blinked across the grass and into the
driver’s seat of my car, where I pulled the dagger from its sheath on the
passenger’s side floorboard. I hadn’t touched it since Alec’s apartment. I
didn’t want to touch it now. But I wanted to lose another friend even less, so I
blinked back into step between Tod and Sabine, the dagger at my side, hidden
from sight by my leg.