Before I Wake (32 page)

Only Invidia remained unhurt, and she was so confused by the
chaos and competing demands from Avari and Belphegore for her help that for a
moment she turned in circles, paralyzed by indecision.

Nash rushed around Belphegore and pulled Luca off the bench. I
held Emma’s arm while each of the boys grabbed one of my wrists, and right
before I blinked us into the human world, I realized that Thane was gone, but I
had no idea when he’d left.

A minute later, Tod appeared next to us beneath the human-world
pavilion, with both Lydia and Sophie.

I dropped onto the ground with Emma’s hand clutched in mine,
and though the others stood around me, I saw nothing but Em. Until Nash picked
her body up and her hand slid from my grip. He carried her toward the cars,
while Luca herded the other girls and Tod pulled me to my feet. I walked, but I
didn’t see where I was going.

I didn’t care.

After only a few steps, Lydia collapsed and I blinked, jarred
out of my own shock. Tod and I knelt next to her. She was still breathing. She
still had a pulse. But her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving.

“We have to go,” Tod said, sliding one arm behind her shoulders
to pick her up. “They’ll cross over as soon as they get the blades out and
heal.”

“No, they won’t,” Thane said, and I jumped, startled, to find
him behind us. “I cleaned out their stockpile, during your convenient
distraction.”

“Their stockpile?”

“The restored souls. I took them all. Including mine.” He took
off his glasses, and I was oddly relieved to see that he had both pupils and
irises again. “Can’t have them coming after me, now can I? And the restored
souls will fetch one hell of a price somewhere else.
Anywhere
else.”

Before I could demand that he turn the souls over to the proper
authority, his gaze fell to Lydia, lying motionless on the ground. “I couldn’t
get hers, though.”

“What? Her soul? Where is it?”

“In the Nether. Here. Everywhere. She was syphoning Emma’s pain
when Emma died, and part of her soul went with Emma’s.”

“Part?” I wrapped my hand around the heart hanging against my
sternum. It was unnaturally warm.

“The rest dissipated.”

“So she’s…empty?” Tod said, staring at Lydia, and his hand
curled around mine, around the amphora, like he would help me protect it.

Thane nodded. “I’ve only seen that a couple of times—a living
body with no soul. She’ll be dead in minutes.”

“If she doesn’t get a soul…” Tod said, his gaze holding mine.
Challenging it. There was a choice to be made, and I had to make it.

I nodded. I understood.

I could save Emma. Part of her, anyway. And I could save part
of Lydia. Nothing would be the same. But at least life would go on. I owed it to
them both to try.

Nash laid Emma on the ground next to Lydia.

I closed my eyes, but I could still see them in my head and I
could feel everyone watching me. Sophie was still sniffling, clutching Luca’s
arm. Nash held Emma’s limp hand. Tod was waiting, and he was ready, too. Once I
withdrew Em’s soul from the amphora, I’d need a male
bean
sidhe
to help guide it into another body.

I sang out to Emma’s soul, and when it came out of the amphora,
Tod helped me guide it into Lydia’s body. Then we waited.

At first, nothing happened, and I didn’t know whether to be
horrified or relieved by the thought that I’d done it wrong. That Emma’s
suffering would end with her life.

Then Lydia opened her eyes. They weren’t blue, like they should
have been. They were brown. Emma-brown.

“Kaylee?” Emma said with Lydia’s voice, blinking those familiar
brown eyes at me. “What happened? Where are we?” She sat up, and everyone moved
back to give her space. “Why do I sound weird? Why am I so pale?” she demanded,
staring at Lydia’s forearm, stretched out in front of her.

“I couldn’t save you,” I whispered, and those four words held
more shame than I’d known I could feel. I’d promised I wouldn’t let her die.
Then I’d failed her. “This was the best I could do. But I swear on my afterlife
that they’ll pay, Em. All three of them.”

Avari wanted my soul, but he was going to get a hell of a lot
more than that. He was going to get pain. And loss. And justice. He was going to
get vengeance in kind for every soul he’d stolen. For every friend he’d taken
from me. This time I would feed from
his
pain, and
with any luck, it would hurt worse knowing that he’d put into motion his own
downfall.

Avari had woken me up and given my afterlife purpose. He’d
awakened my rage.

Emma had given me reason to use it.

* * * * *

Kaylee’s revenge is coming.
Don’t miss the final
story!

A special treat from Rachel Vincent

A Day in the Afterlife of Tod

(pre-IF I DIE)

A Day in the Afterlife of Tod

8:00 a.m.—Another cup of coffee. Pecan caramel, this
time. I’ve tried every flavor of creamer the cafeteria has. The coffee still
sucks.

8:54 a.m.—These E.R. chairs were manufactured in the seventies.
I swear cave men were more comfortable sitting on logs and rocks. That’s it. I’m
filing that requisition form today. Eight months of practicing the attending
physician’s signature is about to pay off… .

9:47 a.m.—Rush-hour traffic collision. Crushed sternum.
Splinters of bone sticking through his skin. Two punctured lungs. Death is a
mercy. Hey, is that coffee on his shirt? Smells good. Wonder what kind of
creamer he uses?

10:38 a.m.—Third period. Kaylee has no class this period. I
have no one to kill. Coincidence, or fate?

11:54 a.m.—Six minutes left on my shift.
I
will not go to the school after work. I will not go to the school after
work. I will not go to the school after
—

12:22 p.m.—Lunch in the quad. Nash is having pizza. I don’t
care if I never see another slice of pizza. Kaylee’s wearing that blue shirt
again. That one that matches her eyes. She looks tired.
I
will not show myself to her at lunch. I will not show myself to her at
lunch. I will not show
—

12:24 p.m.—Nash’s pizza tastes as bland as it looks. But since
I already took a bite, he said I should just take the rest of it. Wonder what
would happen if I took a nibble on Kaylee…?

1:48 p.m.—Wonder what would happen if I switch the labels on
some of the bottles in the chemistry lab’s storage closet? Ooh! Or I could test
the acidity of the toilet-bowl water with these litmus strips. I’m betting it’s
acidic… .

2:36 p.m.—Seriously,
why
do they
still teach history in school? If it’s going to repeat itself, anyway, can’t we
just catch it the next time around?

3:02 p.m.—School’s out. Only nine more hours to kill until
there will be actual people to kill. Er, reap.

4:22 p.m.—Large pepperoni and sausage. There in thirty minutes,
or your money back. Minus the fifty-second commute, and the actual delivery
leaves me twenty-five minutes to pop over to Mom’s house for a brownie.

4:26 p.m.—Kaylee and Nash are trying to swallow each other
whole. I suggested they eat the brownies instead. Nash threw one at me. My
appetite is gone.

4:40 p.m.—There’s never anything good on TV. At the hospital,
they only play news and cartoons. And not the good cartoons. The ones where
animals dance around and some little girl with a big head counts in Spanish.
Ayúdame!

4:41 p.m.—If Nash and Kaylee are going to make out instead of
watching the movie, they should just hand over the remote.

4:42 p.m.—The remote slid down between them on the couch, and I
am
not
going after it.

4:43 p.m.—I wonder if there’s any reasonable way to reinterpret
the phrase “Get the hell out of here, Tod” to mean “Please stay and help us
maintain the PG rating on this hormonal train wreck.” Maybe if I rearrange the
letters…

5:58 p.m.—Dude. Do NOT answer the door in your underwear. No
two-dollar tip is worth that. Now I’m going to have to find something prettier
to purge that mental image. Mangled bunny roadkill should do the trick.

7:00 p.m.—Is it time to reap souls yet?

7:01 p.m.—Seriously, has time stopped moving? Is this what
eternity feels like?

9:10 p.m.—Kaylee’s practicing conjugating irregular verbs for a
French test tomorrow. I said I’d check the verb chart for her, but this stupid
language has more sounds than letters, and I’m not sure I even remember how to
conjugate English verbs.

9:24 p.m.—I have no idea what she’s saying, but it’s hot.

11:05 p.m.—Sabine suggests we play Guess Whose Life Sucks
Worse. I can’t lose this one. I’m not even alive.

11:14 p.m.—New game. Guess Whose
Love
Life Sucks Worse. It’s a tie. A big, pathetic tie.

1:00 a.m.—An hour into my shift, and no one’s died yet. Is it
possible to be bored to death if you’re already dead?

3:42 a.m.—Massive cranial and spinal trauma from head-on
collision. A cause of death near and dear to my heart.
Now
we’re talkin’…

5:19 a.m.—The guy in room 434 looks tired. He looks
done.
We both know this is the last room he’ll ever
see, and he’s ready to end it. He deserves a merciful, peaceful death in his
sleep. But he’s not scheduled to go for another four days. Poor guy. Sometimes I
wish I was the boss.

7:43 a.m.—Hit-and-run at an elementary school crosswalk. She
can’t be more than eight years old. I hate my job.

8:00 a.m.—Parents crying in the waiting room. They don’t know
yet. I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t have to see her last moments. I wish
I didn’t have to
be
her last moments. I’m sick of
white walls and endings. The only thing that doesn’t end in this place is me. I
don’t end. I just go on, and on, swinging that scythe glued to my hand. There’s
no rhythm to the strokes. Few see death coming, and even those who do see death
don’t see
me.
Because there is no me. Not anymore.
Always the reaper, never the reaped. Soon that won’t bother me. Soon I won’t
care. Emotional death follows physical death at a different pace for each
reaper. I’ve put it off for more than two years, but it’s inevitable.

It would take a miracle to keep me alive on the inside.

When I was a kid, my mom said that everyone gets one miracle.
She said the trick is recognizing your miracle from a distance, so you’re ready
when it arrives. I’m watching. I’m waiting.

I’m ready for my miracle.

Keep reading for an excerpt of
My Soul to
Take
by Rachel Vincent!

Acknowledgments

Thanks first of all to my husband, who puts up with the
mental fog I walk around in midbook.

Thanks to my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, for endless advice
and patience.

Thanks to everyone at Harlequin Teen, for everything done
behind the scenes to make this book happen. That is truly an enormous list.

Thanks to my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, who made this book
possible.

And a special thanks to Karen Shangraw, who brought Kaylee’s
guidance counselor to life.

The Netherworld—a terrifying, hidden world full of reapers,
hellions and countless other mythical monsters out to possess the body and soul
of teenage bean sidhe (banshee) Kaylee Cavanaugh. Find out how it all began with
the first titles in Rachel Vincent’s Soul Screamers series.

My Soul to Lose
(prequel
novella)
My Soul to Take
My Soul to
Save
My Soul to Keep
My Soul to Steal
Reaper
(book 4
prequel novella)
If I Die

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1

“C
OME
ON
!
” E
MMA
whispered from my right, her words floating from her mouth in a thin white
cloud. She glared at the battered steel panel in front of us, as if her own
impatience would make the door open. “She forgot, Kaylee. I should have known
she would.” More white puffs drifted from
Emma’s
perfectly painted mouth as she bounced to
stay warm, her curves barely contained in the low-cut shimmery red blouse she’d
“borrowed” from one of her sisters.

Yes, I was a little envious; I had few curves and no sister
from whom to borrow hot clothes. But I did have the time, and one glance at my
cell phone told me it was still four minutes to nine. “She’ll be here.” I
smoothed the front of my own shirt and slid my phone into my pocket as Emma
knocked for the third time. “We’re early. Just give her a minute.”

My own puff of breath had yet to fade when metal creaked and
the door swung slowly toward us, leaking rhythmic flashes of smoky light and a
low thumping beat into the cold, dark alley. Traci Marshall—Emma’s youngest
older sister—stood with one palm flat against the door, holding it open. She
wore a snug, low-cut black tee, readily displaying the family resemblance, as if
the long blond hair wasn’t enough.

“’Bout time!” Emma snapped, stepping forward to brush past her
sister. But Traci slapped her free hand against the door frame, blocking our
entrance.

She returned my smile briefly, then frowned at her sister.
“Nice to see you too. Tell me the rules.”

Emma rolled wide-set brown eyes and rubbed her bare,
goose-pimpled arms—we’d left our jackets in my car. “No alcohol, no chemicals.
No fun of any sort.” She mumbled that last part, and I stifled a smile.

“What else?” Traci demanded, obviously struggling to main-tain
a rare scowl.

“Come together, stay together, leave together,” I supplied,
reciting the same lines we’d repeated each time she snuck us in—only twice
before. The rules were lame, but I knew from experience that we wouldn’t get in
without them.

“And…”

Emma stamped her feet for warmth, chunky heels clacking on the
concrete. “If we get caught, we don’t know you.”

As if anyone would believe that. The Marshall girls were all
cast from the same mold: a tall, voluptuous mold that put my own modest curves
to shame.

Traci nodded, apparently satisfied, and let her hand fall from
the door frame. Emma stepped forward and her sister frowned, pulling her into
the light from the hall fixture overhead. “Is that Cara’s new shirt?”

Emma scowled and tugged her arm free. “She’ll never know it’s
gone.”

Traci laughed and motioned with one arm toward the front of the
club, from which light and sound flooded the back rooms and offices. Now that we
were all inside, she had to shout to be heard over the music. “Enjoy the rest of
your life while it lasts, ’cause she’s gonna
bury
you in that shirt.”

Unperturbed, Emma danced her way down the hall and into the
main room, hands in the air, hips swaying with the pulse of the song. I followed
her, keyed up by the energy of the Saturday-night crowd from the moment I saw
the first cluster of bodies in motion.

We worked our way into the throng and were swallowed by it,
assimilated by the beat, the heat and the casual partners pulling us close. We
danced through several songs, together, alone and in random pairs, until I was
breathing hard and damp with sweat. I signaled Emma that I was going for a
drink, and she nodded, already moving again as I worked my way toward the edge
of the crowd.

Behind the bar, Traci worked alongside another bartender, a
large, dark man in a snug black tee, both oddly lit by a strip of blue neon
overhead. I claimed the first abandoned bar stool, and the man in black propped
both broad palms on the bar in front of me.

“I got this one,” Traci said, one hand on his arm. He nodded
and moved on to the next customer. “What’ll it be?” Traci smoothed back a stray
strand of pale, blue-tinted hair.

I grinned, leaning with both elbows on the bar. “Jack and
Coke?”

She laughed. “I’ll give you the Coke.” She shot soda into a
glass of ice and slid it toward me. I pushed a five across the bar and swiveled
on my stool to watch the dance floor, scanning the multitude for Emma. She was
sandwiched between two guys in matching UT Dallas fraternity tees and neon,
legal-to-drink bracelets, all three grinding in unison.

Emma drew attention like wool draws static.

Still smiling, I drained my soda and set my glass on the
bar.

“Kaylee Cavanaugh.”

I jumped at the sound of my own name and whirled toward the
stool to my left. My gaze settled on the most hypnotic set of hazel eyes I’d
ever seen, and for several seconds I could only stare, lost in the most amazing
swirls of deep brown and vivid green, which seemed to churn in time with my own
heartbeat—though surely they were just reflecting the lights flashing overhead.
My focus only returned when I had to blink, and the momentary loss of contact
brought me back to myself.

That’s when I realized who I was staring at.

Nash Hudson. Holy crap. I almost looked down to see if ice had
anchored my feet to the floor, since hell had surely frozen over. Somehow I’d
stepped off the dance floor and into some weird warp zone where irises swam
with color and Nash Hudson smiled at me, and me
alone.

I picked up my glass, hoping for one last drop to rewet my
suddenly dry throat—and wondered fleetingly if Traci
had
spiked my Coke—but discovered it every bit as empty as I’d
expected.

“Need a refill?” Nash asked, and that time I made my mouth
open. After all, if I was dreaming—or in the Twilight Zone—I had nothing to lose
by speaking. Right?

“I’m good. Thanks.” I ventured a hesitant smile, and my heart
nearly exploded when I saw my grin reflected on his upturned, perfectly formed
lips.

“How’d you get in here?” He arched one brow, more in amusement
than in real curiosity. “Crawl through the window?”

“Back door,” I whispered, feeling my face flush. Of course he
knew I was a junior—too young even for an eighteen-and-over club, like
Taboo.

“What?” He grinned and leaned closer to hear me above the
music. His breath brushed my neck, and my pulse pounded so hard I felt
light-headed. He smelled sooo good.

“Back door,” I repeated into his ear. “Emma’s sister works
here.”

“Emma’s here?”

I pointed her out on the dance floor—now swaying with three
guys at once—and assumed that would be the last I saw of Nash Hudson. But to my
near-fatal shock, he dismissed Em at a glance and turned back to me with a
mischievous gleam in those amazing eyes.

“Aren’t you gonna dance?”

My hand was suddenly sweaty around my empty glass. Did that
mean he wanted to dance with me? Or that he wanted the bar stool for his
girlfriend?

No, wait. He’d dumped his latest girlfriend the week before,
and the sharks were already circling the fresh meat.
Though
they’re not circling him now��
I saw no one from Nash’s usual crowd,
either clustered around him or on the dance floor.

“Yeah, I’m gonna dance,” I said, and again, his eyes were
swirling green melting into brown and back, flashing blue occasionally in the
neon glow. I could have stared at his eyes for hours. But he probably would have
thought that was weird.

“Let’s go!” He took my hand and stood as I slid off the bar
stool, and I followed him onto the dance floor. A fresh smile bloomed on my
face, and my chest seemed to tighten around my heart in anticipation. I’d known
him for a while—Emma had gone out with a few of his friends—but had never been
the sole object of his attention. Had never even considered the possibility.

If Eastlake High School were the universe, I would be one of
the moons circling Planet Emma, constantly hidden by her shadow, and glad to be
there. Nash Hudson would be one of the stars: too bright to look at, too hot to
touch and at the center of his own solar system.

But on the dance floor, I forgot all that. His light was
shining directly on me, and it was
sooo warm.

We wound up only feet from Emma, but with Nash’s hands on me,
his body pressed into mine, I barely noticed. That first song ended, and we were
moving to the next one before I even fully realized the beat had changed.

Several minutes later, I glimpsed Emma over Nash’s shoul-der.
She stood at the bar with one of the guys she’d been grinding with, and as I
watched, Traci set a drink in front of each of them. When her sister turned
around, Emma grabbed her partner’s drink—something dark with a wedge of lime on
the rim—and drained it in three gulps. Frat boy smiled, then pulled her back
into the crowd.

I made a mental note not to let Emma drive my car—ever—then let
my eyes wander back to Nash, where they wanted to be in the first place. But on
the way, my gaze was snagged by an unfamiliar sheet of strawberry-blond hair,
crowning the head of the only girl in the building to rival Emma in beauty. This
girl, too, had her choice of dance partners, and though she couldn’t have been
more than eighteen, she’d obviously had much more to drink than Emma.

But despite how pretty and obviously charismatic she was,
watching her dance twisted something deep inside my gut and made my chest
tighten, as if I couldn’t quite get enough air. Something was wrong with her. I
wasn’t sure how I knew, but I was absolutely certain that something was
not right
with that girl.

“You okay?” Nash shouted, laying one hand on my shoulder, and
suddenly I realized I’d gone still, while everyone around me was still writhing
to the beat.

“Yeah!” I shook off my discomfort and was relieved to find that
looking into Nash’s eyes chased away that feeling of
wrongness,
leaving in its place a new calm, eerie in its depth and
reach. We danced for several more songs, growing more comfortable with each
other with every moment that passed. By the time we stopped for a drink, sweat
was gathering on the back of my neck and my arms were damp.

I lifted the bulk of my hair to cool myself and waved to Emma
with my free hand as I turned to follow Nash off the dance floor—and nearly
collided with that same strawberry blonde. Not that she noticed. But the minute
my eyes found her, that feeling was back in spades—that strong discomfort, like
a bad taste in my mouth, only all over my body. And this time it was accompanied
by an odd sadness. A general melancholy that felt specifically connected to this
one person. Whom I’d never met.

“Kaylee?” Nash yelled over the music. He stood at the bar,
holding two tall glasses of soda, slick with condensation. I closed the space
between us and took the glass he offered, a little frightened to notice that
this time, even staring straight into his eyes couldn’t completely relax me.
Couldn’t quite loosen my throat, which threatened to close against the cold
drink I so desperately craved.

“What’s wrong?” We stood inches apart, thanks to the throng
pressing ever closer to the bar, but he still had to lean into me to be
heard.

“I don’t know. Something about that girl, that redhead over
there—” I nodded toward the dancer in question “—bothers me.”
Well, crap.
I hadn’t meant to admit that. It sounded
so pathetic aloud.

But Nash only glanced at the girl, then back at me. “Seems okay
to me. Assuming she has a ride home…”

“Yeah, I guess.” But then the current song ended, and the girl
stumbled—looking somehow graceful, even when obviously intoxicated—off the dance
floor and toward the bar. Headed right for us.

My heart beat harder with every step she took. My hand curled
around my glass until my knuckles went white. And that familiar sense of
melancholy swelled into an overwhelming feeling of grief. Of dark
foreboding.

I gasped, startled by a sudden, gruesome certainty.

Not again.
Not with Nash Hudson
there to watch me completely freak out. My breakdown would be all over the
school on Monday, and I could kiss goodbye what little social standing I’d
gained.

Nash set his glass down and peered into my face. “Kaylee? You
okay?” But I could only shake my head, incapable of answering. I was
far
from okay, but couldn’t articulate the problem in
any way resembling coherence. And suddenly the potentially devastating rumors
looked like minor blips on my disaster meter compared to the panic growing
inside me.

Each breath came faster than the last, and a scream built deep
within my chest. I clamped my mouth shut to hold it back, grinding my teeth
painfully. The strawberry blonde stepped up to the bar on my left, and only a
single stool and its occupant stood between us. The male bartender took her
order and she turned sideways to wait for her drink. Her eyes met mine. She
smiled briefly, then stared out onto the dance floor.

Horror washed over me in a devastating wave of intuition. My
throat closed. I choked on a scream of terror. My glass slipped from my hand and
shattered on the floor. The redheaded dancer squealed and jumped back as
ice-cold soda splattered her, me, Nash, and the man on the stool to my left. But
I barely noticed the frigid liquid, or the people staring at me.

I saw only the girl, and the dark, translucent shadow that had
enveloped her.

“Kaylee?” Nash tilted my face up so that our eyes met. His were
full of concern, the colors swirling almost out of control now in the flashing
lights. Watching them made me dizzy.

I wanted to tell him…something. Anything. But if I opened my
mouth, the scream would rip free, and then anyone who wasn’t already looking at
me would turn to stare. They’d think I’d lost my mind.

Maybe they’d be right.