Breathless (15 page)

I yell Hart’s name, and he doesn’t even flinch.

My heart sinks.

This isn’t good… not good at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Lucien

M
Y HEAD IS POUNDING.

It’s not a pleasant feeling.

I haven’t had a headache, body ache, any sort of sickness since I died all those years ago. One of the perks of being an angel.

One of the many perks of being an angel.

Some people might not be all about the Heaven life, but for me, I loved it. I miss it. When all of this is over, I want to go back to Heaven. Not just Heaven. I want to be an angel. I want to do good and help people.

Not that what I did with Seth was good… not that disobeying Tina was good. It wasn’t, and the world will burn for it. Heaven would never take me back. Even if I didn’t have demon blood in me. Even if I were the same Lucien I used to be, it wouldn’t want me back. I guess we all have a hand to play in the end of the world. Seth is Gracen’s father, the angel who had sex with a human. Hart is the demon who gave her the blood that changed her. I’m the angel who was too stupid and too self-confident and so prideful that I didn’t listen to a direct order from Tina. She wanted me to take care of Gracen while she was still human, but I couldn’t. I liked her, was fascinated with her, and I didn’t want to take her away from the world if I had any other choices.

I made the wrong choice.

One person’s life isn’t worth all the countless others who have died today because of her.

So a little headache in the scheme of things is small potatoes. Nothing. I deserve much more.

My brother deserves a lot more.

I lean my head back against the arm of the couch and tilt my head toward Hart and Seth’s little pissing contest. Hart is slouching in his chair, and Seth is kneeling in front of him. If looks are any indication, I believe Seth is going to rip Hart’s head off. Too bad he can’t, because if he does, he’ll never find the book. The one book that maybe—and that’s a big maybe—bring some order back into the world. It might stop Gracen like I should’ve done myself before it all got out of hand.

That’s on me.

That’s my burden.

That’s the thing I have to bear.

“I’ll never trust you again.” Hart’s voice is very low and deep and, I’ll admit it, scary. He sits up and pushes Seth in the chest. Seth, being a big bad angel, doesn’t budge. Bet Hart is really missing his demon powers right about now. I know I’m missing my angel ones.

“You don’t have a choice.” Seth bites back. The snarkiness is over. It’s time to get real. Bad things are happening all around, and it’s time to get over our issues and work on a plan.

Except I don’t see these two doing that.

“The hell I don’t have a choice. The last time I trusted you, I shot my brother, became a demon, and killed the world.”

He has a point.

“Well, this time you should listen better.”

Hart’s fist balls up, and I’m fairly sure he’s going to punch Seth’s lights out. Or at least try. He won’t get far, if I know Seth. And I know Seth.

Seth keeps right on talking. “We’ve been around and around this, boy. You don’t have to like it. I sure don’t like it, but it’s what has to be done to keep the Abomination from destroying the world. She’s already killed thousands of people. We have to stop this bickering before she kills more. You know I’m right. You know we have to stop her before she stops everything else.”

Hart is breathing heavily. His chest looks like it might explode. I feel like mine will. I don’t have as strong of feelings for Gracen as Hart seems to have, but it seems an impossible choice. I don’t envy him. Not on this matter anyway.

Hart’s nose flares slightly. “We need to get her soul back inside her body.”

Seth blinks a few times. “We… what?”

Hart bites his bottom lip so hard I expect to see blood trickling down his chin like it is from his forehead. “We get her soul, and we put it back inside her body. Then she makes the Abomination stop.”

“You really think that’ll work?” They both look at me like they’ve both forgotten I’m here. No hard feelings. I’d like to forget I’m here too.

“I think it’s the only choice we have.” Hart sounds very, very serious. I don’t like it when he sounds serious.

Seth shakes his head and paces toward the door. “Let’s say we take you up on your rather insane idea and attempt it. We have no idea how to put Gracen’s soul back inside her body. You hid the book, remember? We have no idea if how to rejoin her body and soul is even in there.”

“It has to be. Something in that book has to help.” Hart heads toward the door.

Seth stops him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

My thoughts are that he’s going to go get the book. Guess he’s decided to trust us after all. I hope that’s a smart move on his part. “Get out of my way.” Hart tries to move past Seth, but Seth just moves back to block the other side of the door.

“Not until you tell me where the book is, so I can zap over to get it and bring it back here.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Why wouldn’t you believe me?”

I have a feeling Hart’s blood pressure is going sky high. “Get out of my way, you stupid son of a bitch angel.”

“Not until you tell me where the book is, you stupid son of a bitch human.” He says
human
like it’s the lowliest word on the planet. It is.

Hart’s had enough. He balls up his fist, pulls back, and as if we are in slow motion, he hurls his fist toward Seth’s jaw.

I yell his name and try to jump up and stop him.

I hear a glass break from the kitchen. Nobody is in the kitchen.

It is loud enough to get Hart’s attention. He doesn’t let Seth go, but he holds on to him with one hand balled up in the professor’s vest.

I look at Hart.

Hart looks at me.

“She’s here, Mr. Blackwell.” Seth smirks. “Gracen is here in the house with us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Hart

H
E’S TRICKING ME.
T
HAT’S THE FIRST
thing I think when Seth says Gracen is there. She’s not there. She can’t be there. Why, in all the world and in all the places, would she be here with us?

“No, she’s not. You lying bastard.” I push him back against the doorframe. Guess he’s too busy pretending to see ghosts to stop me.

Seth points. “She’s right behind you.”

I’ll break his finger. If he so much as points again, it’s gone.

“Stop… just stop. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but it’s cruel. Incredibly cruel, and you need to stop.” To make my point even clearer, in case he needs it, I wrap my fingers around his neck and start to squeeze. It won’t kill him. But it’ll make me feel better. I think it’ll make me feel better. God, I hope it makes me feel better.

Lucien yells my name, but I don’t stop. I can’t stop until Seth stops lying. He’s gotten away with it long enough. I’m not putting up with it. Not anymore. It needs to stop.

“She wants you to stop.” He grunts through his limited breath.

“I bet she does.”

“No, she really does. She wants you to stop because she doesn’t want you hurting her father.”

I knee him in the stomach for that.

“Okay, maybe that’s not what she said, but she doesn’t want you to hurt me. She says things are bad in Crimson Ridge, and she thinks I’m the only one to put an end to it.”

“Now I know you’re lying. There is no way on God’s green Earth that Gracen would ever side with you. On anything. I think I know her better than that.”

Seth doesn’t try to fight me off. Why would an alligator fight off a gnat? Instead, he snaps his fingers, and I flinch. When an angel snaps his fingers at you, it can’t be good. Those things are powerful, and they can, in theory, make you either burst into flames or send you places you don’t want to go.

Seeing the fear I can’t hide, Seth smirks. “Turn around.”

Um… no thanks. I’ll stand right here with my hands wrapped around his neck, thank you.

“Hart.” It’s Lucien this time. Like I need to be reminded of my name. “You need to see this.”

“Don’t tell me you’re on his side too? You can’t be buying this… not you…”

The stream of words won’t connect from my brain to my mouth. I think I’ve said everything that needs to be said about fifteen thousand times today. I’m not helping Seth. I’m not bringing him the book. I’m not doing anything to hurt Gracen. I’m not…

“Hart? You’re alive?”

I quit squeezing Seth’s neck.

In fact, I quit everything.

I’m suddenly very aware of every molecule in my body because they’re all vibrating.

I look up at Seth, who simply nods.

It can’t be her.

Not here. I’m not that lucky.

“Hart?” She says again, and I close my eyes to let the sound linger. I had put on a brave face and kept saying that I would see her again. Hold her again. Touch her again. A small part of me never thought I’d actually ever see the day that it would happen. I never thought I’d actually get to see her or touch her. I never thought I’d hear her voice…

I let Seth’s neck go, and I turn.

There, standing next to the chair I had just been sitting in, in the glow of the candle placed on the little end table, stood Gracen. My Gracen.

In living color.

“Does it suck to be wrong all the time?”

Seth can bite me.

I’m to her in two seconds. I don’t care that I’ve never actually touched her as Hart or that I’ve never truly let my feelings be known. All I care about is pulling her to me and giving her a big hug. I need to hug her. I think she needs it too. I need her to need it too.

A second after I reach her, I’m on the other side of her.

Walked through her like she wasn’t even there.

“She’s a soul, Hart. Like a ghost. You can’t touch her. She can’t touch you. You wouldn’t even be able to see her if not for me, so how about giving me a little credit?” Seth straightens his tie and his shirt while he speaks. I can see him doing it, even though I’m looking at Gracen. Looking right through her.

“Fine. I’ll give you a little credit.” I don’t care that it isn’t as snarky as I want. I don’t care about Seth at all right now. I have Gracen with me, and that’s all that matters.

That’s all that has ever mattered.

“Don’t give him too much credit.” I like snarky Gracen. Seth’s glare lets me know that he doesn’t appreciate it very much. “Seth didn’t get me here. Colleen did.”

I stop and stare at Gracen. “Colleen? You saw Colleen?” Fear fills me. Fear and panic and all sorts of bad thoughts. What if Colleen told Gracen everything? What if she told her about how I’m responsible for her death? What if… what if Gracen can never love me again?

What if she never truly did?

What if…

Seth doesn’t stop for my panic attack. “I’m the reason those idiots can see you. If it weren’t for me, they’d never know you were here.”

“I broke a glass.”

“Mice can break glasses.” He counters. “Without me, you’d be nothing more than a residual haunting.”

She steps toward Seth. The old floorboards don’t even creak. “Without you, there wouldn’t be any Abominations in the first place.”

Touché.

Then again, without Seth and his little revenge plan on God, there never would’ve been a Gracen. There never would’ve been a person for me to love. Not again. Not after Colleen. It’s so strange to both love and loathe something. I love Gracen, and I loathe myself for what I did to her. I loathe Seth for what he did to me and Lucien, but a part of me feels grateful that Seth did what he did. Without it, there would never have been a Gracen for me to love.

Life is weird.

Even when you’re dead.

“Can we not do this right now?” Lucien sits on the edge of the couch and places his palm to his forehead. The pain has to be pretty intense or he never would show that he’s hurting. Maybe he’s just too tired and stressed and whatever we all are to try to hide it.

Personally, I wish he’d hide it. I don’t want to think of my big brother as hurting. I want to think of him as someone who is ready to do what has to be done—except for hurting Gracen—because that means he’s healthy. It means he’s sharp.

It doesn’t mean he’s as green as he is now. “You okay?” I ask the stupidest question in all of creation. I step around Gracen, because stepping through her is weird, and sit down on the coffee table in front of him. He doesn’t try to back away or shrug me off or smack me. He just sits there with his head down.

“Not really.”

“Yeah, steering wheels can really be bitches to foreheads.” I can’t help but remember the last car accident I was in. The branch stuck through my midsection, back when I was a demon and things like that were no worse than a toothpick stabbing the meaty part of your thumb. That white light saved us, Gracen and me. That’s why it’s so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that that same light wiped out everybody it touched.

Maybe I’m missing something.

I have to be missing something.

Seth said it was because she was stronger now. What if that isn’t it? What if there is something else going on? If I’m not careful, I’m going to be in the same shape as Lucien.

“Tell me about it. My eyes feel really funny.”

“They are old eyes. I imagine it would be weird if they felt normal.” I try to make light of the situation because that’s what I do. I make light of things when what I really want to do is turn and run the other direction.

I can’t run. My brother needs me. Gracen needs me.

Such a strange turn of events.

I take Lucien’s face in my hands and tilt his chin up until I can see his eyes. In the candlelight I can see things aren’t great. His pupils are dilated, and I think he might have a concussion. During moments like this, I wish I’d used my considerable time to go to medical school instead of tricking young girls into committing suicide.

Hindsight and all.

“Here, lie down.” I push him back gently and put his feet up on the couch. “Keep your eyes closed and try to relax. Don’t go to sleep though. I think sleeping is bad.”

Seth snickers. “Look at you being all Florence Nightingale.”