Inbetween (Kissed by Death, #1) (7 page)

“Then what if it’s something else? Someone else?” My voice trembled like glass ready to shatter. “What if it’s whatever has been trying to hurt me the past two years?”

“Those were accidents,” Cash said gently. “When you got home from Brookhaven, you said you understood that.”

I’d said whatever they wanted me to say to get out of that place.

Cash let go of my hand and folded his hands in his lap. He had that worried look on his face. It was the same look he had when he visited me at Brookhaven. When I told him about the memories that didn’t belong to me. When I told him I knew I was going to die. God, I hated the way he was looking at me.

“I’m not crazy,” I whispered. “I just want to try it.”

He sighed and his shoulders slumped. “I know you’re not crazy, but I don’t want you to give your mom any more ammunition. I can’t lose you like that again.”

I nodded, but the emotions crawling around inside me made me want to scream. Cash was my person. He was supposed to be the one who believed me when the rest of the world thought I was nuts. But maybe I was. Maybe he was right to say the words that came next. The words I didn’t want to hear. The words he didn’t want to have to say.

“Did you take your pill today?”

I picked up my remote and turned on the TV so I’d have somewhere else to look. So that there would be something but this god-awful silence between us and the resentment brewing in my gut.

“Stop it.” Cash grabbed the remote from me and pointed it over his shoulder to turn it off.

“Stop what?” I grabbed my pillow and tucked it against my chest so he wouldn’t see me shaking. “It was a stupid idea. We’re done talking about it.”

His dark eyes burned into me. “Don’t do this.” He stared down at me, jaw clenched. “Don’t shut me out.”

“You don’t want to hear what I have to say,” I said.

“It’s not that! I just—”

“You just what?”

Cash stopped and looked at me like he knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere. He was right. He shook his head and slipped off the bed the way I wanted to slip out of my skin. He was going to be able to walk out my door and leave all this behind. But I couldn’t. Not when it was my life. Not when it was going to be my death.

“It’s happening all over again, isn’t it?”

I felt like I was being analyzed under a microscope. Diagnosed all over again. I wanted to scream at him to stop looking at me like that. I squeezed the pillow tighter. “I’m fine. Just go home. Please.”

Cash sighed. “If you’re so fine, come with me to the bonfire.”

“You don’t need me there.”

“I
do
need you there.” He hesitated for a moment, then kicked the side of my bed and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Who else will talk me out of making a complete ass of myself?”

This.
This
was why I loved Cash. Why he was the one stable thing in my life while the rest of the world spun out of control around me. He always knew what to say to ease the pressure, make me smile, make me forget why we were fighting in the first place.

“You’ll do that whether I’m there or not, and we both know it.”

Cash smiled, but I could tell he wasn’t ready to let the rest go. He was waiting for me to snap again. I wanted to be mad at him for it, but if I was being honest, I was waiting for it, too.

“Besides,” I said. “You’ll ditch me as soon as you find somebody to take home.”

“I won’t.” He balanced an empty Dixie cup from my nightstand on top of my head like a little red top hat. “I’d never leave you alone. Promise.”

“You don’t have to babysit me. I’m not going to do something stupid.”

He knelt down in front of me. “I don’t want to babysit you. I want you to come have fun with me and forget about all of this crap for a little while.”

I slapped the cup off of my head. “Fine. I’ll meet you there.”

“Why don’t you just ride with me?”

He knew I’d bail if I didn’t go with him. Any other day, I wouldn’t have been caught dead at one of these stupid bonfires. Especially after what happened today. God, I really wanted to bail, but the look on his face made my chest feel tight. I couldn’t let him think I was shutting him out. Besides, I was still about a gazillion pictures short for the yearbook.

He lingered in front of my window, waiting.

I pulled at a thread on my shirt, already feeling the fear wind like vines around my throat, and said, “Pick me up at seven.”

Chapter 6

Finn

I missed the feel of rain. It poured from the gray October sky in buckets, in such a hurry to get to the ground that it rushed right through me. If I were alive, I’d be drenched. Instead, I stood frustratingly dry, staring at the soft light coming from Emma’s window as the dimming sky turned everything around me into shadows.

When I was alone like this, it was too easy for my mind to wander into territory that made what was in front of me that much harder to deal with. I closed my eyes and gave in, letting images of Allison swirl around in my head. It was useless to try to stop the memories of her. They always won, no matter how hard I tried to block them out.

Allison leaned her head against my shoulder. “I wish I could have known you while we were both alive.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Mama and Daddy would have loved you.” She laced her fingers through mine. “Daddy never liked my other boyfriends.”

I laughed and pressed a kiss into her hair. “I don’t want to hear about your other boyfriends.”

“Jealous?” I could hear the smile behind her words.

I pulled her into my lap and tucked her hair behind her ear. Our skin turned to sparks when it touched. I brushed my lips against hers and said, “Very.”

Allison kissed me back, then pulled away, her breath cool against my face. “Don’t ever leave me, Finn.” When I didn’t respond she frowned. “Say it. Say you won’t ever leave.”

“I won’t ever leave you.”

My chest ached with the memory and I cursed myself for letting it out. It only made being this close to Emma harder. I wanted to touch her like that again. I wanted to keep my promise. I wanted—

“Why are you standing out here in the rain?”

I didn’t turn around. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Maeve’s brilliant red hair flowing like a halo around her head. Instead, I stared at Emma’s window, waiting for the right moment to go back in.

“She’s changing.” I folded my arms across my chest. After seventeen years of Maeve taunting and harassing me, and me not being able to do anything about it, I was exhausted. I was in no way, shape, or form in the mood for this.

“And?”

“And I’m giving her some privacy. I doubt she’d want me to see her without her clothes on. Some girls are funny that way.”

Maeve laughed, maybe to be cruel, maybe just to make fun of the idiot standing in the rain. Hell, maybe she just truly thought it was funny. Either way I couldn’t stand the sound of it. “What do you want from me?”

“Who said I want anything from you?” She tiptoed around me, lithe as a ballet dancer, fingers laced behind her back. I couldn’t help but notice the inky black veins inching their way up her pale neck, and the streak of gray weaving its way through her red hair. The darkness was eating her from the inside out.

“So you’re just here to torture me some more then?”

“I’m waiting you out.” Maeve stared though glittery hazel eyes at Emma’s window with an unsettling amount of hate and want. “I figure you’ll get called out eventually.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Maeve stood in front of me to get my attention and placed a hand on her hip. “Hey, shouldn’t you be writhing in pain somewhere right now?” She smiled. “Did you think Balthazar wouldn’t see your little stunt today at the school? That was clever going corporeal like that to save her. Clever, but stupid.”

“I wouldn’t have had to it if it weren’t for you.”

“Why not do it again?” she asked. “Go on. Go talk to her. Make her fall in
love
with you all over again. Think of how happy you could be!”

“Maeve…”

“To hell with that, think of how happy
I’ll
be when Balthazar turns you to dust for it.” She laughed. “Or even better, how much she’ll despise you when she finds out what you did.”

I would have given anything in that moment to have the ability to annihilate a lost soul. To haul her off to Hell myself. But I didn’t. Unless it was a soul exiting a body, it was out of Balthazar’s jurisdiction, which meant I couldn’t do a damn thing about Maeve. To Balthazar, one lost soul wasn’t a good enough reason to bring down the Almighty’s wrath. All I could do was watch her try and try again, and hope to God I—or Easton and Anaya, if I was desperate—got there in time to stop her. And she knew it.

The porch light flickered on, signaling the approaching darkness. I closed my eyes and remembered the look in Emma’s wide eyes as she stared back at me, seeing me for the first time in two years. The rush of heat, that hopeful desire inside me bursting into flames as I realized the impossible was possible.

Behind us, laughter bounced through Cash’s little studio, and the walls pulsed with music, drowning out the ping of raindrops on the metal roof. He had a girl in there. He usually did.

Maeve stared at the building. “Don’t you miss it? Being alive? Having a body?”

“Go away.”

Maeve paused, examining me like a lion about to devour its prey. After all these years, she was still painfully good at finding my weaknesses. “I do. I miss being touched.” She grinned. “I miss boys.”

My fingers moved down to my waist. My wrist brushed the scythe there.

“Have you seen the kid next door?”

I didn’t answer.

Maeve touched her lips and sighed. “I’ll bet he’s a good kisser. But I’m sure Emma knows all about that, right? Can you imagine it? His mouth on her lips?” She giggled. “If she hasn’t gone there yet, I’d bet money she thinks about it. Hell, she probably
dreams
about it. I know I would.”

“Please leave,” I said, exhausted. “I can’t do this right now.”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.”

“I don’t make deals with…” I gave her a sidelong glance. “With whatever it is you are now.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Finn. You and I are the same, and you know it.”

“No. We’re not. I came here to protect her; you came here to hurt her. Trust me—we’re not even in the vicinity of being the same.”

That seemed to strike a chord. I could feel the heat of her anger scorching me. “It was my turn! That body…” She pointed a shaky finger toward the house. “That
life
belonged to me. And you stole it!
She
stole it!”

“She didn’t do anything. I did. You want to hurt someone?” I turned to face her. “Hurt me.”

She smoothed out her hair, a ripple of flaming silk under her milk-white fingers. “I intend to. But since you can’t feel physical pain, emotional will have to do.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was like a snake shedding its skin. Her brows furrowed, the dark wheels in her head grinding into motion, and then she darted away so quickly she faded into a blur of green and red. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Maeve’s pale hand reaching out, ready to dissolve through burgundy brick. Emma’s slender silhouette behind the window. Everything went red. Common sense fled my mind. I didn’t even realize I’d moved until I looked down and Maeve’s wide eyes were staring up at me. The only thing separating the blade of my scythe and her pale neck was a thread of fresh air.

She giggled like I’d told a joke. “It won’t do anything to me and you know it.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Well, we could always try it and see what happens.” I moved the blade at her collarbone. Raindrops fell through us both, undeterred.

“Go ahead.” Maeve smiled and inched her neck up closer. “It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? All those empty threats. You really are hilarious, Finn.” She pushed off the wall and swirled through me like vapor.

I holstered my scythe. “You can’t keep this up forever.”

“Sure I can. I’ve got loads of time thanks to you.”

It was a lie and she knew it. It’s why she was so desperate to hurt Emma while she could. The darkness was ready to swallow her whole. She didn’t have long before the shadows took her completely.

I ran my hands through my hair and gripped the back of my head. My fingers twitched, aching to grab my scythe again. “When are you going to get it? I won’t let my guard down. Ever.”

She stared at me for a long moment, no doubt seeing the anger harden my face from the inside out. “Tell you what, Romeo. You give up now and I won’t make it painful for her. Then you two could float off into the sunset together. What do you think?”

What did I think? I didn’t know what I thought anymore. I knew I’d do anything for her. I knew I’d give anything for this barrier between us to disappear so we could be together again. But giving into Maeve, giving up my position and letting Emma die, then whisking her away before another reaper could take her… It wasn’t going to happen. What kind of afterlife would that be? Sure, we’d be together, but we’d also be lost. Wandering the earth, just waiting for the shadows to descend. I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t do that to us. “I think you’re completely insane if you think I would help you kill my reason for existing.”

“God, I don’t get you! What’s even more annoying is that I don’t get her! She’s wasting it away! She sits in that hole of a room with her stupid journal, or takes pictures of things she refuses to actually experience. Riveting stuff there.” She stopped to roll her eyes. “I swear it’s the saddest, most boring waste of life I’ve ever seen.” She finished with a sigh, plopping down into the wet grass.

A spike of cold lashed at my hip. A call. Of course I’d get one now. I blinked up at the sky. What the hell was I supposed to do now? I couldn’t leave like this. Not with Maeve a few feet away and a whole night of high school partying on the horizon. “What would you say to a truce? Just for the night.”

She laughed. “Why in God’s name would I do that?”

I spotted Cash jogging across the lawn, his jacket pulled up over his head to protect him from the rain, and the tightness in my chest eased. He stomped onto the lit-up porch and beat on Emma’s door. At least she wouldn’t be alone. Cold seared my insides and I knew I couldn’t ignore the call any longer.

“You know what?” I smiled at her, and then watched Cash’s disappear into the house. “I think she’ll be fine. I’ll see you later.”

Maeve’s face hardened into a cold expression. “Fine?” She glanced at the house and darkness pulsed beneath her pale skin. “Don’t count on it.”

I opened my mouth but the words didn’t come. The cold inside was too much. Pulling. Clawing. I shut my eyes against the pain and when I opened them again, I was gone.