I did my best to ignore the reaper, and focus on Nash. “First of all, I’m not a piece of property that can be stolen.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Nash began, but I cut him off.
“And second of all, Tod isn’t trying to steal anything from you. You and your mom are all he has left in the world, and I don’t think he’d ever intentionally hurt you.”
“You know, Cain and Abel were brothers…” Thane said, and I whirled on him, fury sparking like fire in my veins. But before I could say a word, Nash followed my gaze and found…nothing.
“Is that him? Is he here?” Nash demanded. “Is he talking to you, now?”
“Why would this Tod be invisible?” Thane asked. “Don’t you have any human friends?”
I ignored him and focused on Nash. “No, it’s not Tod. It’s—”
“Uh-uh…” Thane taunted, crossing in front of me slowly, his nose brushing my cheek on its way to my ear, and I shuddered in revulsion. “If you tell him, I’ll have to kill him. And once I’ve broken one rule, I’m on the run anyway, so what’s to stop me from breaking another one and taking you right…now…?” He circled behind me, and his hand trailed across my lower back. I closed my eyes, fighting nausea at his touch.
“Kaylee!” Nash shouted. “Answer me!”
But I couldn’t. I could barely even think past the terror and loathing crawling through me.
“So this’ll be our little secret, right, Kaylee?” the reaper whispered into my other ear, as he completed the circle around me.
“Tod!” Nash growled through clenched teeth, glaring at random spots in the empty room. “Get the hell out of here.”
“It’s not Tod!” I said, and the reaper stiffened at my side, until I continued. “It’s not anyone.”
“Good girl…” Thane whispered. “Until next time…” Then he disappeared, and I leaned against the kitchen counter, sagging with relief.
“Then what’s wrong?” Nash asked, and my brain raced as I tried to refocus on him in the aftershock of Thane’s invasion.
“I don’t know, Nash. I don’t know if I like Tod.”
The truth was that I hadn’t even considered the possibility until a couple of hours earlier, because it hadn’t seemed real. I wasn’t Emma or Sophie. I didn’t have C-cups bouncing in front of me with every step and I didn’t dance around in tiny skirts. Guys didn’t fight over me. Nash was an anomaly. I never would have been on his radar if we didn’t share a species, so it had never occurred to me that I might be on anyone else’s.
In fact, the reverse had always seemed much more plausible—that someone else would steal him away from me.
“Do you like Sabine?” I asked softly, silently daring him to tell me the truth, in the face of his own accusations.
Nash turned and stomped into the living room. “This isn’t about Sabine.”
I followed him, truly irritated now. “Maybe it should be. You wanna know what I think?” I asked, then gave him no time to reply. “I think you do still like Sabine, at least a little bit. I think you like it that she still wants you, and you like flirting with her when I’m not there, dangling the possibility in front of her. Playing her game.” I sucked in a deep breath, surprised to realize that I was now thoroughly pissed at what amounted to his hypocrisy.
“But I think it goes beyond that. I know how serious the two of you were, and I don’t think you can ever really get over something like that. Not completely. And you know it. But you still hang out with her, alone, in your room. Practically daring each other to take things beyond friendship. Then you have the nerve to ask me if I like Tod, three days before I’m going to die?”
How could the four of us possibly be so tangled up in one another? And how could I not have seen it coming?
Nash stared at me, stunned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry I opened this can of worms, especially now. I swear I have no intention of taking things beyond friendship with Sabine, but this is the second time this week you’ve stood me up, then turned up with Tod. And I know he wants you, and it was starting to look like that might be mutual…?”
His voice went up on the end in question. He was still asking. And I didn’t want to lie. But did it really matter? So what if Tod was funny, and unpredictable, and there every time I needed him. So what if he liked it when I “raged” against things and didn’t think I was crazy for wanting to break into Lakeside? So what if he’d spent months hanging out, getting to know me instead of trying to feel me up the first week we met.
What did that matter? What good was the possibility—the life-changing, love-wrecking possibility—when I wouldn’t be around to explore it?
Should I admit that I might—might—like Tod back, when that would wreck everything between me and Nash for no reason at all?
It would be different if I weren’t dying. If I was going to have a chance to decide how I felt and think about the long-term consequences. But since that wasn’t going to happen…
“Nash, why would I be with you, if I liked him?”
Instead of answering, Nash pulled me closer, staring into my eyes, and for a moment, panic consumed me. Then I swallowed my panic and steadied my breathing, focusing on how desperately I didn’t want to hurt Nash.
“So, we’re okay?” he asked, and I realized I’d controlled the telltale swirling in my eyes, possibly for the first time in my life.
“Yes, we’re fine.”
“Well then,” Nash said, brows arched in challenge, like he wasn’t sure he completely believed me. “I can’t help noticing that we’re all alone here.” He squeezed me tighter and whispered into my ear, though there was no one else to hear him. “I say we go to your room and start granting wishes…”
A couple of hours earlier, I would have led him to my room with my head spinning, the rest of me on fire with anticipation. But now, it didn’t feel right. Tod was right—I did want to sleep with Nash just to say I’d done it. To know what it felt like. But Nash would think it meant more than that.
Lying to avoid hurting him felt bad enough, and I was only doing it because I’d be gone in a few days, but Tod wouldn’t, and three hundred years was a long time to hate your own brother.
But sleeping with Nash for the wrong reason was something else entirely. I couldn’t use him like that. So I lied again.
“It’s been a really long day, and I’m kind of starving. Why don’t we order Chinese and watch a movie? Your choice.”
Nash frowned. “I thought you wanted to.”
“I did. I do. Just…not tonight.” Not that there were many nights left, but I’d deal with those as they came.
“Are you still mad because I asked about Tod?”
“No. Nash, this has nothing to do with Tod, and I’m not mad at you. Everything’s fine.” Surely the biggest lie I’d ever told.
He looked unconvinced, but dropped a kiss on my forehead anyway and tried to hide his disappointment. “You order the food, I’ll find a movie. It doesn’t matter what we do. Just being with you is enough for me.”
My guilt was like the ocean, swallowing me whole.
“When you were little, you used to call those ‘pop hearts,’” my dad said, and I looked up from my blueberry toaster pastry to find him standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Hey. Where were you last night?” He looked like hell. Bloodshot eyes, dark circles, pale skin.
“Out looking for a miracle.” My dad sighed and trudged toward the coffeepot.
“Okay then,” I said as he poured. “Where were you all day yesterday? Mr. Ryan left a message on the machine. He says if you don’t come in today, you’re fired. Have you even been to work this week?”
He took the first sip of black coffee without bothering to replace the pot. “I have more important things to worry about right now, Kaylee. But the universe seems adamant that you are the only miracle I’m going to get.”