“I’ll do it. I’ll make the deal.” Sabine shrugged. “I’m not giving up my soul, but other than that, I’m flexible. How bad could it be?”
I stared at her in horror. “That’s the scariest question I’ve ever heard.”
Em frowned. “Sabine, he already tried to kill you.”
“Actually, he wasn’t trying to kill her,” I admitted, reluctantly aware that they might misinterpret that as my support for her kamikaze mission. “He was trying to piss us all off.”
“That’s not the point.” Nash took Sabine’s hand. “I don’t want any of you putting yourselves in danger. She’s my mom. This is my responsibility. I’ll do it.” He let go of Sabine and stood, facing me. “Kaylee, how the hell do you summon a hellion?”
“I can’t...” I took a deep breath, then started over—he wasn’t going to like my answer. “Nash, I can’t tell you that. I can’t let you summon Ira.” He’d get himself killed, and it would be my fault.
His eyes churned with swift currents of brown and green, with flashes of anger like lightning splitting the storm. “Does it give you some kind of perverse pleasure to tell me no? Because that’s all I ever hear from you anymore. Actually, that’s all I’ve ever heard from you.”
“Okay, stop it, Nash.” My gaze clashed with his, and I wondered what he saw in my eyes. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“Who appointed you defender of mankind? I don’t need your protection! None of us do!”
“I do, kind of,” Em said, but no one was really listening. “Sometimes...”
I stood, facing Nash across the coffee table. “I’m not going to let you summon a hellion, especially when you’re so desperate to find your mother that you’d give him whatever he wants.”
“That’s my call. You have no right to stand in my way.”
“I may not have the right, but I have the responsibility. You’re my friend—you’re more than a friend—and you have a less-than-stellar record with human-to-hellion interactions. I’m not going to give you what you need to make another mistake, and, frankly, I don’t think it’s fair of you to ask me to, considering that if something happens to you, we’ll all have to put ourselves in even more danger to rescue you. Don’t you think we’re missing enough loved ones already?”
Yes, I was aware of my own hypocrisy, even as the words left my mouth. But putting myself in danger was different than letting him do the same thing, because Nash was a hellion addict. And because he was too emotional to think clearly. And because he’d never even met Ira. And...
And because I was terrified of losing him. Of losing any of them. I wasn’t willing to take risks with my friends’ lives like I was with my own, because I loved them. All of them. Even the ones I didn’t always like. I couldn’t give Nash the means to get himself killed via hellion bargain any more than I could hand him a loaded gun and watch him point it at his own head.
But Nash didn’t see it that way.
“I can’t win with you, can I?” He threw his arms up in frustration. “If I stay safe on the sidelines, I’m not helping, but if I try to do anything, I’m putting myself and everyone else in danger. You’re going to be mad at me no matter what I do—or don’t do—so I’m done worrying about what you think!”
“Guys, calm down,” Emma said. On the edge of my vision, I saw Sabine watching me and Nash like we were on opposing sides of a volleyball net.
“This isn’t about me being mad at you, Nash. This is about me trying to protect you.”
“For the last time, I don’t need you to protect me! So just tell me how to contact this Ira asshole and let me decide how much I’m willing to pay to get my mother out of the Netherworld. Let me deal with the consequences of my own decisions!”
“That’s not how it works!” My cheeks were flushed, and my heart pounded so hard I was almost dizzy—my body was no longer accustomed to such a rapid flow of blood. “This is a team sport, Nash. We’re in it together, and we can’t afford for you to run off half-cocked playing hero and get yourself killed. You have to think about the group. About what’s best for all of us!” I couldn’t believe how rash he was being. How selfish!
“Kaylee. Nash. It’s too tense in here....” Em put both hands over her ears, as if she could physically stop herself from syphoning our anger.
“The group?” Nash was shouting now. “Is that what you were thinking about when you summoned Ira all by yourself? How come when you do it, it’s noble, but when I want to do it, I’m ‘running off half-cocked to play hero’? You didn’t even tell anyone what you were doing. You just disappeared. If something had gone wrong, we would never have known what happened to you. How is that acting in the best interest of the group?”
“That’s different,” I insisted, reeling from the sting of his words. “I’ve dealt with Ira before. I’ve dealt with summoning before.” Only once, but that was one more time than he’d done it. “And I know where my boundaries lie. He can’t tempt me with—” I bit off the next words before I could say them and almost bit my tongue in the process.
Why was I so angry? Was this because Ira had been feeding from my wrath, or was my wrath what attracted him to me in the first place? Could that much rage have been there all along, buried, just waiting for a chance to burst through my emotional armor, like lava through the crust of the earth?
“With what?” Nash’s voice was soft now, but anger roiled beneath the surface of the sound, like water about to break into a boil. “With his breath? Is that what you were going to say? At least he can’t tempt you with drugs?” He spat the last word at me from across the room, and I flinched.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Why not?” Nash demanded. “At least that part was the truth. The rest of it is you lying to yourself and to us. I may be an addict, but I didn’t exactly choose that path for myself, in case you don’t remember. And I’m fighting it every single day. But you’re lying and hiding things from the people who care about you the most, and you don’t even have addiction as an excuse. How do you justify that?”
“Shut up!” Emma shouted, sitting stiff and straight on the center couch cushion, staring from him to me, then back. “Shut the hell up, both of you! Are you trying to drive me crazy?”
“Em, I’m sorry.” I sat next to her, hoping that my rapidly fading anger would ease her burden. I hadn’t meant to trigger abilities she couldn’t control yet.
“Me, too.” Nash’s irises swirled with amber threads of regret, but he didn’t sit. He hadn’t backed down. “I’m sorry, Emma.” He turned to me again. “But I’m going after my mother, and, Kaylee, I swear on my immortal soul that if you stand in my way I will never forgive you.”
“Whoa, what did I miss?” Tod said from the kitchen, and I looked up to find him staring at all of us.
“More fireworks,” Sabine said. “And what we’ve learned from this little episode is that Kaylee and Nash are like those rocks ancient cave people used to make fire. Bang them together, and you get sparks.”
“Let’s never again use the phrase ‘bang them together’ in reference to my brother and my girlfriend,” Tod mumbled.
“She means their heads,” Emma said. “And I’d like to bang them together right now.” She scowled at me, then turned her disapproval on Nash. “You two are fighting for no reason. You both want the same thing—to protect people you love. You just don’t agree about how to do it.”