“No, I want to clear his name.” I’d dragged him into this; I had to get him out of it. “I want you to make the crime disappear. No murder. I was attacked by my math teacher—to which I’m willing to testify—but I survived, and Nash had nothing to do with it.”
“Kaylee, we can’t reverse your death.”
“I know.” I sucked in a deep breath, relieved that my lungs seemed to work, even if my heart didn’t. “But you can cover it up. If I work for you, I get to keep my body, right? Like Tod did?”
“You can become corporeal at will, yes,” Madeline said slowly, obviously starting to follow my train of thought.
“Then who says I died? I haven’t been buried. I haven’t been autopsied…”
“Kaylee, you died in a public hospital,” Levi pointed out. “Your death has been documented. It was witnessed.”
I shrugged, still watching Madeline. “So make the paperwork go away. The news stories could just be false reports of my death. That’s happened before, right? And you can make the witnesses forget, can’t you? People see things. It’s inevitable. So someone must be cleaning up after them, right? You must have someone who can make them forget…”
Her frown deepened, but I could see the possibility in her eyes. “Kaylee, what you’re suggesting is quite complicated and would require considerable resources….”
“But you can do it, right?” I held my breath—or rather, I stopped breathing—waiting for her answer, hoping I was right.
Madeline glanced at Levi, and he shrugged. Then she turned to me again. “Yes. It’s possible. But only at great expense, and I’m not convinced your services are worth what you’re asking for.”
“Really?” I lifted my eyebrows, resisting the urge to cross my fingers. “So, you have other female bean sidhes? You already have someone who can call out to the soul you want reclaimed?”
I knew I’d won when her gaze narrowed and her jaw clenched.
“Fine. It’ll take a couple of hours to set up, but…you never died. You were transferred to a private hospital to recover, and you’ll be rejoining your classmates in a couple of weeks. After you’ve finished this first job for us.” I nodded, trying not to visibly gloat. “But Kaylee, that won’t last,” she warned. “You can finish school—you might even make it through college—but eventually people are going to notice that you don’t age. You’re going to have to disappear.”
“I know.” But that was no big deal—if I’d lived, I’d have looked thirty on my one hundredth birthday. I’d always expected to have to disappear eventually.
I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “There’s one more thing….”
Madeline blew on my signature to dry the ink, then handed me my copy of the contract. I’d read the whole thing, and even understood most of it. And thanks to Addison’s mistakes, I knew to demand my own copy.
“We’re so pleased to have you on board, Kaylee,” she said, folding her copy of my contract into thirds while I folded the hospital gown and laid it on the empty bed, glad to be wearing real clothes again, even if they’d been “borrowed” from some other patient. “We’ll be in touch very soon about your first assignment.”
I didn’t care that she was pleased. I didn’t give a damn about the assignment. I just wanted to go home.
“Are you ready?” Levi asked, watching me closely through his dead child eyes, and it occurred to me for the first time how much he and I had in common. I’d lived longer, but he’d been dead longer. And someday I might catch up to him.
“Yeah.” I accepted the hand he held out, then took one final glance around the empty hospital room we’d appropriated for my statement to the police. “Get me out of here.”
I closed my eyes and waited for the dizziness and disorientation that usually accompanied reaper-travel. But I felt nothing. The first indication I had that we’d left the hospital was the change in temperature. Then the whisper of hushed voices.
I opened my eyes, still holding Levi’s hand. We stood in Nash’s kitchen, alone, but I could hear movement and voices from the living room. And crying. Everyone was here, because my house was the scene of a double homicide, my mattress still soaked with two types of blood—one of them mine.
“How much do they know?” I asked, still invisible and inaudible as long as I held his hand.
“Only that Nash has been released. I thought you’d want to tell them the rest yourself.”
I nodded. “Thanks.” Then I let go of his hand.
“Good luck, Kaylee,” Levi said. Then he disappeared.
I took a deep breath. Then I took another. I’d figured out quickly how to make my lungs work, but the process was no longer automatic, because it was no longer necessary. But breathing made me feel more…normal, so I took one more breath, then pushed open the swinging kitchen door and stepped into the living room.
Emma was the first to look up, from an armchair in one corner, while my dad and Harmony held one another, her head on his shoulder, their faces red and tear-streaked.
It broke my heart to see my father cry.
“Kaylee?” Emma said. Her jaw dropped open, and Harmony sat up straight, staring at me. Then my father’s gaze met mine, and I burst into tears.
“Kay?” He was there in an instant, feeling my arms, holding my face. Trying to convince himself that I was real. I couldn’t say anything—couldn’t think of what to say—so I hugged him instead, squeezing him as hard as I could, breathing him in until he clutched me back, finally convinced.
“What happened?” he asked, on the tail of the most relieved sob I’d ever heard. “You died. I saw you die.” They hadn’t fixed his memory—I’d asked them not to.
“I made a deal, Dad. I had to, to make things right.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Aiden,” Harmony said from behind him, and her voice was so somber, so heartbroken, that I let go of him and looked up to find her watching me, blond curls in disarray, blue eyes so full of grief I could hardly stand to look at them. She didn’t know about Tod yet—not for sure. Not if Levi hadn’t told her. So was she grieving for me? “She signed on with the reapers.”
“Did you…?” my dad asked, turning back to me in horror, and I shook my head.
“Not exactly. I’ll explain it all later, but for now, can we just…” But I didn’t have any way to finish that sentence.
“But you’re back, right?” Emma asked, still standing across the room. She looked pale, and confused, and a little scared. “However you did it, you’re really back?”
“Not quite as good as new, but yeah. I’m back.” I held my arms out and she ran into them, squeezing me so tight I was almost glad I didn’t need to breathe.
“I woke up, and he was on your bed, and Sophie was screaming!” she sobbed into my hair. “And there was so much blood, and you were gone!”
And Emma and Sophie were all alone with a dead incubus, and they had no idea what had happened. They must have been terrified.
“Beck’s dead,” I said, holding her while she cried. “Everything’s going to be fine. Different. But fine.” That’s what I’d been telling myself over and over for the past few hours, while I waited for Madeline to get everything set up. While I waited for word from Levi, which never came. “How’s Sophie?” I asked my dad, without letting go of Emma.
“Traumatized, but she’ll be fine. Your uncle’s decided to tell her everything. The secrets have become too much for them both.”
I nodded. It was overdue.
Harmony watched me over Emma’s shoulder, arms wrapped around her own stomach, like something hurt deep inside. I wanted to hug her, but I wasn’t sure she’d want to touch me after what I’d done. I wanted apologize for what I’d put her through. For what I’d let happen to her sons, after she’d already lost so much. But I didn’t have the words to make either of us feel better.
“They were supposed to release Nash…” I said finally, when Em let me go.
Harmony nodded. “Sabine went to pick him up from questioning half an hour ago. He…he didn’t want me to come.” She glanced at the ground, then back up at me. “They said he’d been cleared, but they didn’t say how.”