“You ass!” she hissed, cloth rustling as she picked herself up.
He exhaled slowly, looking both sorry and impatient. “You just…you never know when to quit.”
“That sounds like your problem,” she snapped, and I almost applauded, surprised to find that for once she and I agreed. And I was just as surprised that she’d picked up on his problem. But I shouldn’t have been. She was mean, not stupid.
“You’re acting like more of a freak than Kaylee.”
And…there she’d lost me again.
“Whatever.” Scott stomped off, his left arm twitching violently, and just before he passed out of my line of sight, he glanced over his shoulder one last time, not at Sophie, but at the row of lockers to his right. As if he saw something that no one else could see.
Sophie straightened her blouse and I hurried back to the hot-chocolate stand as Nash started across the basketball court toward me. An instant later, Sophie clacked into the gym—and stopped short when her gaze met mine.
Her face paled when she realized I’d heard their argument. Then, in true Sophie style, her critical eye took me in from head to toe and a sneer formed on her perfectly made-up mouth. “You’re dripping on your shoe,” she said, then stomped off to join a group of dancers gathered around the temporary Snow Queen stage with handfuls of fake snow.
“What’s wrong with her?” Nash bent to pick up his paintbrush.
“I heard her fighting with Scott. Who just left for another huff from his balloon. I swear, he and Doug are like babies with pacifiers. And Scott’s sounding less coherent by the minute.”
“Great.” Nash’s jaw tightened, but then his gaze caught on the white paint splattered all over my right foot, and he smiled. “You look like you’re bleeding milk.”
“So I hear.” Disgusted, I dropped my brush into my half-empty bucket and knelt to work on my shoe. “What did Doug say?”
Nash sat on the canvas to touch up the bottom of the booth. “He’s having a party Friday night, and Everett’s going to be there. He said I can buy my own then, but he’s not selling any more of his.”
I dabbed at the paint on my shoe with a damp rag, but only smeared it. “So, we’re going to the party?”
“Looks like.” He sighed and glanced around to make sure we weren’t being overheard. “But I don’t see how that will help. Even if we meet Everett, what are we supposed to do? Haul him out the back door and demand he stop selling in the human world? If he’s selling Demon’s Breath, he must have a supplier, and there nothing we can do against another hellion.” He grabbed the rag I’d dropped to wipe another drip before I could sit in it.
“I know.” Or rather, I didn’t know. I had no solution. No way of stopping Everett—or the hellion backing him—and no way of knowing that cutting off the supply and sending them into withdrawal would actually help Scott and Doug, rather than hurt them. But we couldn’t stand by and watch a couple of incidents turn into the epidemic I’d originally feared. “We’re gonna have to bring in someone else.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know. My dad? Your mom? Uncle Brendon?” I held my breath in anticipation of Nash’s argument.
“Kaylee…”
“Wait, I know how that sounds.” I set my brush across the top of the can, like I’d seen him do, and edged closer to him on the canvas so I could lower my voice. “But we wouldn’t really be ratting anyone out. No cops, no arrests. Nash, if we don’t do something, Scott’s going to go insane. Like, talking-to-himself, showing-up-half-dressed, cowering-in-the-shadows insane. And that’s just the beginning. The same thing will happen to Doug, and everyone he passes a balloon to. And possibly to Emma and Sophie, and anyone else who breathes too deeply near someone who’s just inhaled. We have to get rid of Everett and his supply, and we can’t do that on our own.”
“Okaaay…” Nash frowned. “So what’s your dad going to say when he finds out you’ve known about this for nearly a week and didn’t tell him? When he finds out your car was totaled by a guy wasted on Demon’s Breath? He’ll never let you out of the house again. You want to be grounded for the rest of your life?”
“Of course not. But so what if he does ground me? At least Scott and Doug will still be alive.” And hopefully sane. And frankly, being grounded again seemed like a small price to pay in exchange for someone else’s life. “Not to mention Emma, and even Sophie. What happens if we don’t say anything, and Sophie gets drawn into this? How can I ever look my uncle in the eye, knowing I let his daughter die? Again?”
Nash closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and he didn’t look at me until his knuckles were no longer white around the paintbrush he clutched like a lifeline. “Fine. It’s not like I can argue with that logic.” But he certainly looked like he wanted to. “But let’s try it ourselves first, okay? Let’s go to the party and meet Everett. Let me see what kind of system he has going before we go tattle. I’m only asking you for two more days. All right?”
I hesitated. I understood Nash’s reluctance to rat out his friends, but I did not understand his reluctance to keep them alive. “Fine. But if we can’t do anything about him, I’m telling my dad. That night. I’m not kidding, Nash. This has already gone too far.”
Nash nodded and dropped his paintbrush on the white-splattered canvas. “I agree with you there,” he whispered, eyes swirling slowly with frustration and a little fear. “This whole thing has gone way too far.”
10
WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS hell on earth.
After painting carnival booths until dinnertime, Nash and I grabbed fast-food burgers and ate while I rushed through only the homework that had to be done, for the teachers who actually checked. Then I fell asleep on my couch with my head on his lap while he watched old action movies until my dad got home.
When the front door slammed, I woke up and rolled over to find my father staring down at me, looking pissed beyond words. Apparently napping with my nose pressed into my boyfriend’s denim-clad crotch was not on the list of approved sleeping arrangements.
Who knew?
But when I broke into tears explaining that I was afraid to sleep alone, in case I woke up in the Netherworld again, my dad’s scowl softened into a sympathetic frown, and he suggested we camp out in the living room that night, to put both of our fears to rest. That way, if I started screaming, he could wake me up before I crossed over.
A living-room slumber party with my dad sounded a little juvenile, but I was willing to try anything that might keep me anchored to my own reality.
Unfortunately, his plan worked out better in theory than in practice.
Around midnight, my dad fell asleep in his recliner, head rolled to one side, bottom lip jiggling each time a snore rumbled from his mouth. But I was still awake two hours later, when the Judge Judy marathon gave way to an infomercial advertising men’s hair-loss products. I couldn’t relax. I was terrified of waking up in a field of razor wheat, barefoot and hoarse, and unable to move without getting shredded like secret government documents.
So after twenty minutes of watching old men have their hair spray-painted on, I exchanged my pj bottoms and Betty Boop slippers for jeans, a thick pair of socks, and my heaviest pair of boots from the bottom of my closet. After slipping on the black quilted jacket Aunt Val had given me for Christmas the year before, I snuck back into the living room and collapsed on the couch, finally feeling armed for sleep.
That way, if I crossed over, at least I’d be warm, and dressed in defense of razor-sharp, literal blades of grass.
I even considered running outside for the lid to the old trash can we raked leaves into, but in the end decided that would only bring up more questions from my father when the crash of metal woke him up.