“If you don’t take me, I’m gonna die. And you’re gonna die with me,” Scott whispered, his voice shaky with terror.
His skin was cold, even through both layers of our clothing, and the blade—something small…a paring knife, maybe?—felt warm by comparison. “Scott, you don’t want to go there.” I had to force the words out, afraid that any movement of my throat would force the metal through my skin. “Trust me.”
“Carter, what are you doing?” Nash asked through the door, and I was worried by how composed he sounded—his best friend was about to cut my head off! Not that Nash knew about the knife…
“She won’t take me!” Scott hissed, his grip bruising my arm.
“He has a knife,” I said as loudly as I dared with the blade still pressed against my skin.
“Take you where?” Nash asked, ignoring my contribution to the exchange. And that’s when I realized he was Influencing Scott—trying to talk him down with a little bean sidhe push. “Let me in, and we’ll talk about this.”
“He’s not delusional, Nash,” I said, struggling to stay calm. “Something wants me to cross over with him. Could you please help me explain why that’s not a good idea?”
I needed Nash to do the talking, if there was any chance of his Influence actually working. And I was fighting complete panic at the feel of the blade against my throat.
In theory, if my time was up—if my name was on the list—I would die, and no amount of talking or fighting would stop that.
And if it wasn’t my time, so long as I stayed in the human world and avoided Netherworld elements, I wouldn’t die, no matter what. That not-death could come about in any number of ways. Scott might turn out to have colossally bad aim with a knife, or Nash might do everything right to stop the bleeding. Or Tod might blink in, then blink me instantly to the hospital. Or we might actually talk Scott out of violence.
Or…Scott could maim me beyond recognition and normal physical function without actually killing me.
But no matter what might happen next, crossing over would be worse. Our expiration dates meant nothing in the Netherworld, which officially made it the scariest place in existence, and the place I was least likely to take Scott.
“You’re confused,” Nash said to Scott from the other side of the door, and his voice slid over me like a warm breeze. “I can help you. Let me in, and I’ll help you.”
“No!” Scott shouted, his hand tightening around my arm.
“He knows about you. Your voice makes people do things. Shut up or I’ll kill her.”
My pulse spiked again, and there was only silence from the hallway. Tears filled my eyes, blurring the closed door until I blinked them away and mentally closed the well. Crying would not help me, nor would it help Scott. But there had to be a way out of this.
The light beneath the door flickered, like Nash had stepped closer. “How?” he asked softly, and his normal voice now sounded flat compared to the rich tones that accompanied his Influence.
“How what?” Scott asked, and his grip on my arm loosened slightly.
“How will you cross over if you kill her?” Nash clarified, and I almost smiled, in spite of my predicament. Scott knew about his vocal influence—sort of—so Nash was working without it. He was being smart. If I wanted to live, I’d have to get smart, too.
I closed my eyes, ignoring the hum from the heating vent overhead and the eerie coolness of the body pressed against my back. “Nash can’t take you,” I whispered, just loud enough for Scott to hear me.
Scott stiffened. “You’re lying.”
I started to shake my head, then remembered the knife and opened my eyes again. “Nash can’t take you, and neither can he. If he could, he wouldn’t need me, would he?” Scott didn’t answer, but he pulled me back a step across the thick, soft carpet. “Ask him. Not Nash. Ask him.”
Scott remained silent and rigid against me, and I wondered if whoever he was listening to could hear me, or if Scott had to ask him directly. Silently or otherwise.
Finally Scott seemed to sag against me, though the blade never left my throat. “Take me there. Please take me. Please make it stop,” he begged. He was close to his breaking point, which meant that whoever wanted him must be getting desperate.
Scott went quiet again, listening to something we couldn’t hear, and I was almost surprised to realize daylight still slipped through the cracks in the closed blinds. It felt like we’d been in that room forever, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Then Scott leaned into me, dragging my thoughts back to the crisis at hand. His mouth brushed my right ear, through my hair. “He says this is all your fault.”
What? A wash of confusion diluted my fear. What did any of this have to do with me?
“Scott, if I take you there, he’ll kill us both. Or worse.”
He stiffened again, and his knife hand twitched. I gasped as the point of the blade pierced my skin with a sharp slice of pain. A warm bead of blood trailed slowly down my neck, and I froze.
“He says I’ll die here. You say I’ll die there. But if I can’t get him out of my head, none of that matters!” He sobbed, then stood straighter, drawing me up with him as the blade pressed more firmly against my broken skin. “Take me there now, or I’ll cut your throat wide open.”
“Okay…” I said, my heart pounding so hard I could barely hear my own words, much less my thoughts. “I’ll take you. Just…put the knife down.”
“Kaylee?” Nash demanded from the other side of the door, and something thumped to the floor. He’d dropped the soda.
“No way.” Scott shook his head, jostling us both, ignoring Nash completely. “He says you’ll run.”
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to slow my racing thoughts. And my racing pulse. Then I opened my eyes to find the doorknob twisting again as Nash tried to force his way into the room.
“If this shadow man is so smart—” my voice wavered with nerves “—he’ll know it takes a lot of concentration to cross over. And I can’t concentrate with a knife at my throat.”
Nash pounded the door. “Kaylee, no…!” he shouted, but he was too upset now to manage much Influence on either of us.
Scott went still behind me, listening to his shadow man again. Then, “Fine. But if you run, he says I should gut you like a goat on an altar.”
My heart beat so hard my head hurt, and adrenaline was turning my fight-or-flight instinct into a demand. I knew what I had to do, but had no idea if I could actually pull it off. He was a lot bigger than I was, and a lot stronger and faster. And Nash would be no help from the other side of the door.
Slowly, Scott removed the knife from my neck, and more blood trickled down my throat. A moment later, the blade poked at my back through my jacket and my thin tee. “Yes, that’s much more relaxing,” I snapped, unable to censor my sarcasm, even with my life in mortal peril.
I stared at the closed door and tried to communicate my intentions to Nash silently, desperately wishing bean sidhes were psychic. But that was just another on a long list of really cool abilities I didn’t get.
“Okay, this is gonna feel kind of funny,” I warned Scott, closing my eyes as I silently wished myself luck. “Your skin will tingle, and it’ll feel like you’re falling.” Which wasn’t true in the least. Nash stopped pounding on the door for a moment, as if to listen. He knew I was lying, and had hopefully gathered from that fact that I had no intention of taking Scott to the Netherworld.
But then what I was really planning sank in, and he kicked the door so hard it shook in its frame.
“So, don’t freak out if you lose your balance, okay?” I continued for Scott’s benefit, doing my best to ignore Nash. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” But Scott’s voice had gone squeaky, and his grip on my arm was cutting off my circulation. He was terrified.
Good. So was I.