And suddenly a horrifying understanding clicked into place in my nearly scrambled brain. The blood seemed to drain from my face, leaving me cold.
Nash had said Avari contacted him through an intermediary—by possessing someone in our world. And several times in the past few weeks I’d fallen asleep with Nash, only to wake up disoriented and unsure where I was, even during his few covert visits while I was grounded. In the past week alone, it had happened on the way to work, then in the school parking lot during my lunchtime nap….
Nooo!
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, and I had to force my grip on my phone to loosen. Anger and fear rolled through me like thunder across the sky, dark, and low, and threatening. And accompanied by a vicious, white-hot bolt of betrayal that singed every nerve in my body.
I’d played intermediary between Nash and Avari. The hellion had used me as his own personal walkie-talkie.
And Nash had let it happen.
18
“GET OUT!” I GLANCED around Emma’s room for a weapon—until I realized I couldn’t hurt the hellion without hurting Emma, too. “Get out of her! She has nothing to do with any of this!” Whatever “this” was. “Emma’s human, and she knows nothing about hellions, or the Netherworld, or Demon’s Breath, or anything else to do with your warped, twisted, toxic hellhole of an alternate dimension.”
Keeping Emma in the dark about everything that went bump in the night was supposed to protect her from those bumps. So why was she now speaking to me with a hellion’s voice? What kind of “connection” could she possibly have to this Netherworld possessor? For that matter, what connection did I have to Avari?
My best friend’s carefully arched brows rose in surprise. “My warped, twisted…?” Then comprehension washed over her face. Alec grinned with Emma’s mouth, and I was floored by how unlike Emma that look was, considering that she smiled at me all the time with those same features. He swung both of her denim-clad legs over the edge of the bed. “You think I’m a hellion.” It wasn’t a question, and Alec sounded every bit as surprised as Emma looked.
He shook her head slowly, and their shared smile faded into a bittersweet melancholy. “I’m human. Only I have the misfortune to be stuck in the Netherworld.”
Surprised, I gripped the edge of Emma’s desk to anchor myself to the only thing that made sense while I tried to puzzle through Alec’s maze of misinformation.
He started to stand in Emma’s body, but I threw one hand out, fingers splayed. “Stay there!”
She shrugged and sank back onto the mattress. “If that makes you more comfortable…”
Like comfort was even a possibility.
“You’re lying.” I forced my other hand to relax around my phone, to keep from bringing it to his attention. “You’re not human.” He couldn’t be, because humans can’t survive in the Netherworld with both soul and body intact.
Which meant that Alec was either lying or soulless. Or that there were big things going on in the Netherworld. Things I didn’t understand well enough to fully grasp.
Knowing my luck, it was all three.
“Not solely human, no,” Alec admitted, tilting Emma’s head so that a strand of straight blond hair fell over her shoulder. “But I swear to you that I mean neither of you any harm.” I huffed in disbelief and he continued, furrowing the delicate lines of Emma’s forehead. “If I wanted to hurt her, I could have already fed her a bottle of pills or made her cut her own throat.” Alec drew one of Emma’s own long fingernails slowly across her slim neck, and terror crawled over me like an army of spiders marching up my spine. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
Somehow, I wasn’t very comforted.
“What else are you? Other than human?” I wanted both my hands empty, in case I had to defend myself. Or Emma. But I was reluctant to put down the phone—my security blanket and only connection to the rest of the world. The human world, anyway.
Alec crossed Emma’s arms beneath her breasts, looking physically comfortable for the first time since he’d claimed her body. Yet her expression spoke of long-term anger and resentment. Of a grudge that had been allowed to fester. “I am a proxy to a hellion in the Netherworld.”
“A proxy?”
Alec’s frown deepened as his obvious self-loathing swelled.
“I’m used as a servant and energy storage unit. Like an assistant you can eat.”
“Eat?” I didn’t bother to hide my horror, and Alec nodded, pushing back a strand of Emma’s hair when it fell into her eyes.
“Not literally, of course. Well, not like we eat, anyway.” Emma’s shoulders shrugged within the borrowed shirt. “Many hellions do consume flesh. Fortunately, the one I serve does not. He uses me like a sports bottle,” Alec continued. “An emergency drink when there isn’t enough human energy bleeding over from your world.”
Eewww! No wonder Alec’s grudge was festering.
“Sorry about the whole human Gatorade thing,” I said, glancing at the alarm clock on the nightstand—1:08 a.m. What were the chances that Ms. Marshall would stay out long enough for me to get rid of Emma’s visitor? “But what does that have to do with Emma?”
“Nothing. It has to do with you.” He smiled, like I should have been flattered. “Emma was the closest available intermediary.”
“She wasn’t available!” I snapped, indignation on her behalf bolstering my courage. “She was asleep.” But then something new occurred to me, when I remembered passing out as Nash drove me to work on Sunday. “Did you make her fall asleep?”
Alec shook Emma’s head somberly. “That’s beyond my ability. The most we can do is give someone who’s already tired a little push toward slumber. During sleep, the mind is more susceptible to sharing space in the body.”
“So you pushed Emma out of her body?”
“No.” He chuckled. The talking “boost” actually laughed! “She’s still in here. I just pushed her over a bit.” He shrugged, looking almost as unconcerned by his violation of her free will as Tod was by his regular violation of closed doors. “She was almost asleep, anyway.”
My next breath was an exasperated huff. I’d had it with people—and non-people—taking liberties with moral norms! Personal boundaries—whether body, mind, or home—were not up for negotiation!
“Get out of Emma, and don’t ever ‘push her over’ again!” I propped both hands on my hips, hoping to look threatening, though surely he knew I wouldn’t hurt my best friend, even to hurt him. “Pick another intermediary. Or better yet, stay out of my friends and away from me!”
Alec’s sigh slipped through Emma’s lips. “I would gladly use another body—preferably one without breasts…” My best friend glanced down at her own chest as if she didn’t know what to do with such generous curves. “Unfortunately, you don’t surround yourself with many potential intermediaries.” A hint of desperation leaked through onto Emma’s features. “But I swear to you, on both my life and my soul, that if you help me—if you let us help each other—my need for an intermediary will soon be a thing of the past.”
I blinked at Emma/Alec in disbelief. “You’re asking me for a favor?”
Emma’s head nodded steadily. “And offering one, as well.”
Curiosity overwhelmed me, in spite of my desperation to put Emma back in control of her body. “What could you possibly do for me?”
His smile widened on her face, and Emma’s straight white teeth seemed to taunt me. “Return your damaged lover.”
My what?
Confusion must have shown clearly on my face, because Emma/Alec raised both brows in a rather masculine look of amusement. “Your boyfriend. Nash. I assume you remember him. Or does the heart forget so soon?”
Terror shot through me in a jolt of white-hot adrenaline, then settled into my gut like lead. My free hand gripped the back of Emma’s desk chair and I sank into it, stunned. “What are you talking about?”