“Where’d he go?” The security guard stumbled to a stop in front me. He was bent in half, wheezing with both hands propped on his knees.
I stood, brushing my hands on the ruined skirt of Sophie’s dress. “Where’d who go?” I asked, my eyes wide in innocence as the astonished lampade gaped at me.
The guard scowled, thick forehead furrowed. “The…boy. Who was pulling her…”
“There’s no one here but us,” Alec said, wiping tears of joy on his sleeve. He looked like he’d almost laughed himself to death.
“Are you okay?” the other guard asked Luci, and she could only nod, no doubt stunned by events on both sides of the gray fog, which she could see simultaneously.
“I’m f-fine,” she stuttered, her voice high and clear.
“Thank you.”
“Let us know if he shows up again,” the first guard said, then the pair waddled off toward the carnival again, shaking their heads in confusion. When they were gone, the motley members of our odd gathering could only eye one another warily, bean sidhe, former proxy, and lampade each equally stunned by our near capture.
“He’ll send us after them again,” Luci said finally, glancing briefly at Nash as if he held no interest to her at all. As if she didn’t care one way or another which world he occupied.
“Yeah, but if you take Nash and my father back to Avari—if you give him anyone else strong enough to power his little human generator—you may as well put a gun in your mouth. And your sister’s, too.”
Luci frowned, and I realized I had truly captured her attention for the first time. “What does that mean?”
“He would have killed you both,” I said as I pulled Nash closer with one arm. He came willingly, but made no move on his own. “Avari was going to bleed you both until you died powering his pedestrian bridge to nowhere. And he still will, if you give him a chance.” I held Nash tight as he began to chatter, his freezing skin leaching the warmth from my own.
Luci only blinked at me, her stunned expression edged by distrust. “You’re lying.”
I shrugged. “Fine. Believe what you want. But we both know Tod could have killed you if he’d wanted to. Twice. And I’m sure he was tempted, considering you kidnapped his brother. But he didn’t so much as bruise your arm dragging you away from certain death. What does that tell you about who means you harm and who doesn’t?”
Luci’s frown deepened, and true fear flitted across her face. But she hadn’t so much as glanced at Nash in regret, and had yet to ask about my father.
“Look, I don’t care where you go or what you do, so long as you stay away from us. And if you want to live, you should get your sister and stay away from Avari, too.”
And finally, Luci nodded. She was still nodding when Alec and I walked off with Nash wobbling between us.
“Kaylee Cavanaugh, you bitch!” A shrill voice called as I pulled open the front door of my rental car minutes later.
“That’s a six-hundred-dollar gown, and you ruined it! What the hell are you doing in my dress?” Sophie demanded, flanked by two other Snow Queen contestants in long formal gowns, while she still wore jeans and an angora sweater beneath a pink quilted down jacket.
“Saving the day,” I said, closing Nash’s door as Alec settled himself into the backseat. I crossed in front of the car and sank into my own seat, tucking the voluminous, ruined skirt in around my legs. “You’re welcome.”
Then I slammed my door and drove off, leaving Sophie and her friends to stare after us in astonishment.
26
MY HAND SHOOK as I turned off the car and pulled the key from the ignition. Nash’s front porch light shone through the windshield, highlighting his face, but all I could think about was how he’d kept me in the dark, fighting an evil he’d already embraced. He leaned against the passenger’s-side window, staring at his unlit house. His mother was out, and hopefully blissfully ignorant of what we’d gone through. That wouldn’t last long; we’d have to tell her everything soon, because if we didn’t, my father would.
But for the moment, this private, temporary reprieve from chaos was too valuable to waste.
For lack of any place else to take him, I’d left Alec at my house with my dad and my uncle when I’d gone in to change clothes. My dad was worried about me, furious with Nash, and understandably scared by the whole thing, though he covered it with almost believable bravado.
Uncle Brendon was relieved that everyone had survived and that Sophie hadn’t been sucked into the Netherworld. And he didn’t give a damn about the ruined pageant gown. He’d promised to work on calming down my dad while I took Nash home.
But taking him home was as far ahead as I’d planned.
When I dropped the keys in my lap, Nash twisted in his seat to face me. “What now?” His skin was pale and damp with sweat, in spite of the temperature, but his eyes were clear. He was coherent, and withdrawal hadn’t set in yet. If we were going to talk, this was the time.
“I don’t know.” I fiddled with the key bauble, trying to bring my scattered thoughts into focus. But they didn’t want to focus. They wanted to remain mercifully blurry, so I wouldn’t have to come to terms with what I’d almost lost. What I might still have to give up.
“Kaylee…”
“Inside.” I shoved open my car door without looking at him. “I don’t want to do this here.” In the driveway. Within sight of any neighbors who happened to peek out the window.
I locked the car while he unlocked the house. He held his front door open, then closed it behind me after I brushed past him into the living room. I followed him down the hall and into his room—we both knew the way, even in the dark—then closed the door at my back. I didn’t think Harmony would mind this time, even if she’d been home. My plans for the evening included neither Nash’s hands, nor his bed.
Nash kicked his shoes into the corner, then pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. He collapsed onto the bed, leaning against his headboard, but for once I wasn’t tempted by the display. Nash looked like hell.
Avari had nearly drained him.
I pulled out his desk chair and sat, swiveling to face him. Without taking off my coat. “Nash, I don’t know where to st—”
“I’m sorry. Kaylee, I’m so sorry.” He looked like he wanted to touch me, but knew better than to try. “I don’t even know how to tell you how sorry I am.” He watched me, studying my reaction, but I could only stare at my hands in my lap, blinking away unshed tears. “But that’s not enough, is it?”
Two months earlier, it would have been. Nash had been the sun lighting up the horizon of my life, outshining everything else in my world. I’d thought once that he was too good to be true.
Turns out I was right.
“Kaylee?” he asked, and his voice was like thin, brittle glass. One heavy word from me, and he would shatter.
“I don’t know.” I made myself look at him, though the pain and regret swirling in his eyes bruised me, deep inside. I didn’t want to be the cause of so much suffering. But I didn’t want to feel it, either, and he wasn’t the only one hurting.
“You lied to me.”
“I know. I lied to everyone.” His voice echoed with shame, but it wasn’t enough. Regret couldn’t fix what he’d broken. Apologies couldn’t bring back what he’d lost. What we’d lost.
“But you lied to me, Nash.” I swallowed more tears and cleared my throat. “You said you loved me. Then you lied to me, you Influenced me, you tried to make me sound crazy in front of my dad, and you let Avari possess me and do—I can’t even imagine what—with my body.”
“Kaylee, I’m…”
I sat straighter, anger overwhelming everything else for the moment. “Don’t say you’re sorry. That won’t fix this.” I wasn’t sure anything could fix this—now.
But if I’d been paying more attention… If I’d thought more about Nash and less about being grounded, I’d have seen what was happening before it got so bad. If I’d watched him as closely as I’d watched his loser friends, who’d started using of their own free will… If I’d told my dad earlier… If I’d never taken those stupid balloons to the Netherworld in the first place…