All I could do was sing. And watch Libby claim the Demon's Breath. And wait.
"Five…Four…" Tod taunted as Regan heaved with silent sobs and Avari bellowed in rage. The floor grew slick with ice beneath my feet, and my breath puffed visibly into the frigid air.
Then, just when I thought it was over—thought Addison's death had been for nothing—the hellion spat one short, powerful exhalation into the room, and Regan's soul bobbed near the ceiling.
At Nash's signal, I let go of Addison's soul and sang for her sister's. Libby swallowed the last of the Demon's Breath and popped out of existence without so much as a glance at the rest of us. Avari slurped up Addy's soul in a fraction of the time it took Nash to guide Regan's home. And only then did Tod release Bana's soul into the room.
While Avari devoured it, Nash rushed toward me across the slick floor, tugging a shocked Regan by one hand. I had a moment to notice that her eyes were again beautiful, and blue, and normal. Then they converged on me, sliding so quickly they almost bowled me over.
"Now!" Nash whispered desperately, tugging me into an agonizing squat so that I touched both him, Regan, and Addison's limp arm. "Take us back now!"
That time, intent to cross was no problem, and I was already keening. Avari's roar of fury faded swiftly from my ears. An instant later I collapsed to the floor of a generic office full of cubicles and cheap industrial carpet. Addy lay at my side, and Nash and Regan stared down at me, a mixture of grief and relief coursing over their features.
A moment later, Tod popped into existence next to his brother.
"Are you okay?" Nash knelt at my side, but by then I could only shake my head. I'd lost my voice completely, and was in so much pain it hurt to draw a breath. "Call Mom," Nash ordered, sliding one hand behind my back, the other beneath my knees. He carried me out of the office and into the hall while Regan followed, crying and scrolling through the entries in Nash's phone for a name she wouldn't even recognize, because Tod carried her sister's body.
Each second we waited for the elevator was pure agony. I hurt all over, and worse wherever he touched me. But I was grateful for that touch.
"You'll be fine," Nash whispered. "Your expiration date is in full effect here, so you won't die. But you're going to hurt like hell until we get this fixed."
I'd guessed as much.
I'd just decided that Prime Life shut down their elevators after hours when the mirrored doors slid open with a soft ding. Downstairs, we crossed the eerily empty lobby and Nash set me on a burgundy couch while he kicked open the locked glass doors leading to the parking garage. It took him three tries, but I was still impressed.
Harmony answered her phone as Nash buckled me into the front seat, and Regan gave the phone to Tod as he closed the trunk, where he'd gently laid Addison. He explained the basics, demanding his mother meet us at my house with the necessary supplies. She said she'd be there in ten minutes.
It took us twenty, and once he'd dropped me and Nash off, Tod took the Page sisters home, where Regan would «find» her sister's body on the floor of her own room. Then he returned Emma's car.
My front door flew open before Nash and I even got to the porch, and my father took me from him without a word. His anger had momentarily been eclipsed by fear I hadn't seen since that long-ago day I barely remembered.
The day my mother had died to save me.
"Not again," he muttered, laying me on the couch. I moaned, and tears overflowed his eyes.
"She'll be fine." Harmony pushed him aside gently. I hadn't even known she was there, but suddenly she was at my side, her fingers cold on my arm, a filled syringe ready in her other hand. "Tod said it's crimson creeper."
"Where the hell did she find crim—" His eyes widened in horror, and some of that anger returned. "Kaylee, what did you do?"
"She can explain it later, Aiden," Harmony said firmly. The needle slid into my arm, and though it was blissfully cold, the medicine that invaded my body scalded like one of the original pinpricks from the creeper. "For now, let her sleep. She'll need another dose of this in four hours." She held a second syringe up for my father to see, and he nodded. "If the red webbing isn't gone four hours after that, call me."
But she'd be back to check on me before then. Nash would see to that.
"Come on, Nash," Harmony said, and the hard edge in her voice said he wouldn't get off easy, either.
"No…" I moaned, surprised when my voice actually produced the cracked, tortured sound. I grabbed his wrist with the last of my strength.
Harmony frowned at me, then at my father. "Can he stay, Aiden? She wants him to stay."
My father hedged, and I begged him with my eyes. I needed them both. I'd never hurt so badly in my life, but Nash's voice could help. I knew it could. "Fine," he said finally. "But you have to go to sleep, young lady."
We'd argue about the "young lady" part later. But I agreed with the rest of his statement.
The last thing I saw before sleep—blissful, pain-free sleep—claimed me were their faces, side by side, watching me with identical expressions of concern.
CHAPTER 21
"Thanks for coming." Regan smoothed her black dress over her flat stomach. Her perfect blue eyes were red from crying, but her expression was pure strength and poise. Her mother stood beside the coffin, staring past all the headstones in a chemically induced oblivion. She was coping with Addy's death the only way she knew how—with pills, and alcohol, and seclusion. She hadn't left her house in nearly a week, and had only come out this time for the funeral. Because Regan made her.
"We wouldn't have missed it," Nash said, and I nodded. He spoke for us both.
Regan had made all the arrangements, choosing her sister's favorite flowers, music, and poetry, as well as the coffin and the plot. It was a lot of responsibility for a thirteen-year-old already devastated by her sister's death—her sacrifice—and it broke my heart that she'd had to rise to such a tragic occasion.
But she would be fine. The determined line of her jaw and straight length of her spine said that clearly. Whatever else happened, Regan Page would be just fine.
Addy had seen to that.
Regan glanced briefly at her mother, then at the crowd of paparazzi gathered behind a long barricade before returning her attention to me. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine now. Really," I added, when doubt flickered behind her mercifully real eyes.
The red webbing had faded from my skin by the time the sun went down the day Addy died, but it took three more days before the last of the pain abated. And the puncture marks around my ankle left scars—a double ring of bright red dots. I'd missed school for the rest of that week, but Harmony had only let Nash miss Thursday, and only because we'd been up all of Wednesday night.
And since I was well enough for the funeral, I would be returning to school on Monday.
Addy's service was private, but Regan got us in. Tod cried through the whole thing, but I think I was the only one who could see him. Addy's death nearly killed him. Again. Levi had given him a couple of weeks off, and was personally covering his hospital shifts. And we hadn't seen Tod once between that night and the funeral.
I think he was having a lot of trouble with the knowledge that Addison's soul was now the property of a hellion of greed, and that the rest of her existence would be spent in agonizing pain, of every possible variety.
I wasn't dealing with that very well, either. I'd really wanted to save her. And I would have plenty of time to think about my failure, because I was grounded for a solid month. My father was unmoved by our altruistic intentions. He considered nothing else on the face of the planet—or in either world—worth risking my life.