Avari stepped back without letting go of my neck, and his gaze assessed me with almost clinical detachment. “It’s the strangest thing. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about, but every time I borrow a human form, my sense of touch is…Well, it’s exaggerated. Sensitive. You mortals feel everything so intensely. Is it the same for you, or is this a trait exclusive to the human male?”
His free hand—Marco’s hand—slid down the side of my arm, and his pupils dilated even farther when my nails broke through the skin on his arm. I made a quick wish for luck, then threw my knee up into his groin, as fast and hard as I could.
Avari yelped, and it was the most satisfying sound I’d ever heard. His hand fell away from my throat, and he hunched over the hopefully paralyzing pain.
“That is a trait exclusive to the human male.”
Tod laughed out loud, and I looked up just as he appeared behind the demon in stolen flesh. He swung something with both hands, hard enough that the muscles in his arms stood out against his skin, and his weapon slammed into Marco’s head with a dull thunk. Marco’s legs folded, and he collapsed on the gym floor.
Tod stood behind him, holding Emma’s three-inch-thick chemistry book. “You know, next time you text to tell me you may need help, I could get here a lot faster if you also tell me where you are. I’m a reaper, not a necromancer. Am I going to have to have you fitted with a GPS chip?”
“Sorry. I didn’t know where I’d be.” I glanced at poor Marco, thoroughly unconscious and probably in a lot of pain, then stepped over him and threw my arms around Tod. “And thank you. How’d you find me?”
“I tried about eight different places, then I found Luca. He said it felt like you were in the gym.”
As a necromancer, Luca was like a compass for all things dead but not yet decaying. Including reapers. And me.
Tod let me go and ran one hand through his short curls, and the blue-eyed gaze that met mine was intense. Scared. And kinda…angry. “You have to stop doing this, Kaylee. You’re dead, not invincible. Reclaiming souls when Madeline sends backup is one thing. That’s your job. I get that. But you can’t just go around confronting hellions on your own. Even in a human body they’re dangerous. Especially when that human body is bigger than yours, and they’re all bigger than yours.”
The fear in his voice made my chest ache. “I didn’t know he was possessed. And anyway, I can handle myself. See?” I made a sweeping gesture toward Marco’s unconscious form. “Now he knows that being a teenage guy isn’t all getting high and threatening girls.”
“Yeah, and that was awesome, even if I can’t help but sympathize with the pain he’s going to be in when he wakes up. But Avari will be ready for that next time. One of these days you’re going to get in too deep, and I’m not going to get there fast enough, and…bad things are going to happen, and that will kill me more than my actual death did.”
“I think I was born ‘in too deep,’ and bad things happen every day. Sometimes I have to stab hellions. Sometimes I have to frame friends for murder, and stab evil math teachers, and watch my best friend die. Again. We deal with it, then we move on.”
“Well, maybe next time you could let the bad things find you, instead of searching them out for yourself. Or take someone with you. I know Nash isn’t as much fun to look at, but he’d be decent backup, and even with a broken arm, Sabine’s a force to be reckoned with.”
“But I’m not?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I think the evidence speaks for itself.” He glanced pointedly at Marco, still unconscious on the floor. “But six hands are better than two. Especially when my hands aren’t close enough to get to you.”
“They’re close enough now…” I pulled him toward me, and I could see that he was trying to resist a smile. To stay mad, to emphasize his point.
“That’s not gonna work.”
I went up on my toes to kiss him, and he groaned. “Do you really think this is appropriate on school grounds?”
“Nope.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “And I happen to know there isn’t an appropriate thought running through your head right now.”
“Or any other time.” Tod pulled me close and held me so tight my ribs almost hurt, but I didn’t want him to let go. Ever. “Just promise me you’ll be more careful.”
“I promise.”
“So…” Tod tried on a grin, and I bent to pick up Em’s textbook from where he’d dropped it. “What did Tall, Dark, and Evil want?”
“The usual. Devour my soul. Mutilate my corpse. Dissect my psyche. Just another day in the most dangerous high school in the country. Of its size.” I nudged Marco’s arm with my foot. “Can you help me get him to the nurse? He’s going to wake up with several unexplained injuries, and I don’t want to be in the room when he starts asking questions.”
That night, Tod, my dad, and I made a conscious effort to keep our own emotions in check, so we wouldn’t accidentally trigger Emma’s as-yet-uncontrollable syphon ability. Which wasn’t so much an ability at that point as a constant trial.
I think we did pretty well. Until around ten-thirty, when Em was doing homework on her bed and Tod and I were stretched out on my bed, not doing my homework. After about ten minutes of what I would categorize as PG-rated not-quite-adult content, she threw a balled-up pair of socks at us and said if we didn’t go away she would jump my boyfriend herself.
Evidently we weren’t very good at keeping those emotions in check. And since I did not want my best friend syphoning anything quite that intimate, we took the party to Tod’s place.
Tuesday morning, Emma was in much better spirits. We picked up coffee on the way to school and met Nash and Sabine in one corner of the cafeteria, as far from the breakfast eaters as we could get.
“Here.” I passed out lattes, and Em snatched a napkin dispenser from an empty table.
“What’s the occasion?” Sabine looked suspicious. I couldn’t blame her. We’d reached an understanding—she could have Nash, and I could never again touch him, for any reason whatsoever, so long as we both shall live. Which isn’t as bad as it sounds. Nash and I had made serious strides toward actual friendship, which was more than I could say for him and his brother. Sabine and I would never be like sisters, but we had definitely reached something akin to friendship.
And that was good, considering that the alternative always seemed to involve her trying to kill me, with little regard for the fact that I was already dead.
“I need some information.” I took the lid off my cup and blew over the top of my latte. “From Nash.”
“What’s up?” He dumped a packet of sugar into his open cup, then realized he had nothing to stir with.
“I need you to make a list of everyone you know who tried frost, back when Doug was, um, distributing to your teammates.”
Emma flinched at the mention of her ex, and I felt guilty all over again. Both of her most recent boyfriends had died because of me and my otherworldly complications.
“I don’t have a list.” Nash scowled at the powder that refused to mix with the foam on top of his coffee. “In fact, I don’t know a single name for