Chapter 13

"I really should just leave you here. You deserve to ride the bus, for keeping so many secrets." Emma slammed her locker closed as the last bell rang, but her bright brown eyes gave her away. She wasn't really mad. She was fishing for hints about the super-secret bean sidhe mission she imagined we were on.

I settled my backpack higher on my shoulder and tugged my snug tee down over the waistband of my jeans. "Trust me, you're not missing anything." If she knew the truth, her curiosity would no doubt give way to terror. Which was why I couldn't tell her.

But Emma would give us another ride, anyway, to make up for making us all nearly half an hour late to first period. I should have known she wouldn't remember a middle-of-the-night, sleep-foggy promise. She'd actually made it all the way to the school parking lot five minutes ahead of the tardy bell before remembering me and Nash. I would have texted her, but my dad left for work with my phone, and I didn't have her number memorized. Nor did Nash have it programmed.

We all three got unexcused tardies, which made a matched set with my unexcused absence from history the day before. Add to that the half-finished chemistry homework I'd spilled nacho-cheese sauce on during lunch, and I was starting to think I couldn't handle both school and bean sidhe business. Not to mention work.

"Hey, Emma," a male voice called from down the hall. We looked up to see Doug Fuller strutting with a huddle of football players in matching school jackets, Nash among them. "You got plans tonight?"

The cluster closed around us in a tall wall of broad green-and-white-clad shoulders, blocking most of the hall from view and effectively trapping us, though Emma didn't seem to notice the sudden suffocating lack of personal space. I stepped back and my bag hit the lockers. There was nowhere else to go unless I was willing to break through the offensive line and expose my confinement issues. Which would be like waving a red flag in front of a whole herd of bulls.

Nash must have seen the swirl of panic in my eyes, because he was suddenly at my side. I let my backpack slide to the floor, and he wrapped both arms around me from behind. His breath brushed my ear in a private, whispered greeting, and I relaxed into him as if the other ass-letes weren't even there.

They'd accepted me into their company easily enough—though I'd only hovered on the fringes before, thanks to Emma's various adventures in dating—because Nash and I were practically attached at the hip.

Or at the crotch, as the other guys no doubt assumed. After all, why else would he hang out with Emma's curve-less, penniless best friend, even if I did have a not-hideous face?

A very good question…

Nash had no more money than I did. Maybe even less. But he was wealthy in another currency: athleticism. He'd helped lead the football team to the regional play-offs—they were the heavy favorites for Friday night's game—and would do it again when baseball season arrived in the spring. That prowess, along with a face and body—not to mention a voice—few girls could say no to, kept him firmly anchored in the bright, shining kingdom of Social Acceptance, a world surely stranger and more frightening than anything I could stumble across in the Netherworld.

Emma had a free pass into that world, issued solely upon the basis of her flawless face and generous curves. She flitted among the chosen ones at will, lingering whenever a strong chin or bulging arm caught her eye. But it never lasted long. She bored easily—especially of guys with wandering hands—and would soon come back bearing tales of bumbling inadequacy unenhanced by enthusiasm.

Outside of school, it was easy to forget that Nash belonged to that world, too, and that he had a lot in common with his friends, minus the bumbling inadequacy part. But I'd rather walk the Netherworld alone, with my soul safety-pinned to my sleeve, than spend a few hours alone with any one of his teammates. Somehow, that seemed safer.

"Yeah, I have plans." Emma stood on her toes and pressed herself into Doug's chest so that her breasts flattened against his letter jacket, her nose inches from his chin. His hand slithered around her waist to spread at the base of her spine, fingers inching lower. "I have very interesting plans…."

His friends snickered and Emma stretched higher, letting her lips brush his jaw near his ear as his hand slid lower, gripping the upper curve of her backside. "Too bad they don't include you."

With that, she dropped onto her heels again and smiled up at him, one hand propped on the dramatic flair of her hip.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Emma's game was a bit like taunting an angry gorilla through a flimsy window screen, but what can I say? She was fun to watch.

"You'll change your mind." Doug grinned and winked, walking backward away from us to keep Emma in his sight. He was a much better sport than I'd given him credit for.

"Not likely." Emma turned to her locker and threaded the padlock through the holes in the latch, then snapped it shut as Nash waved off several summonses from his friends, so he could hang out with me. And his mother. "Come on, pedestrians, where am I dropping you? Your place or his?"

"His," I answered so quickly Emma's brows shot up in amusement.

"Trouble at home?" She shrugged her backpack onto one shoulder as I grabbed mine from the floor, and we followed her down the hall in the opposite direction of the offensive line.

"No more than usual, but I have a lesson this afternoon." I left it vague because she knew what I was talking about.

Nash climbed into the back of Emma's metallic blue Sunfire and I took shotgun. Her car was far from new—it was a hand-me-down from one of her older sisters—yet it made mine look like an antique in comparison. However, the major advantage to Emma's vehicle over mine was that she was actually in possession of her keys.

I buckled as she pulled out of the lot onto a side street, barely glancing in her rearview mirror before changing lanes right in front of the first stoplight. "Give me a hint." Em glanced sideways at me, when she really should have had her eyes on the road. "Just a little one. Is someone else going to die? Is it another cheerleader?"

I laughed at her lighthearted inquisition.

"Maybe you should tell her," Tod's voice said out of nowhere, and I jumped so hard the seat belt cut into my neck.

"Stop doing that!" Nash shouted, and I turned to see Tod on the bench seat next to him, one finger pressed to his lips in an exaggerated "shh" signal, while his other hand pointed at Emma.

"Sorry!" she snapped, assuming Nash was talking to her. She swerved into the right-hand lane without bothering to flick on her turn signal, and the driver of the car behind us honked, gesturing angrily. "It's not like I'm actually wishing for more dead cheerleaders. I'm just saying, if someone has to go…"

Tod snorted. "I like her!"

Nash elbowed him in the side, and Emma raised both brows at him in the rearview mirror. She'd seen the gesture, but couldn't see the reaper now holding his ribs, nor did she hear his oof of pain. "Sorry." Nash finally met her gaze. "I wasn't talking to you."

Her mouth opened, but I cut off a question I was sure we wouldn't be able to answer. "Em, go." I pointed out the windshield, where the cars in front of us had already driven through the intersection when the light turned green. The man behind us honked again, and Emma stomped on the gas. We lurched forward, and she forgot about Nash's odd behavior. At least for the moment.

"Does this have anything to do with Eden dropping dead onstage?"

I couldn't think of an answer fast enough, and Em's lighthearted smile died when she realized she'd actually hit the bull's-eye.

"Kaylee…" Tod said from the backseat.

"What's wrong?" I twisted so I could see all three of the other occupants.

"I just didn't see the light change." Emma slammed on the brake when the school bus in front of us slowed to a rumbling stop, the pop-out stop sign swinging away from its side.

Of course, I wasn't talking to her. I was talking to the uninvited, invisible reaper in her backseat.

"I can't get Addy and Regan alone long enough to explain the plan to them. They're constantly surrounded by this whole entourage. Assistants, and publicists, and Security, and their mother, who, by the way—" he turned to Nash "—hasn't changed one bit, except for a whole web of new wrinkles. She still has her nose in everything Addy does."

"Is there a point to this?" I looked from one brother to the other.

"A point to what?" Emma glanced in the rearview mirror again to see what she was missing. "What is wrong with you guys today?"

"Sorry, Em." I turned to face her more directly. "It's—"

" Bean sidhe business. I know. And I'm getting pretty damn sick of the whole thing." She smacked the steering wheel with the heel of one palm, then swerved into a right-hand turn without even touching the brake.

I grabbed the door grip, but she only stomped on the gas again before the wheel even straightened out. "I lied to your dad last night, and I got stuck in the ticket booth with Glen 'the human sprinkler' Frank for four hours yesterday. And I've driven you around today like your own personal chauffeur. The least you could do is explain why you two are acting so weird."

Sighing, I glanced at Nash, then pointedly at Tod, raising my brows in question. Should we tell her?

He shrugged, leaving the decision up to me. She was my best friend.

I shifted to face Emma, exhaling slowly. "I don't want you mixed up in all this. It's dangerous."

She rolled her eyes, and when she turned to look at me, she accidently turned the wheel, too, and the front right tire scraped the curb. Emma didn't seem to notice. "I'm not asking to go with you on some kind of scary field trip. I just hate being in the dark all the time."

I knew exactly how she felt, but before I could say anything, Tod shrugged at me, blue eyes shining in mischief. "Sounds like she wants to help. Ask if we can borrow her car. Preferably before she drives it into the side of a building…"

"No!" Nash and I snapped in unison. Then, before Emma could get even angrier, I glared at Tod. "Show her."

"You sure?" He frowned, no doubt thinking of my standing order for him to stay as far from Emma as possible, and never to let her see him. I didn't want death getting a crush on my best friend.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Wha—" Emma started. Then she squealed, and her eyes went huge as she stared into the rearview mirror in total shock. I grabbed the wheel when her hands fell away from it, trying to keep us on the right side of the road while her foot got heavier and heavier on the gas.

" Told you this was a bad idea," Tod said from the backseat, as Nash growled wordlessly at him in frustration.

"Em!" I yelled. "Hit the brake!" We were racing toward a four-way stop, where a group of tweens waited to cross the road on bicycles.

"Who…? How…?" She blinked, then actually twisted to look into the backseat, and the car lurched forward even faster when she braced herself against the gas pedal instead of the floorboard.

"Emma, stop!" I shouted, and she whirled around and stomped on the brake, bringing us to a screeching halt two feet from the crosswalk.

"Okay, we probably shouldn't have done that while she was actually driving." Nash studied her profile in concern.

"You call that driving?" Tod crossed his arms casually over his chest as if we hadn't nearly flattened three kids and totaled Emma's car.

The tweens rode their bikes across the street, glaring at us through the windshield. The last one flipped us off, then tossed long, purple-striped hair over his shoulder and rode off, standing on his pedals.

In the driver's seat, Emma sat frozen, staring wide-eyed into the rearview mirror. Her chest rose and fell heavily with each breath, and her hands shook on the wheel.

"Want me to drive?" I offered, laying one hand on her arm.

She shook her head without taking her gaze from Tod. "I want you to tell me what the hell just happened. Who is he, and how did he get in my car?"

"Okay, but we can't sit here forever." Another car had stopped behind us at the four-way, already honking. "Pull into the lot up there and we'll explain." Part of it, anyway.

Emma forced her attention from the rearview mirror with obvious effort. "This is part of your bean sidhe business? Who is that?" She glanced quickly at Tod again, as she drove slowly through the intersection.

Nash braced his arm on the back of my seat, steeling himself for something he obviously didn't want to say. "Emma, this is my brother. Tod." Calm flowed with his words, and I could tell the moment it hit Emma, because her shoulders relaxed, and her grip on the wheel loosened just a bit.

"You have a…Wait." She turned the car smoothly into a small lot in front of a park full of preschoolers and their parents, then pulled into the first empty spot, facing the road. Emma cut the engine and twisted onto her knees to peer over the back of her seat. "You have a brother?" she said to Nash, after a quick glance at me for confirmation. No one from Eastlake High knew about Nash's dead brother, because he and Harmony had moved—and changed schools—after the funeral two years earlier. "And he can…what? Teleport into strange cars? Is that a bean sidhe ability?"

"No…" I started, trying to decide how much to tell her. But then the reaper took that decision right out of my hands, in classic Tod-style.

"Okay, we're kind of on a tight schedule here, so let's get this over with…."

"Tod—" Nash snapped, but his brother held up one hand and rushed on before either of us could stop him.

"I'm a bean sidhe, just like Nash and Kaylee. Except that I'm dead. Teleportation—never really heard it called that—isn't a bean sidhe ability. It's a reaper ability. I'm a grim reaper. I can appear wherever I want, whenever I want, and I can choose who sees and hears me." He hesitated, and I wondered if my face could possibly be as red as Nash's. Or my eyes as wide as Emma's.

"You're Nash's brother. And a grim reaper? " She blinked again, and I readied myself for hysterics, or fear, or laughter. But knowing Emma, I should have known better. "So you, what? Kill people? Did you kill me that day in the gym?" She clenched the headrest, her expression an odd mix of anger, awe, and confusion. But there was no disbelief. She'd seen and heard enough of the bizarre following her own temporary death that Tod's admission obviously didn't come as that much of a surprise.

Or maybe Nash's Influence was still affecting her a little.

"No," Tod shook his head firmly, but the corners of his mouth turned up in amusement. "I had nothing to do with that. I do kill people, then I reap their souls and take them to be recycled. But only people who are on my list."

"So, you're not…dangerous?"

His pouty grin deepened into something almost predatory, like the Tod I'd first met two months earlier. "Oh, I'm dangerous…."

"Tod…" I warned, as Nash punched his brother in the arm, hard enough to actually hurt.

"Just not to you," the reaper finished, shrugging at Emma. "I see you all the time, but you've never seen me, because Kaylee said if I got too close to you, I'd suffer eternity without my balls."

"Jeez, Tod!" I shouted, my anger threatening to boil over and scald us all.

The reaper leaned closer to Emma and spoke in a stage whisper. "She's not as scary as she thinks she is, but I respect her intent."

Em looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and I rolled my eyes at Tod. "Do you have to be so difficult?"

He shrugged and leaned back in his seat. "You wanted me to show her, so I showed her. Now ask her if we can borrow her car so I can get back to my part in the plan."

"Borrowing a car was your part of the plan, and we are not taking Emma's." Even if she was willing to lend it to us, I wasn't willing to ask. I wanted as little contact between her and the Netherworld as possible.

And I was already regretting asking Tod to show himself.

"Wait, why do you need my car?" Emma glanced from Tod to Nash, then to me.

"Kaylee's dad took her keys," the reaper said.

"We don't need your car." I glared at Tod. "Though, we really appreciate you taking us to Nash's house. Assuming you're not completely freaked out by all this."

"Oh, I'm totally freaked." Emma smiled slowly, and I wondered how deep her shock went. "But I asked, right? Besides, this isn't much weirder than you and Nash bringing people back to life. Not really." As if she were trying to convince herself. "And it's much better than listening to you talk to people who aren't there. Or yell at me." She raised one brow at me. "You were yelling at him, not me, right?"

"Yes." I returned her hesitant smile easily. "We yell at Tod a lot."

"I can see why. So…" She glanced at all three of us again. "You need to borrow my car?"

"Yes," Tod said, just as Nash and I said, "No."

"Look." Tod turned a dark look my way. "Everyone I know is dead, and has no use for a car. Except Mom, and she needs hers to get to work tonight. So either you let me take one, let me get your keys back from your dad, or we borrow Emma's car. Those are the options."

"What about Addy?" I demanded, before Emma could break in and volunteer her car. And that's exactly what she would have done. I recognized the gleam of curiosity in her eyes, and I knew that if we used her car, she'd insist on coming with us. And that could not happen. "You can't tell me Addy doesn't have a car."

"She doesn't." Tod scowled, and I got the distinct impression he was a little irritated with his pop princess. "She never got her license, because there's always someone else around to take her wherever she wants to go. Which poses a whole new problem. If we can't get some time alone with her, whether or not we can find a car won't matter."

"Who's Addy?" Emma asked.

"No one." I glared at Tod to keep him from contradicting me. "Just some girl Tod has a crush on."

"It's not a crush," he spat, as if the word burned his tongue. "I'm trying to save her life."

"Not really her life, " I corrected, when Emma's brow wrinkled in worry. She knew that each life had a price, and I couldn't let her think we were willing to kill some likely innocent bystander to save Tod's girlfriend. "We're trying to save her soul."

"What's wrong with her soul?" Emma asked Tod, having obviously come to the conclusion that he was her best source of information.

The reaper shrugged. "Nothing. She's just not actually in possession of it. At the moment."

"Whoooa…" Emma sank back into her seat slowly, her expression bleak, and I realized that somehow she understood the gravity of what she'd just heard, though she wasn't privy to the whole story. And if I had my way, she wouldn't be. "I get off at eight. My car's yours after that."

"Emma, no." I shook my head, one hand gripping the side of my headrest, but she only shook hers back at me. "Thanks, but…"

"You need the car. Take the car. Don't let some poor girl lose her soul because you were too stubborn to drive a loaner."

I sighed and closed my eyes briefly before giving in with a short nod, despite my better judgment. "Thanks, Em."

"You're welcome." Her smile grew, and her eyes glinted with mischief eerily similar to what I usually saw in Tod's. "And you're buying your own gas. Unless you let me tag along…"

"No." I smiled, to soften the blow. "It's too dangerous. And if you argue, I won't take your car."

"Yeah, I figured. Okay, let's go. I have to be at the Cinemark by four." Emma straightened in her seat and started the car again. "Though, how I'm supposed to serve popcorn for four hours after this, I have no idea…."