LITMIR.BIZ

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shadows across his eyes, I thought I saw some movement of the green in his irises. I know that never happened before. I would have noticed. “How did you even get into a nightclub?” he demanded. “Do you have a fake ID?”

      I rolled my eyes. “No, I just snuck in through the back.” Sort of. “But that’s not really the point,” I rushed on, hoping he’d be distracted by the next part. “One of the girls in the club was.dark. Like she was wearing shadows no one else could see. And when I looked at her, I knew she was going to die, and that panic—or premonition, or whatever it is—came on hard and fast, just like last time. It was horrible. But I didn’t know I’d been right—that she’d actually died—until I saw the story on the news yesterday morning.” Speaking of which. “Are the others dead too? The ones I saw last year?” My fingers stilled in my lap as I stared at my uncle, begging him, daring him to tell me the truth.

      He looked sad, like he didn’t want to have to say it, but there was no doubt in his eyes. Nor any hesitation. “Yes.”

      “How do you know?”

      He smiled almost bitterly. “Because you girls are never wrong.”

      Great. Morbid and accurate. Sounds like the sales pitch for a county-fair fortune-teller.

      “Anyway, after I saw the news yesterday morning, I kind of freaked. And then it happened again that afternoon, and things got really weird.”

      “But you didn’t predict that one, right?”

      I nodded and dropped my hopelessly knotted earbuds in my lap. “I heard about that one secondhand, but had to look up the story online. This girl in Arlington died exactly like the girl at Taboo. And like Meredith. They all three just fell over dead, with no warning. Does that sound normal to you?”

      “No.” To his credit, my uncle didn’t even hesitate. “But that doesn’t rule out coincidence. How much did Nash tell you about what we can do?”

      “Everything important, I hope.” And even if he’d left some gaps, that was much better than the canyons my own family had created in my self-awareness. Not to mention my psyche.

      Uncle Brendon’s eyes narrowed in doubt, and he crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. “Did he mention what happens to a person’s soul when he dies?”

      “Yeah. That’s where Tod comes in.”

      “Who’s Tod?”

      “The reaper who works at the hospital. He’s stuck there because he let this little girl live once when she was supposed to die, and his boss killed the girl’s grandmother instead. But anyway—”

      Uncle Brendon shot out of the chair, his face flushed so red I thought he might be having an aneurism. Did bean sidhes have aneurisms?

      “Nash took you to see a reaper?” He stomped across my rug, gesturing angrily with both arms. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” I tried to answer, but he barreled forward, stopping at the end of my bed to stare down at me as he ranted. “Reapers don’t like bean sidhes. Our abilities are at odds with theirs, and most of them feel very threatened by us. Going to see a reaper is like walking into a police station waving a loaded shotgun.”

      “I know.” I shrugged, trying to placate him. “But Nash knew this guy before he was a reaper. They’re friends—sort of.”

      “That may be what he thinks, but somehow I doubt Tod agrees.” And he was pacing again, as if the faster he walked, the faster he could think. Though my doubts about that technique stemmed from personal experience.

      “Well, he must, ‘cause he’s going to help us.” No need to mention that his help stemmed more from my involvement in the matter than from Nash’s.

      “Help you with what?” Uncle Brendon froze halfway across the room, facing me, and this time his eyes were definitely swirling.

      “Help us figure out what’s going on. He’s getting some information for us.”

      My uncle’s expression darkened, and my breath hitched in my throat as the green in his irises churned so fast it made me dizzy. “What kind of information? Kaylee, what are you doing? I want the truth, and I want it right now or I swear you won’t leave this house again until you turn twenty-one.”

      I had to smile at the irony of Uncle Brendon asking me for the truth. I sighed and sat straighter on the bed. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but don’t freak out. It’s not as dangerous as it sounds—” I hope “—because there’s this loophole in the exchange rate, and—”

      “The exchange rate?” Uncle Brendon’s face went from tomato-red to nuclear countdown in less than a second. And then there was more pacing. “This is why we wanted your father to be the one to explain everything. Or at least me. That way we’d know how much you understand and what you’re still clueless about.”

      “I’m not clueless.” My temper spiked, and I stretched to drop my iPod on my nightstand before I accidentally crimped the cord.

      “You are if you think you have any business even contemplating the exchange rate. You have no idea how dangerous messing in reaper business can be!”

      “Ignorance is dangerous, Uncle Brendon. Don’t you get it?” Standing, I grabbed a clean pair of jeans and shook them out harshly, pleased when the material snapped against itself, sharply accenting my anger. “Eventually, if the premonitions kept up, I would have been unable to hold back my song. I’d have wound up delaying some random reaper’s schedule and really pissing him off—not to mention whatever other invisible creepies are out there—with no idea what I was doing. See? The longer you all keep me bumbling around in the dark, the greater the chance that I’ll stumble into something I don’t understand. Nash knows that. He explained the possibilities and the consequences. He’s arming me with knowledge because he understands that the best offense is knowing how to avoid trouble.”

      “From what I heard, it sounds more like you’re out looking for trouble.”

      “Not trouble. The truth.” I dropped the folded jeans on the end of the bed. “There’s been precious little of that around here, and even now that I know what I am, you and Aunt Val are still keeping secrets.”

      He exhaled heavily and sat on the edge of my dresser, scruffing one hand through unkempt hair. “We’re not keeping secrets from you. We’re giving your dad a chance to act like a real father.”

      “Ha!” I stomped around the bed to put it between us, then snatched a long-sleeved tee from the pile. “He’s had sixteen years. What makes you think he’ll start now?”

      “Give him a chance, Kaylee. He might surprise you.”

      “Not likely.” I folded the shirt in several short, sharp motions, then tossed it on top of the jeans, where one arm flopped free to dangle over the side. “If Nash knew what my dad had to say, he’d tell me.”

      Uncle Brendon leaned forward and flipped the sleeve back on top of my shirt. “Nash should never have taken you to see a reaper, Kaylee. Bean sidhes have no natural defenses against most of the other things out there. That’s why we live here, with the humans. The key to longevity lies in staying out of sight. In only meeting a reaper once in your life—at the very end.”

      “That’s ridiculous!” I tossed another folded shirt onto the stack and tugged a pair of pajama pants from the pile. “A reaper can’t touch you unless your name shows up on his list, and when that happens, there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Avoiding reapers is pointless. Especially when they can help you.” In theory. But wasn’t my theory about the dead girls based on the suspicion that at least one reaper had strayed from his purpose?

      “What truth is this reaper helping you look for?” Uncle Brendon sank back into the desk chair with a defeated-sounding sigh. He

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