LITMIR.BIZ

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up the ticket on the counter in front of him. “I know. I’ve been doing this a week now, Kay. I got this.”

      I grinned at his colloquialism. He only used them on his good days, when he felt like he was fitting into the human world again. And honestly, in spite of his fleeting moments of confusion, some days, Alec seemed to fit into my world much better than I did.

      3

       THE HALLWAY IS COLD and sterile, and that should be my first clue. School is always cluttered and too warm, but today, cold and sterile makes sense.

       I walk down the hall with Emma, but I stop when I see them. She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t notice anything wrong, but when I see them, I can’t breathe. My chest feels too heavy. My lungs pull in just enough air to keep me conscious, but not enough to truly satisfy my need for oxygen. Like satisfaction is even a possibility with them standing there like that. In front of my locker, so I can’t possibly miss the act.

      I can’t see her face, because it’s sucking on his, but I know it’s her. It’s her hair, and her stupid guy-pants that look hot on her the same way his T-shirts probably look hot on her when that’s all she’s wearing. And I know she’s worn his shirts. Hell, she’s worn him, and if they weren’t in the middle of the school, she’d probably be wearing him now. She practically is, anyway.

       I stop in front of them so they can’t ignore me, and she peels herself away and licks her lips, like she can’t get enough of the taste of him, and I know that’s true. My teeth grind together, and when I glance around, I realize there’s a crowd.

       Of course there’s a crowd. Crowds gather for a show, and this is one hell of a show.

       I say his name. I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to acknowledge him and what he’s doing, but I can’t stop myself. It won’t be real unless he says it, and part of me believes he won’t say it. He’ll say the right words instead. He’ll say he’s sorry, and he’ll look like he’s sorry, and he’ll be sorry for a very long time, but then everything will be okay again.

      Instead, he shrugs and glances around at the crowd, grinning at the faces. The faces leer and blur together. I can’t tell them apart, but it doesn’t matter, because the crowd only has one face. Crowds only ever have one face. Et tu, Brute? It’s the mob mentality, and I am Caesar, about to be stabbed.

      Or maybe I’ve already been stabbed, and I’m too stupid to know I’m bleeding all over the floor. But I know I’m dying inside. He’s killing me.

       “Sorry, Kay,” he says at last, and I hate him for using my nickname. It sounds intimate and friendly, but he just had his tongue in her mouth, and now I want to cut it out of his head. “Sorry,” he repeats, while my face flames, and my world blurs with tears. “She knows what I like. And she delivers … “

       They’re laughing now, and even though the crowd only has one face, it has many jeering voices. And they’re all laughing at me. Even Emma.

       “I told you,” she says, shaking her head as she tries to hold back a giggle, and I love her for trying, even if, in the end, the laughter can’t be denied. It’s not her fault. She’s just playing her part, and the lines must be spoken, even if each word burns like an open wound.

       “I told you it wasn’t worth saving. You can’t win the game if you won’t even play. You have to deliver….”

      4

      I SAT UP IN BED, sweating and cold, my heart beating so hard it practically bruised my sternum. I took a deep breath, threw the covers back, and stepped into my Betty Boop slippers, then padded silently down the hall and into the living room, where Alec lay on the couch with the blanket pulled over his head. His exposed feet were propped on the armrest at the opposite end, brown on top, and pale on the bottom. When I walked past him, his toes twitched, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

      In the kitchen, I got a glass of water, and I was on my way back across the living room when Alec folded the blanket back from his head and blinked up at me.

      “Okay, that’s starting to get creepy,” I said, as he sat up.

      “What?”

      “You. Lying there awake but covered.” I sank into my dad’s recliner and tucked my feet beneath me. “It’s like watching a corpse sit up in the morgue.”

      “Sorry.” He ran one hand absently over his smooth, dark chest. Twenty-six years in the Netherworld may have scarred him on the inside, but his outside still looked good as new. “I can’t sleep. Can’t get used to the silence.”

      “What, did Avari sing you to sleep in the Netherworld?”

      “Funny.” Alec leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his head sagging on his shoulders. “Once you get used to all the screaming at night, it’s hard to go to sleep without it. Not that I actually slept every night.”

      “Are you serious?” The fresh crop of chill bumps on my arms had nothing to do with my bad dream, and everything to do with his living nightmare.

      Alec shrugged and sat up to meet my gaze. “Hellions don’t sleep, so I passed out whenever I got a chance. Whenever Avari was busy with someone else.”

      I started to explain that I was horrified by the screaming, not by his irregular sleep patterns, then decided I didn’t want to know any more about either. So I kept my mouth shut.

      “What about you?” he asked, as I sipped my water. “Bad dream.” I set the glass over the existing water ring on the end table.

      “What about?”

      My exhale sounded heavy, even to me. “I dreamed Nash dumped me for his ex-girlfriend, in front of the whole school, after eating her face in front of my locker.”

      “Literally?” Alec frowned, and I realized that where he’d spent the past quarter century, literal face eating might have been a real concern.

      “No. That might actually have been better.”

      He leaned back on the couch, arms crossed over his bare chest. “I thought you dumped him.”

      “I did. Kind of.” Nash and I were too complicated for simple explanations, and something told me that would only get worse, with his ex suddenly in the picture.

      “But now you want him back? Even after what he did?”

      Alec knew exactly what Avari had done with my body when he’d possessed me, because he’d been there in the Netherworld with the hellion when it happened. I couldn’t blame Nash for what Avari had done, but I couldn’t help blaming him for not telling me. And for not even trying to stop it from happening again. And again. And for lying to me about taking Demon’s Breath. And for using his Influence against me.

      Alec knew all of it—even the parts Emma and my dad didn’t know—because I’d needed to talk to someone who knew about things that go bump in the Netherworld, but who wouldn’t hate Nash on my behalf before I’d decided how I felt about him myself. Alec had been my only option for a confidant. Fortunately, he’d turned out to be a good one.

      “Well, yeah. I never stopped wanting him.” Trust was our new stumbling block, and as much as Nash meant to me, I couldn’t truly forgive him until I knew I could trust him again. I sighed and ran one finger through the condensation on the outside of my glass. “And I guess I kind of assumed that when we were both ready, we’d get back together. But now, with Sabine back in the picture …” I swallowed a bitter pang of jealousy. “It hurt to see them together.”

      They shared a history I hadn’t even known existed. A connection that predated my presence in Nash’s life and made me feel … irrelevant. And it wasn’t just sex. She’d known him before Tod died. That was practically a lifetime ago.

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