If I Die (11 page)

“What’d you want from Nash, Kaylee?”

“Huh?” I glanced at Tod and found his irises holding steady in spite of clear tension in the line of his jaw.

“Your last request from my little brother. What did you ask him to do for you?”

My grip tightened around the steering wheel, and I could feel my face flush. “That’s none of your business, Tod.”

In my peripheral vision, he nodded stiffly. “That’s what I thought.”

“What, no lecture about how I’m too young, or I’m not ready?” Or I shouldn’t be with Nash in the first place?

“I’ve already said what I have to say about you and my brother.” Tod stared out his window, and it irritated me that I couldn’t see his face. “If that’s really what you want, go for it. I just thought…”

“What? You thought what?” I demanded, further irritated by his tone—which I couldn’t quite interpret.

Finally he turned to face me again, and my focus shifted back and forth between him and the barely past-rush-hour traffic. “I just thought… I thought you’d have something better to do with these last few days than spend them in bed with your boyfriend.”

I couldn’t think beyond the sting of his words, each like a needle puncturing my heart. Or maybe my pride. But then my surprise—and yeah, a tiny hint of shame—morphed into anger, sharp and clear. “Did you die a virgin, Tod?” I demanded.

He rolled his eyes. “No.”

“Then where the hell do you get off telling me I should?”

He sighed and leaned his chair back a little as I passed a slow-moving station wagon. “That’s not what I’m saying. If you wanna sleep with Nash, then sleep with Nash. You wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake.”

Anger made my heart beat harder. “Why are you so sure it’d be a mistake?”

“Because I know you! You’ve waited this long because it’s important to you and you want it to mean something. And if it’s with Nash, I think you’ll regret it later, when you realize the two of you don’t belong together.”

His insight scared me, and for a second, I couldn’t think beyond the shock of hearing some of my own thoughts coming from his mouth, albeit colored with his usual anti-Nash
perspective. Then the reality of what he’d said kicked in and fear-fueled anger flared in me like living flames.

“There isn’t going to
be
a later, Tod! These next three days? That’s my life. That’s all I get. I’m not going to live to regret
anything
.”

“So—just to be clear—you’re doing it for the novelty of the act? Not because you love him or because it means something—just so you can say you’ve done it?”

Yes
.

“No!” I shook my head, trying to jostle my conflicting thoughts into some semblance of order. “You’re such a hypocrite! Did your first time
mean
something? Did a choir of angels set the mood with an a cappella fanfare celebrating your union?” I demanded, and Tod just stared at me, his expression caught somewhere between surprise and regret. “Why do you even care if I sleep with Nash?”

Why did I care that he cared?

He turned to stare out his window again. “I just assumed you’d have something a little more meaningful on your last to-do list.”

And that’s when I realized he had no idea why we were breaking into Lakeside. “Not that it’s any of your business, but this little field trip we’re on has a purpose. I’m hoping a psych patient named Farrah Combs can give me the information I need to get rid of the incubus posing as my math teacher so that he can’t seduce and either kill or impregnate my best friend after I’m dead. Is that noble enough for you?”

Tod blinked. Then he blinked again, clearly stunned. “Yeah, actually. That’s more like what I thought you’d be doing.”

“Well, don’t read too much into it. I’m not a saint, and I don’t want to be. I just want to be
normal
. I want to have fights with my dad, and secrets with my best friend, and sex
with my boyfriend. But most of all, I want to not be dead in a few days. I’m not done living! And I can’t fit everything else I want to do into the next ninety-six hours, and no matter how many dying wishes I make, that’s not going to change. And I
hate
it!”

Tod laughed, and my teeth ground together as I swerved smoothly onto the exit ramp. “Why the hell is that funny?”

“It’s not. It’s just a relief to hear you sounding less than rational and perfectly accepting of your own death. For a while it looked like you were going to ‘go gentle into that good night,’ or whatever. And that’s not you, Kaylee.”

I glanced at him, brows raised in surprise. Tod rarely ever said what I expected to hear, but poetry was new, even for him. “You like it better when I ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light?’”

“I like it when you ‘rage, rage’ against anything. It makes you look fierce and…
alive
.” The blues in his eyes started to swirl. “And if you tell anyone I quoted Dylan Thomas, I’ll… Well, I won’t have to do anything, because no one will believe you.”

The light ahead turned red, and I slowed to a stop in the left turn lane, then laid one hand over my heart and gave him a cheesy, wide-eyed double-blink. “I will take your secret to my grave.”

“I wish you didn’t have to.”

“Yeah, me, too.” My chest ached just thinking about it.

The light changed and I turned left, then pulled into the parking lot on the right. Lakeside was attached to Arlington Memorial, the hospital where Tod worked as a reaper—unbeknownst to the living—and his mother worked as a third-shift triage nurse, but it was a separate building, with a separate entrance and better security.

I parked in the last row and killed the engine, then sat there
staring at the building for a minute, trying to calm the flutter of panic the sight of it raised in my stomach, even though I had no memory of being taken in. I’d just woken up inside, all alone, strapped to a bed in a featureless white room.

“You sure about this?” Tod asked, watching me.

“Yeah. Thanks for helping, even if it’s just to fulfill my last request,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.

“How is it fair that you get, like, five dying wishes and I didn’t even get one?”

“No dying wish?” I frowned. “That’s criminal.”

Tod shrugged. “One of the many downsides to an unexpected death.”

“Better late than never,” I said, pushing my car door open. “I officially owe you one dying wish.”

Tod’s pale brows arched halfway up his forehead, and he looked suddenly, achingly wistful. “She knows not what she says…”

Maybe not. But I was starting to get a pretty good idea….

“So what’s the plan?” Tod asked, as we stared at the building, sitting side by side on the hood of my car.

I shrugged. “Nothing complicated. You get me in, we find Farrah, I ask her questions.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“If you don’t count the million and one things that could go wrong. How long can you keep me invisible?”

“As long as we’re in physical contact.”

My throat felt suddenly dry. “Holding hands?” That’s how we’d done it last time.

“Unless you had something else in mind.”

“I…” Words deserted me until he grinned, and I realized he was kidding. “No wonder you and Nash can’t get along.”

“We get along.” He brushed that one stubborn curl back from his forehead. “We just don’t agree on anything.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It would if you had a brother.”

I could only shake off confusion and change the subject. “Last time we did this, you couldn’t keep me invisible and inaudible at the same time. Has that changed? Do you think you could make sure only Farrah can see and hear us?”

Another shrug. “Only one way to find out…” He stood and I slid off the hood, my palms suddenly damp from nerves, in spite of my determination to do what needed to be done. To protect Emma by getting rid of Mr. Beck and to face this, my worst fear, before I faced death. The thought of which was rapidly becoming my second worst fear.

Tod was already walking toward the building—no doubt moving corporeally for my exclusive benefit—but when he realized I wasn’t with him, he turned. “It won’t be like last time,” he said, with one look at my face.

“You don’t know what last time was like.” My hands started to shake at the memory of waking up strapped to a tall bed in an empty room.

“I know you couldn’t leave, and you didn’t know what was happening to you. And I know you’re more scared of going back in there than of crossing into the Netherworld.”

I stared at him, confused by the ache in my chest, like my heart suddenly needed more space.

“This time, you can leave whenever you want,” Tod said. “You just say the word, and I’ll make the rest of the world go away. I’ll take you someplace safe, where no one else can reach us.”

I couldn’t see anything but his eyes, staring into mine. I couldn’t take a breath deep enough to satisfy the need for one. I kept waiting for him to laugh, or grin, or do something to break the moment stretching between us. And when he didn’t—when he let that moment swell into something raw, and fragile, and too real for me to think about, I crossed my arms over my chest and scrounged up a challenging grin to lighten the moment. “You think I need to be rescued?”

“I think it doesn’t hurt to let someone else do the rescuing every now and then, when your own armor starts to get banged up.”

Maybe he was right. “And you think you’re up to the challenge?”

Some nameless emotion swirled in the blues of his eyes for just an instant. “I’m up to any challenge you could throw down. And several you’ve probably never thought of.”

I laughed out loud. “I’m starting to see the family resemblance.”

Tod frowned. “That’s not funny.”

“I know.” That time I took the lead and we stopped twenty feet from the back door, where the serene, manicured greenery gave way to cold concrete and two industrial trash bins.

“You ready?” Tod held his hand out and I took it, twining my fingers around his. His palm was warm and dry, and I tried to ignore the wave of confusion and possibility that crashed over me. There was no time—and no real purpose—for either one.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, and I was happy to comply, because I couldn’t deal with what I might still see in his. Not now, anyway. “Here we go…”

My stomach pitched with the sudden sensation that I was falling. I fought the urge to grab on to something and clung to Tod’s hand instead, surprised that it still felt warm and solid while my own body felt oddly insubstantial.

Then the world seemed to settle around me and I felt the floor beneath my feet. The air was cold and had that distinctive hospital smell, somehow both sterile and stale at the same time. Tod squeezed my hand and I opened my eyes.

And the fears of my present slammed into the terror of my past.

Nothing had changed. Lakeside still looked and felt exactly the same.

We stood in the open common area of the youth ward, where patients gathered to eat, watch TV, play games, and
have group therapy. The nurse’s station was only feet away, and the girls’ wing stretched out on my right. At the end of the hall was the room I’d occupied, and I was overwhelmed with the perverse need to go see who lived there now, and whether her delusions could hold a candle to my own.

You’re not crazy, Kaylee
.

I had to remind myself, because just being back in that place blurred the line between delusion and reality for me. The last time I was there, I hadn’t known I was a
bean sidhe
. I’d only known that I was seeing things no one else could see—dark, horrifying auras surrounding certain people, and odd smoke, and things skittering through it. I’d fought, and failed, against an overwhelming need to scream, and it was those fits—what I thought were panic attacks—that landed me in Lakeside in the first place.

“I don’t suppose you know her room number?” Tod said, and his volume alone told me no one else could hear him. I shook my head, unsure whether or not that benefit of his abilities extended to me. “I think you can talk,” he said, and I lifted both brows, silently asking if he was sure.

Tod shrugged. “Give it a shot. Even if someone hears you, he won’t be able to see you, and I bet half of these people are here because they already hear voices.”

But I wasn’t particularly eager to add my voice to the general din of insanity.

The hall was empty, except for the canned laughter of whatever was playing on the common-room TV and the clatter of plastic utensils, which told me we’d arrived at the end of dinner. Any minute, the residents would emerge from the dining area and begin whatever doctor-approved leisure activities were currently available. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not even a lifetime of books, puzzles, or games could make them
forget where they were or that most of them would only ever leave when they were transferred to one of the adult wards.

And nothing could make the time pass any faster.

“In here,” Tod said, tugging me toward the nurse’s station, which was temporarily empty.

He glanced around for a second, then zeroed in on a chart hanging on the wall. “What was her name?”

“Farrah Combs,” I whispered, terrified that the nurse on duty would hear me and step out of the break room. Maybe we should have tested this plan in an unsecure part of the hospital first…

“Room 304,” Tod said, and I scanned the chart long enough to see that he was right. And that Scott was in the first room on the left in the boys’ wing.

We headed into the girls’ wing, but before we were halfway down the hall, footsteps squeaked on the tile ahead and a woman in purple scrubs emerged from one room carrying a clipboard with a pen chained to the metal clasp. I stood frozen in the middle of the hall, suddenly sure she’d see me, in spite of Tod’s assurance to the contrary.

“Relax.” He squeezed my hand. “She can’t see either of us, and I don’t think she can hear you, either.” When the nurse got too close for comfort, I stepped out of her way, still clinging to Tod’s hand, and was both fascinated and a little scared of the fact that she obviously had no idea we were there. She didn’t hesitate or look up from her clipboard. If she got any telltale chills or weird feelings, I saw no sign. It was like Tod and I existed in our own world, population two, surrounded by the real world, but not a part of it.

“Is it always like this for you?” I asked in a spontaneous moment of bravery, and I couldn’t resist a sigh of relief when the nurse kept walking. She hadn’t heard me.

“Like what?” Tod asked from inches away, and suddenly
I was very aware of his hand in mine, his fingers rough and real against my own, in spite of how very tenuous the rest of reality felt in that moment.

“Like this.” I gestured at the rest of the building as the first residents stepped into the hallway, girls with stringy hair and sweatpants, most wearing slippers or laceless shoes. Dinner was over. “Like you’re alone in a crowd. Like you’re not really here at all.”

Tod stared at me like I wasn’t making any sense. Or like I was making
too
much sense. “Yeah. Most of the time. But I’ve never been more
here
than I am right now.” His hand tightened around mine again, and my pulse raced, running from something I couldn’t think about yet.

As the girls shuffled toward us, a couple blinking in medicated dazes, several guys headed in the opposite direction, toward the boys’ wing, and I glimpsed a dark head that might have been Scott’s. Or might not have been. I wanted to check on him, but business came first.

Still holding Tod’s hand, I stared into the faces of the girls as they passed me, waiting for one of them to turn into room 304. I had no idea what Farrah Combs looked like—she could have been any one of the girls passing us. A couple of the faces did look familiar—it creeped me out to think we may have been residents together.

But none of them went into room 304, and before I could pull Tod into the room to wait for its resident, the woman in purple scrubs stepped in front of me and knocked on that very door. Surprised, I pulled Tod with me as she pushed the door open and stepped into the doorway, just far enough into the room to get the resident’s attention.

“Farrah?” she said, and my heart leapt into my throat. If there was a reply from inside, I couldn’t hear it. “You didn’t even touch your tray today. The doctor says if you don’t eat,
they’ll have to feed you intravenously. You don’t want that, do you?”

Again, there was no audible response, and based on the nurse’s frown, there was no silent gesture, either.

I edged down the hall toward 304, my pulse racing fast enough to make me light-headed and Tod came with me.

“Normally we don’t make these kinds of accommodations,” the nurse said. “But considering your situation… Is there anything I can get you? Anything you’d particularly like to eat?”

Again there was no answer, and I was actually starting to feel sorry for the nurse. And to wish there’d been more like her when I was there…

“Okay then,” she said, in response to nothing I’d heard. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you feel better.”

Wow. She was really going out of her way for one resident.

I flattened myself against the wall when the nurse headed down the hall again, but Tod let her walk right through him. “What does that feel like?” I asked, whispering out of instinct. Talking when no one else could hear me felt weird.

He shrugged, looking right into my eyes. “Right now, this is all I feel.” He held our intertwined hands up for me to see and I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t break the hold his gaze had on me, like he could see more than anyone else saw. Things I couldn’t even see myself.

I didn’t know what to say—I could hardly remember how to take my next breath—but then he looked away first, like maybe he wished he could take it back. So I let him tug me toward the open door still swimming in confusion.

I stepped inside first with Tod close at my back. The room was a double, with two identical low beds against opposite walls. There were two sets of metal shelves bolted to the walls
in place of dressers, and a door on the left led to a tiny private bathroom.

The bed on the right was empty and sort of haphazardly made, the plain white blanket pulled up and the pillow tossed on top. But Farrah Combs—it had to be her—sat cross-legged on the other mattress, white sheet and blanket shoved to the bottom of the bed, waist-length, greasy brown hair hanging like a curtain over her face and half her body. She stared at a book open on the bed in front of her, and I desperately wanted to see her face.

“Can you let her see and hear us?” I asked Tod, acutely aware of his hand in mine. “Just her?”

He nodded, and I turned back to the girl on the bed. “Hi, Farrah,” I said, and she looked up slowly, like she’d heard me on some kind of a delay. Her face was gaunt and deeply shad owed, her arms thin and knobby at the wrists and elbows. When my gaze met hers, I realized two things immediately about Farrah Combs. First, she was sick, and not just mentally.

And second…she was very, very pregnant.

Oh, wow
. Questions flew through my mind so fast I couldn’t harness them. Was this Mr. Beck’s baby? If so, why had he tried again with Danica? Was one kid not enough? Was this one not a boy?

“Farrah?” I said, finally. “Are you Farrah Combs?”

“I used to be,” she said, her voice higher and sweeter than I’d expected.

I glanced at Tod, but he could only shrug.

“So…you’re not Farrah Combs now?” I asked, and she shook her head slowly. “Then who are you?”

“No one,” she said. “I’m not real.” Her brown eyes widened in sudden interest. “Are
you
real?”

“Yeah. For a few more days, anyway…” I said, and Tod’s
hand squeezed mine again. “Farrah, can I talk to you about your baby?”

She shrugged and glanced at her round belly, barely covered by the T-shirt stretched over it. “He’s not real, either. Feels real, though.” She flinched and pressed one hand against her bulging stomach.

“Can you tell me who the father is?” I asked, and she shook her head solemnly. “Please, Farrah? It’s very important.”

“I can’t…” Her voice faded into a whisper on the last sound.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s real.” She barely breathed the words, and the tears standing in her eyes made my heart ache. “He’s still real, and I was real when he touched me, but he doesn’t touch me anymore. But I remember being real.” She looked at her book again and turned a page she couldn’t possibly have seen through her tears.

“Why do you think you’re not real, Farrah?” I asked, dropping into a squat next to her bed with Tod at my side.

“He told me. I’m not real, and this place isn’t real, so none of this matters. Soon it will all be over.”