My Soul To Steal
“It’s okay,” I whisper back. “It’s gonna be fine.” But I can’t say it with any strength, because it’s a lie.
“They’re empty,” Nash says, as I sink onto the floor next to him, trying to warm his hand in both of mine. But that’s a useless battle. His chill comes from within, and I can’t fight it.
“What’s empty?” I ask, and he’s shaking now. Not shivering. More like tremors. His bare feet bump into each other over and over, and his empty hand flops on the floor.
Convulsions. He took too much. I want to get rid of the balloon, but I can’t pop it without polluting the entire room.
“Memories …” His head rolls against the wall to face me. “They’re empty. Numb.”
My heart beats too hard. It’s going to rupture. Nash
has sold the emotions in his memories to pay for this high, and even if he survives, he can never get those feelings back.
“Which memories?” I don’t really want to know. But I have to ask.
“You.” His hand tightens around one of mine, but only a little. That’s all the strength he has left. “He only wants memories of you.”
My throat closes and I can’t breathe. It’s all gone. He can never again look back on our history together and feel what he felt about me then. If there’s no memory of love, can there still be love?
Finally, I suck in a deep breath, but it tastes bitter. Is this what I’m worth? A single latex balloon full of poison? If someone who loves me could sell me for so little, what value could I possibly have to anyone else?
My next breath comes before I can spit the last one out, and the next comes even faster. I’m hyperventilating. I know it, but I can’t stop it.
I drop Nash’s hand, and he stares at it blankly. Then he blinks and turns away from me, reaching for the balloon while I gasp and the room starts to go gray.
“It’s a relief, really,” he says, and I can hear him better now. Somehow he’s stronger now, without me. “You’re so needy, and clingy, and sealed up tighter than a nun. Too much work for too little payoff.”
My tears run over, blurring him and the room and my whole pathetic life. His words burn like acid dripped onto my exposed heart. But he’s sitting straighter now, like he draws strength from this. The truth is supposed to set you free, but it’s killing me. And it is the truth. I can see that in his eyes, and his eyes don’t lie. They can’t.
I truly have no worth. And I don’t think I can live with that.
“Go ahead and cry.” Nash picks at the knot I tied, trying to loosen it. “Your tears are worth more than my memories, anyway. Wonder what I could get for the rest of you? Kaylee Cavanaugh, body and soul. Probably be enough to keep me high for life. Guess you’re worth something, after all….”
8
I SAT UP IN BED, sticky with sweat. My pillow was damp from tears, and lingering fear pulsed through me, throbbing with each beat of my heart. I wasn’t worth loving, or even remembering. I tried too hard, but gave too little. Nash had wasted his time on me, and selling me to Avari was the only way to recoup his loss.
My worst fears, ripped from my own soul and left bleeding like an open wound.
Then the room came into focus through my tears, and I shook off sleep. With awareness came logic. And anger.
Fury, like I’d never felt.
“Sabine, get the hell out of my room!” I snapped through clenched teeth, remembering not to yell at the last minute, to keep from waking my dad. “Stay out of my head and out of my dreams, and stay away from Nash, or I swear your last semester of high school will make you homesick for prison!”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t even sure she was still there. But I had no doubt she had been. She’d given me the new nightmare, playing on my own fears. And that was the worst part.
Sabine was a horrible, cruel, emotional parasite, but she couldn’t have played architect in my dreams if I hadn’t given her the building material. The fears were real. Deep down, I was terrified that Nash wouldn’t stay clean. That he didn’t love me enough to even try. Because I wasn’t worth loving. Why else would my father have left me with his brother and let me be hospitalized?
My resolve wavered again, and I clutched at it like a life preserver, refusing to give in. Refusing to wallow in my own fear, which was no doubt what Sabine wanted.
I threw back the covers and grabbed my cell from the nightstand, pacing back and forth on my rug while the phone rang. My alarm clock read 2:09.
“Kaylee?” Nash sounded groggy. “What’s wrong?”
“Is she there?” I demanded, stomping all the way to my closet, then turning to stomp the length of my bed.
“Is who here?” As if he didn’t know!
“Sabine. Is she there with you? Tell me the truth.”
His bedsprings creaked. “You woke me up in the middle of the night to ask if Sabine’s with me?”
“It’s not like that’s a stretch, considering how late she was there last night.”
Nash groaned and I heard him roll over. “I sent her home hours ago. Before midnight,” he added. “Why?”
“Because she just gave me another nightmare, Nash. She was feeding from me in my sleep, like a great big flea!” Which made me feel a bit like a dog and gave me a huge case of the creeps. “I don’t want her in my head, or in my dreams, or in my room.” Or in my life, or in his. “If you don’t do something about her, I will.”
I had no idea what I would do, but I’d come up with something. Fortunately, Nash didn’t press for details.
“I will. I’ll take care of it, Kaylee. I swear.”
“What on earth did you guys talk about? ‘Cause it obviously wasn’t the fact that she is not allowed to stalk my dreams!”
“Kay, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“It better not.” Sabine had invaded my most private thoughts. “It’s almost as bad as having you in my head.”
Nash’s sigh sounded like it had completely deflated him. “I don’t …” He stopped and started over. “I said I was sorry about that. So sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Because he’d been high when he’d tried to Influence me into his bed. “It’ll never happen again. Can we please just move on from that? Please?”
“You can, obviously. Forgive me if I’m having a little more trouble with that. Especially with your new girlfriend playing dreamweaver in my sleep!”
“She’s not my girlfriend, Kaylee.”
I sank onto my bed, clenching one fist around a handful of my comforter. “Well, she’s not much of a friend to you, either, if this is how she treats your … people you care about.”
He sighed again. “You have her at a disadvantage. She thinks she has to use her entire arsenal just to even the odds.”
“I have her at a disadvantage? Tod says the two of you were attached at the hip. Or was it the crotch?” Yes, I was being petty and unreasonable. That may have had something to do with the fact that I wasn’t getting any sleep, and I’d just had my psychic energy drained by my ex-boyfriend’s leech of an ex-girlfriend.
Nash’s bedsprings creaked again, and the soft click told me he’d just turned on his bedside lamp. “Are you mad at me because I slept with someone else two and a half years ago? Before I even met you?”
“Yes!” I stood again and rubbed my forehead, well aware that my lack of logic wasn’t helping my case. But I couldn’t help how I felt, and he wasn’t doing much to alleviate my worries. “And don’t say that’s not fair, because ‘fair’ isn’t even in the equation anymore. What you let happen to me wasn’t fair, either. And I’m sure Scott would agree.”
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