Rachel Vincent - My Soul to Steal

B Y THE TIME the second semester of my junior year began, Id already faced down rogue grim reapers, an evil entertainment mogul, and hellions determined to possess my soul. But I never would have guessed that the most infuriating beast of all, I had yet to meet. My boyfriends ex-girlfriend was a thing of nightmares. Literally.

I WONT BITE . Nash looked up at me with a green bean speared on his fork, and I realized I was staring. Id stopped on the bottom step, surprised to see him at school, and even more surprised to see him sitting alone at lunch, outside in the January cold, where Id come to get away from the gossip and stares in the cafeteria.

Obviously hed had the same idea.

I glanced over my shoulder through the window in the cafeteria door, looking for Emma, but she hadnt shown up yet.

Nash frowned when he noticed my hesitation. But I wasnt worried about him. I was worried about me. I was afraid that if I got within touching distance of himwithin reach of the arms that had once been my biggest comfort and those gorgeous hazel eyes that could read me at a glancethat I would give in. That I would forgive, even if I couldnt forget, and that would be bad.

I mean, it would feel good, but that would be bad.

The past two weeks had been the most difficult of my life. In the past few months alone, Id survived horrors most sixteen-year-old girls didnt even know existed. But a couple of weeks without Nashour entire winter vacationhad nearly been enough to break me.

Whoever said it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved was full of crap. If Id never loved Nash in the first place, I wouldnt know what I was missing now.

Kaylee? Nash dropped his fork onto his tray, green bean untouched. I get it. Youre not ready to talk.

I shook my head and set my tray on the table across from his, then sank onto the opposite bench. No, I just I didnt think youd be here. I hadnt gone to see him, because that would have been unfair to us bothbeing together, when we couldnt really be together. But I knew hed been very sick from withdrawal, because my father, of all people, had called regularly to check on him.

And based on his brief reports, withdrawal from Demons Breathknown as frost, in human circleswas hell on earth.

Are youokay? I asked, poking at runny spaghetti sauce with my own fork.

Better. He shrugged. Still working toward okay.

But youre well enough for school?

Another shrug. My mom was giving me a sedative made from some weird Netherworld plant for a while, to help with the shakes, but it just made me sleep all the time. Without dreams, he added, when he saw my horrified expression. The hellion whose breath hed been huffing had communicated with Nash through his dreams sometimes. And through me, the rest of the time. By hijacking my body while I slept.

Id been willing to work through the addiction with Nashafter all, it was my fault hed been exposed to Demons Breath in the first place. But his failure to stop the serial possession of my bodyor even tell me it was happeningwas the last straw for me. I couldnt be with him until I was sure nothing like that would ever happen again.

Unfortunately, what my head wanted and what my heart wanted were two completely different things.

I still dont have much appetite, but what I do eat is staying down now. Nash stared at his full tray. Hed lost weight. His face lookedsharper. The flesh under his eyes was dark and puffy, and he hadnt bothered to artfully muss his hair that morning. The bright, charismatic Nash Id first met had been replaced with this dimmer, somber version I barely recognized. A version I was afraid I didnt know on the inside, either. Not like Id known my Nash, anyway.

Maybe you should have stayed home a little longer, I suggested, slowly twirling noodles around my plastic fork.

I wanted to see you.

The fissure in my heart cracked open a little wider, and I looked up to find regret and longing slowly twisting the greens and browns in his irises. Humans wouldnt see that, even if wed had company. But because Nash and I were both bean sidhes banshees, to the uninformedwe could see the colors swirling in each others eyes, and with a little practice, Id learned to interpret what I saw in his. To read his emotions through the windows of his soulwhen he let me see them.

Nash

No pressure, he interrupted, before I could spit out the protest Id practiced, but hoped not to have to use. I just wanted to see your face. Hear your voice. Translation: You didnt visit me. Or even call .

I closed my eyes, trying to work through an awkwardness Id never felt with Nash before. I wanted to. More than I could possibly express. But its just too hard to

To see, but not touch? he finished for me, and I met his rueful gaze. Trust me, I know. He sighed and stirred a glob of mass-produced peach cobbler. So, what now? Were friends?

Yeah. If friends could be in love, but not together. In sync, but out of touch. Willing to die for each other, but unable to trust.

I dont think there are words for what we are, Nash. Yet I could think of at least one: broken.

Nash and I were like the wreckage of two cars that had hit head-on. We were tangled up in each other so thoroughly that I could no longer tell which parts of us were him and which were me. We could probably never be truly untanglednot after what wed been through togetherbut I had serious doubts we could ever really recapture what wed had.

I just I need some time.

He nodded, and his eyes shone with the first flash of hope Id seen from him in ages. Yeah. We have time.

In fact, we had lots and lots of time. Bean sidhes age very slowly from puberty on, so while Id likely be carded until I was forty, if Nash and I actually managed to work things out, wed have nearly four hundred years together, barring catastrophe.