Sabine rolled her eyes and glanced at me and Tod. “Neither of them would have let that happen, and I wouldn’t, either. I didn’t need you to rescue me, Nash. I needed you to choose me. Just once.” With that, Sabine snatched her keys off the end table by the couch, then stormed out the front door, barefoot and pissed off. And more hurt than I could even comprehend.

“Nash…” I said when she was gone. I wanted to help.

I should have known better.

“Get out. Both of you, just go away.” Then Nash stomped down the hall and slammed his door, leaving me and Tod alone in the living room.

* * *

Tod had to go back to work, so when I left Nash’s, I returned Emma’s costume, grateful that she was sleeping when I got there, so I wouldn’t have to recount the story that started with me dressing up like an idiot and ended with Nash acting like one. For now. But she’d probably want the details in the morning.

Alone in my room, I knew I should be grateful that the action was over, at least for the moment, but with nothing to do but think and pet Styx while she slept, the night passed slowly. Excruciatingly slowly.

I couldn’t sleep and I wasn’t hungry, and it turns out there’s nothing good on television in the middle of the night when you don’t subscribe to the movie channels. I considered ordering something On Demand, but my dad had already threatened to kill me—an ironic word choice, for sure—if he got one more bill from the satellite company.

Also, I’d already watched everything that was available.

Around four in the morning, I realized I didn’t want to move. The end of my nose itched, but scratching it seemed like too much trouble, so I let the itch continue, because feeling an itch was better than feeling nothing, right?

So I lay there, listening to my own thoughts race through my head so fast I could hardly focus on them. I wondered how long Sabine could stay mad at Nash before she took him back, because we all knew she’d take him back. I wondered why Nash couldn’t see what he was doing to her, and how long it would take him to realize that loving her wasn’t enough. He had to love her more than anything else in the world. More than he loved me. More than he loved frost. More than he loved his own life. He had to love her like nothing else existed for him, ever, and I wished there was some way for me to tell him that without making him hate me more.

Then I wondered why Avari wanted Tod. Was one reaper not enough for him?

Of course it wasn’t. One of anything was never enough for Avari, and asking why a hellion of greed wanted something was pointless. Avari existed to want things. He’d probably obsessed over the souls of thousands of people in the eons of his existence. Surely I was just the latest in a long line of obsessions, and I wondered if he’d gotten any of the others.

I wondered if he’d get me.

But by the time the sun came up,even my thoughts had started to slow, and I wasn’t sure I even cared if Avari got me. What did it matter? I was already dead. He would make my afterlife hell if he got my soul, but he was clearly prepared to do that, anyway, so maybe it would be easier for everyone if I just…let him.

I couldn’t beat him. I couldn’t outlive him. I couldn’t outrun him. So why fight the inevitable?

My dad came into my room at seven-fifteen—I know, because I’d been staring at my alarm clock for the past fifty-three minutes. “Kaylee, where are you?”

That’s when I realized he couldn’t see me. Because I had no desire to be seen.

With a sigh, I concentrated just enough to slip into the physical plane, and that took a great deal more effort than rolling over, which I’d been putting off for the past few minutes.

“Why are you still in bed? You have to be at school in half an hour!”

“I’m not going.”

“The hell you aren’t. Get up. Get in the shower and wash your hair. You look like…”

“Death warmed over?” I blinked when I realized my eyes were dry. “’Cause that’s how I feel. Minus the warming over.”

“Kaylee, please.” My father shoved Styx over and sank onto the side of my bed. “This is normal, but you have to fight it. You’re not going to feel alive until you start acting like you’re alive. Tod says—”

I rolled onto my back and glared up at him. “You’ve been talking to Tod behind my back?” A spark of irritation flared deep in my gut and swelled for a moment before sputtering out.

“No, I’ve been talking to Tod in your absence. I’m worried about you, and he’s the resident expert on afterlives. He says you have to want to live—so to speak. That you have to find a reason to be here. I understand that I can’t be that reason, but you have to find one. Find something that makes you want to get out of this bed.”

“I have plenty of reasons to get out of bed. School just isn’t one of them.”

“Bullshit,” my dad said, and I blinked at him in surprise. “Your life isn’t over.”

“Um, yeah. Actually, it is. My death kind of coincided with the end of my life. Funny how that works.”

“You know what I mean. I know you, Kaylee. I know that a simple change in your state of being isn’t enough to make you lose interest in the rest of the world. So get up. There are friends at school waiting to see you smile and hear you talk. There are stolen souls out there waiting for you to liberate them. There’s even a grim reaper who loves you more than his afterlife itself, and if that’s not enough to get you moving, you better close your eyes, because I’m coming back with a bucket of cold water.”