What I hadn’t known about my family nearly got me killed. But what he didn’t know about his might just save his life.

9

“DID SCOTT SAY WHERE he got it?” I asked, bending to dip my paintbrush in white latex paint.

Nash had roped me into helping with the carnival booths after school to keep him company, so I’d pulled the same thing on Emma. Which was how she, Nash, Doug, and I wound up in the school gym at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, slopping white paint and fake snowflakes on booths made of plywood and construction staples. Along with twenty other bright-’n’-shiny cheerleaders, basketball players, and student-council members I’d rarely ever spoken to.

“He said he got it from Fuller again.”

I sank to my knees on the canvas drop cloth protecting the gym floor from my subpar artistic efforts and glanced across the basketball court to where Emma and Doug were working on the ice-carving registration booth. And by “working,” I mean making out, half-hidden by their booth, with dried-stiff brushes dangling from paint-speckled hands.

“I assume he got it from that same guy? Everett?”

Nash shrugged and used his brush to smooth out a drip on my side of the hot-chocolate stand. “I guess.”

“We have to find this guy. Can you get Doug to introduce you? Maybe pretend you want to buy some from him?”

He frowned, critically eyeing the giant marshmallows he was painting on top of a cutout of a mug full of brown liquid. “But then wouldn’t I have to sample the product?”

Crap. “Probably. Can’t you just fake it?” I sighed, already rethinking my request. Did I want to put Nash in that kind of danger? What if he couldn’t fake it and had to take a hit? What if he accidentally inhaled Demon’s Breath? Either way, his exposure would be my fault. And I couldn’t live with that.

“You know what? Never mind. I’ll do it.” I stood, trailing my damp brush along the corner of the booth, where I’d evidently left streaks on my first pass. “I’ll meet him, and pretend to sample the product, and find out where he gets it. And whether he knows what it really is—”

“No,” Nash said. I turned around, and he was so close onlookers would think he was either challenging me to a dance battle, or staring down my shirt.

“Why? Because I’m a girl?”

His irises churned with…panic? But as I watched, he made them go still—obviously an effort—and there was nothing left to read on his face but the angry line of his jaw. “Because you don’t seem to understand that the world isn’t yours to save. This isn’t a game, Kaylee. You’re not an undercover cop. You’re just a little girl who’s in way over her head, and I’m not going to let you get yourself killed over some stupid hero complex.”

I stepped back and my cheeks flamed likeI’d been slapped. “I’m not a little girl.” And he’d never spoken to me like that. Not ever. “I don’t know what your problem is, but unless you pay the rent on my house or wear the black suspenders at the Cinemark, you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“Or what? You’ll slop paint all over my jacket?” Nash lighthearted grin irritated me.

“Stop smiling. I’m serious,” I insisted.

“Yeah. I can see you’re fully prepared to deface my letter jacket. Which is exactly why you should let me do this. A Netherworld drug dealer isn’t going to be scared of your drippy paintbrush.” He tried to take it from me, and when I refused to relinquish the handle, Nash wrapped his hand around both my fingers and the paintbrush and slowly pushed my arm down to my side. “Just let me do this. I don’t want you anywhere near Everett.” He let me see truth in his eyes, but that did little to placate me. You don’t have to be a jock to know when you’re being sidelined.

“What if I don’t want you near him, either?”

He shrugged. “I’m bigger than you, and I’ve been taking hits from guys bigger than me for the past six years.”

“Well, that experience should come in handy, so long as you’re both wearing football helmets and pads. Assuming Everett’s even human.”

“So long as he’s not a hellion, I can take him if I need to.” And hellions couldn’t cross over, so the chances of that were good. “And Fuller will be there, too.”

Though I had serious doubts that Doug would choose Nash over his dealer if he ever wanted to see another hit of frost.

“Fine,” I relented. Nash kissed my nose, then let go of my hand, and I glanced up to find Emma dipping her brush into her paint can, grinning at Doug like he’d invented kissing. My stomach churned at the very real possibility that he wasn’t what made her feel so good. “Look, they came up for air. This is your shot.”

Nash laid his brush carefully across the top of his open paint can. “Be right back.” He walked across the gym, exchanging greetings with friends and teammates, and I dipped my brush into the can, wishing I could read lips. I was about to put the finishing touches on the top of our booth when sharp words from the hallway caught my attention through the open doorway several feet to my left.

“Get your ass back in there. Now.” It was Sophie, her voice low and unusually soft with anger. I’d never heard her so mad, and she got mad at me a lot. “You are not going to bail on us again.”

“I’ll be right back,” Scott snapped, and I knew from the rough edge to his voice that he’d come down from his high. And was getting desperate to regain it. “I have to get something from my football.”