“You’re confused,” Nash said to Scott from the other side of the door, and his voice slid over me like a warm breeze. “I can help you. Let me in, and I’ll help you.”

“No!” Scott shouted, his hand tightening around my arm.

“He knows about you. Your voice makes people do things. Shut up or I’ll kill her.”

My pulse spiked again, and there was only silence from the hallway. Tears filled my eyes, blurring the closed door until I blinked them away and mentally closed the well. Crying would not help me, nor would it help Scott. But there had to be a way out of this.

The light beneath the door flickered, like Nash had stepped closer. “How?” he asked softly, and his normal voice now sounded flat compared to the rich tones that accompanied his Influence.

“How what?” Scott asked, and his grip on my arm loosened slightly.

“How will you cross over if you kill her?” Nash clarified, and I almost smiled, in spite of my predicament. Scott knew about his vocal influence—sort of—so Nash was working without it. He was being smart. If I wanted to live, I’d have to get smart, too.

I closed my eyes, ignoring the hum from the heating vent overhead and the eerie coolness of the body pressed against my back. “Nash can’t take you,” I whispered, just loud enough for Scott to hear me.

Scott stiffened. “You’re lying.”

I started to shake my head, then remembered the knife and opened my eyes again. “Nash can’t take you, and neither can he. If he could, he wouldn’t need me, would he?” Scott didn’t answer, but he pulled me back a step across the thick, soft carpet. “Ask him. Not Nash. Ask him.”

Scott remained silent and rigid against me, and I wondered if whoever he was listening to could hear me, or if Scott had to ask him directly. Silently or otherwise.

Finally Scott seemed to sag against me, though the blade never left my throat. “Take me there. Please take me. Please make it stop,” he begged. He was close to his breaking point, which meant that whoever wanted him must be getting desperate.

Scott went quiet again, listening to something we couldn’t hear, and I was almost surprised to realize daylight still slipped through the cracks in the closed blinds. It felt like we’d been in that room forever, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Then Scott leaned into me, dragging my thoughts back to the crisis at hand. His mouth brushed my right ear, through my hair. “He says this is all your fault.”

What? A wash of confusion diluted my fear. What did any of this have to do with me?

“Scott, if I take you there, he’ll kill us both. Or worse.”

He stiffened again, and his knife hand twitched. I gasped as the point of the blade pierced my skin with a sharp slice of pain. Awarm bead of blood trailed slowly down my neck, and I froze.

“He says I’ll die here. You say I’ll die there. But if I can’t get him out of my head, none of that matters!” He sobbed, then stood straighter, drawing me up with him as the blade pressed more firmly against my broken skin. “Take me there now, or I’ll cut your throat wide open.”

“Okay…” I said, my heart pounding so hard I could barely hear my own words, much less my thoughts. “I’ll take you. Just…put the knife down.”

“Kaylee?” Nash demanded from the other side of the door, and something thumped to the floor. He’d dropped the soda.

“No way.” Scott shook his head, jostling us both, ignoring Nash completely. “He says you’ll run.”

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying to slow my racing thoughts. And my racing pulse. Then I opened my eyes to find the doorknob twisting again as Nash tried to force his way into the room.

“If this shadow man is so smart—” my voice wavered with nerves “—he’ll know it takes a lot of concentration to cross over. And I can’t concentrate with a knife at my throat.”

Nash pounded the door. “Kaylee, no…!” he shouted, but he was too upset now to manage much Influence on either of us.

Scott went still behind me, listening to his shadow man again. Then, “Fine. But if you run, he says I should gut you like a goat on an altar.”

My heart beat so hard my head hurt, and adrenaline was turning my fight-or-flight instinct into a demand. I knew what I had to do, but had no idea if I could actually pull it off. He was a lot bigger than I was, and a lot stronger and faster. And Nash would be no help from the other side of the door.

Slowly, Scott removed the knife from my neck, and more blood trickled down my throat. A moment later, the blade poked at my back through my jacket and my thin tee. “Yes, that’s much more relaxing,” I snapped, unable to censor my sarcasm, even with my life in mortal peril.

I stared at the closed door and tried to communicate my intentions to Nash silently, desperately wishing bean sidhes were psychic. But that was just another on a long list of really cool abilities I didn’t get.

“Okay, this is gonna feel kind of funny,” I warned Scott, closing my eyes as I silently wished myself luck. “Your skin will tingle, and it’ll feel like you’re falling.” Which wasn’t true in the least. Nash stopped pounding on the door for a moment, as if to listen. He knew I was lying, and had hopefully gathered from that fact that I had no intention of taking Scott to the Netherworld.

But then what I was really planning sank in, and he kicked the door so hard it shook in its frame.