Except take him to the Netherworld to repay a favor, no questions asked…

Tod, if you’re involved in this, I’ll kill you! Except you can’t kill someone who’s already dead. But I could get him fired….

Assuming Alec was telling the truth, which was a big assumption. He could be lying about the whole thing.

Then where was Nash? Why hadn’t he called or answered the two text messages I’d sent?

“You actually saw Nash there? Tonight?”

Emma’s head nodded, and Alec said, “Not ten minutes ago, my time.” Because in the Netherworld, time was not a constant. It sped up at odd intervals, depending on how closely a specific place was tied to its equivalent location in our world.

“What was he wearing?”

Emma’s eyes rolled, and she sank onto the bed again. “Jeans and a T-shirt, with a green-and-white jacket. And I have to tell you, jeans have changed since I last bought a pair.”

My eyes widened before I could regain control of my expression. He’d bought jeans? Unless the Netherworld had recently become active in the retail market, Alec must have been topside at some point. I couldn’t help wondering how long ago that had been, considering his odd mix of hellion-formal and human-colloquial language.

But then, on the tail of that momentary surprise, came a more devastating near-certainty. Alec had seen Nash that night. Not necessarily in the Netherworld—he could easily have seen Nash in our world, through another hijacked body—but I wasn’t willing to take that chance.

If Nash had crossed over, I had to get him back.

“So, all I have to do is cross over and bring you both back? Just like that?” It sounded too easy.

“Well…” Emma hedged with Alec’s voice. “It may not be quite that simple.”

Aaaand here comes the catch… “Why not?”

“Because Nash is with my boss right now. But once he’s alone, I can get to him.”

I closed my eyes, trying not to let frustration and the incredibly small chance I had of ever seeing Nash alive again get me down. “Your boss, the hellion? Nash is with that boss?”

“That’s the one.”

“Why?” I demanded, standing so quickly Em’s chair thumped against the desk behind me. “Why is he in the Netherworld? What does your boss want with him?”

Alec shrugged, pulling my T-shirt tight across Emma’s chest. “I don’t know. Another proxy, maybe?”

Nash, as a demon’s proxy? “Why does your hellion need two?”

Emma’s bright brown eyes rolled, and Alec leaned her back on the mattress, propping her up on one elbow like a life-size doll. “You’re asking the wrong man. I don’t think he needs any proxies, but he’s had as many as eight at a time.” She shrugged again. “What can I say? He’s a hellion ofgreed.”

Greed? No…

I drew in a deep, slow breath, wishing I didn’t have to ask. “Your boss? Is his name Avari?”

Emma’s eyes widened to anime proportions. “You know him?”

I sighed and dropped onto the chair again. “We’ve met, but I doubt he’d consider me a friend.”

Emma snorted, and I couldn’t resist a small smile. That was the first sound Alec had made that truly sounded like my best friend. “Friendship isn’t a popular concept here.”

No surprise there. Everything in the Netherworld was food for something else, and no one was safe except those at the top of the food chain: hellions. And in the three short months I’d known about my species and the existence of the Netherworld, I’d managed to piss off two of them.

But they’d pissed me off, too. “How soon can you get Nash alone?”

Alec stared at the comforter he—they—lay on. “That’s the hard part. He’s Avari’s new toy, and the boss won’t want to let go for a while.” If I’d had any doubt that Emma was not in control of her body, that doubt died when his gaze met mine. My best friend was not the one staring at me with those big brown eyes. “But there’s this thing tomorrow night. A sort of party. I can get to him then with no problem.”

“Tomorrow night!” I had to suck in deep, calming breaths through my nose. “You want me to leave him there for an entire day?”

Emma’s body sat up and her gaze went hard. “You don’t have any choice. You can’t get to him without me, and I can’t get him alone until then. Beyond that, if we miss our chance tomorrow, we may never get another one.”

The entire room tilted as I reeled from shock. I had to close my eyes and grip the sides of the chair to regain my balance.

“Do you understand, Kaylee? It’s tomorrow, or never.”

“I get it.” I swallowed thickly. “So, we wait until tomorrow night, and when you say the word, I cross over and haul you both out. Right? That’s it?”

“With any luck, yes.”

Luck? We were depending on luck?

Nash is so screwed….

“Is there anything else I need to know?” I leaned forward with both elbows propped on my knees. “Anything you’re not telling me? Are we expecting an ambush? Or a giant boot to descend from the sky and squish us all?”

Or a trap waiting to be sprung?

As scared as I was for Nash, I couldn’t quite buy the coincidence. Two days earlier, Scott’s shadow man—who turned out to be Avari—had tried to get me into the Netherworld, and now Alec the proxy was trying the same thing, on behalf of the same hellion. Albeit, this time the bait was much better, but I was far from prepared to trust him.