“What’s up?” I frowned when he hedged. “Dad…?”
And suddenly Tod appeared in the room, several feet away, staring right at me.
“Okay… This is even weirder than the suspicious silence,” I said, expecting one or the other of them to laugh and spit out one of the logical explanations my father always seemed to have ready. But there was only more silence. “Okay, now you two are real y starting to scare me.” Tod general y only acknowledged my father’s existence when an opportunity arose to drive him nuts. And my dad had no use for Tod at al , unless he needed information only a rookie Grim Reaper could gain access to. So this private powwow had to be about something important.
“Guys? I can only stand here pretending you’re not scaring me for another second or two before I completely lose it. T minus five…four…”
“It’s nothing, honey,” my dad started to say, but the scowl on Tod’s face exposed the lie before my father could even finish it.
“If you don’t tel her, I wil ,” the reaper threatened.
“Tod, I can handle this—”
Tod turned his back on my father and met my gaze with a frighteningly honest weight. “Kaylee, the new list came out today.” By which he meant the reaper list, detailing every death scheduled in his district in the next seven days.
Oh, shit. Someone’s going to die. I took a deep breath, but couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. Please don’t be Emma. Or Nash. Or my dad. I couldn’t lose another parent.
I tried to ask—I tried to summon that much strength—but in the end, it just wasn’t there. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing someone else.
Someone I loved.
So Tod answered the question I didn’t have the courage to ask.
“It’s you, Kaylee. You’re on the list.

“Please, Tod.” My dad sank onto the opposite end of the couch, elbows on his knees, scrubbing his face with both hands. “I’m begging you. I’l do whatever you want. Please make an exception for my daughter.”
Tod looked almost as stunned as I felt. I’d never heard my father beg for anything, not even for his own life, when Avari dragged him into the Netherworld, using him to get to me.
“Mr. Cavanaugh, I’d do it in a heartbeat.” Tod looked so earnest and frustrated that I wanted to comfort him. Especial y when he turned those sad blue eyes on me, silently begging me to believe him. “Kaylee, I’d do it if I could. You know that. But it’s not up to me. I’m not your reaper.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tod’s brows dipped low over bright blue eyes. “I didn’t want you to know about any of this.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t fix anything. Avari’s right—I can’t save you. But I saw Thane tormenting you at lunch, and I couldn’t wait for evidence that may never come through. That psychotic bastard shouldn’t be anywhere near you, and he damn well shouldn’t be the last thing you ever see.” He glanced at the gloves lying between us on the floor, and when he looked up again, the fierce ache in my heart swelled until I thought it would burst, and that falling feeling was back, like I might never regain my balance. So I did the only thing I could think of to bring the world back into focus and make sense of the waves of confusion lapping at me from al sides. *deleted*

“Then your dad can find you, and it’ll look like a crime of passion. Maybe they’ll even blame Nash. Didn’t the two of you have a big, public fight the other day?” Oh, nooo. Beck was right. The whole world had seen me kiss someone else, then seen Nash stomp out. (..)

“No.” I felt my eyes go wide, but Beck only grinned in return, clearly enjoying my misery. “Please, no, Mr. Beck. Nash didn’t do anything to you. You can’t let people blame this on him.”

(…)

“You’re going to send Nash an email, begging him not to come over. Tell him to calm down, and you’ll talk to him tomorrow, at school, but you’re not going to let him in while he’s this angry.”

My teeth clenched together so hard my jaws ached in protest, and I had to force my mouth open to speak. “No.”

“Do it. It has to be in your own words, with only your prints on the keyboard.” I craned my neck to look up at him, wishing he could see the fury surely raging in my irises. “You want to kill me? Fine. Kill me. But I’m not going to help you frame Nash.”

Beck leaned so close I felt his breath on my ear. The tip of one blade bit into my skin. I gasped at the sharp pain and couldn’t help wondering how much worse the real thing would hurt. “You’re going to do it, or when I’m done with you, I’ll take Emma and your cousin back to Emma’s house and we’ll have a little fun while your soulless corpse cools.”

A bitter, black pain settled into my stomach, and threatened to swallow me whole. “Don’t touch them,” I whispered furiously, with all the volume I could manage.

“You have my word that I won’t, if you do exactly what I tell you to.”

*deleted*