But by the time the final bell rang, the Mountain Dew was wearing off and my arm was really starting to throb. I couldn’t stand the thought of spending my Friday afternoon painting booths for my cousin’s pet project—left-handed, thanks to my injury—while her friends stared and whispered. If Sophie was skipping, we could, too. So I drove Nash home and crashed on his bed while he played Xbox.

Nash shook me awake a couple of hours later, with hands so cold I could feel them through my shirt. I was relieved to discover that I had neither dreamed nor struck any odd positions in my sleep. “You have to get up if we’re going to make it to the party,” he whispered, soft, warm lips brushing my cheek.

The setting sun cast slanted shadow bars across Nash’s room through his half-closed blinds, and I blinked in the crimson glare, trying to fully wake up. The alarm clock on his bedside table said it was almost five-thirty. “Mmmm…” He smelled so good I wanted to bury my face in his shirt and breathe him in. Then go back to sleep.

Who needs food and water? Nash and slumber would be enough to sustain me. Right?

“What party?” I mumbled, pushing myself up on my good arm, in spite of the heavy hand of sleep threatening to pull me back under.

“Fuller’s. Remember? We were going to find Everett?”

And that’s when reality came crashing in on me, washing away the serenity that waking up next to Nash had lent me.

Doug’s party. Everett’s balloons. Scott’s knife. My sliced-up arm. Suddenly my head hurt and my stomach was churning in dread.

“I can’t believe he’s still throwing a party, with one of his best friends in the hospital.” And charged with a felony.

Nash shrugged. “The crowd will be bigger than ever tonight, everyone hoping to hear what really happened to Carter.”

Well, they wouldn’t hear it from me. “My dad’ll kill me if we go to Doug’s.” Not that my father’s caution had ever stopped me from helping a friend in need before.

Nash rolled his eyes and pressed the power button on his Xbox, then shoved it against the scratched chest of drawers his television sat on. “If we don’t go, who’s going to watch out for Emma?”

“Tod…?” I started, but the flaw in that plan was immediately obvious. “Well, I assume he has to actually show up for work at some point.”

“Let’s hope.” Nash hesitated as I ran my fingers through long, sleep-tangled hair. “Maybe you can talk her out of going…” he finally suggested. “You two could do something girlie tonight and let me handle Everett.”

I shook my head as I stepped into my first sneaker. “I already tried that. After what happened with Scott, she’s determined to keep an eye on Doug.” I had to sit on the bed to tug the second shoe on, then I met Nash’s frustrated gaze with one of my own.

Nash sighed and sat on the edge of his desk, and Isat straighter as a new thought occurred to me. “Maybe we’re making this too hard. Why don’t we just get him alone at the party, cross over with him, and leave him in the Netherworld?” Which was a virtual death sentence—or worse—for anyone native to the human world. Yet I felt only a fleeting pang of guilt over that thought, after what Everett’s little enterprise had done to Scott, and would do to anyone else who sampled his stash. “I mean, he can’t sell in our world if he can’t get to our world. Right?”

His brows rose. “You think he can’t cross on his own? If that’s true, how is he getting Demon’s Breath in the first place?”

Crap. My disappointment crested in a wave of embarrassment.

Either Everett could cross over on his own—which meant he couldn’t be trapped in the Netherworld—or he was working with someone who could. In which case getting rid of Everett wouldn’t stop the distribution of frost into our world.

I grabbed my backpack from the floor and tossed it over one shoulder, squinting against the reddish light peeking through the blinds. “Nash, we have to tell my dad about Everett.”

Nash rolled his eyes. “What’s your dad going to do that we can’t? Other than make sure we’re never welcome at another party…”

“I don’t know. But what are we supposed to do? Threaten to scream until Everett’s ears bleed?”

Nash sighed and grabbed my keys from the desktop, where I’d dropped them when we came in. “Look, if your dad busts up the party, Fuller will wind up hanging out alone with Emma all night. Either high off his new stash, or crazy from withdrawal.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. I swear I heard it splash into the Mountain Dew I drank instead of eating lunch.

He was right. My dad could break up the party and possibly even stop Everett from selling to everyone there. At least for one night. But he couldn’t save Emma from Doug once they were alone.

That was up to me.

We went to my house first, so I could change and pack an overnight bag. On the way out, I left a note for my dad on the fridge, telling him I was going out with Nash and that I’d be spending the night with Emma—so she wouldn’t have a chance to be alone with Doug—and that he was welcome to call and check up on me. It’s not like I’d be sleeping. Ever again, evidently.

Then, because I knew he couldn’t answer his cell at work, I called and left a voice mail saying the same thing. He was working late again, to make up for the pay he’d lost the day before thanks to my trip to the hospital, and with any luck he wouldn’t get either message until his double shift was over. Around midnight. By which time I hoped to be stretched out on Emma’s bedroom floor, halfway through a pint of Death by Chocolate and a B-grade ’80s horror flick, safe from the perils of the real world.