“Pathetic…” I spat, gasping for breath as the dark oblivion in her eyes swelled, threatening to swallow me whole. “You’re in denial, and it’s pathetic. And so are you. What, can’t you handle one little bean sidhe without channeling Freddy Krueger?”

Sabine’s brows arched high over black irises swimming around bottomless pupils. “You think I can’t rein it in?” Without waiting for me to answer, she closed her eyes, and a second later the dark cloud of fear lifted. I could breathe again, and even the sun looked a little brighter.

“Better?” she snapped, malice sharp in her voice and in her gaze. She’d pulled it in, but that only meant that the concentration of anger inside her had doubled. Sabine was an angry dog on a leash—if I kept goading her, she’d pull free, and next time she might not be able to control it. “I can play nice if that’s all you can handle, but that won’t change the facts.” She took another step, and this time when I backed up, my spine hit the corner of another picnic table. “If I’m in denial, why are you the one he gave up, memory by memory?”

“He had no other choice…” I made myself stand straighter and maintain eye contact.

“There are always choices. The truth is that you’re what he was willing to give up.”

“No.” I shook my head. I couldn’t believe that. I just…couldn’t.

“Oh, yeah? Then why is it he can’t remember what it felt like to kiss you for the first time, but he can relive every single time he touched me, whenever he wants? I’m still up there.” She touched her temple, eyes narrowed in fury, hand steady with conviction. “And I’m still in here.” She laid that hand over her own heart, and I felt mine crack a little. “And I’ve been other places you were too scared to go when you had the chance. And now it’s too late.”

I couldn’t breathe, and this time that had nothing to do with any fear leaking from her abusive, rotting soul. I couldn’t breathe because she was right. He’d given me up, but he’d kept her. All of her.

Why would he do that?

Sabine’s brows arched again, and she leaned down to peer into my eyes. “You get it now, don’t you? He can still feel that initial thrill from the very first time we touched.”

She ran her hand slowly down from my shoulder, and my chest felt like it was caving in. I jerked back, but she only laughed. “It was innocent, at first. Fresh and new. Exciting, like if my heart beat any faster, it’d explode. And he still feels that, every time he thinks about it.”

I shook my head and backed around the corner of the table.

“What does he feel when he thinks about you, Kay? You should ask him. Or I could just tell you. He feels nothing. You’re a bignumb spot on his heart, and all he feels now when you’re around is guilt and pain. You’re killing him, and for what? So you can cling to something he didn’t care enough about to preserve? You should let him go so he can find peace.”

And with that, my anger flared to life again, incinerating doubt and self-pity. “I don’t know how to be any clearer about this. Nash doesn’t want you. Not like you want him. And getting me out of your way isn’t going to change that, because I’m not the obstacle in your path, Sabine. You’re standing in your own way.”

That one great truth strengthened me, and I stood taller, itching to show her what she refused to see. “You’re obsessed with him. And not even with the real Nash. You’re in love with the memory of someone you knew two and a half years ago, but you’re both different people now, and here’s the thing that’s killing you: he’s moved on. You want to believe that he never really got over you. That if you could just push me out of the way, he’d remember what the two of you had together. But you said it yourself, Sabine—he never forgot. He remembers exactly what it was like to touch you, and love you, and know you loved him back. And he still picked me.”

Sabine flushed bright red. Shadows swam over her eyes, and my skin prickled with the cold concentration of terror accumulating inside her, like a balloon, about to explode. Her right hand curled into a fist, and I braced myself for the blow. But before she could swing, the lunch room door burst open and students flooded the quad, carrying trays and drinks, and talking about whatever cafeteria disaster had cut our lunch time in half.

I wasn’t sure the sudden crowd would actually stop either her physical or psychological blows, but Sabine dropped her fist and glared at me like she could see right past my heart and into my soul. “You’re right,” she whispered, anger shining along with something deeper and more haunted in her eyes. “We’re not friends.” Then she spun around and stomped toward the building.

And the really weird thing was that as the rest of the lunch crowd spread out around me, I could only watch Sabine go, fighting a deep bruising ache in my chest, just like the one I felt every time I lied to my dad.

23

“HEY,” NASH SAID, pulling even with me in the hall on the way to my fifth period French class. “We need to—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He frowned and reached for me, but I pulled away. “Talk about what? Did something happen?”

I clutched my books and kept walking. “Doesn’t something always happen?” After four months of hellion-induced pandemonium, I could hardly remember what my life had been like before I’d known about the Netherworld.