Soul Screamers, Volume 1

“So what do you want to know first?” My dad met my gaze over the cheese I was unwrapping on a cutting board.

I shrugged and pulled a knife from a drawer on my left. “I think I have a pretty good handle on the whole bean sidhe thing, thanks to Nash.” My father cringed, and I might have felt guilty if he’d ever made any attempt to explain things himself. “But why did Aunt Val say I was living on borrowed time? What does that mean?”

This time he flinched like I’d slapped him. He’d obviously been expecting something else—probably a technical question from the How to Be a Bean Sidhe handbook, my copy of which had probably gotten lost in the mail.

My father sighed and suddenly looked very tired. “That’s a long story, Kaylee, and one I’d rather tell in private.”

“No.” I shook my head firmly and ripped open the bag of pasta. “You flew halfway around the world because you owe me an explanation.” Not to mention an apology. “I want to hear it now.”

My father’s brow rose in surprise, and more than a hint of irritation. Then he frowned. “You sound just like your mother.”

Yeah, well, I had to inherit a backbone from someone. “Wouldn’t she want you to tell me whatever it is you have to say?”

He couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d punched him. “I honestly don’t know. But you’re right. You’re entitled to all the facts.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if gathering his thoughts.

“It all started the night you died.”





Chapter 19





“What?” My hand fisted around a cube of cheese, and it squished between my fingers. My pulse pounded so hard in my throat I thought it would explode. “You mean the night Mom died.”

My father nodded. “She died that night too. But you went first.”

“Whoa…” Nash leaned forward on his stool, glancing back and forth between me and my father. “Kaylee died?”

My dad sighed, settling in for a long story. “It was February, the year you were three. The roads were icy. We don’t get much winter weather in Texas, so when it does come, no one quite knows how to handle it. Including me.”

“Wait, I’ve heard all this before.” I dumped the pasta into the now-boiling water, and a puff of steam wafted into my face, coating my skin in a layer of instant dampness and warmth. “You were driving, and we were broadsided by another car on an icy road. I broke my right arm and leg, and Mom died.”

My father nodded miserably, then swallowed thickly and continued. “We were on our way here, for Sophie’s birthday party. Your mother thought the weather was too bad, but I said we’d be fine. It was a short trip, and your cousin adored you. The whole thing was my fault.”

“What happened?” I asked, my cheesy hand forgotten.

My father blinked slowly, as if warding off tears. “There was a deer in the road. I wasn’t going that fast, but the road was icy, and the deer was huge. I swerved to avoid it, and the car slid on the ice. We wound up sideways in the road. An oncoming car smashed into us. Near the rear on the passenger’s side. Your car seat was crushed.”

I closed my eyes and gripped the countertop as a wave of vertigo threatened to knock me over. No. My mother had died in that accident, not me. I’d been pretty banged up, but I’d lived.

I was living proof of that!

My eyes opened, focusing on my father instantly. “Dad, I remember parts of that. I was in the hospital for weeks. I had two casts. We still have pictures. But I’m alive. See?” I spread my arms across the countertop to demonstrate my point. “So what happened? The paramedics brought me back?”

The truth was looming, a great, dark cloud on my mind’s horizon. I could almost see it, but I refused to bring it into focus. Refused to acknowledge the coming storm until it broke over my head, drenching me with a cold, cruel wash of the answers I’d thought I wanted.

I no longer wanted them.

But my father only shook his head. “They didn’t get there in time. The man driving the other car was a doctor, but his wife hit her head on something, and he was trying to wake her up. By the time he came to help us, it was all over.”

“No.” I stirred the pasta so hard boiling water slopped onto the stovetop, hissing on the flat burner.

Nash’s hand landed softly on mine, though I hadn’t heard him move, and I looked up to meet his sympathetic gaze. “You died, Kaylee. You know it’s true.”