something,” Tod urged, elbowing me. I glared at him, and Addison followed my gaze to … nothing. She couldn’t see him, and she obviously couldn’t hear him. “Start talking or she’s going to call someone.”
“I know!” I whispered, elbowing him back. There was no use pretending he wasn’t there on her account. She already thought we were nuts. “Addison, please sit down. We have to tell you something, and it’s going to sound very … strange.”
“It already does. I think you should go.” She edged toward the door, stretching one arm ahead of her, as if to point the way. “You’re creeping me out.”
“Do something!” Tod yelled this time, eyes wide and desperate.
Nash sighed heavily, and I knew what he was going to do a moment before the words left his mouth. But not soon enough to prevent them. “Okay, here’s the deal. You’re going to kill yourself in five days, and we’re here to talk you out of it.”
Addison blinked, and for a moment her fear gave way to confusion, then anger as her empty hand clenched the back of the sofa. “Get out. Now.”
“What, you couldn’t put a little Influence behind that one?” I snapped, glaring at Nash.
“Not if you want her to understand.” His gaze shifted past me to Tod. “I told you she wouldn’t listen.”
“Who are you talking to?” Addison demanded, her voice rising in both pitch and volume.
“You’re gonna have to show her,” I told Tod, hyper-conscious of the singer’s near panic. “She won’t listen to us, but she can’t ignore you.”
Tod glanced at Nash for a second opinion, but his brother only nodded, leaning with one hip against the arm of an overstuffed chair. “I don’t see any other way.”
Tod sighed, and I knew from the surprise on Addison’s face that she’d heard him. A second later she jumped backward and her free hand went to her throat in shock. “No …”
She could see him.
4
“ADDY, PLEASE DON’T freak out.” Tod held his hands palms out, as if to calm her.
“There’s another option?” Addison backed slowly toward her vanity, planting one wedge-heeled foot carefully behind the other with each step. “You’re dead. I saw you in your coffin.”
She had? I turned to Tod with one hand propped on my hip, surprised. “Wait, you were actually in the coffin?”
“Not for long,” he mumbled. Then, “Not the point, Kay.”
Oh, yeah. Soulless pop star contemplating suicide. Focus, Kaylee.
“Who are you?” Addison demanded. The backs of her thighs hit the vanity and she gripped the edge of it to steady herself. “How did you do that?”
It took me a second to realize she meant his sudden appearance out of nowhere. And maybe the whole coming-back-to-life thing.
“Addison, it’s Tod. You know it’s him,” I said, desperately hoping that was true. That she was even listening to me, though her shocked, wide-eyed gaze was glued to her undead ex-boyfriend.
Her breathing slowed and her pale blue eyes narrowed. She was studying him, probably trying to decide whether to freak out and shout for help, or to calm down and listen. I honestly don’t know which I would have chosen in her position. But then she shook her head once, as if she were trying to toss off sleep, and denial shone bright in her eyes again.
“No. You’re not him. You can’t be. This is some kind of joke, or stunt. I’m being Punk’d, right? Ashton, if you’re out there, this is not funny!” Her face flushed with anger, and tears formed in her eyes.
“You’re gonna have to prove it,” I whispered, glancing sideways at Tod.
He sighed, and I was impressed with how calm he stayed. “You know me, Addy. We went out for eight months in high school, back in Hurst, before you got the pilot. You were a freshman and I was a sophomore. Remember?”
Instead of answering, Addy crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. “Lots of people know that. I mentioned Tod in an interview once, and paparazzi followed me to his funeral. Nice try, but you’re done. Get out before I yell for Security.”
She talked about Tod to reporters? Wow. They must have been really close. …
“Addy, you remember our first date? You didn’t talk to the press about that, did you?”
She shook her head slowly, listening, though her arms remained crossed.
“We went to the West End for ice cream at Marble Slab, and we got a caricature done together by a guy with an easel set up on the sidewalk. I still have it. Then you got carsick on the way home and threw up on the side of the road. Do you remember? You didn’t tell anyone else about that, did you?”
She shook her head again, her eyes wide. “Tod?” Addison’s famous voice went squeaky, and broke on that one syllable. He nodded, and she hugged herself. “How …? That’s impossible. I saw you, and you were dead. You were dead!”
“Yeah, well, it turns out that’s not always as permanent as it sounds.” Nash spoke calmly, softly, and the tension in my own body seemed to ease at his first words. “He was dead. But he’s not anymore. Kind of.”
Addison’s shoulders relaxed as her gaze traveled from Tod to his still-living brother. “How? That doesn’t make sense.” Yet she wasn’t as upset by that as she should have been. With any luck, Nash could strike a balance between too-terrified-to-listen and too-relaxed-to-understand.
“It doesn’t make sense up here—” Nash tapped his temple “—but I think you know the truth inside. You’ve seen strange things, haven’t you, Addy?” His voice lilted up with the question and he stepped forward, capturing her gaze. “You sold your soul, and you must have seen some pretty weird stuff in the process….”
Addison’s shock broke through her mild daze for a moment, and she opened her mouth, but before she could ask how he knew about her soul, Nash continued. “But all of that was real, and so is this. So is Tod.”
Her gaze slid to the reaper again, and now that Nash had calmed her fear and quieted that stubborn human denial, I could tell she really saw him. “How did you … get here?”
The reaper shrugged, and mild mischief turned up the corners of his lips. “I distracted the guard at the door, then doubled back.” Addison frowned, then a small smile began at her mouth and spread to include those famous, eerily pale eyes. “I see death hasn’t killed your sense of humor.”
Though, the great dirt nap hadn’t exactly revived it, either….
She laughed over her own lame joke. “Wow. That’s not a sentence I ever expected to say.”
“So, are you okay with all this?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. “Done freaking out?”
She
