My Soul to Keep by Rachel Vincent Page B

and—”
    “Whoa…” I felt my eyes widen, and could only hope I didn’t look like a complete drooling idiot to the rest of the student body. “You’re serious?”
    His irises swam in sympathy. “I keep forgetting you grew up in virtual darkness.”
    “Well, that makes one of us,” I mumbled, frustrated all over again by how much I still had to learn about the Netherworld and its non-or part-human elements. Like me.
    “Anyway, the less human you are, the less susceptible to the effects of Demon’s Breath. Though fiends are the obvious exception.”
    Because those little buggers only existed in one of two states: stoned, and trying to be stoned.
    “So, since Doug’s addiction isn’t progressing as quickly, he probably has some non-human blood in his family somewhere, right?”
    “It’s possible.” Nash glanced over his shoulder to where my math teacher was eyeing us both and tapping her watch. He headed toward the classroom with me. “But it could be way, way back in his family tree, and he probably knows nothing about it.”
    “Are you joining us today, Ms. Cavanaugh?” my math teacher asked.
    I nodded, and Nash squeezed my hand, then he trotted backward down the hall. “See you at lunch….”
    I ducked into my classroom, sliding into my seat just as thetardy bell rang, but while my classmates pulled out homework assignments and frantically filled in the blanks they’d forgotten, I couldn’t stop thinking about Doug Fuller, and the only thing we had in common, other than Emma.
    What I hadn’t known about my family nearly got me killed. But what he didn’t know about his might just save his life.

9
    “D ID S COTT SAY WHERE he got it?” I asked, bending to dip my paintbrush in white latex paint.
    Nash had roped me into helping with the carnival booths after school to keep him company, so I’d pulled the same thing on Emma. Which was how she, Nash, Doug, and I wound up in the school gym at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, slopping white paint and fake snowflakes on booths made of plywood and construction staples. Along with twenty other bright-’n’-shiny cheerleaders, basketball players, and student-council members I’d rarely ever spoken to.
    “He said he got it from Fuller again.”
    I sank to my knees on the canvas drop cloth protecting the gym floor from my subpar artistic efforts and glanced across the basketball court to where Emma and Doug were working on the ice-carving registration booth. And by “working,” I mean making out, half-hidden by their booth, with dried-stiff brushes dangling from paint-speckled hands.
    “I assume he got it from that same guy? Everett?”
    Nash shrugged and used his brush to smooth out a drip on my side of the hot-chocolate stand. “I guess.”
    “We have to find this guy. Can you get Doug to introduce you? Maybe pretend you want to buy some from him?”
    He frowned, critically eyeing the giant marshmallows he was painting on top of a cutout of a mug full of brown liquid. “But then wouldn’t I have to sample the product?”
    Crap. “Probably. Can’t you just fake it?” I sighed, already rethinking my request. Did I want to put Nash in that kind of danger? What if he couldn’t fake it and had to take a hit? What if he accidentally inhaled Demon’s Breath? Either way, his exposure would be my fault. And I couldn’t live with that.
    “You know what? Never mind. I’ll do it.” I stood, trailing my damp brush along the corner of the booth, where I’d evidently left streaks on my first pass. “I’ll meet him, and pretend to sample the product, and find out where he gets it. And whether he knows what it really is—”
    “No,” Nash said. I turned around, and he was so close onlookers would think he was either challenging me to a dance battle, or staring down my shirt.
    “Why? Because I’m a girl?”
    His irises churned with…panic? But as I watched, he made them go still—obviously an effort—and there was nothing left to read