I do not own anything at all This belongs to both JK. Rowling and Rachel Vincent.
This is something different I am trying. I hope yall like it, It will be long and could be confusing at some points if yall get confused message me and I will try and explain a little better.
***There is alot of death and souls, Reapers, and Underworld and no magic if you dont like any of these I wouldnt read***
The Reaper
Staring down at the man on the bed, I couldn't help but suspect the coincidence. What were the chances he'd be brought in on my first day at the hospital? George was a shrewd little bastard, and the man on the bed practically gift wrapped for me in the hospital gown, terror dancing in his eyes was proof of that. I was no angel in life why should that be and different in death?
"Okay, I'm heading out..." Mom slid her purse over one shoulder on her way though the living room. "There's leftover lasagna in the fridge. And there's some bagged salas."
I nodded absently and flipped the channel to VH1 concert footage from one of the kids' networks where I was not trying to catch a glimpse of my ex-girlfriend Addison, who'd dumped me for a chance at stardom when she was cast in a pilot..
"Fred." Mom sat on the coffee table, right in front of the telecision. "Did you hear me?"
"yeah."
I leaned to the left and she mimicked my movement.
"Lasagna. Salad. Got it."
"I'm serous. Eat somethig green okay?" She snatched the remote and aimed it over her shoulder, and a second later the screen went dark. I started to complain but then I noticed how tired she looked the beginnings of lines on a face that would look thirty years old for the next hald a century and came up with a grin instead.
"Do Skittles count?"
Mom rolled her eyes. She never could resist my smile. "Only if you save me the purple ones." she handed me the remote, but would't let go when I tried to take it.
'"You're staying home tonight right?"
"What am I, a leper? It's Friday night. I have plans."
She sighed. "Change them. Please."
"Mom..."
"I need you to keep an eye on Draco."
"Am I my brother's keeper?" I tried another grin, but this time she wasn't buying it.
"Tonight, you're his warden. It doesn't do me any good to ground him if I can't keep him at home."
"Then why bother grounding him?"
She leaned closer and lowered her voice, bright blue irises swirling slowly in dread and frustration, and the fact that she let me read her eyes was my first clue how serious she was. Humans wouldn't have been able to see it only a fellow bean sidhe banshee, to the uninformed would be able to read her emotions in her eyes, but she usually hid them from us too.
"Because he snuck out in the middle of the night and drove to Holser House on a license still warm from the lamination! And an ineffective consequence is better than no consequence at all. At least thats what I'm telling myself."
She raked one hand through her hair then met my gaze with a worried one of her own.
"He's not like you, Fred. Aside from a couple of notable exceptions, you tend to think things thought, but Draco is ruled by his heart"
I nearly chocked on laughter.
"I think the organ he's ruled by us a little farther south, Mom."
She frowned.
"My point is that he's not taking this separation from Pansy very well. I thought some time apart would help... cool things down between them. But it seems to be doing the opposite."
She let go of the remote and gave me a wistful smile.
"You and your brother couldnt not be more different."
"Because he thinks he's in love, and I don't beliee in faerie tales?"
"Love isn't a faerie tale to Draco. But it isn't child's play either, and it makes me nervous how intense they are together."
"You just don't want to be a grandmother," I teased, trying to lighten the mood.
"That's definitely part of it," she admitted. "My future grandchildren deserve better than teenage parents could give them. But beyond that, it isn't healthy, how wrapped up they are in each other. Relationships like that burn bright, but when they burn out, they leave everyone blistered. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"You're condoning my playboy lifestyle right? Because I'm your favorite."
Mom laughed out loud.
"At least Draco doesn't get bored a month into a relationship. You, my hedonistic firstborn, are an entirely different kind of problem."
"Hedonistic is another word for favorite, right? So that's a compliment?"
She stood, still smiling.
"Eat something gree. And read something without pictures. Those are not suggestions."
I turned the TV back on as she headed for the door.
"I'll take them borht under advisement."
"Draco!" Mom called, one hand already on the front doorknob. "I'm leaving!"
A door squealed open down the hall, and a minute later my little brother stood in the doorway, bright blonde hair standing up all over like he'd just woken up.
"And this is noteworthy because...?
"Because this is your official reminder that your grounding does not expire with daylight. Do not leave this house while I'm at work."
Draco gave her a crooked grin possibly the only feature my brother and I had in common.
"What if the house catches fire?"
"Roast marshmallows. And if it floods, you'll go down with the ship. If there's a tornado, I'll meet both you and this house in Oz, after my shift. Got it?"
I chuckled and Draco glared at me before tyrning back to our mother.
"Total house arrest. I got it."
"Good. I'll see you both in the morning. Don't stay up to late."
Then the door closed behind her. A moment later an engine started and her car backed down the driveway.
"Mom told me to watch you. She thinks you're up to something," I said, when Draco just stared at me, leaning against the doorway into the hall.
"She's right."
He crossed the room and sat on the coffee table, where she'd sat minutes earlier.
"I need a favor."
"Move."
I shoved him out of the way and started flipping through the channels again.
"What kind of favor?"
"The kind that only you and I can do," Draco said, and his hazel irises twisted in an intense storm of greens and brownes. I turned the Tv off and dropped the remote on the center couch cushion. "I'm going to pick up Pansy and I need help convincing them to let her go."
Shit.
"I'm confiscation your hair dryer you've fried your brain. You can't just 'pick up Pansy' without a court order she's in a halfway house!"
Draco nodded, like he didn't see the problem.
"That's where the 'convincing' comes in."
And by convincing, he meant influencing. The female of our species was better know, historically and mythologically by her iconic wail for the dying. What most of the human race didn't know was that where they heard a head splitting scream, make bean sidhes like me and Draco heard an eerie, compelling song calling out to disembodied souls, keeping them from moving on. Male bean sidhes' most prominent ability Influence was also vocal in nature, and much more subtle than the female's wail. But no less poweful. With nothing but a few words and some serious intent, we could make people do things. Make them want to do things. Like release Pansy from her court-mandated halfway house into the custody of her sixteen-year-old boyfriend.
"You really think I'm going to drive all the way to Holser House on a Friday night just to help you score a conjugal town pass for your delinquent girlfriend?"
"Mot a town pass, Fred. I'm not taking her for a walk I'm breaking her out. We're breaking her out. You talk to whoever's on duty while I get Pansy. Then we leave simple." He shrugged like things were really that easy in DracoWorld.
"You're simple."
I leaned back on the couch and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to figure out how to explain the problem so that even an impulsive, lovesick idiot twenty-two months my junior could understand.
"Okay, look... everything you've said so far will probably work." I'd certainly talked us both into and out of tougher situations before. "But what happens after?"
"After what?"
"After we leave and the night staff realizes they've just lost a girl put in their custody by the state of texas? You think they're just going to shrug and move on? Hell no. they're going to report her missing. And at the very least, they're going to have the description of the two guys she left with." because my Influence wouldn't last much longer than it would take for the sound of my voice to fade into silence, and no matter how powerful I got with age and experience, I'd never be able to make someone foget what they saw or did. It just didn't work like that. And Draco damn well knew it. He shrugged, and I wanted to smack him over the head.
"So we come up with another plan. It won't be the first time you snuck a girl out og her house in the middle of the night."
"Nuh uh." I sat straighter, shaking my head at him. "Don't pretend this is the same as sneaking out for a beer at the watershed. You're talking about helping a convicted criminal escape from corrective custody!"
"She doesn't belong there."
"Okay then, genuis, what are you going to do with her once you have her? Put her in a box and poke some holes?"
"She can take care of herself. And I can help."
I searched his face for some sign that he was joking, but found nothing.
"She's fifteen!"
Draco shrugged "That's just a number. It doesnt say anything about her."
"It says something pretty damn funny about yoru IQ!" I said, and he opended his mouth to retort, but I spoke over him."Fifteen is too young to frive, too young to get a legal job, too young to sign a lease and obvuosly too young to pick a boyfriend with half a brain."
Draco's confidence crumbled and fell apart, exposing blind desperation and pain so intense I could harldy wrap my mind around them. And while I wanted to believe this was all drama and hormones, he obviously believed it was more than that.
"They won't even let me talk to her, Fred. I think they found the phone I gave her, 'cause she hasn't answeed it in three days."
Finally I leaned forward, right in his face, determinded to give him the wakeup call he desperately needed. "What did you expect? You date a criminal, and you're eventually going to have to share her with the state. Hell, she's probably got a girlfriend on the inside by now."
"You're an asshole."
"And you're living in a fantasy world. There are other girls out there, Draco. Maybe even a few who've never seen the inside of the police station."
He glared at me, waiting for me to cave, but that wasn't gonna happen. Not this time. Mom was right he'd lost it. Over a girl.
"Fine. I'll do it myself. Gimme the keys."
"No way. I'm meeting Kate in an hour."
"I thought you were supposed to stay here and babysit."
"I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. So why are you acting like such an idiot?"
"Just give me the keys!" Draco glanced around the living room, then luged for the end table when he spotted the keys to the car I'd been forced to share with him since his birthday. I rammed his shoulder, knocking him to the carpet halfway across the room.
"Sorry." I grabbed the keys and shoved them into my front pocket. "But Mom says you're grounded." I stuck my hand out to help him up, but he smacked it away, glaring up at me with his jaw clenched.
Draco shoved himself to his feet and stepped forward like he'd take a swing. But he wouldn't I could see hints of our father's build in the width of his shoulders, but I still had two inches and twenty pounds on him, and he knew better that to start a fight he couldn't win.
"I'd do this for you," he spat instead. "Because you're my brother. But obviously that concept is wasted on you." Then he stomped off to his room and slammed the door.
"You'll thank me for this later!" I shouted, trying to deny the fact that his parting shot stung almost like a physical blow.
A couple of hours later, the credits scrolled down the darkened TV screen, and Kate sighed. She sat up, and I missed the warmth of her back against my chest. I wrapped one arm around her waist and leaned foward.
"Hey, I liked you there."
She twisted in my grip to straddle me, delicious pressure in exactly the right place. Her brows arched and she gave me a slow smile as she bent toward me ear.
"I thought you might like me here better," she whispered, her breath an intimate warmth against my ear.
She was right.
She laid her hands flat against my chest, warm, thin fingers splayed over my shirt. My pulse spiked and I pulled her down for a kiss. My mouth left hers to trail over her chin and down her neck, tasting her bit by bit. She sat taller and threw her head back to give me better reach, shifting closer on my lap and my cell phone buzzed on the end table. I groaned, and Kate leaned back to brush her hair from her face.
Aren't you going to get that?"
"Nothing on earth could make me take that call right now." I tried to pull her closer, but she leaned over the arm of the couch instead peering at the display on my phone.
"It's your brother."
Damn it. I shifted her to one side and looked around her shoulder at the dark hallway.
"Draco, come out and get it yourself!"
Then I re-centered Kate on my lap.
"Sometimes he texts mom with snack requests, but I'm not gonna wait on the lazy little punk."
Kate laughed, staring down at me.
"He's been in his room this whole time?"
"Yeah. Sulking."
"He's probably afraid of what he'll see if he comes out."
"Oh yeah?" I slid my hands slowly up her sides. "What's he gonna see?"
"A little more of this..." She kissed me again, and Draco's call was delivered to voice mail. Two minutes later, the phone rang again, and I wanted to throw it though the front window. Kate handed me the phone. "He's not gonna quit until you answer."
I groaned and flipped the phone open, one hand on her hip, and loud, bass-heavy music blasted from Draco's end of the line. Oh shit. There was no music coming from the hall. When had he snuck out?
"Where the hell are you?" I snapped into the receiver.
"I need a ride," Draco slurred into my ear, and I rolled my eyes. He'd found a party.
"Where are you?" I repeated. "and how did you get there?"
"Arlington," Draco said, his words slushy but coherent.
"I walked to Potter's and he drove us out here, but now he's shitfaced."
The tip of Kate's tongue trailed up my neck hot and damp, and full of promise.
"We leave for Florida tomorrow morning," she whispered into one ear, while Draco barked threats into the other. "I wont see you again until school starts. But I don't have to be home for another hour..."
"You've already failed as a brother once today," Draco snapped. "Put your ass in the car and come get me."
"I'll be there in an hour," I said, only half focused on him while Kate leaned back and started unbuttoning her shirt. My pulse raced, anticipation sparking in my veins. "Just hang out until then..." I finished vaguely aware that my voice was little more than a suggestion of sound by that point.
"Come get me or I'm calling Mom," Draco threatened. " And you can tell her I'm at some stoner party in Arlington because you were too busy making out with your girlfriend to notice me leaving."
Shit.
"You're a complete pain in the ass, Draco."
"If you're not here in twenty minutes, I'm calling the hospital." Where our mom was pulling a twelve-hour shift. Draco spat out the address,then hung up before I could argue.
"Damn it." I flipped my phone closed then lifted Kate from my lap and set her on the middle couch cushion.
"What's wrong?" she asked, frowning as I shoved my phone into my pocket and grabbed my keys.
"I have to go get Draco. But then we can take this to my room and pick up right where we left off." after a moment's hesitation and one more long look I pulled her up from the couch.
"You'll never even know he's here."
Because I'd bind and gag him if I had to to keep him quiet.
"Where is he?" Kate buttoned her shirt, than ran her fingers through brown hair.
"Arlington. Let's go."
"Wait, Fred, i can't go to Arlington." Her frown deepened, and I could feel my plans for the evening being downgraded from X to PG13. "We'll barely make it back here before my curfew, and I'll be late by the time I get home."
"You want me to take you back now?" I asked while on the inside I chanted, please say no please say no over and over.
"No," she said, pressing herself against me. "I want you to let your brother wait a few minutes." She tugged on the button at the waist of my jeans, I put one hand over hers to stop her cursing myselft silently. "I can't. When left to his own devices Draco finds trouble." And sometimes tries to break it our of jail. "You sure you can't miss curfew? I'll make it worth your while..."
"I'm sure you would." Her smile practically sizzled and the flashes of memory that surfaced scalded me from the inside out. "But if I'm late, my mom will jump to all the right conclusions, and then my dad will kill you. Seriously. And what am I gonna do with a dead boyfriend?"
"Nothing that doesn't defy the norms of polite society..." I mumbled disappointed when she stepped back and turned toward the door. If Draco isnt dead of alcohol poisoning by the time I get there, I'll kill him myself...
Five minutes later we pulled up in front of Kate's house, and as she'd predicted, the living room windows were still blazing with light. "Sure you don't want to reconsider?" I spread my arms and grinned. "All of this could be yours..."
"I'm reconsidering as we speak." She leaned toward me, and I met her halfway. "But we've already been spotted," she said, lips moving softly against my jaw on the way to my mouth. I glanced up to see that she was right; a tall, shadowed form stood in the front window, staring right at my car. "I gotta go" Kate pushed the door open and stepped out, small pink purse in hand. "Say hi to Draco for me." Then the car door closed, and she was halfway up the walk before I'd even shifted into drive. Her front door opened and her dad stepped out to put one arm around her shoulders, and as they stepped inside, she turned back to smile at me once. And that was the last time I ever saw Kate.
"What took you so long?" Draco asked, as he slid into the passenger seat and pulled the door closed.
"I stopped to donate all your underwear to the homeless. You're gonna wanna take care of those tighty whities they're all you've got left."
He leaned against the door, either too tired or too drunk to sit up. "And to think most people don't understand your sense of humor."
"Fools all od them." I flicked on my turn signal and merged with the highway traffic, typically heavy for a Friday night. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
"Drinking alone while my best friend and my brother feel up their respective girlfriends, with no thought for the less fortunate." His eyelids looked heavy, and I wondered how much he'd had.
"Unfortunately, the juvenile justice system doesn't consider Pansy seperation from me cause for concern."
"Bastards." I swerved around an SUV, then back into the right lane. "Clearly the system is flawed."
Draco shrugged and slouched lower. "At least you got laid."
I glared at him before turning back to the traffic. "No, I got a brother who redefined the concept of 'coitus interruptus.'"
"Sorry." Draco frowned, his unfocused stare aimed out the windshield as I eased the car off the highway and onto the first stree in a tangle of suburban neighborhoods. "But hey, simce you're not busy anymore and we're out anyways... we could head over to Holser House." I started to shake my head, but he kept talking. "Please Fred. That place is going to kill her."
Irritated, I clenched the wheel and stared at the road. "You're drunk, Draco."
"Then you can do the talking!" he snapped, sitting straighter now. "I'll stay in the car."
"You should have stayed in the house!"
"You didn't!"
My hands clenched around the wheel. "I came back with Kate instead of going out, so I could keep an eye on you!"
"Great job."
I shook my head fighting the urge to punch the steering wheel. "No way. You snuck out and got drunk. You're not blaming this one on me."
"But Mom will," he said, and it only took me a secound to realize he was right.
"She doesn't have to know." He twisted in his seat to face me, rather than the windshield. "Let's go get Pansy. I'll be sober by the time we get home, and we'll tell Mom she ran away on her own. Pansy will back us up, and Mom never has to know either of us left the house."
"No," Hell no. Mom would see though that in a secound, and I'd get into worse trouble than Draco for letting him go through with such an idiotic, illegal stunt.
"Come on, Fred, I never ask you for anything!"
"Bullshit!" I glanced at him, furious to realize he actually believed his own load of crap!
"You ask me for gas money, and condoms, and alibis, and favors, and advice you never follow. And now you're asking me to drive your underage, drunk ass to breakout your jailbird, jailbait girlfriend out of corrective custody. And I'm the one who'll get in trouble when that brilliant piece of on-the-fly planning goes south."
"If something goes wrong, I'll take the blame," Draco insisted.
"No you won't because no one will point the blame at you. Pansy will lie to protect you on her end, and Mom will let you slide because she thinks you're some 'sensitive soul.' It's always poor Draco, he wears his heart on his sleeve, then wonders why it's always bruised.' Or 'He's only so reckless because he lives in the moment and he feels things so deeply."
"She doesn't say that."
"The hell she doesn't. But your problem isn't the heart on your sleeve, it's the head on your shoulders. You don't thing about things, you just do them, and it never even occurs to you that you could be screwing someone else over."
"You mean you?"
"Yeah, me! I can't turn around with out tripping over whatever trouble you're in.I spend half my life cleaning up your messes, and all you do is take up space and get in my way!"
I couldn't see Draco. The suburban stree was unlit, and I was staring at the road. But I could tell because he went completely still and quiet. For nearly a minute. then he grabbed the door handle, like he'd pull it open with the car still moving. "Let me out."
"What?"
"I'd hate to take up any more space in your life," he spat. "Stop the car."
I rolled my eyes but slowed down, in case he tried to jump.
"Are moronic overreactions a side effect of dating a delinquent, or is this the alcohol talking?"
"You don't know anything about me," Draco snapped, tightening an already white-knuckled grip on the door handle. "and you don't know a damn thing about Pansy. Stop the car, or I'm gonna jump and roll."
"No, you're gonna go home and sleep it off in your own bed," I insisted, as we rolled past the last house on the block, the rest of which was taken up by a larg community park.
"Stop the damn car!" I felt his influence almost before he spoke, and his words washed over me in a rush of anger, chased by a backwash of resentment. The urge to pull onto the side of the road was overwhelming. I slammed on the brake and we screeched to a halt at the corner in front of the park, not because he wanted me to stop, but because I was too pissed to drive.
"Don't even try to Influence me, you little..."
Draco's eyes widened,staring straight ahead. I glanced up just in time to see a car gliding toward us on the wrong side of the road, sleek and black against the night, no headlights to announce its approach. Adrenaline surging through me, I shifted into reverse and cut the wheel to the right, but it was way too late. The car slammed into us head-on. There was a loud pop of impact and the squeal crunch of bending metal. The world spun around me.
Draco flew forward and smacked the windshield. My seat belt punched the air from my lungs as the entire dashboard lurched toward me. The steering wheel stopped two inches from my chest. Then everything went still.
The only sound was the soft hiss of something ruptured. Every breath hurt, and my neck was so stiff I couldt hardly turn my head. I exhaled slowly and closed my eyes, stealing a moment in the near-silence to appreciate my pounding heart and the fact that it continued to beat. Then I twisted in the dark to face my brother.
"Draco?" He was slumped in his seat half facing me. His eyes were closed, his head steadily dripping blood from and injury I couldn't see in the dark. My relief bled into dread as I pushed my door open and the interior light came on. "Draco?" I said again, but he didn't answer. he was barely breathing, and I was afraid to make things worse by shaking him awake. "Shit!"
I unbuckled my seatbelt and had to slide out the door sideways, because of the dashboard and the steering wheel that had nearly crushed my rib cage. The street was lit only by the red glow of my taillights the wreck had obliterated the heatlights and I spared a moment to glance at the bastard crumpled over the deployed airbag in the other car. Where the hell were our airbags? My car didnt have them. It was too old. I raced around the rear of the car and pulled Draco's door opened with the one hand whiel the other dug in my pocket for my phone. I flipped it open and knelt by my brother. He wasn't breathing.
Shit!
Heart racing in panic, I felt for his pulse with my free hand , but couldn't find it in his neck. I tried his wrist my mom had tought me years ago but couldnt find it there either. His heart wasn't beating.
"No!" I shouted, out loud this time. I dropped his arm an pressed the 9 on my phone, my hands shaking, my pulse a roar in my ears. "No, No, No..." I chanted, shock and quilt warring inside me as I pressed the 1. "Not like this. Not after I..." Not after what I'd said to him. These couldn't be his lats moments drunk on the side of the road except for the ass hole brother who'd put him there in the first place.
