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“You assume?” I snapped, trying desperately not to scream at her. Assumptions, at this point, were not enough. “You don’t know for sure?”
She closed the distance between us, her boots clicking against the road, and her expression became measured. “I have power in the Netherworld, since I decided to stay. He’s not here anymore.” She stopped directly in front of me, glanced around again, and then finally shrugged. “That’s all I know. I cannot tell you if he’s gone back into his body.”
I focused on the spot where he vanished again, and stared at the crack in the pavement, praying that it had worked. Now I also wished I’d wake up to find out for sure, no matter what awaited me at Wayde’s house. A phone call to Kipp’s brother, Brandon, would be all I needed to do to find out for sure.
Deep down, I knew the moment he reconnected with his body, he’d wake up. But how to confirm that now?
At the same time, a part of me didn’t want to wake up. Who knew what I would discover. Wayde killing the people I loved? Although, the other part of me was so consumed with guilt that my friends were there alone. Well, alone as in, their souls were still in their bodies. Who knew what was happening to my body? Yet, if Wayde had wanted to kill us all, why wasn’t I dead already? Or perhaps he had killed me and I hadn’t realized it.
I shook my head, not even allowing myself to go there.
With all that jumbled-up mess on my mind, I focused on Nettie, who stood by one of the fallen branches. I centered my thoughts on something I wondered, but hadn’t cared in the moment of healing Kipp to ask. “Why didn’t you tell me how to fix him?” She had made it so cryptic when it didn’t need to be, and that irritated me. “Why make me figure it out when you could have told me?”
“It wasn’t my job to help him.” She ran her boot over the branch, scraping some of the bark off, and then as she looked at me her blue eyes softened. “It was yours.”
I blinked. “Pardon?”
With a slight tilt of her head, she regarded me in a slow sweep, making me feel all too examined. “Your soul is thick with despair. I see it now, because souls are more exposed in the Netherworld.”
After her study of me reached my toes, she finally lifted her gaze to my face again. “If I had saved him, that despair would’ve been forever tainted on your soul. You needed to help him, because it would free you. Like I’ve said, I’m here to guide. I did what I could to show you the way without taking away your right to save him.”
Her explanation pieced it all together, and now I saw sense in some of what she said. I’d seen enough how spirits held onto their pain and carried it with them—exactly why I helped ghosts—and yes, after all I’d gone through if it hadn’t been me to save Kipp, the frustration and agony of this whole experience wouldn’t have ever left me. But a curious thought rose. “So, you wouldn’t have told me if I hadn’t figured it out?”
“I’m a guide,” she replied with a shake of her head. “Not a messenger.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You would’ve let us leave and go through more? How does that make any sense?”
“Because—”
I didn’t need her to finish. “Because it wasn’t your job to save him, only be his guide.”
She nodded. “That job was yours and yours alone.”
Lord, I could only hope I succeeded at that job. More than the unbelievable factor, it seemed so unlikely it had worked without some kind of horrible thing right before it. Well, of course, there was a good chance I might still die, depending what Wayde planned to do to me. But I wasn’t dead yet, so I took that as a good sign.
Besides, fate couldn’t be that cruel, right? No way would I find a way to save Kipp, only for me to lose my life. Or so I let myself believe, because fate hadn’t been overly nice to me so far.
“Now then,” Nettie said, snapping me out of my thoughts, and giving me a long look. “I can guide you, as well.”
I waited for her to continue, since sheer horror filled me. Was I dead and that’s why I’d come into the Netherworld? When she didn’t go on, I barely managed through my tight throat, “Guide me?”
She smiled gently as she took my hand. “I’ve been where you are. I even feel the strain in you I once felt in myself. I understand the responsibility of having the gifts you do, and the pain it can cause, plus what a disruption it is to your life.”
My breath caught at the coldness of her skin, even if her clear eyes radiated with warmth. I didn’t doubt for a moment she understood exactly what I had to deal wi
th. But her motive in this conversation was lost to me. “And…?”
Her fingers wrapped tight around mine and she stared at me dead-on. “Do you want to keep your powers?”
I hesitated, unsure if I had heard her right. When she continued to stare at me, I figured I had. “Keep my powers?”
Her serious expression never wavered, even if I started to question her sanity as she went on, “Kipp could decide his path, and so can you.” She took up my other trembling hand in hers and squeezed both. “You only need to decide not to carry the Netherworld with you anymore. You can leave it here, forever, and your gifts will be undone.”
I hesitated and searched for any deception in the depths of her eyes. I found none. “Seriously?”
At her nod, I could only gawk at her in surprise. I hadn’t even considered that as an option, even if it did make sense. I had taken the Netherworld with me after the car accident, which is why I held the abilities I did. I could leave it behind, refuse it now, while in the Netherworld, and I’d no longer be bound to the mystical world.
Did I want that?
