Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

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      I was starting to agree with him. I wanted to help Addy, but not if she wasn’t willing to help herself. What were fame and fortune compared to an eternity of torture? “That’s kind of how the whole contract thing works, Addison. You fulfill it, or you have to pay back everything they’ve given you. But isn’t your eternal soul worth it?”

      She blinked at me, and her tears finally overflowed. “It’s not about the money, or even the fame. There are days I’d like to trade my face in for one no one’s ever seen.” Addison swiped tears from her cheeks with both hands, smearing expertly applied eyeliner in the process, and I pushed a box of tissues across the table toward her.

      “So, what is it about?”

      She took a deep breath. “If I demand my soul back, they’ll take back everything I ever got as a result of signing that contract—and everything anyone else ever got from it through me. They’ll ruin me, but the fallout will hit my agent, my lawyer, my publicist, and everyone who ever worked for me. It’ll devastate my whole family.” She sniffled, but now there was a sharp edge of anger in her voice. “My mom. Regan. My dad, and whatever twenty-year-old he’s shacked up with this week. And I’m not just talking about money. We’ve been poor, and we can be poor again. I’m talking debt, disgrace, and public humiliation, a thousand times worse than any of them would have suffered if I’d turned down the original offer.”

      Nash’s eyes narrowed as Tod kicked the fridge shut and returned with four cans of diet Coke, evidently all Addy kept on hand. “They can’t do that. Can they?”

      Addison laughed bitterly, and accepted the can Tod handed her. “You remember Whitney Lance? Lindy Cohen? Between the two of them, they have three divorces, seven arrests, five stints in rehab, and two children taken away by the courts. And it gets much worse. Others have had nude photo scandals, public breakdowns, and weeks spent in the psychiatric ward. Carolina Burke served two years for tax evasion, and Denison Clark was arrested for drunk driving two months before his twenty-first birthday. Then again for statutory rape six months later.”

      “Yeah, but they all actually did those things, right?” Nash popped open his can, looking less sympathetic by the moment. “Please tell me you don’t have an arrest record or a love child hidden away somewhere.”

      “Of course not.” Addy’s eyes flashed in anger, and I was glad to see it. If she couldn’t stand up to us, how could she possibly have enough nerve to demand her soul back from a hellion?

      “Well, if you haven’t given them any rope, how are they supposed to hang you?”

      “I’m not perfect, Nash!” Addison used the arms of her chair to shove herself to her feet and stood staring down at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a drink. Or that you’re a virgin.”

      Nash’s face hardened, but he remained silent.

      “My contract keeps me bubble wrapped, but if I get my soul back, not only will they strip the padding, they’ll start throwing knives at me. They’ll twist every decision I make and hurl it back at me. Every drink I take will be a public binge. Every relationship I get into will be a disaster played out in full color on newsstands all over the world. Exes will sell stories and pictures to magazines.” She was pacing now, words falling from her lips almost faster than I could understand them. “The paparazzi will get shots of my mom all strung out. Hell, she’ll probably go to prison for buying narcotics online, or something like that. My dad’s DUIs will catch up with him, and without me to bail him out when he gets in over his head, his creditors will eat him alive. And I don’t even want to know what’ll happen to Regan. She just scored a role in a new tween drama. Her career will be over before it begins.”

      Addison fell into the chair again and practically melted into the upholstery. “They’ll drive me crazy, and that will only fuel the media frenzy.”

      I leaned back, trying to absorb it all. Trying to imagine my own life under the microscope, my every indiscretion on display. “Okay, yes, it sounds bad. But your parents dug their own holes, and you can’t hold yourself responsible when they fall in.” I popped open my own can and took a sip, still thinking. “Are poverty and embarrassment really worse than eternal torture?”

      Addy shook her head halfheartedly. “No, and I know I probably deserve whatever I get. But Regan doesn’t, and neither does anyone else I wind up hurting.” She met my gaze, her pale blue eyes swimming in tears again. “Remember last year, when Thad Evans flipped his car? He killed two people and messed up his own face for good when he went through the windshield. Then he lost nearly everything he owned in lawsuits from the dead kids’ parents, and the rest of it to crooked accountants and lawyers. And what about—”

      “Whoa, wait a minute.” I rubbed my temples with both hands, fighting off a headache from information overload as everything she’d told us finally began to sink in. “Are you saying that all the Dekker stars with wholesome images and squeaky-clean backgrounds are actually soulless human husks, and Hollywood’s bad boys and girls are really the good guys, because they got their souls back?”

      She stared down into her can. “I wouldn’t exactly call them good guys for taking the out-clause.”

      “What does that mean?” Nash pulled a throw pillow from behind his back, then dropped it on the floor beside the couch.

      Addison glanced at Tod instead of answering. The reaper sighed and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and his focus shifted from Nash to me, then back to Nash. “There’s a little complication with the out-clause.”

      My stomach churned. Something told me his definition of a “little complication” and mine wouldn’t have much in common.

      “Addy doesn’t actually have a copy of her contract….”

      “I was barely sixteen,” Addison interrupted, her cheeks flaming in embarrassment. “It never occurred to me to ask for a copy to keep.”

      Nash scowled at her, hazel eyes swirling rapidly with mounting anger. “Or to actually read the damned thing before you signed it, I’m guessing.”

      “Wait, isn’t sixteen too young to sign a contract without your mom’s permission?” I asked, hoping I’d just discovered a brilliant legal loophole.

      Tod’s blue-eyed gaze seemed to darken. “The Netherworld considers humans adult once they hit puberty.”

      I frowned. “That’s messed up.”

      He shrugged. “It’s the Netherworld. And she had no idea she was entitled to a copy of her contract, and hellions aren’t known for explaining your rights up front.” He deliberately shifted his focus to me. “Anyway, I asked around a little bit today.”

      The sick look on his face told me I didn’t want to know who he’d spoken to, or what he’d had to do for the information.

      “… and if Addy’s contract reads like all the rest of them do—and I’m sure it does—her out-clause requires an exchange.”

      “What?” I blinked, hoping I’d heard him wrong, or was misunderstanding something. “An exchange like my mom made? A life for a life?” The horror crawling through me had no equal. I rubbed my arms, trying to keep goose bumps at bay, but they rose, anyway.

      “A soul for a soul,” Tod corrected, staring at the floor for a second before meeting my gaze again. “But basically, СКАЧАТЬ