Free Reaper by Rachel Vincent Page A

the door. “I’ll take them both under advisement.”
    “Nash!” Mom cal ed, 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, dark 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.”
    Nash 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 Nash glared at me before turning back to our mother.
    “Total house arrest. I got it.”
    “Good. I’ll see you both in the morning. Don’t stay up too 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 Nash just stared at me, leaning against the doorway into the hal .
    “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,” Nash said, and his hazel irises twisted in an intense storm of greens and browns. I turned the TV off and dropped the remote on the center couch cushion. “I’m going to pick up Sabine, and I need help convincing them to let her go.”
    Shit . “I’m confiscating your hair dryer—you’ve fried your brain. You can’t just ‘pick up Sabine’ without a court order—she’s in a halfway house!”
    Nash 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 known, 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, male bean sidhes —like me and Nash—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 powerful.
    With nothing but a few words and some serious intent, we could make people do things. Make them want to do things. Like release Sabine 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?”
    “Not a town pass, Tod. 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 Sabine.
    Then we leave. Simple.” He shrugged, like things were real y that easy in NashWorld.
    “ 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? Hel 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