My whole body ached, like I’d been locked in the same position for days. Like when you wake up after sleeping twelve hours without moving. My whole left side, but particularly my left leg, felt…off in some way. My head throbbed with a ferocity I’d never experienced. And I could feel hands poking and prodding at me, removing medical equipment, checking my pulse.
No, no, no. This wasn’t right.
With my heart pounding too fast—and a beeping somewhere nearby that seemed to keep time with it—I forced my eyes to open a slit and to stay open, despite the light, which made them water fiercely. I couldn’t move my head at all, but even that tiny slice of vision, blurry and painful as it was, was enough.
I stared at the girlie pink bedsheet, with castles and fairies hanging on the wall opposite of where I lay. I’d seen it before, but never from this perspective, from the point of view ofthe one for whom it had been hung. Arms that weren’t mine—too pale for one and too freckled for another—rested at my sides. The rise in the blankets farther down that hadto be feet and toes was far too close, and yet, when I concentrated with the intensity I’d once reserved for landing abackflip, those toes moved. Just a little, probably not even noticeable to anyone else. But it was enough, more than enough.
I had not escaped Lily Turner’s body after all. No, instead, I’d somehow just managed to lock myself into the driver’s seat.
Okay, so the important thing was not to panic. Right. I was only stuck inside of someone else’s freaking body! And not even one I would have picked for myself, BTW.
Just stay calm. My eyes snapped shut again, and I allowed it, the burden of keeping them open too much in this moment.
It had been one thing to sort of borrow her hand. I’d been aware of my hand inside of hers, like a hand in glove, if you’ll excuse the grossness of the metaphor (don’t think about it too hard). But this was different. I no longer had any sense of me within her. It was just all blended and blurred together. We were blended and blurred together.
That couldn’t be good. The monitor next to me beeped a little louder and faster, sounding my panic for me.
And apparently, I wasn’t the only one having trouble with not freaking out. As soon as someone pushed the rattling cart of equipment away and the doctor left with murmured words that I could not quite hear, the chair next to my bedside squeaked loudly as someone collapsed into it and began to sob.
Lily’s mom. It had to be.
Her warm fingers wrapped around mine, startling me, and she squeezed almost too hard. “Come on, baby, you can’t give up on me now.”
The anguish in her voice ate at me. I’d caused this. Even if I wasn’t sure how, my attempt to use her daughter had brought this about. God, I was a sucky person. Not that it was entirely my fault. Will had some responsibility in all of this. If he’d just done what he was supposed to—i.e., what I said—none of this would have happened!
I wanted to pull my hand away from Mrs. Turner, but succeeded in only wiggling my fingers.
She drew in a breath sharply, and I could feel her staring down at me. “You want your board back, baby?”
Crap. This monster was all mine…and Will’s.
Will. He might be able to fix this.
Yeah. He could probably just reach in and pull me out. Or, better yet, just “call” me from someplace farther away and I’d have to come out to answer. That’s the way it worked. I couldn’t ignore his call. Period. Ever. And trust me, I’d tried.
So…all I had to do was get Will here. I could do that. It was possible that maybe I’d be pulled out of here tomorrow morning anyway and show up at his side, just like usual. Possible. But I wasn’t willing to take the chance. Plus, I was not cool with spending one second longer in this body than I had to, let alone the hours that still had to pass before 7:03 a.m. would roll around again.
“Can you call Will Killian, please?” is what I imagined myself saying in a voice creaky with disuse.
Instead what came out was…nothing. My throat worked, and my tongue clicked and clacked against the roof of my mouth, but not so much as a grunt emerged.
What the hell? I was stuck in here without any control or a voice? A shiver of fear ran over me and I felt it in a way that I hadn’t in a while, with real goose bumps and everything. It was almost too intense.
“Let me get your board.” She gave my fingers one last squeeze and let go.
I squinted again, and this time, the light wasn’t as unbearable. Don’t get me wrong, it was still like staring directly at the sun in terms of pain, but I was beginning to adjust. If I avoided looking directly up—at what I was beginning to suspect were ordinary room fluorescents, too bright for my newly sensitized eyes—I could see a bit more.
Straining my eyes to the right, I watched Lily’s mom turn away from me and fumble through the stack of Ouija boards on my bedside table.
But before she could put one in place and I could test my likely nonexistent fine motor skills, running footsteps sounded in the hall, out of place now without alarms sounding or the announcement of code blue on the overhead.
They came to a stop right outside my door. Lily’s mom froze, her arms wrapped around a pink plastic version of the Ouija board. She jerked around in her chair, and I struggled to follow with my limited range of vision.
“What happened?” A ragged male voice asked from the door. “Is everything okay? Is she—”
“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Turner stood and turned to face him, blocking my view. “I didn’t call you.”
A too-long pause followed. “I asked the nurses to leave a note in her chart to call my cell phone if she—”
“What, died?” Mrs. Turner spat. “Disappointed, Jason?”
“That’s not fair! She’s my daughter, too.”
“Really?” She moved toward the door, out of my range of vision. “Then where were you this morning? When she was present and trying to communicate?”
He sighed. “Corrine, she’s not…” He took a deep breath. “Never mind. What happened?”
Mrs. Turner sniffed. “Her heart stopped. All of a sudden. No warning.”
“She looks different,” someone else said, also near the door. God, could everybody please move into the room so I could have a shot at telling what was going on?
This new voice had that squeaky sort of braying quality that I’d noticed in the freshman boys who’d attempted totalk to me. Lily’s younger brother?
“He should not be here,” Mrs. Turner hissed. “He doesn’t have to see this.”
“It’s his sister,” Mr. Turner, presumably, hissed back in that way parents have of arguing in front of their children. Seriously. Do they think we’re that stupid? Of course, my parents had graduated from loud, angry whispers to shouting, and then, even worse, stony silence, a long time ago, so this was nothing new to me.
It didn’t seem to faze Lily’s brother either. He left them hissing and snarling at each other near the doorway and came closer to me, his shoes squeaking on the floor as he approached.
He stepped into my field of vision, keeping a cautious distance from the side of my bed, but still close enough for me to get a good look.
God, geekiness must run in their family. He was twelve, or maybe thirteen, and tall and skinny with fine light brown hair that was sticking up in the world’s worst cowlick at the back of his head. He was wearing a polo shirt (points), but it was about three sizes too big and in a spectacularly bright shade of clearance bin yellow. Seriously. Did they not have a mirror in their house? From this and what I recalled from the pictures I’d seen of Lily, you wouldn’t think so.
He stepped a little closer, frowning. Behind him, his parents continued arguing in fierce but hushed tones.
“Corrine, you heard them. Even if she woke up, which is never going to happen, she won’t be the same person.”
“Not in here, not in front of her,” she snapped.
The brother waved his hand millimeters above my face, releasing the smell of antibacteria
l soap and sweaty boy, and I blinked in irritation.
He cocked his head to one side. “You should see this. She’s opening and closing her eyes.”
“It’s just a reflex, Tyler.” Lily’s mother sounded exhausted. “Remember, they explained that.”
He stared down at me with a frown. “No,” he said. “This is different.” He rested his hands on the side of my bed and leaned in for a closer look. Having him hanging over my face was, quite frankly, more than a little annoying, but it was further than I’d gotten with Mrs. Turner.
Now just get them to give me one of those damn boards. I tried to tell him with my eyes. That would be a start at least. Even if I couldn’t quite get it right from the start, maybe they’d at least realize I was trying.
But his parents ignored him.
“I think it’s time to take her home,” Mr. Turner said.
That sounded like a good plan to me. If “Lily” came home, Will would have to come visit. Guaranteed.
“Take her home to die, you mean,” Mrs. Turner said scornfully.
Wait, what?
“Yes, to die,” he said. “She’s not getting any better. And you’re…” he sighed. “This isn’t good for you.”
“Don’t pretend to care about Lily or me.”
I wished I could see her. Mrs. Turner sounded like she was inches from snapping and throwing a punch. From what I’d seen of her, I bet she could probably put some force behind it, too.
“You’re willing to let her slip away just so you don’t have to live with your mistake,” she said.
“That’s not—”
“You gave her the car!”
This sudden shout from Mrs. Turner was a conversation stopper. Even Tyler half-turned from me to stare at his parents.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I gave our sixteen-year-old sober and responsible daughter the car keys and permission to spend time with her friends. You would have done the same thing, but I’m the one who will have to carry the knowledge for the rest of my life that I could have done something.” His voice cracked. “I could have stopped her, but I didn’t know.” The sound of broken and hoarse breathing, half-repressed sobs came from his direction.
I turned toward the sound instinctively and found I could move my head on the pillow. Just a little bit. But enough to see them both now. Mr. Turner was this big guy with a beard, but his voice was gentle. And I’d forgive him for wearing a denim shirt. He was clearly grieving.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Turner said wearily. “I didn’t mean it.” She rested her head against his shoulder, and he allowed it, patting her back with one giant bear-paw of a hand.
“If we take her home,” Mr. Turner continued, forcing himself to talk through his tears, “she can be comfortable. She can be with us. No more tests, no more feeding tubes, no more doctors.”
Mrs. Turner leaned into him and shook her head. “I don’t know.…She was trying to talk to me, Jason, I know it.”
“Then why don’t any of the tests show improvement? Why doesn’t she communicate when we ask her to?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“Her fingers move on their own—muscle reactions. If you look hard enough, you can make meaning out of anything.”
“She told me not to be sad.”
“How much of that is what you wanted to see?” he asked gently. “How sure are you that she was reaching for the ‘s’ and not the ‘t’ or the ‘q’?”
I beg your pardon, I hit those letters with precision. Well, as much precision as I could manage using someone else’s hand.
“I know what I saw,” Mrs. Turner said, but her voice had lost its earlier conviction.
“We don’t have to forget, we never forget, but she can let go and so can we,” he said quietly.
And take me with her? I don’t think so. I still wasn’t sure how I’d been pulled in here in the first place. If Lily died, would her body let me go? I could think of one thing way worse than being stuck in a living body I didn’t want, and that was being stuck in a not-living one.
I shuddered on the inside.
Lily’s brother was still by my bed, half sitting, half leaning against the edge, like he’d forgotten I was there in the drama created by his parents. Couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t exactly the chatty type these days, now was I?
This time, I didn’t even try to talk.
If I was going to stop them from letting Lily die longenough to let me out, I needed to let them know I was in here. I seemed to be having better luck with small motionsover talking, and the brother’s hand was resting on the bed, just inches from mine. If I could just tap him, that might be enough to get his attention and get him to make his parents see.
I focused all my effort on my right hand. I just need to move the fingers a little farther down and…
As usual, when I really put my mind to something, I win. Big time.
I watched as my hand shot forward and locked around Tyler’s wrist.
Tyler jumped up with a yelp, but my hand was still on his arm, so he dragged me with him until I was listing awkwardly to the side.
“Lily!” Mrs. Turner shrieked.
She shoved Mr. Turner away and bolted for the bed. Pushing past Tyler and breaking my now weakening grip on his wrist, she scooped my upper half up into a too-tight hug.
“I knew you would come back. I knew there was a reason to keep hoping,” she whispered in my ear, her tears wet against my face.
Crap. This was going to get complicated.
The smoke grew thick quickly. Choking on it, I dragged myself the rest of the way out of the hole, praying the rotten boards would still hold my weight.
Then again, the air beneath the stage was probably cleaner. Ghost smoke seemed to follow the same rules as the real stuff. The trouble would be surviving the fall.
Though my lungs were screaming at me to rest and catch a breath of clean air that would never come, I forced myself to crawl across the rough and ragged boards, staying low where the smoke was the thinnest. Splinters from the rotting boards tore into my palms, feeling more like insect stings, but I kept going.
Flickering light, like what I remembered from burning leaves in the fall, lit up the theater around me in a manner anything but soothing or nostalgic. I could now see out into the audience area, the rows of seats still in place and the gaping holes where some had already been removed. Through the smoke, I caught a glimpse of double doors, sagging ontheir hinges, at the top of the main aisle. That was where I’d seen that flash of light. That was where I needed to go. There had to be another way out of this building.
Behind me, a shriek of agony filled the air, so loud and piercing it stopped me in my tracks.
I jerked my head around to see something vaguely person-shaped, covered in writhing flames. Two arms waving in the air, two legs stumbling forward, all of it haloed in bright yellow-and-orange fire. A dark gaping hole in the blaze that encompassed the head might have been the mouth.
Move, Will, move! I scrambled toward the edge of the stage.
The burning man followed me, lighting up the darkness as he moved. His screams were no longer even recognizably human. If I survived this, I’d never be able to go to sleep again without hearing those sounds in my head.
Frantic to get away, I half slid, half fell off the edge of the stage, landing hard and awkwardly in the debris. Above me, the burning man loomed, inches from falling and landing on top of me.
I scrambled backward, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase.
My fingers brushed the smooth edge of something that did not feel like decaying wood, a disintegrating chunk of plaster, or rusty metal.
The disruptor. It had gone over the edge before me.
I fumbled for it, praying I was right. It took me a couple of tries to get my shaking hand around it. Yes, definitely the disruptor. I could see the gleam of the rough metal edges in the firelight.
The burning man above me wobbled, wavering on the edge.
I closed m
y hands around the disruptor, turning what I hoped was the open end away from me and started pressing buttons in desperation.
But nothing happened, and the man on fire tipped over the edge of the stage, falling toward me. I shut my eyes and threw myself backward, but I knew it wouldn’t be quiteenough. The entire pile of debris would be up in flames in seconds and me along with it.
Alona. What would happen to her if I—
Then, behind my closed lids, I saw a burst of blue light. I opened my eyes to find a beam of light coming from somewhere behind me. It had caught the burning ghost in mid-fall and now held him in place just a foot or so above me.
The man was still covered in flames, but they no longer moved and writhed over what remained of his skin.
Against my will, my mind picked out features of the ghost’s mangled face. What was probably his nose, where his eyes had been…
Then he disappeared with a faint pop.
I sagged back on the floor, aware suddenly of a sharp pain in my side and an ominous-feeling trickle of warmth.
“Move in,” a man’s voice barked from behind me.
A rush of fresh air flooded over me. Dark figures, maybe a half dozen or so, moved past me swiftly, little more than shadows. I watched as they leaped onto the stage with ease, their faces disfigured and odd in the shadows of the dancing flames. They alternately wielded fire extinguishers and disruptors, coating everything with explosions of white foam and blue light. Members of the Order. Finally. Apparently I only needed to almost die for them to show themselves.
“Are you all right?” someone shouted.
I sat up gingerly and looked back to find two men and a woman hurrying down the aisle toward me. The one closest to me, a dark-haired man in a flannel shirt, jeans, and worn work boots, looked sort of familiar. The woman behind him appeared to be in her late thirties and looked like a Barbie doll come to life, all blond hair and boobs in a tight leopard skin shirt. Not, mind you, that I was complaining. She moved along as best she could in a skirt that cut her steps in half. The last of the three was an older, white-haired guy in a full three-piece suit. Portly might have been a kind description.