I’d told Alona that, for the moment, we only had to worry about finding Erin. But I realized now that having Ed tell us where Erin might want to hang out wouldn’t be enough. Not with all of this guilt hanging around, binding the two of them together. Ed’s unfinished business with someone who was essentially the other half of himself was the real problem. Without him, there was no way we were going to reach any kind of resolution, even once we managed to find Erin.
I made an executive decision. “You need to come with us. We need your help with Erin.”
He squinted at me. “You keep saying we.”
“My spirit guide, Alona, is here,” I said.
“Was that really necessary?” she muttered.
“For real? Hey, Alona.” Ed waved at a point well above where she knelt on the floor next to me.
She rolled her eyes.
He wiped his face and sat up straighter. “What do you need my help with? Is Erin okay?”
Alona sighed. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” she said to me. “It’s only going to make things worse.”
I ignored her. “It’s kind of a long story,” I said to Ed. “But the gist of it is that Erin has sort of taken a body that doesn’t belong to her, and we need your help to fix that.”
He lurched forward, once again making me wonder about the vomit potential of the moment. “A body?” He frowned. “She’s possessing someone? Is that even possible?”
“Seriously,” Alona said, “do you ever listen to me?” She pushed herself to her feet and stalked away.
“Kind of,” I said to Ed. “Like I said, it’s complicated. We need you to help us find her and get her out, back here where she belongs.”
He struggled to focus, rubbing his eyes. “But she’s in a body? Like, she’s alive?”
Oh, crap.
“Told you,” Alona singsonged from somewhere behind me.
I refused to look at her. “Not exactly,” I said to Ed, struggling to keep on topic. “The point is, the body doesn’t belong to her. We need to get her back here as a spirit, so she can resolve her issues and move on to the light. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Is she happy?” he asked.
I thought of Erin gleefully smashing her mouth against mine. Happy would be one way to describe her. Ecstatic might be more accurate. But that didn’t change the fact that what she’d done wasn’t right. She was in this only for herself. She didn’t care who got hurt—Alona, Lily, Lily’s family . . .
“I don’t think you understand,” I began.
“No, you don’t understand. I owe her.” He pounded his fist against his leg. “What happened was my fault. I could have stopped her from going, or I could have gone with her, like she wanted, and she wouldn’t have had so much to drink. Then none of this ever would have happened.” He gestured around, obviously including his parents and their financial distress in the mix. “If she’s happy now, I’m not going to stop that. At least something decent will come out of this mess.”
I stared at him. “Are you not hearing me? She’s possessing an innocent person!”
“She’s my sister,” he said, jabbing an unsteady finger in my direction. “And I killed her.”
I stood up and stepped back from him, frustrated. “No, you didn’t.”
“I might as well have.” He stared glumly at the floor.
“Look, it was her decision to go to the party and to drink on the freaking roof or whatever. She died, and she needs to move on. End of story.” I raked my hands through my hair, trying to find the words that would click with him, that would make him understand. “Her choices are not your responsibility. And sometimes you have to let people go.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were a mistake.
I heard Alona’s sharp intake of breath behind me and turned quickly to face her. “I didn’t mean you.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Why not? The same rules that apply to Erin apply to me, too. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“It’s different,” I insisted. “You were sent back for a reason, even if no one spelled out what it was.”
“Glad to hear you think so now,” she said quietly.
Ed, of course, noticed none of this. He forced a laugh. “Let people go? You keep telling yourself that, man. Let me know how it works out for you in real life.”
Damn it. Drunk and ridiculous, Ed had a point.
I followed Will down the stairs after he stormed past me. He started pacing the empty living room, back and forth in front of the windows in the rapidly fading squares of sunlight on the carpet.
I leaned against the wall in the foyer and watched. The frustration rolled off him in nearly visible waves, and I felt a pang of sympathy for him. He was doing his best. That being said, I couldn’t leave it like this. We couldn’t just hangout in an empty house and hope for all of this to resolve itself. I mean, I guess we could have, but not without a lot of the collateral damage we were hoping to avoid. “So, what now?” I asked.
Will stopped to glare at me. “I don’t know, okay?” He rubbed his hands over his face. “You were right,” he said, his voice muffled. “This was a stupid plan.”
He sounded miserable, and it tugged at me in a way I normally would have worked very hard to ignore. Except…this was it. The end. In that knowledge, I felt a reassurance and freedom I’d never experienced before.
I straightened up and approached him cautiously, my steps soundless on the carpet. When I touched his shoulder, he jerked his head up, startled.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It wasn’t a stupid plan. There were just more variables than we counted on, is all.” Actually, more variables than he had counted on. I’d foreseen that Ed might not be as easy to maneuver as Will had thought, and Will might have avoided some of this if he’d listened to me. But I saw no point in bringing that up now and making him feel worse. Hey, look at me, growing as a person.
He laughed bitterly. “You can’t fool me. You’re gloating on the inside. You tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen.”
That stung. Maybe I wasn’t perfect yet, but I was trying. I pulled back from him, but to my surprise, he reached out and enfolded me in his arms, pulling me closer and burying his face against my neck. “I’m sorry. I just want everything to be easier, like it was before,” he whispered, his lips moving against my skin.
For some stupid reason, this sparked tears in my eyes. I gave a shaky laugh. “Who doesn’t?” I smoothed his hair down; it was softer than it looked and shorter than it had been when I’d first been forced to take real notice of him. The idea that at some point he’d gone out and gotten a haircut without my knowing made my heart ache. He had a life without me, and he would continue to once I was gone. It was ridiculous to get upset about it, and I knew that, but I couldn’t quite stop myself, either.
I blinked a bunch of times, trying to get my emotions under control, and cleared my throat. “You know, it wasn’t so great before. I was kind of a bitch sometimes, and you were hiding from everything.”
He laughed, and I felt the vibration of it beneath my hand on his back. I would miss this. I would miss him.
“It just seems harder now because we’re not used to this,” I continued, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Not used to being something other than what we were.”
“You are so damned practical,” he said with another laugh, one that held more than a little sadness. He leaned back from me without letting go and reached up to touch my face, brushing his thumb across my cheek, maybe to catch a tear that had somehow escaped. “No one would have ever guessed that before, least of all me.”
I could see the warmth in his gaze and sense the words rising up inside him, words that not a single person had ever said to me and actually meant. My mom loved that she had had someone else to blame. My dad loved that he’d had someone else to clean up his mess. My ex-boyfriend Chris had apparently loved someone else entirely.…“Don’t,” I said quickly, pushing away from him.
&nbs
p; He frowned. “Why not?”
Because Will knew me in a way those other people hadn’t, and I might have believed him. And that seemed way too dangerous, especially now. I stepped back from him and wiped under my eyes, as though my mascara would run. “It doesn’t change anything,” I said in my haughtiest tone.
Which rolled off him like I hadn’t said anything. “If things were different…” he began.
“But they’re not,” I reminded him.
“They could be.”
He meant being Ally again for good. If we could track Erin down, if it was even possible that that arrangement could last, if I wanted to literally be someone else for the rest of my life…if, if, if…“Maybe.”
He sighed and walked a few steps away before turning back to face me. “What do you want to do?”
“What?” I asked, certain I’d heard him incorrectly.
Will gave me a look that suggested I might have suddenly developed a severe mental impairment. “I’m asking what you want to do,” he said slowly.
I stared at him, still not sure if he was being serious. He’d never asked me that before. For all that he’d tried to avoid being a ghost-talker, with the implications that went along with it, he’d always had very definite opinions about the right and wrong thing to do in any given situation. And getting him to see things my way had usually required some form of bribery or blackmail.
“We’re running out of options, and this isn’t working out like I thought.” He waved a hand toward the stairs and the second floor, from which loud snores resonated through the empty house. Ed had evidently passed out. Will hesitated, then said, “I’m not going to push you into something that’s not you.” He forced a laugh. “Literally.”
I didn’t know what to say. Someone thinking of me first—it was what I always tried to insist on, what I’d manipulated into existence when I could. And here Will was doing it on his own.
“If you want to let it go…let everything go, I’ll find another way to fix the Erin situation.” He grimaced, and I knew he was thinking of the Order. Who knew what it would cost him to enlist their help? But he would do it, if necessary. If I said so.
For a second, some part of me deeply wanted to say, Forget it all, forget everyone but me. If these were my last few hours, then why not spend them the way I wanted? That was the one advantage of knowing you’re about to not exist anymore, a benefit I had not been afforded in my previous death.
We could take the Alona Dare greatest hits tour—visit all the significant places I’d be leaving behind, one last time. My bench outside our school. My former room in my mother’s house, which was now as empty as Ed’s parents’ house. Krispy Kreme. I couldn’t actually eat a doughnut, but I would be able to see them and smell them. That would be worth something, wouldn’t it?
We could listen to my favorite songs—most of which Will would probably hate—and make out on his bed—which he definitely wouldn’t hate and neither would I.
All of that…or spend more hours chasing a girl who we might not even be able to find or save. And even if we did manage to save her and I took Lily’s body back for good, I wouldn’t be me, not the me from the first eighteen years of my life.
This was not a small decision. But for now, all I had to do was decide to keep trying. And I could do that. Will deserved that much. Not to mention that I, for whatever reason, couldn’t stand the idea of seeing the disappointment on his face if I said no. It would definitely put a crimp in any potential make-out plans.
“All right, all right,” I said with a sigh. “We keep looking…as soon as we find another place to try.”
But Will didn’t move or burst into ecstatic applause at my decision. Actually, Will and “ecstatic” don’t really belong in the same sentence. Ever. Still, his lack of response left something to be desired.
“There’s no point in continuing to look,” he said warily, “if you’re not going to—”
“Don’t push me,” I snapped. “And I’m not the only one who should be thinking this through.” I stepped forward until I was inches from his face. “We’re talking permanent here. And that means more than changing hairstyles and trying new makeup. I’d be Ally Turner. I’d go to school as Ally Turner.” God save me. “I would date as Ally Turner.” I poked my finger in his chest with those last words.
He flinched.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I backed off.
His mouth tightened, and he made an unhappy face. “Let’s just do this.”
* * *
In the absence of some other, more productive activity, we decided to go back upstairs to retrieve Ed. We would need him, most likely, if we found Erin; and besides, leaving him to sleep it off in his abandoned, bank-owned, childhood home, only to be awakened by a screaming real estate agent, who would probably call the police, seemed kind of cruel.
Unfortunately, reviving him proved beyond our capacity, even with my skills and experience in that area.
“We’re going to have to carry him,” I said, out of breath from tugging at Ed’s arm to get him to his feet. He kept flopping over like a rag doll.
“Like that’s not going to look suspicious.” Will was bent in half, hands on his knees, in the same breathless condition. Ed wasn’t a particularly big guy, but in his current boneless, drunk condition, our attempt to move him was taking a lot more effort than it would have otherwise. With my mom, I’d often given up and covered her with a blanket where she lay. Way, way easier.
I waved his concern away. “You can pull the car into the driveway, and it’ll be dark soon. Unless you’ve got a better suggestion.”
Will shook his head. “No.”
“Fine. Get his arms.”
He stepped around me to grab Ed’s wrists, and I moved to his ankles. “Ready?” I asked.
“Not really,” he muttered. “You realize this is technically kidnapping.”
I shrugged. “One of our lesser crimes. It’s for his own good.”
“You can tell that to the police…Oh, wait. That’s right. You can’t.” He gave me a sour look.
“Ha-ha.” I gripped the cuffs of Ed’s worn jeans. “Ready? Lift.”
We stumbled toward the stairs with Ed swinging between us, hanging above the carpet by a mere fraction of an inch. “So, did she say anything else to you? Anything besides ‘burgers and beer’?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“We’ve been over this,” Will panted, as he backed toward the first step.
“Well, go over it again,” I said. I couldn’t help feeling that we were missing something. This girl was not that complicated. Yeah, she’d be smart to be hiding, but I was betting she wasn’t that smart. She was all about sensations and experiences—new boys to kiss, more chances to dance, more beer to drink.…She wasn’t going to waste any time finding those things. But she didn’t know anyone—or didn’t know that she, as Lily, knew anyone. And I couldn’t see her seeking out strangers for random experiences; though, maybe…
I stopped suddenly as a thought occurred to me, and Will stumbled forward, almost falling on Ed. “Did she kiss you?” I demanded.
Color rose in his already flushed face.
“Son of a bitch,” I said and dropped Ed’s feet.
“Look, it was no big deal.” He set his half of Ed down more carefully at the top of the stairs. “I already knew it wasn’t you, and—”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. I wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much. I guess it didn’t seem fair that he’d already kissed that mouth—my mouth, sort of—without me present.
“It wasn’t like that,” he protested. “It didn’t count. She jammed her face against mine and—”
“Not helping!”
“Whatever. Can we have this discussion at a later point, like when we’re safely in the car?” he asked, grabbing Ed’s arms. “Let’s get him downstairs before someone decides to come over and find out why his van has been in the driveway for so long.?
??
Reluctantly, I scooped up Ed’s feet, but I let Will take more of the weight this time, even though he was going backward. He deserved it.
“Anyway…” Will frowned at me like I was the one in the wrong. Please. How could he have let her kiss him knowing she wasn’t me?
“I got to the house and Misty opened the door,” he said, carefully negotiating his way down the first couple of steps.
It took me a second to realize he was acquiescing to my previous request and going over the events I’d missed at Misty’s house.
“She seemed to know something was up with…Ally.” He shook his head. “But she didn’t say anything to me, at least not right away.”
“Or maybe not. Maybe she didn’t notice anything at all, since evidently we’re completely interchangeable in that body anyway,” I muttered, feeling the need to be a little nasty.
He looked at me pointedly, and I looked down, past Ed’s feet, to see my own, flickering. Sigh. “I realize you are just trying to be helpful.” Weak, in terms of a nice thing to say, but it must have worked, as I stopped flickering. For now.
“But then we walked into the kitchen,” he continued, “and I saw you…well, I thought it was you, all cozied up with Leanne Whitaker, which was weird.” He paused, waiting for me to feel my way over the edge of the first step down with my foot. “Even weirder, considering your fixation with germs.”
I glared at him as I took the next step. “It’s not a fixation. Do you know how many diseases you can get by sharing food?”
“No, but I bet you do,” he said under his breath, struggling as he started around the curve in the stairs.
“Fine. Make fun until you…” I stopped, pieces clicking together in my brain, creating a horrible new picture. “Wait. Wait a minute.”
Will looked up, concerned.
“I was…” I grimaced and corrected myself. “She was with Leanne, and Leanne was playing nice?”
He nodded.
My heart sank. “Oh, crap.” I dropped Ed’s feet, and gravity pulled him toward Will. Will stumbled down another couple of steps, Ed’s momentum pushing him backward.