Body & Soul (Ghost and the Goth Novels) (4 page)

We went sprawling in different directions.

I’m not sure whose gasps of surprise were louder—those of the living people, including Misty, who saw me bounce off seemingly nothing and hit the floor, or those of the dead, who saw exactly what happened and knew what it meant.

“Will!” Alona lurched to her feet.

Misty looked astonished.

“Will?” the ghost in the Abe Lincoln hat repeated, moving closer to stare down at me.

Crap, crap, crap.
Still half dazed, I rolled to my side and pushed myself to stand, ignoring the sharp pain in my elbow. Malachi’s carpet had, unsurprisingly, the cushion factor of cheap toilet paper.

Spring Break Girl flipped her long auburn hair out of her face and got to her feet. “You’re Will Killian? The one everyone’s been talking about?” she asked, reaching through the neck of her Señor Frog’s T-shirt to tug her bright pink bikini top back into place. She managed to sound surprised and disgusted at the same time.

“Another ghost-talker?” Severed Arm Dude asked, pointing the stump end of his arm at me.

The woman in the long white nightgown danced closer. She seemed, possibly, a little crazy.

I took a step back, unable to stop myself. Severed Arm Dude, Faux Lincoln, Spring Break Girl, and Nightgown Lady…four, no, five—I’d forgotten about the Al Capone– type who’d been disappointed by Malachi’s interpretation of his message—against just me.

If I tried to run, they’d stop me without breaking a sweat…Well, you know what I mean. If it came down to a physical confrontation, each of them vying for attention, they’d probably tear me apart. Attacking me might drain them of some of their energy—being violent as a spirit takes away from the resources required to remain on this plane of existence—but how much and whether that would be enough…there was no way to know. Not until it was too late.

I swallowed hard, my heartbeat shaking my whole body.

Alona moved toward me, faster than I’d seen her move before, at least in this body. She stepped between the ghosts and then turned to block me from them, her bad leg dragging a little behind.

“If you know Will,” she said calmly, “then you know his spirit guide.” The ghosts stared at her, as if uncertain what to make of her. I wondered, for the first time, what she looked like to other spirits. Could they see she wasn’t like the rest of us?

“What are you doing?” I whispered, alarmed. They hadn’t even known there was anything different about her. She was putting herself at risk unnecessarily.

Alona ignored me and turned to face Severed Arm Dude. She lifted her chin, daring him to come closer. “You don’t want to get on her bad side, do you?”

I prayed I was the only one who could tell she was a little off, her gaze on his neck instead of his face. Several of the breathers who’d been waiting for Malachi bolted for the door. I didn’t blame them. I could only imagine what it must look like to them. Misty was still in her chair, staring at us.

“The one who they say disappeared weeks ago?” Severed Arm Dude scoffed. “No one has seen her.”

Spring Break Girl rolled her eyes as if the entire conversation were ridiculous.

I couldn’t see much of Alona’s expression at this angle, but from the sudden tension in her shoulders, I guessed she hadn’t considered what the ghosts might be saying about her absence.

“Really?” Alona flipped her hair back, a classic attitude-filled move for her, and seemed startled when it didn’t stay behind her shoulders. Lily’s hair was shorter. But she recovered quickly enough. “I’ve seen her, and trust me, she is not happy.”

Spring Break Girl tilted her head to one side, giving Alona a shrewd look. “Who are you?”

“No one
you
need to know,” Alona said in a snotty tone that was a bit jarring to hear in Lily’s voice. She reached back toward me with her left hand, flapping it until I realized she wanted me to take it. I stepped up and slipped my hand into hers. Her fingers closed over mine and squeezed almost to the point of pain, and as I drew even with her, she leaned into me the slightest bit, and I could hear her uneven breathing. She needed the help, I realized belatedly. That quick moving she’d done had come at a cost.

“We’ll be going now,” Alona said. “Give our regards to Malachi.”

She started forward, and to my surprise, Severed Arm Dude and Spring Break Girl moved out of her way, though the latter watched us with more suspicion than was probably healthy.

I adjusted my stride to match Alona’s shorter one so she could lean on me without it being as noticeable. But the slow walk across the room to the door felt interminable with the ghosts staring holes through us.

I held my breath, waiting for their rallying cry and the inevitable rush to block the door.…

But they let us walk out without another word.

So, maybe there was something to be said for being a bitch…or at least, knowing one. We’d coasted out of there on nothing but attitude and Alona’s spirit-guide reputation. Problem was, that was not going to last forever.

“T
hat was fun,” I said through gritted teeth, collapsing into the passenger seat of Will’s battered Dodge. My heart was pounding way too hard from the adrenaline rush, and pain shot up my leg in uneven bolts of agony.

“Hands in,” Will warned before slamming my door shut and scrambling around the car and into the driver’s seat. Once he was inside, he cranked the engine and peeled out of the parking space in reverse. “Are they coming?” His gaze was fixed behind us as he backed out.

“How should I know? Unless they’re talking about following us, they could be in the freaking car for all I know.” Which wasn’t quite true, but I was feeling a tad irritable because once more I didn’t have answers, and did have—hello?—intense pain. God, I’d forgotten how much it could hurt to be alive. And to be scared. Really and truly scared.

I squeezed my hands together to stop them from shaking. There’d been a moment when I wasn’t sure, when I thought the spirits might try to stop us, and we would have been screwed. Will’s abilities gave spirits physicality around him. They were as real and as capable of violence against him as any living person. I’d seen it happen before. Crowds of the dead pushing and shoving at him to get his attention. It wouldn’t take much to turn it into a tug-of-war with Will as the rope.

And me, too, most likely. I shuddered at the idea. We hadn’t tested whether ghosts could touch me and vice versa. I’d taken a leave of absence, sort of, from my spirit-guide duties. Since my “transformation,” I’d been doing my best to stay away from disembodied voices, including those belonging to the spirits waiting for Will’s help. If it turned out they could touch me—and there was a decent chance that would be the case—I would be utterly defenseless against them, just as Will was. His theory was that it was better to risk only one of us until we figured all of this out. So he was doing his best to manage them without me, relatively unsuccessfully, from what I’d heard.

“You were seeing something, though, I could tell.” He spared me a glance as he shifted into drive, and I crossed my arms over my chest, hiding my hands so he couldn’t see the trembling.

“Distortions, like shimmery spots in the air.” I shook my head, and he accelerated toward the exit, the tires spewing gravel behind us. “I don’t know. It’s—”

The car hit a pothole, jarring my leg, and I sucked a breath in through my teeth.

He slowed down and looked over at me. “Are you okay?”

I shifted in the seat, putting more weight on my right hip, trying to alleviate the pressure on my left leg, which, at the moment, felt like it was going to explode into a thousand pieces. “I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it. “Just go, get us out of here.”

He complied, but I couldn’t help but notice that he also took care to avoid the worst of the holes until we reached the smoother pavement of the street. “What you did back there…” He hesitated.

No, no, not getting into this.
“I was saving my ass as much as yours,” I pointed out quickly, trying to stop this topic in its tracks.

He shook his head. “No, you weren’t.” He sounded almost stunned, which, frankly, stung a bit. “Until you said something, they didn’t know you were different, that you were anything other than a regular living person.”

Which meant I’d been dumb, dumb, dumb to stick my neck out. But I couldn’t leave him like that, defenseless and trapped, even if it meant risking myself. And that was so unlike what I would have done a few months ago, it unnerved me. I definitely did not want to talk about it.

I forced a shrug. “If they’d started tossing you around or something, somebody would have probably called the cops, and then we’d have to go through that whole is-he-crazy-or-not conversation, not to mention a hospital trip to get you fixed up.” I sighed. “And I don’t have the time or patience for that today.”

He made a face. “Can you just let me say thank you?”

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” I snapped, growing more and more uncomfortable with the conversation. I…I cared too much about him, and this should not have been happening. It was way too big of a risk for me, leaving myself open to that kind of vulnerability. “You could have done it yourself.
Should
have done it yourself.”

And short of that, what he probably should have done was find himself a new and fully functioning spirit guide to keep his ass out of a sling.

That was the real trouble. Before, at least, I’d been useful. He’d needed me, maybe even more than I’d needed him. And that was the way I liked it. If somebody needs you more than you need them, you’re the one with the power, the control. But now…now he didn’t need me at all. If anything, I was a burden, a problem to be solved. I was worse than useless, and that
sucked
. If I had truly been the person he thoughtI was, the one he was trying to thank, I’d have told him to dump me and find someone who could really help him, keep him safe. That’s what I would have done in his position.

But I couldn’t make the words come out. Because that would mean I’d be alone. No, not just alone…I’d be without Will. And somehow that was even worse. I’d gotten used to him being here with me, and it was getting harder and harder to imagine my life—in any form—without him. Which was terrifying in an entirely different way. Just thinking about it made me flinch.

Will noticed, of course. “Do you need to go to the hospital?” he asked quietly.

“No.” I stared out the windshield, willing my eyes to stop burning with unshed tears.

He slid his hand across the seat, offering it to me. I looked at him, and he took his gaze off the road for a second to meet mine. My heart thumped triple-time in that moment, at the warmth in his eyes, the question that I wasn’t ready to answer.

Hating myself for the weakness—because I knew, on some level, even this was for Lily, the person I looked like instead of the person I was—I took his hand, locking my palm tightly inside his. Holding his hand made me feel more securely tethered to the world, as if I wasn’t going to float away and disappear like one of the balloons we used to release on the first day of Sunday school.

“So, why did he run?” I asked, shifting my attention to the side window and changing the topic, trying to pretend that this was not somehow more intimate than the kissing we’d done, that we weren’t connected in this simple and yet powerful way that I felt in every cell of my borrowed body. “Malachi, I mean.”

“I don’t know.” Was it me, or did Will sound a little unsorted himself?

“Better question: why did you chase him?” This time, I did look over at him.

He hesitated. “I think he recognized me.”

“Really? How?” I was pretty sure Will would have remembered and mentioned meeting Malachi before; dude cut a fairly distinct figure in that stupid cloak of his.

“I think maybe he put it together, connected me with my dad.”

Will did look a lot like his father in the pictures I’d seen, but…

I frowned. “We’re talking years ago, though.
If
they even met. And he’d have to have left a hell of an impression for Malachi to recognize you from your dad and then also to run.” I shook my head. “Which doesn’t make sense. The guy’s a fake. What would be the point of your dad talking to him at all?”

Will shrugged. “Maybe my dad was hunting down con artists for the Order or something.”

“None of the other fakes were scared of you,” I pointed out. In fact, based on the sheer amount of false-eyelash-batting that had gone on, I was pretty sure Madame Selena might have tried to keep him as her houseboy/love slave if I’d been paying less attention.

“That’s exactly why we need to talk to him again.”

“Again?” I turned carefully in my seat to stare at him. “Did you miss the part where the guy is a fraud? Totally of no use to us?”

“Maybe he can tell us what my dad was doing, give us some direction on what to try next,” he argued.

I snorted. “Hello, straws, we are grasping at you.”

He glared at me.

“Look, I know you want to know what your dad was doing, I get it.” I tried to soften my tone. “He was a man of mystery and secrets or whatever. But this, what we’re doing? It’s supposed to be fixing this, fixing me.” I gestured down at myself, trying not to notice again how much smaller this hand was; though, actually, it was far worse when I caught myself
not
noticing anymore. Getting used to this was not an option. I grimaced. “And Malachi can’t have anything to do with that.”

Will’s mouth tightened, and he gave me a look like he wanted to say something, but he just shook his head instead.

“What?” I demanded.

“Nothing.” But then he kept going. “It’s just, you act like Lily is some kind of horrible punishment for you.”

I gaped at him and then yanked my hand free of his. “You don’t want me in here, either!”

“I don’t,” he said immediately. “But do you know how many people would kill to be alive again, eating doughnuts, smelling flowers, talking to people—other living people—and all you care about is what you look like in her body, which, to be honest, has always been more than fine to me.” The words poured out of him like he’d been holding them back for a while.

I sat back, stunned. Will had had a thing for Lily. I’d known that. It was a crush, over as soon as it started and nothing serious, but hearing him talk about it…that was different. “I’m not her,” I said, feeling slapped.

“I know that,” he said in an even tone. “I never said you were.”

And yet, he still somehow managed to imply that whoever or whatever I was—not Lily!—was somehow worse. “Well, which is it, then?” I asked. “Are you offended that I’m sullying your precious Lily with my horrible personality, or that I’m just not grateful enough for the opportunity to do so?”

“Forget it.” He grimaced. “I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, no, let’s talk about it,” I snapped. “Let’s talk about how great it is pretending to be someone I’ve never met so her family doesn’t get upset, let’s talk about not recognizing yourself in the mirror, let’s talk about not being sure who you are anymore because everyone who looks at you sees someone else.” I blinked back tears, refusing to let them fall.

He opened his mouth to speak, but I charged on. “And hey, before you bring it up, you’re right. I did do this to myself. It was an accident, but it’s all my fault. I love how I’m villainized for messing up, but Lily, who dumped you as a friend, fooled around with Ben Rogers, and wrapped her car around a tree, well, she’s a freaking saint.”

His jaw tightened. “I never said she was—”

“Please, you’ve done everything but turn in the paperwork. Meanwhile, nothing I do is ever good enough. Have you thought about what those other people—those spirits who would be so grateful for this chance—what they might be doing with this body? What kind of post life adventures they might be taking with your sweet, perfect, never-made-a-mistake Lily?”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even try, but I could see, by the color rising in his pale face, I’d scored a direct hit.

“I am doing the best that I can. For you, for me, even for Lily.” I gestured down at myself. “And have you ever even considered what it’s like for me on a personal level?” I asked, weary of fighting with him about the late (sort of ), great Lily suddenly. “I live with a family that’s not mine, watching them care about me and knowing it’s not really for me at all. I can’t even talk to
my
family about anything—other than magazine subscriptions or candy fund-raisers or whatever excuse I can come up with to be at their doors as a stranger—without freaking them out. And then there’s you…” I shook my head bitterly. “Most girls have to hear about a guy’s former crushes. I have to wear yours.”

That shut up him up but, oddly, did little to make me feel better. We spent the last ten minutes of the twenty-minute drive in stony silence, which was fun.

This situation was, quite simply, a nightmare. I wanted to go home, my home, the one that didn’t exist anymore. My mom had put our house on the market and moved into a condo a couple of weeks ago, according to the neighbors I’d talked to when no one had answered at home. At my dad’s house, I’d turned a polite request to use the bathroom into a chance to look around and found that my old room had been turned into a nursery for my step-Mothra’s new spawn, which was a girl, no less. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like I could show up at either place with a claim to belong there, especially looking like this.

More than any of that, though, I wanted my old life back. Even my afterlife had been better than this. At least I’d been me, and the people who could see me knew I was me. Now, at best, I might one day be free, back to spirit form and hoping for the light, but it couldn’t go back to the way it was with Will. Not with knowing his true feelings about Lily. Like maybe he’d have rather had her back from the light than me.

Fantastic.

Will passed the Turners’ street and pulled around the corner into Sacred Heart, as was our practice. The Turner house backed to an empty lot, and Sacred Heart, a huge cemetery, was across the street from that lot. It was my cemetery, in fact. Living as Lily Turner, I was now closer to my original body than I’d been since I was in it. Irony, right?