Soul Protector (5 page)

I tried to shake off the panic.
Obviously being Lydia wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I usually
wandered along anonymously, blending into the crowd, but she
managed to bring out strong feelings in people.

I jumped as without warning a
car screeched to a standstill beside me. Before I was fully aware
of what was happening, someone had jumped out, forced something
over my head and bundled me inside. I felt the vehicle speeding
away before the person who grabbed me even shut the door. Strong
hands pushed my head down into the seat. I was too shocked to make
a noise.

~~~

CHAPTER 4

.

Interrogation

.

The material over my head was
rough and scratched at my face. It was hard to breathe with my face
pressed down and all I could manage were fast, shaky gasps. His
hands squashed me into the seat for what seemed an eternity,
although in reality it was probably just minutes.

“Just up here on the left will
do.” The voice next to me was deep and smooth.

“You sure? Shouldn’t we go
straight to the office?” came another voice. I assumed this was the
driver.

“There’s no time, we have to do
this now.”

My breathing became erratic and
my heartbeat increased until I was sure it would burst out of my
chest. I wondered if I was going to be raped, murdered even. This
was Lydia’s body, not mine and I had no right to be in it. I was
going to be responsible for whatever happened. I wondered if it
would result in both of us losing our lives, two for the price of
one.

I felt the car slowing down as
we turned off the road. There was the crunch of tyres on gravel and
the car eased to a stop.

The pressure released as the
man removed his hand from my head. I stayed where I was, curled
into the foetal position, silently praying.

Daylight cut through the
darkness as the sack was ripped from my head. I automatically put
my hands up to cover my eyes.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I
whimpered. My throat was so tight I could barely speak.

“Who are you?” The smooth voice
held a menacing tone.

I was too scared to answer him.
After a few moments of silence, he grabbed my shoulders and forced
me to sit up. I opened one eye and his face came into view.

I blinked a couple of times
trying to reconcile the image in front of me, which was a complete
contrast to the one I’d been expecting. I’d imagined an older guy
with a shaved head and covered in tattoos. The one in front of me
looked around his mid-twenties. He had dark hair, deep brown eyes,
and I noticed he was also sporting a glow above his head. This one
was yellow.

Hardly daring to breathe, I
turned my head away from him, staring straight ahead. He leant
closer, positioning himself so his face was only inches from mine.
When he spoke I felt his breath warm against my cheek.

“Tell. Me. Your. Name.” The way
he said the words sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. Panic
and confusion flooded my mind, and I tried to think rationally. If
I told him the truth, he wouldn’t believe me anyway.

I dared to look back at him and
saw his jaw muscle flexing. I was terrified of making him more
agitated.

“Lydia,” I heard myself
answer.

“Lydia. And that’s your primary
name?”

“My, my what?”

“Don’t mess me about,” he
practically spat the words out, “were you born Lydia?”

My hands were shaking so
violently I had to sit on them to try and make it stop.

“N-No, Gracie. Gracie
Reynolds.”

“Reynolds?” He looked
thoughtful for a moment, and I saw him form the word again
silently. I noticed the driver shaking his head in the front.

“Okay, have you ever had a
different surname?”

“Um, yes, it was
N-Nicholls.”

The driver turned his head
towards us. “Haven’t heard that one either.”

My interrogator frowned and
carried on. “So Lydia is the body you’re switched into at the
moment?”

Whoa! He knew about the
body-switching thing?

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“And how long have you been
switched?”

I couldn’t think clearly.
“I-I’m not sure.”

“It’s important. I need to know
how long.”

Terrified tears started to
build behind my eyelashes. “I-I don’t know exactly. Since about six
o’clock last night.”

“Damn.” He squeezed his hand
into a ball. “Where’s your primary body now?”

Too scared to ask, I guessed he
meant my own body. I looked at my watch, and forced my voice to
stay level. “At home, I-I think.”

“And where is home?”

I paused, not sure whether to
lie, and decided I had nothing to lose by this point.

“Harold Road, Crystal
Palace.”

The driver turned and nodded to
the guy next to me. “Straight there, Dan?”

So that was my kidnapper’s
name.

“Yeah, fast as you can
mate.”

As we drove, Dan ceased his
interrogation. He shifted away from me and I felt my anxiety recede
a little. I shot a sideways looks at him. His features were pulled
tight as he checked his watch, obviously deep in thought.

I replayed the previous couple
of minutes in my head, and was amazed that so far I had come out
unscathed. He’d been so wound up, but he hadn’t hurt me. Surely if
his intention had been to cause harm, he would have done it while
he was angry with me.

Bit by bit, cautious relief
flowed through me and I began to think more rationally. He
obviously knew stuff about this whole body-hopping thing, and I
desperately needed answers.

I took a deep breath, it was
now or never. “Um, h-how did you know I wasn’t in my own body?”

He turned to look at me and
flicked his eyes above my head. “Your aura.”

I watched him and it hit me how
handsome he was. Not in an obvious pretty boy way. It was more to
do with the arrangement of his features; the definition of his
cheekbones which gave him a look of determination, the pout of his
lips and the way his dark eyebrows gently slanted up at the outside
edge. I was disarmed and looked away to try and pull myself
together.

I sat reflecting on his answer
and when I turned back I had another look at the yellow glow above
his head. That was an aura? My mind raced to catch up. I thought of
the man and woman I’d seen earlier with orange glows.

“So, are there other people who
can switch bodies?” I asked, feeling braver.

“Yes, loads.” He sounded
irritated again. “Why are you asking? You know this.”

From nowhere, I felt anger
flood my system. He had snatched me off the street, scared me to
within an inch of my life and then interrogated me. I was at least
allowed to ask why.

“I don’t know anything.” I
snapped, and it all came spilling out. “None of this is making any
sense. I switched bodies for the first time on Saturday. I didn’t
know what was happening and it’s completely freaked me out. I
thought I was the only one who could do it and I’ve been trying to
find out why it’s happening to me, anything to make sense of it
all. Then you guys just… grab me off the street and kidnap me. So
no, I don’t already know.”

Dan had turned to face me full
on. He was wearing a puzzled expression, and his eyes were
searching mine to see if I was telling the truth. I felt my chin
wobble as I tried to hold back the tears.

I turned my head to look out of
the tinted window, trying to focus on car headlights speeding along
in the opposite direction. I used the back of my hand to bat away
the tears as they started rolling down my cheeks.

After a few moments, I became
aware of him gently touching my arm. It made me uneasy, and I
twisted to face him. He looked different now, softer, and his eyes
were full of concern.

“Gracie, are you telling me you
honestly don’t know you’re an SP?”

I wrinkled my nose. “A
what?”

“An SP, a
Soul
Protector
.”

I gave him a blank look and he
moved his hand away.

“Jesus, you really don’t know,
do you?”

I shook my head.

He took a deep breath. “Listen,
I’m sorry. We wouldn’t have grabbed you off the street like that if
we’d known.” He ran his fingers through his dark hair. “We thought
you were corrupt. If you knew what you were… a Soul Protector,
you’d have been half expecting it.”

Dan looked from me to the
driver. “You ever heard of this happening before, Steve?”

The driver,
Steve
,
nodded. “Yeah, someone was talking about random cases just the
other day.”

Dan took a deep breath and
shook his head, “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t know.”

“Well I didn’t.
Sorry
.”
There was more than a hint of sarcasm to my voice.

We sat not talking for a couple
of miles, deep in thought. The only sound was the drone of the car
engine.

After a while, Dan shifted in
his seat and took a deep breath.

“Gracie, there are things you
should know. Being a Soul Protector... well it changes everything…
who you are, what you do, what you
can
do.”

I nodded. “So tell me about it.
Please, I need to know.”

He cleared his throat. “This is
going to sound far-fetched, but I guess from what’s been happening,
you’re not going to have any trouble believing me.”

He got that right.

“Okay, in basic terms, being a
Soul Protector means you have the ability to enter another person’s
being.”

He stopped for a second to
check my reaction. I nodded furiously, desperate for him to
continue.

“Your mind splits in two, and
your conscious thoughts become prominent in the other person’s
body. It’s important to remember, you never really leave your
primary body, that’s what we call your own body.”

I must have looked confused,
because he tried to simplify it.

“It’s a bit like watching one
movie live and recording another. Part of your mind transfers to
another body, while your primary body carries on as normal, but you
won’t know what thoughts and feelings your primary body’s been
having until you switch back.”

I chewed my lip as I
nodded.

“While your mind is in another
person’s body, if you focus, you’ll be able to pick up that
person’s thoughts and feelings, and you have the power to influence
the way they think.”

The intermittent bouts of
tinnitus, they were Lydia’s thoughts…

“But you must only enter
another body for the greater good,” he carried on. “Only vulnerable
people need our help.”

“Like who?”

Dan slouched back in the car
seat. “Well, it’s hard to define, it could be someone struggling
through a rough patch, someone suffering from depression, or maybe
coming to terms with bereavement. It could even be a victim of
crime, or an addict of some sort. Then it’s okay, well it’s our
duty
really, to switch into them and help them heal.

“But how are we supposed to do
that?”

“Each case is different, but
you need to try and influence them to a more positive mindset, or
help them make better choices. It’s not an exact science, but we’ve
got a high success rate.”

I sat and digested what he told
me. It felt good to finally get some answers, but I felt uneasy
knowing I’d crossed a line, switching into Lydia when she was the
last person who would ever need help.

“When you leave a body, do they
know someone else has been interfering with their mind?” I held my
breath as I waited for his answer.

“No, they won’t remember you’ve
been there.”

I sagged with relief.

“And we need to keep it that
way,” he carried on, “can you imagine how people would react if
they knew about us? We’d be ostracised, or locked up or something.
You must never tell anyone what you are.”

That was going to be hard.

“I can’t believe no one has
ever found out?”

“Well, people who have been
visited
usually have a feeling that something has happened,
but they can’t quite put their finger on it. They might wonder why
they were inspired to go to a certain place, or why they
impulsively changed a major decision, leading to positive events.
That’s when you’ll hear the phrase, ‘it must have been fate’, or
‘an angel was watching over me.’ Mostly that’s us interfering, in a
good way of course.” He smiled as he said this, and I was surprised
by the effect it had on me, causing my cheeks to flush.

“Basically, when we leave their
body, they usually feel like they’ve been daydreaming, but
hopefully they’ll be feeling more upbeat and positive than
before.”

“Yeah, we’re like band-aid for
broken spirits,” said Steve.

“So Soul Protectors are good
people?” I was starting to get a good feeling about it all.

His smile faded. “No. Not all
good. Like any organisation, there are tainted characters. We have
plenty of corrupt Soul Protectors. That’s what we thought you were.
Steve and I are monitors and it’s our job to make sure people are
switching for the right reasons and not abusing their gift.”

Steve cut in, “You’ll recognise
monitors because we have yellow auras instead of the usual orange.
And we can switch for longer than regular Soul Protectors.

“Oh. Why do you switch though,
I mean, if you’re not helping vulnerable people?”

“
Because
it’s only when
you’re switched you can see another Soul Protector’s aura. I only
switch with other monitors, and it’s with their express consent. I
would never joyride,” he said, grinning.

I wasn’t sure if he was mocking
me, so I chose to rise above the comment.

“Are you arresting me?”

He shook his head, “No, we
don’t arrest people. We just make sure they do the right thing. In
your case, we need to get you switched back as soon as
possible.”