Body and Soul

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 Lea

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 Lea

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.

“Hey,” he protested. “What are you—”

“I know where Erin is,” I said grimly.

“You can’t be sure,” I said to Alona. But I was begi

With Ed now safely tucked into the backseat of my car—without notice from the neighbors, as far as we could tell—we were heading out of town, but Alona and I were still arguing over her assertion that she knew where Erin was, or, rather, where Erin would be. Shocking, I know.

Alona rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. It’s simple deductive reasoning. Lea

To be fair, Alona wasn’t particularly thrilled about the possibility of being right in this instance, either. But she wasn’t backing down.

“Lea

Ben Rogers’s back-to-school bash in the woods behind his McMansion was an a

It was also, quite possibly, the worst place in the world for Erin/Lily to be, given everything that had transpired the last time Lily had been at one of Ben’s parties. A humiliating and very public breakup with the king of the asshats, Rogers himself, followed by a horrible car accident. It was that accident that had sent her spirit on to the light but, in a quirk of fate, left her body damaged, though still functioning, and open to possession.

Of course, only Alona and I knew that. To the rest of the world, Lily had survived and had recently woken up unexpectedly from a nearly yearlong coma.

Which was exactly why Lea

It might also be the worst conceivable place from which to rescue Lily and/or confront Erin. For Alona, it was okay. None of the partygoers would be able to see her, except for Erin. In fact, because Erin would likely be able see her—and probably deduce our plan from Alona’s presence—it would be better if Alona stayed hidden until the last possible second.

But me…I’d be the one who’d have to march in there and try to find Erin/Lily and drag her out. Dealing with Ben and his crowd—Alona’s former friends—at school was bad enough. Walking into one of their parties, though, struck me as potentially life threatening. We’d all graduated, yeah, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that the lines that had divided us and the labels that identified us had gone away overnight. In terms of social status (and cafeteria seating), this crowd was first-tier—or desperately aspiring second-tier people—and I was off the chart, and not in the good way.

Walking into an event to cause trouble, where I’d be outnumbered, oh, about fifty to one, was not something to take lightly. Especially when Ben and his ilk had shown no compunction in the past about proving their points with their fists.