No matter how much we want to live again, she can’t believe that it’s okay to take someone else’s life. Can she? Anger pulses through me, but I hold back because I want an explanation.
So I ask her: “What was that?”
“Just a little fun,” she says, dropping her arms and smiling. “Eli pulled off the best stunt ever.”
I call up to Leo. “Were you going to dodge?” I ask. He’s walking ahead, but he turns back and shrugs. His voice is quiet, tired, when he says, “Of course.”
“You shouldn’t have interfered, Callie,” says Reena, and now we’re all walking along this road like they’re trying to get somewhere. “Eli is weak. They all are.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “You were going to kill him.”
“Not kill,” says Reena. “Killing wouldn’t leave us with much of a body if we let a train speed through it, would it?”
“We’re trying to take,” says Leo from ahead of me. He doesn’t look back.
“You can’t just take someone’s body,” I say.
“Ah, but you’re wrong.” Reena’s voice is controlled but intense. “I thought it was something from the movies, but recently we’ve been able to play with possession. It’s the only way to maintain energy on Earth that we’ve found. And it’s all thanks to you.”
“Thanks to me?”
“The energy you’ve shared with us has been enough—we’ve been practicing taking a body and staying on Earth without having to return to the Prism,” she says. She sounds enthusiastic, elated even.
Delia pipes up from behind me. “We think that if we can possess a body three times—one time for each level of the soul—we can truly take it over and live an entire life again. There’s a precedent for these things, you know. Possession is real.”
Reena meets my eyes and smiles, but I don’t return the warmth. “Callie, it’s what we talked about,” she says. “You’ll get a second chance at being alive. Truly alive.”
Her voice is friendly, encouraging. I think about the time we spent talking about our common wish for a life on Earth again, our shared experiences. But I’m no poltergeist—I would never value my own life over someone else’s this way. It seems like they don’t even know what they’re doing—like they’re experimenting with people’s mortality. A chill races up my spine as that word crosses my brain.
“What happens to them?” My voice cracks. “To the souls whose bodies you take?”
Reena blinks and looks ahead down the road. “We can’t worry about that,” she says. “We’ll take strangers, people whose lives don’t mean anything, people who won’t be missed.”
“Like Eli?” I ask.
She grins wickedly. “After what he said about Carson, I made him my first pick.”
My heart drops. He was targeted because of me. “It’s murder, Reena,” I say. “Thatcher would never—”
She starts walking away from me, moving faster to catch up to Leo, her dark hair whipping around in a circle.
“You’re a rule follower after all,” she says. “That’s too bad.”
“You can’t just possess a living body,” I shout at her back. “It isn’t right. It isn’t fair.”
“There is nothing fair about dying young!” screams Reena as she pivots around, emotion etched in her face. “The Living don’t appreciate their lives! They don’t value what they have!”
Her words resonate with me—I spent my entire existence chasing thrills instead of appreciating the beauty of my world, the love that surrounded me. But that’s the prerogative of the Living, to be blissfully ignorant and experience life in their own way.
“It’s not up to you, or any of us, to say how people should live,” I say. “Do I wish I could go back? Of course. But not this way.”
Reena spins around again, striding forward so that I have to jog a little to keep up. A car passes us on the road, its headlights washing through us cleanly.
Delia falls into step with Reena, putting her hand on Reena’s shoulder to calm her. “Callie, we can live their lives ten times better than they can,” Delia says evenly. “Because we know what it’s like to lose everything.”
“Is that why you took over Carson’s body?” I ask Reena, tired of their insane rationalizations, ready to call her out on what she did tonight. “So you could improve her life by making it seem like she betrayed me?”
Reena raises her eyebrows and slows her pace just as we approach a bend in the road. “What do you mean?” she asks me, but I can tell by her expression that she’s playing dumb.
“I saw you. I know you took Carson.”
A smile spreads across her face then; she’s impressed.
“Guys!” She looks around at the poltergeists, and everyone stops walking.
“It seems like our little Callie has another special skill,” she says. “She can see when a living body is hosting a ghost.”
“No way,” says Leo, his eyes wide as he walks back to where we’re standing. “That’s impossible.”
“I saw you, too,” I say. “I could see your face inside Eli, clear as day.”
“That’s unusual.” Reena narrows her gaze on me. “It seems there’s no end to your extra talents, Callie. Too bad Thatcher’s been lying to you all this time.”
“You’re wrong,” I say, looking at Leo, Norris, and Delia, who are standing behind Reena and watching us cautiously. “He told me why he lied about the portals—he was trying to protect me, and—”
“Protect you?” she interrupts. “Oh, how sweet. More likely he didn’t want you to know why you’re special.”
I shake my head—she’s messing with me again. “You used me,” I say. “You’ve stolen my energy for . . . this. Taking over bodies, making me think my best friend would betray me.”
“I’ve never lied to you,” she says. “You can’t trust the Living—don’t you know that by now?” Her face flashes with sadness for a moment.
“Carson would never try to take Nick from me,” I say.
Reena laughs, and it’s a bitter sound, tinged with pain. “Don’t be naïve,” she says. “They move on, they forget you. Unless you’re there with them, you might as well have never existed. I was only showing you what’s bound to happen, sooner or later.”
Leo, Delia, and Norris stand behind Reena, nodding, and I can see the hurt flickering on their faces, too. What happens when people move on? For most ghosts it means merging with Solus. But for the poltergeists, it means waiting for everyone to leave you behind.
Reena says, “Of course, it’s already happened with Nick. If not for me, you wouldn’t know that. He was going to break up with you. Don’t you want a chance to get even?”
“You’ve totally lost it,” I tell her.
Reena grabs my arm roughly, creating a zigzag of painful current, pulling me forward. “I’ll make you understand,” she says, her voice a low rumble. “I know you’re one of us.” She shoves me toward the curve in the road, and I stumble into the street.
Leo, Delia, and Norris are standing nearby, tense, waiting for something to happen. They’re staring at me like I’m a bomb a couple of seconds away from exploding.
The rain starts to fall again, harder this time.
“I knew it,” whispers Reena. She’s right beside me, but she’s looking all around us.
“Knew what?” I ask.
She steps around me in a way that reminds me of a shark circling a swimmer in one of those summer horror movies.