“I know,” Misty said. “But I just wanted to say… Alona, for what it's worth, I am sorry.” With pleading in her eyes, she addressed a spot high on the wall above the bathroom door. How tall, exactly, did she think my ghost would be? “I shouldn't have done that to you, no matter how Chris and I felt about each other. And I would have told you eventually. I was just afraid that you would be so angry.…” She trailed off and looked down at her hands, fidgeting with her thumbnail. “I didn't want to lose you as my friend. I was selfish. I wanted you both. I never wanted to hurt you, and I'm even sorrier I didn't get the chance to tell you that before. I hope you can forgive me.”
I stared at her, stunned. There it was. The apology I'd been waiting months to hear but never expected to receive.
Misty took a deep breath and nodded, more to herself than to me, and walked out, her steps lighter, as if having said the words had cleansed her in some way or lifted a weight from her.
“Such devotion. It's adorable,” the ghost drawled. “She's been so upset lately.”
I whipped around to face her, reinvigorated suddenly. She was not Alona Dare. I was, no matter who I looked like. She shouldn't even be here, and that apology was not for her. “Shut up,” I snarled.
“So much hostility,” she said with an amused gasp. But she still moved back slightly, proving she wasn't as tough as she thought she was.
“You've gone to a lot of trouble to get my attention. What do you want?” I folded my arms, though I supposed any effort to make Lily look fierce was probably wasted. She was too cute, scar and all.
The ghost laughed. “What, Misty? That's just business.”
Which meant what, exactly? “What do you want?” I repeated. The more she dragged this out, the worse it was going to be. I could feel it hanging above my head, like the proverbial piano on a fraying rope.
The blur edged closer, and I caught a glimpse of dark red hair and brown eyes before the particles reshifted into a messy, undefined swirl. Was my ghost vision finally improving? That would be nice… or not.
“I'm here to make you an offer that is going to rock your world,” she said.
“Please.” I rolled my eyes, angry at her for playing me and at myself for falling for it. I'd walked right into her trap, and now I was stuck. She knew who I was, and the only thing stopping her from blabbing it all over the undead world was her own greed. She wanted something. The only question was what.
Actually, no, that wasn't the only question. Would I be able to do what she wanted? That was a good one. I wasn't Will. I was blind in this world and limited by a far less flexible situation at my current home. I couldn't go traipsing off to strange places, alone, in the middle of the night.
And here was the big question. What was she planning to do if I couldn't give her what she wanted?
My stomach ached at the thought. If word got out about me, I'd be flooded by ghosts, not only with final requests and messages but also with questions about how I'd done what I'd done with Lily — Body Wrangling 101. Like I had any satisfactory answers on that topic other than, “It just happened.”
Regardless of my knowledge — or lack thereof — the results would be the same. Eventually, I wouldn't be able to hide my “issues” from the Turners. And those rehab center brochures would lead to applications and being shipped off to Arizona or some other godforsaken place… if not worse. Will's mom had once come very close to having him institutionalized. In a neat little twist of fate, I could end up facing the same situation.
“Can we skip the buildup and cut to the part where you get to the point?” I snapped, fighting the urge to move farther away from her. I refused to give her the satisfaction.
“I'm going to be your spirit guide,” she said in a rush. “And we are going to rule this in-between place.”
I opened my mouth with an automatic “forget it” hanging on the tip of my tongue… and stopped. What? That was not the blackmail scheme I'd been expecting. It didn't sound like a blackmail scheme at all, actually. It was… I didn't know what it was.
I shook my head, confused. “What did you say?” I had to have heard her wrong.
“You're a ghost-talker. You need a spirit guide. I'm it,” she said, her voice full of pride.
Wait… what? I started to speak but stopped myself before trying again. “You think I'm a ghost-talker?” I asked in disbelief. No way. Did she actually think I was a regular — well, relatively speaking — ghost-talker?
“We're having this conversation, aren't we?” she scoffed.
I resisted the urge to laugh in giddy relief. Could I have really gotten it that wrong? She did seem to know me, though. How was that possible?
I hesitated, and then finally asked, “How do you know me?” What did I have to lose? If she knew I was Alona Dare in another body, she'd have said so, probably in a scathing tone. If she didn't, it would still be a reasonable question for me to ask as a run-of-the-mill ghost-talker.
She rolled her eyes. “Figures that you weren't paying attention yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” I asked with a frown. She'd seen me yesterday? Where had I been that she would…
Oooh! Malachi's. It had to be. She was one of the angry ghosts in that faker's office, that was all. She'd noticed my intense interest in Misty's problems and bet on the fact that I'd follow up, giving her the chance to propose this spirit-guide idea. Smart.
Now it all made sense. It was laughable, knowing what I knew, but I could see how she'd arrived here, both physically and with her logic.
With that final piece of the puzzle in place, a huge weight of worry rolled off my chest. I let out a slow breath of relief. She honestly had no clue. I was just another ghost-talker to her, not a living dead girl, so to speak.
“Look, I appreciate your offer, but I don't think that's a good idea,” I said firmly. It was, in fact, a ridiculous idea. I was a spirit trapped inside a body, the last person in the world qualified to have a spirit guide. If she attempted to claim me as her ghost-talker, I was almost positive it wouldn't work. But explaining that was kind of out of the question.
“You think I can't do it? You think I'm not worthy?” Her tone held a challenge, and I caught a glimpse of a stubbornly pointed chin in the swirling haze where her face would likely have been.
I shook my head and put my hands out, palms up in a gesture of peace. “No, that's not it at all.”
“Because you don't know me, you don't know what I'm capable of. I get what I want. Always,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument.
Whoa. That sounded very familiar, like something I would have said not so long ago. If she, whoever she was, had even half my stubbornness, let alone a similar temper…
A faint warning bell sounded in the back of my head. “I can still help you,” I said quickly. Well, Will could, assuming we could get back on speaking terms. “You just need to need to stay calm and—”
“Do not tell me to stay calm,” she said through clenched teeth. “This is not up to you.”
Oh, not good. Spiraling out of control here. “Uh, okay, look, it's totally not a reflection on you or anything,” I said in my best attempt at soothing. If she got angry enough, we might yet find out if she could shove me around or not.
The blur straightened up, almost as if she were coming to attention. The first trickle of real fear climbed up my gut, along with the urge to run. I took a slow step back.