Oh. My chest ached. That was exactly what Alona must have been trying to do. And even though I hadn't known what was going on, I still felt like I'd failed her.
“Like that's even fair,” Erin scoffed. “She had her turn.”
“So you ambushed her instead?” I muttered.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head, feeling the tension creaking in the back of my neck. “Just tell me what happened.”
She shrugged again. “I tried to claim her at first, as my ghost-talker, but that didn't work any better with her than it did with you.” She rolled her eyes. “But once I figured out she was your spirit guide, it wasn't that hard to put it all together. Then when I grabbed her, this body sort of pulled me in and forced her out.”
Wait, Alona was still my spirit guide? That would explain why Erin hadn't been able to make the connection with either of us. We were still connected to each other. Or, at least, we had been up until an hour or so ago. And I'd just left her there.
I shook my head, pushing those thoughts, and the fear squeezing my chest, aside. If anyone could have survived all of this, it was Alona. Maybe another spirit taking over Lily's body would have been enough to save her. If Lily's body didn't need her anymore, maybe that would give her more energy to sustain herself. Maybe.
She smoothed her hands down her body in an utterly creepy manner. “Must have been nice having it all in one package, huh?” She grinned and elbowed me, none too gently, in the ribs. “A spirit guide in a tight, living body. All the perks.”
I grimaced and shifted away from her. She made it sound so gross. It wasn't like that, had never been like that. We hadn't even known that Alona was still my spirit guide after she took over Lily's body. But I doubted Erin would believe me, and I didn't want to waste my breath explaining something she'd never understand. So weird the way Erin changed everything about Lily into something creepy and threatening, in a way that Alona had not. It said something about how much the soul or spirit in charge mattered. “What do you want?” I asked.
Erin laughed, and I shuddered.
“What do I want?” she repeated. “Nothing more than I've got right here, baby,” she said, slapping her thighs. “It's a little beat up, sure, but nothing I can't work around.” She sounded delighted. “I'm going to live it up.” She winked at me like this was all no big deal. Like she hadn't potentially sentenced Alona to a more permanent form of death. “Now, are we going to get burgers or what?” she demanded.
I drove on autopilot, steering the car toward Krekel's, Alona's favorite burger place, and thinking furiously. I needed a plan. One thing was for sure: I couldn't let her out into the world like this. God only knew what Erin would get up to if left to her own devices, and she was, for all intents and purposes, Lily. Around here, someone would eventually recognize her, and that would be bad. Not to mention her parents, who would be worried sick about her. And what if Alona wasn't gone and she needed Lily's body back? The Order had said the two of them had become dependent on each other. Lily seemed to be doing okay with Erin in Alona's place, but Alona didn't have that same option.
Locking Erin up, at least until I had a better grasp of the situation, seemed to be the only logical solution, as much as I hated the idea. But where? Maybe Edmund/Malachi would have an idea.
I looked over at Erin, her arm on the rest between us. She was weakened by her transition into Lily's body; I could probably drag her along pretty easily. But some of what I was thinking must have shown on my face.
“Oh, no.” She snatched her arm back and scooted away from me. “I've already wasted too many years watching and not living. You're not going to do that to me again. You try to lock me up somewhere and I'll scream until someone calls the cops.” Her chin jutted out in determination, pushing aside any doubts I might have had that she would do less than she claimed. And the Turners, when they got wind of it, as they surely would, would probably press charges against me, thus eliminating any chance I had of fixing this mess.
“In fact,” she said, “I think you can let me out here.” She nodded at the red stoplight we were approaching.
“Here?” I asked, incredulous. “We're not even close to anything, and she can't… you can't walk—”
“We'll manage,” she said, already tugging at her seat belt.
“Erin, wait,” I said, fighting desperation. “What about Edmund? I know he'll want to see you and—”
“Right,” she scoffed. “Like I'm going to waste any of my time on him.”
“He's your brother,” I argued.
“Fat lot of good that did either of us,” she muttered. She yanked at the handle and shoved the door open as soon as we reached a stop.
I lurched across the car to grab her, but she slipped away. Then she surprised me, ducking her head back in and mashing her mouth against mine in a rough parody of a kiss.
I jerked back, hard enough that my elbow banged into the steering wheel.
“I would have expected better from you,” she said in mock disappointment before slamming the door shut.
The light turned green, and someone behind me honked and held it, loud and obnoxious. But I refused to move. “Get back in the car, Erin,” I shouted. I felt my face burning, imagining what this must look like to the other drivers. No, I'm not some jerk threatening his girlfriend. I'm trying to keep a ghost from kidnapping a body that doesn't belong to her.
“Stalking is illegal, Will,” she warned loudly, her voice muffled through the closed door but clear to anyone who had their windows rolled down. Her gaze darted to the cars behind me, a tiny smirk playing on her lips as someone else added his horn to the mix.
“Erin!” I shouted again, as a truck from somewhere behind me whipped into the turn lane and zoomed around me. A squad car coming from the other direction slowed down, the officer staring at me through his window.
Shit. “Get back in the car. Please!” I tried one more time.
Watching me through narrowed eyes, Erin took a deep breath and started to scream.
Out of choices, and expecting the sound of sirens any second, I straightened up behind the wheel and hit the gas.
Hating myself and Erin, I watched her become a smaller and smaller figure in the rearview mirror, like I might never see her again, and feeling half relieved and half freaked at the idea.
I doubled back around the block as soon as I could, but the neighborhood had streets that curved oddly, and unexpected culs-de-sac.
By the time I got back to the intersection, she was gone, of course. Either she was hiding somewhere, or she'd hitched a ride with a stranger.
God, she was going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere, and it would be all my fault.
The light was red (again), and while waiting for it to change, I rested my head on the steering wheel, wishing for things to be different, wishing for Alona, wishing I could go back to the days when my biggest problems were Principal Brewster and getting through class without any ghosts noticing me. That had been a vacation compared to all of this. A really, really sucky vacation, but a vacation, nonetheless. I didn't need Alona to tell me I was in over my head with this body and soul stuff and sinking fast. But I wanted her here, more than anything.
I shook my head. I had to get her back. I had an idea about how to do that, thanks to something Erin had said. But just one. And if it didn't work…
I clenched the wheel. No, it had to work. That was all there was to it. Because I didn't know how to live with any other outcome. And if it didn't work, Alona wouldn't live at all.
