Body & Soul полностью

In spite of everything — that she'd stolen my boyfriend and thought I was dead and gone — my heart jumped with the ridiculous hope that my oldest friend had somehow recognized me. I turned back to face her, but she was looking at Will.

I fought against the unreasonable disappointment. It only made sense, I guess, that she'd recognize him. At least he was still in the same body as the one she knew him in from before.

“You went to Groundsboro,” she said, pointing at him. “You're, like, that freaky goth guy, right?”

Uh-oh. I grimaced, and Will stopped, his shoulders stiff. “Yeah, that's me,” he said with a tight smile. “Let's go,” he said to me.

“So…” She got up and edged toward us. “This guy is legit?” She waved her Kleenex-filled hand around at Malachi's office.

Now Will turned to face her with a wary look, and I could see his curiosity warring with the need to be cautious. We were starting to attract some attention. The noise level had dropped considerably, and if I wasn't mistaken, a few of the blurry spots were drifting closer to us. “Why do you ask that?” he asked finally.

To my complete shock, her face crumpled and she collapsed into her chair. “Because I need help,” she said in a squeaky, high-pitched voice between sobs. “And I thought you might know if this is actually going to work.”

“This” presumably referring to her consultation with Malachi.

“You're, like, an expert on all this goth/undead stuff, right?” she asked, sniffling. “And you're here, so he must be good.…”

Will looked at me, a little panicked. I tugged away from him and went to sit next to her, ignoring his glare of warning. No, Misty hadn't always made the greatest choices — like stealing my boyfriend even before I was dead — but I'd forgiven her for that… mostly. She was the only one — before Will — who'd known the truth about my mom's drinking problems, and she'd never told anyone or used it against me. I honestly couldn't be sure if I would have done the same with access to that kind of ammunition.

“What's wrong?” I asked, patting her shoulder gingerly. She looked sort of… unshowered. Clearly, something was going on.

She took a deep hiccupping breath. “You guys remember my best friend, Alona Dare? She died?” Her voice broke on the last word, and she covered her face with her hands.

I have to admit, it warmed my heart that Misty was clearly still upset about my death, even though it had been months ago. Now, this was the kind of mourning I'd deserved from the beginning.

Will sighed heavily. “Yeah, I remember her.” To the trained ear, though, he sounded far more exasperated than sorry. I scowled at him.

“So, you're here because of her?” I asked, trying to sound sympathetic while mentally sticking my tongue out at Will. See? Somebody missed me… even after stealing my boyfriend. Well, let's just not focus on that part.

Misty nodded, her head still bowed.

Oh, how sweet. She wants to stay in touch with me. I gave Will a triumphant look, and he rolled his eyes.

“I'm sure that wherever Alona is—” I began.

“She won't leave me alone,” Misty said, her voice muffled by her hands.

“What?” I leaned closer, certain I must have misheard.

“I said…” Misty lifted her head up and met my gaze, righteous anger burning through the last of her tears. “That bitch is haunting me, and I can't get rid of her.”

I've seen Alona in a lot of situations. A lot of messed-up situations, actually. Confronting angry ghosts who wanted to tear through her to get to me, discovering that her “friends” were mostly worthless jerks, and most recently, inhabiting the body of a girl she didn't know.

This, however, was the first time I'd ever seen her struck completely and utterly speechless. Her mouth worked, opening and closing several times, without a single word escaping.

Misty looked slightly disconcerted by Alona's fish-outof-water routine. She shifted away from Alona in the chair, like she half expected an explosion of some kind. Frankly, I wasn't sure what to expect.

“Excuse us,” I said to Misty, hastily reaching down to grab Alona's hand.

I pulled her to the far corner, near the door to the outside, and fortunately, no one followed, though the ghost in the Abe Lincoln hat (thankfully, not the real deal, just someone who apparently favored the long-dead president's taste in fashion) was staring at us now. Great.

“So much for subtle,” I hissed at Alona.

“She thinks I'm haunting her.” She sounded stunned.

I raked my hand through my hair. “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

“I'm not, though.” She shook her head as though clearing it, which made her wobble. I grabbed her elbow long enough to steady her, but she didn't even seem to notice.

“I mean, I did try it once,” she continued. “Back a few months ago, right after I died.”

“Yes, I remember,” I said tersely. She'd almost disappeared for good then, thoroughly screwing both of our chances for survival.

“But not since then, and I can't now. I mean, look at me!” She gestured toward herself with distaste. “I'm all… bodified.”