“Shit,” I mutter as I lay back down and look at Chan. “I think I’m stuck.”
“What?” he whispers as he hears voices outside the curtains.
“I can’t get out of Tristan’s body,” I say in panic.
14
Icome to slowly, rising up through layers of sleep, my brain gradually waking up. When Danny showed up at the hospital yesterday, I immediately faked unconsciousness. In fact, I spent so long pretending I was unconscious that I actually fell asleep. After spending the last six months as a spirit, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to get tired or hungry.
My stomach gives a loud growl as if responding to my random thoughts, and I frown even though my eyes are still closed. My body still feels heavy, and my stomach is obviously empty, which means I must still be trapped in…
Oh god, even as the horrifying thought occurs to me, I have the strangest feeling of being watched. I crank my eyes open and see a very familiar face leaning in inches from mine.
“Give me back my body,” he says very succinctly.
I inhale sharply. “Tristan!” I shoot upright in bed, blinking a couple of times to clear the sleep from my eyes.
I then become aware of two things. One, I am definitely still in a hospital bed and not only am I still wearing Tristan’s body but also a very fetching backless gown from the house of NHS, and two, Tristan, or rather Tristan’s spirit, is standing in front of me looking decidedly unhappy.
This can’t be good.
“What the fuck are you doing out there?” I exclaim in shock.
“Me?” Tristan hisses. “What the fuck are you doing in there?”
I wince. “Um, it was an accident… sort of.”
“An accident?” His voice rises with incredulity. “An accident? No, when a goat wandered into a random cave in Jerusalem causing a shepherd to discover the two-thousand-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, that was an accident. When Dr Alexander Fleming went on holiday and forgot to clean his Petri dishes and came back to find he’d invented penicillin, that was an accident. When the Titanic crashed into an iceberg and sank, that was an accident.”
“Actually, I think that one was gross negligence,” I muse.
“What is not an accident is deliberately possessing someone’s body while they’re unconscious,” he snaps.
“Wait a minute, you’re a…” I swallow in disbelief. “You’re a–a ghost!”
“Y’think?” He glares.
“Oh my god! I’m totally freaking out right now.” I flap my hands in panic.
“You’re freaking out?” Tristan scowls. “You’re wearing my body like a sock puppet.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say with complete sincerity.
He pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s searching for the last bit of his patience. “Just get out of my body so I can get back in.”
“Um…”
“What um?” His sharp gaze lands on me. “No um… I don’t like the sound of um…”
“I may be… temporarily… stuck in here,” I admit reluctantly.
“What?” He blinks and stares at me.
“It was completely unintentional and to be fair, I thought you were stuck in here with me.”
“Well clearly, I’m not.” He frowns. “Christ, it’s likeFreaky Friday.”
“The Jodie Foster or Lindsay Lohan version?” I ask, then hold up my hands as he fixes me with a dry stare. “Just wanted to know how much leeway I’ve got while I’m temporarily in charge of your body.”
