“Avoid him? Heck, no. I want to deliver a reality check and make it clear him and me are over.”
“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who takes no for an answer. And…” I looked the body she was currently wearing up and down, “he’ll probably be wondering why a random middle-aged guy is breaking up with him.”
“True. But it’s funny, even though this guy keeps trying to make me drink that nasty soda, he’s willing to help me stand up to Zach. Without him, I’d chicken out and take off again.”
“So, you and Boswell are working together.”
“Well, yeah, that’s literally what I just said.”
I’d prefer to hear that from Boswell himself, but I wasn’t sure it was safe for Sarah’s etheric form to step out of him so far away from the rest of her. What if the veil opened up and sucked her in, leaving her body without a consciousness to steer it? She’d probably end up convicted. Or elected to a governmental office.
“How about this?” I suggested. “I help you find Zach, and you can swap into your body to deliver your message in a wayhe’ll understand. I’ll be right there to back you up and make sure nothing happens to you.” Of course, I had no intention of letting Sledge anywhere near her. But how else could I stop her from taking off?
Sarah considered me. “Why would you do that?”
“Let’s just say he rubs me wrong.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
AS PLANS WENT, my idea to bring the Sarahs back together had a few too many variables for my liking. Sarah’s body wasn’t too keen on reuniting. Her nonphysical form was expecting me to produce an ex-boyfriend who wouldn’t be there. Plus, that form also contained the fragment that had been haunting the bedroom, so it was more than just etheric. More like…etheric-plus. Wherever the hell my psychic ability lived—third eye, crown chakra, you name it—etheric was its focus. The emotional body gave spirit-Sarah an edge I couldn’t hope to match, even with psyactives.
But the SPECs vibrated on some other level.
Yes, wearing them was like chewing concrete, and yes, they made me feel like I was in a blender, but there was no denying that Evelyn’s invention did something to expand my range. And that expansion went beyond what a normal psyactive could do, which was essentially to take an intrinsic ability and make it stronger. The SPECs didn’t just turn things up to 11. They brought in backup musicians.
And if I was gonna connect to an etheric body combined with an empathic fragment…I’d need all the help I could get.
Could I trust Evelyn in this delicate situation? That was the question. We hadn’t known each other long, and I could be aprofoundly shitty judge of character. But this was an extenuating circumstance. And I didn’t see any other way through it.
“You just caught me on my way to the airport,” she said when I got her on the phone.
“Oh.” Shit shit shit. “I didn’t realize you were leaving.”
I suggested we grab a quick drink at the airport to kill some time before she left, but since she was flying out of O’Hare—the elusive Terminal 4—her scheduled departure was “whenever she got there.”
Probably the first time I was ever frustrated with traffic being so light.
Your call is being monitored, I told myself, so all I could say was, “I really do need to say goodbye. In person. I really…do.”
Vague much?
Evelyn’s empathy wouldn’t help me get my point across, either. Not over the phone. And again, I reminded myself that we hadn’t known each other very long, and I could hardly expect her to realize she should disregard my bland tone of voice and hear the urgency beneath it.
But after only the smallest of pauses, she said, “Sure. I’d like that.”
The F-Pimp driver let her off at Departures, and I picked her right back up—thankfully, with all of her luggage. I don’t think she expected Boswell’s van, and I counted myself lucky that she didn’t change her mind. Hell, I hadn’t been expecting it either. But Sarah said it freaked him out to leave it behind, and there was no time to argue.
As I tossed Evelyn’s bags in the back, serenaded by the sound of aircraft taking off and landing, I told her everything. The failed recombination. The possession. And my plan to get Sarah back together.
It took Evelyn a moment to absorb it all—a moment where it seemed perfectly reasonable for her to call in the FPMP cavalry since I was clearly unable to handle anything myself. But finally, thankfully, she nodded and said, “I was so worried you were upset with me, after the vertigo.”
“Really? I kinda thought you could see past my facial expression.”
“But that’s the thing—you’d been so scarce ever since we tried the SPECs….” True, I had gone off on my own for most of the day, but to avoid the FPMP, not Evelyn. She must have sensed that I wasn’t angry now, though, because she gave me a decisive nod, and smiled. “Never mind, it’s all good.”
I called Jacob, wishing there was some way I could fill him in, but unable to do so over the phone. “Once the game is over, how ’bout weallmeet back at the apartment? Just to make sure we didn’t miss anything.” And finish the reverse-exorcism I’d managed to screw up.
“Got it. And, Vic….” the pause was filled with all the things he wanted to say. “See you soon.”
