Zachary Sledge wound up and socked Boswell square in the face—and for a split second, a subtle body jerked out ofalignment and snapped back in. I couldn’t say for sure, but it looked more like Boswell’s etheric form than Sarah’s.
A broken jaw would heal. But what if the possession was forever?
Boswell’s nose was gushing like a spigot—hopefully it wasn’t busted—but he kept coming at Sledge. For all I knew, Sarah didn’t feel the pain. Or since it wasn’t her body, she didn’t care.
A normal man would’ve hit Sledge back. But nothing about this was normal, and instead of decking him, Boswell went at him with a move that was part bear hug, part Sumo wrestler.
I took it for lack of fighting skill. But then, when she got Boswell’s arms around him, Sarah said, “Now!”
A click. A crackle. A startling smell of ozone…and Jacob buckled to the floor.
Sarah’s body had launched itself into the scuffle. With the stun gun she must’ve lifted from the Walgreens security guard.
With Jacob out of the way, the body gave it another click and jabbed at Sledge. It missed. Barely.
Everything in me was screaming at me to see to Jacob—he’d be fine, I reasoned. Or he wouldn’t, depending on how he fell. But zaps like that weren’t lethal. On the force, some showoff cadets even volunteered to be tazered during training.
It still took everything I had to focus on the active threat—so I didn’t end up on the floor right beside Jacob. I grabbed Boswell’s arm and twisted it behind his back. The guy was built like a side of beef, and even my training didn’t give me much of an advantage.
Thankfully, I wasn’t the only conscious FPMP operative left in the room. In a move borne from training, Evelyn dropped her purse and jabbed Sarah’s body in the elbow joint with three fingers, sending the stun gun skittering across the hardwood.
“I’m calling the police,” Haskel hollered from the hallway, banging away at the door. “Do you hear me? I’m calling the police!”
Jesus Christ. That was the last thing we needed.
“Everyone calm down,” Evelyn called out—and of course, no one did.
Meanwhile, Sarah’s ghost pried Boswell’s arm out of my grasp and took another clumsy swing at Sledge. The jackass mailman barely dodged a brutal hook that would’ve left a luminol constellation on the wall. “Who the fuck is this guy?” Sledge gave Boswell a shove and demanded of Sarah’s body, “Is he with you?”
Sarah’s body and Boswell both laughed…the same laugh. “Yeah, we’re together,” Sarah said through Boswell’s mouth.
And I realized—theyweretogether. Two separate bodies, but one goal. Taking care of Sledge for good…and leaving the big, weird, paranoid doofus Boswell to take the fall.
Sledge reeled back and finally looked at Boswell. Really looked. Of course, he didn’t see his ex looking back. He saw a huge, sweating lunk of a guy. Even in a schleppy tracksuit, Sarah was way out of Boswell’s league. And the shock of her leaving him for Boswell hit Sledge harder than a stun gun—right in the ego.
I had to do something. Boswell was gonna pay the price for Sarah’s revenge.
And I was the one who’d never taught him to defend himself. That was on me.
I shoved on the SPECs and fumbled for the on-switch.
There was a click. Immediately, my head hummed. Whatever adjustment Evelyn had done, I felt it. No burnt molar taste. More like a prickly, all-over, ants-in-my-bloodstream sensation. My vision doubled, but half of it was nonphysical. A look at the subtle bodies just a smidge out of synch with the regular world.
As if the whole mess wasn’t chaotic enough.
It wasn’t etheric, but something else. Another random crayon in the box—one I never colored with. Burnt umber, or maybe white.
Jacob groaned and rolled away—oh thank god—and Evelyn had backed off and was jabbing at her phone. Whatever backup she was bringing in—cops or F-Pimp—it was too late. Sarah was weaponizing Boswell now. And I had to fix it.
“Sarah!” I took a step toward them, and the room swayed. My feet felt out of synch with the floor, and my voice was on a delay, like when you hear an echo of yourself talking on a phone call. “Get back in your own body!”
A glimpse of Sarah, stretched and distorted to fill Boswell’s body, overlaid him for a flicker.
She had no intention of leaving. Not now that she finally had the upper hand.
Fine. We’d do things the hard way.
I grounded myfeet—were theyinsidethe floor?—opened my crown chakra and pulled down white light. Those ants in my veins turned to acid. The burn started somewhere over the topof my head, like a phantom limb, and cascaded down my body in a surge of pain. If the one-eyed headache I normally got from straining my talent felt risky, this was exponentially wrong. It hurt somewhere my nerve endings didn’t even reach, and I knew I should stop.
