The Stranger Inside (29 page)

He could hear Grey talking. He listened for a moment, then interrupted. “Hey, start over,” he said. “Kenzie’s in the hospital?”

He listened for a long time, asking questions every once in a while. He got a pen, jotting down information. He got Grey’s email address and phone number. When he finally hung up, he sat beside me on the floor, pulling me close, warming me in his arms.

“Well, you’re not crazy,” he said soothingly. “At least there’s that, right?”

I buried my face in his chest, and he held me tighter.

He stroked my hair. “Do you want me to go get Sawyer?” he asked when my sobs began to subside a little.

I nodded that I did, but as he tried to get up I clung to him, not letting him go. I couldn’t. I just wanted to be in his arms a little longer, feel his heartbeat.

He sat back down with me, taking me back into his arms. “They’re going to wonder where we are, Jodi,” he murmured, stroking my hair. “They’re going to come looking for us.”

“I don’t care,” I whispered. But it wasn’t true. I thought of Sawyer. It would hurt him to learn that it was Jeremy that had comforted me, not him. I couldn’t bear to do that to him.

“Okay,” I breathed, “go get Sawyer.”

My heart aching, I let Jeremy pull away from me.

***

We all talked about my possession later that night at Sawyer’s. “So, Kenzie’s a spirit?” Zack said, seeming blown away by the idea. “A ghost?”

“Apparently,” I slumped down in my seat, not sure if being “possessed” was better or worse than being crazy. They both seemed to suck equally bad.

Jeremy just kept looking at me, but saying nothing. He seemed to have something on his mind, but instead of asking him, I curled further into Sawyer on the couch, embarrassed and ashamed that I had clung to Jeremy earlier.

 “So, how are we going to get rid of Kenzie?” Micah asked.

“I don’t know, but we really need to,” I said. I told them about the shadows—the ones calling for Kenzie. All that scary stuff was way more terrifying now—now that I knew I wasn’t crazy. It meant that stuff was for real. There really were mobs of shadows around, hunting for Kenzie.

“Man, that’s spooky,” Zack said.

Sawyer gazed at me, looking both questioningly and amazed. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

I shrugged. “I just thought I was crazy.”

“But so, you have
demons
after you?”

“Not after me,” I said in a small voice. “Kenzie.”

“Man so, we really need to get rid of this chick—fast,” Zack said. “That’s cool. Kenzie’s turned into a she-devil. The only person she likes is Jeremy. She’s a witch to the rest of us.” He clamped his mouth shut, biting his lip, like he wasn’t supposed to mention any of this. Like the band had all been trying to keep their issues with Kenzie a secret from me.

Zack shrugged, like,
Oh well, the secret’s out
. “She fights with all of us—all the time. I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me. Good riddance.”

“But Kenzie doesn’t want to leave,” Sawyer said. “Remember how she didn’t let you send that email to Grey? She didn’t want you to find out about her.”

Jeremy sucked on his lower lip. “But the thing is,” he said steadily. “Kenzie can hear everything we say. Now she knows Zack doesn’t like her. And she thinks you all want to get rid of her.”

“
We
all?” Zack said. “What about you?”

Jeremy looked steadily into my eyes, seeming to be trying to send me a message. “At least Kenzie lets me be with her.”

Whoa. That was harsh, like a slap in the face. Only Jeremy’s eyes, they seemed to be saying something different than his words. Were they? I didn’t know. I was tired, and hurt, and unable to “decode.” And I couldn’t trust my heart because my heart always, always, always wanted to believe Jeremy had love in his eyes, love for me, always.

But what he was actually saying? That he liked Kenzie better? I curled more into Sawyer, wanting to hide. “Yeah,” I said bitterly, “I guess Kenzie doesn’t care about all your ‘guests.’”

Jeremy leaned his head back against the wall. “Jodi, your mom made me bring someone.”

“My mom, my mom!” I yelled. “You can’t blame everything on my mom!”

“Look, she said the only way I could see you for Thanksgiving was if I brought a guest, so I brought one. But you can’t get mad at me for that, Jodi. You had a guest too.”

Sawyer put his arms around me tighter. “Listen, okay, whatever about ‘guests,’ who cares? Jodi has
demons
after her.” He looked around the room. “But Jeremy’s right, Kenzie can hear everything we say. So, I don’t think we should talk in front of Jodi anymore. Not until we have a plan.”

I sat up, looking around the room, but everyone seemed to be in agreement. They were putting me out of the loop.

“No way,” I said, tired of being baby-sat. “I want her out of me—now. I’m making a plan.”

CHAPTER 30

As soon as I got home from Sawyer’s, I ran to my laptop and started reading about exorcisms—thing was though, most of them were religious based. And I wasn’t exactly religious. I mean, I was more so now—since I had evil shadows after me. It only stood to reason, if there were really, truly mysterious “evil” things out there, there were probably mysterious good things out there too.

It made me pause for a second, then I grabbed my cell phone and called Sawyer. “We need to go to a church.”

***

I started to sweat and shake as Sawyer and I neared the church—the closer we walked to it, the sicker I got. I couldn’t go inside. I tried. Really tried. But I felt deathly ill just getting near it. Sawyer tried to ignore my sweating and shivers. He clasped my arm, helping me up the stairs, practically carrying me toward the door, obviously hungry to get this over with.

But black spots zoomed before my eyes. “Sawyer, I can’t.” I clutched on to him for support. “It’s making too sick. I feel like I’m going to die.”

His eyes anxious eyes gave away his concern. He smoothed back my damp hair. “You’ll feel better inside.”

I shook my head. “I won’t.”

I couldn’t go in the church. As if to prove it, I started puking. And kept puking, until Sawyer finally dragged me back down the stairs.

“It’s as though I’m on fire,” I told him.

He paled, furrowing his brow. “Yeah, you’re really feverish.”

He sat beside me on the bottom step for a second as I doubled over barely able to breathe. He exhaled. “Okay.” His voice was resolute. “This is crazy. I’m going to take you home.”

I shook my head, clasping his arm. I choked out, “Go get someone.”

Sawyer tilted his head. “From inside? A church guy?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

Indecision flickered in his eyes. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m afraid to leave you alone.”

“Go,” I sobbed. But then everything turned black.

***

When I came to it was morning and I was in my bed, the sun shining through my windows. I blinked with surprise, then reached for the phone and called Sawyer. “What happened?”

He told me I had turned into Kenzie while he went into the church to get its Reverend or Pastor or Priest or whatever. Sawyer paused. “When Kenzie saw the guy, she looked terrified and took off running. Then, I spent the rest of the night trying to find her—until Jeremy called me.” He let out a breath. “She called him.”

I pursed my lips, laying my head against the wall. “How did I get tucked in my bed?”

Sawyer was silent. “I have no idea.”

Super.

***

The reason I went after Grey—the reason I turned to him after Jeremy hurt me so bad—it was because Grey was safe. He always kept me at arm’s length. That let me feel like I had someone without really ever having to expose my feelings. With Grey, I never had to worry about the pain that comes from breaking up—not like the pain I felt with Jeremy. Grey was safe because he wasn’t available. And I needed that back then—someone not available. Someone who rejected me from the start.

I wrote all that in my journal. It was just a distraction, really, to keep my mind off the fact I was
possessed by a ghost
. ‘Cause, well, lets face it, I was in some serious crap. How was I supposed to get “unpossessed?” Psychics fled from me. It was like I was garlic and they were vampires … or something.

And it was like churches and church leaders were garlic to
me
. This morning Sawyer and I skipped our morning classes to nab a priest as he was coming out of his church, but then I had to
run
from the guy because getting near him gave me a spiking fever. Seriously, I almost had a stroke.

All this had me sweating and shivering and clutching my stomach, so finally, I tried to get my mind off it for a while and started writing in my journal—making myself write about anything—anything—but evil possessions or ghosts.

Ended up, figuring that stuff out about Grey, it was good. Cathartic. It actually got me thinking about something other than “demon possession.” And talk about an eye-opener: Grey was a crutch for me. Key word: was. Apparently, he wasn’t anymore. Talking to him yesterday, I just didn’t feel the same. I didn’t. At all. It seemed I was free of that crutch.

Only … was I being fair to Sawyer? The way I clung to Jeremy in the kitchen yesterday made me worry (for the hundredth time) that I wasn’t.

That he was my new crutch.

I sighed and closed my laptop, only to quickly open it again. I couldn’t sit around pretending I didn’t have a ghost inside me—as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. All those psychics, the Read Palm lady, Rita Franks—all of them—they saw Kenzie. She was the “spirit” they were talking about—a real spirit, not an “alter-ego.” A spirit. They saw her … and they were terrified of her.

I had to figure out how to get free of my ghost … before I started hacking people.

CHAPTER 31

The new quarter started, but again, I had Mr. Daniels for Chem. I hated his class. Or maybe it was just his classroom I hated. I caught a shadow out of the corner of my eye. A glimpse of darkness. I glanced around, almost dropping my test tube. But Zack grabbed it from me, looking at me closely. “You okay?”

Totally not okay. I was about to keel over from fright. But I nodded anyway, because this was Zack, not Micah, and Zack scared me these days, a little. It was because he was always staring—looking sinister. But then again, that was just Zack.

“You look like you saw a ghost,” he said, still watching me.

“I might have,” I admitted, trying to stop my shaking. “But probably not.”

Zack raised his eyebrows and glanced around the room. “Okay, take it easy,” he said, eyeing the fact I was still shaking. “No chemicals for you. Just sit down.” He took over at the Bunsen burner, but kept glancing at me. “Tell me if you see anything, okay?”

What I saw was Eve narrow her eyes at us from across the room. This semester I had the pleasure of three classes with her. Yippee. But still, none with Sawyer … or Jeremy. And now I had chemistry with Zack instead of Micah. Too be honest, class was going better this semester. A lot better. Zack totally got it—chemistry. He totally knew what he was doing. Still, I missed Micah. We’d had fun with our “chemistry adventures,” amazing ourselves with our monumental screw-ups. But Zack. Zack didn’t screw-up, ever. He measured and poured with dead-on accuracy. He was going to get me an A. Still though, like I said, I missed Micah.

But the thing about Eve, her narrowing her eyes at us: She was mad. Mad because Zack chose to be lab partners with me instead of her. But Zack said no way would he be partners with her. He was afraid she would throw chemicals at him or something. But actually, I was sort of worried she’d throw chemicals on the both of us.

I glanced nervously around the room, trying to calm my pulse. And my shaking. There didn’t seem to be a ghost around—no swarm of shadows, or howlings for Kenzie. Still, my heart beat wild for the rest of class.

Luckily, my next period was Civic Service. For that, I just worked in the office as an aide, mostly doing filing and running errands for the receptionist, Mrs. Daniels. She was the lady who scowled at Sawyer all the time. When I first found out I had to work with her I’d been scared, remembering how she treated Sawyer.

But it was weird. She was actually pretty nice, not at all like I’d thought. Though once I did see her rip into Lindsey—Brody’s girlfriend. I have no idea what that was about.

Lindsey had just come in the office all smug, saying she had a note for missing school the day before. “I was in bed
all
day,” she said, handing Mrs. Daniels her note.

Mrs. Daniels took the note, seeming irrationally irate. She read it, then snapped at Lindsey, “I’m not going to accept this young lady.” Her voice was shrill. “You understand? I’m not going to accept it!”

“Witch,” Lindsey muttered under her breath as Mrs. Daniels turned her away, unexcused.

So, you know, from what I could tell, Lindsey wasn’t in the wrong. Not that day. It was totally Mrs. Daniels. She just sort of spazzed. For no reason. But since then, and before that, Mrs. Daniels had been nothing but nice. Ever. So, it left me wondering, what was up?

Today I totally wasn’t thinking about Mrs. Daniels and her strange mood swings, though. I was thinking about the shadow. Did I actually see it? Did I? It was freaking me out.

Until Hanna walked into the office.

Then, I had something brand new to freak over.

She came into the office casual enough. I heard her talking with Ms. Baker at the front desk, saying she promised to bring in a note tomorrow.

Then Hanna saw me. And froze.

For a moment, our eyes locked. And suddenly I remembered the first day I met her. She’d asked if I had been in a car accident. Only, I hadn’t. But you know what? Kenzie had.