The Stranger Inside (39 page)

Grey motioned toward the table with finesse. “The mother lode.”

“Whoo-hoo!” Excited and dancing, Kenzie skipped toward the curtained table.

But suddenly, shadows gushed from the walls, literally gushed, scattering everywhere. “Kenzie? Kenzie?” They whispered. “Kenzie? Kenzie? Kenzie?”

I gasped in horror, falling back, my hands clutching my rubber bands. I knew they couldn’t help me, not at all, but my mind scrambled, grasping for anything to help. But then I remembered what I should do. What I was supposed to do. I shrieked, “There
is
no Kenzie here!”

But there was no
poof
!

The shadows didn’t disappear! Instead, they
increased
. More and more shadows flooded the walls, their whispers changing, becoming muffled, then getting louder, clearer. “Jodi! Jodi!”

Jodi?!

What the ...?

I let out a whimper and stumbled back further, my heart going cold. Before my horrified eyes, the shadows were coming together—all of them, merging—forming into one gigantic, horrifying … monster shadow.

And they weren’t after Kenzie anymore. They were after me. Instantly, I remembered what Hanna had said, that though I wasn’t clairvoyant like her, I was obviously susceptible to spirits as well.

“Jodi!” the shadow roared.

I scurried backwards as the monster melted down the wall, spilling onto the floor. Coming after me.

“There is no
Jodi
here!” I screamed, running for the door. But it was no use. It was still coming. It was between me and the guys. Sawyer and Jeremy had no idea what was going on. They both shot towards me. “Jodi, what is it? What do you see?”

But I couldn’t answer. I turned and ran. Outside, I stumbled, falling on the pavement. I scraped my knee. Blood gushed from the stinging, throbbing wound, but I scarcely noticed as I scrambled to my feet. The shadow was still coming—huge and ominous. Still after me. But even as I scrambled to get away, I thought of Jeremy. What he said on the airplane about the blood. Now I knew. I was going to need this bloody scrape, need my blood to send Kenzie back to her body…. If I ever got the chance to see her body. If.

I backed away, ready to run. Run forever. Never stop.

“It can’t hurt you, idiot. It’s only a shadow,” Kenzie said. “Come on. Let’s get the money.”

That was
so
not just a shadow. Seeing it coming, I knew, it was going to envelop me. Destroy my mind, devour my soul.

Hanna’s words screamed in my brain. Dad’s too.
Watch out for the shadows! Jodi, watch out!

But I didn’t run.

Because I had read Jeremy’s eyes on the plane. That’s what I used to tell him about his eyes: That he didn’t need to speak, that I could read them—read his eyes. And I could. I always could. And on the plane, they told me to trust him. So … I was going to, finally.

He and Sawyer had wanted me to come here. And I trusted them. Trusted them both.

So, I didn’t run.

But the monster shadow was coming
. Coming after me,
torturing my ears, screaming my name. Still, I didn’t run.

I was so tired of running. I had to fight it.

Instead of bolting away, I took a step back. Then, shaking uncontrollably, I stood still, holding my breath, waiting for the shadow to fully come outside, leave the doorway. Because I had a plan. And I had to get to that curtain. I had to.

Jeremy’s eyes had told me so—they told me to trust him.

Once the shadowed monster was out of the doorway, fully outside, I gulped. Then I dashed. Dashed into it—into its dark, horrific world, into the screaming and howling and gnashing of teeth. To the cold, cold, cold. Instantly, I was lost. Couldn’t see. It was so dark. I was overcome with horror. Overcome with depression. Bone-chilling fear ran through my body, through my soul, imprisoned me. It was too dark. Too cold. Too dark to move. Too dark to see. I was lost. It was hopeless. Why even try?

Horror and gloom wrapped around me, held me captive, motionless. It clutched my body, covered my soul. It was so powerful. So horrific. Why try to fight it?

Where was I?

Why was I here?

I was starting to forget. Forget everything. Simply giving in to the dark.

But wait. I could hear something. Something over the howling and screaming and gnashing. I could hear someone calling to me. Calling from the other side. “Jodi! You’ve got to come back!”

Jeremy.

He sounded so desperate. It reminded me of his song—Little Jodi.
Little Jodi comes to me through the smoke and rain
. Yes, I had to go to Jeremy, through this smoke and rain.

I clasped the necklace he had given me.
To symbolize our undying love
. Jeremy. He remembered what the necklace meant. He still loved me. He did. His eyes had told me that. They did. Over and over. No matter what his words had said. Words I wouldn’t allow myself to believe. But I could believe his eyes. And his eyes had said
I love you
.

I clutched on tighter to the necklace. It seemed to hold some sort of magic for me. Let me feel a tiny glimpse of love and hope even in this overpowering darkness. I felt Jeremy’s love. Dad’s love. Let them wash through me.

I listened to Jeremy’s song in my head and Jeremy calling in my ears, fought off the gripping hopelessness, the wails of despair, the bitter dark cold that was grabbing at me, clutching my ankles, trying to keep me from moving.

Hanna was right.
Evil draws to evil
. But the thing was, darkness repels from goodness. And the necklace … it was full of goodness, full of love.

I was surrounded with love, even in this evil darkness. I was. Dad’s love. Jeremy’s love. The band’s love. The crazy efforts they had gone to get me here—that was love.

And the darkness seemed to be relenting. Little bits at a time. Because of love. I gasped, realizing I needed to get rid of all the negative I’d been harboring in my heart, let love envelope me. Frantically, I peeled off my rubber bands—my emotional crutch that kept my heart from being vulnerable and open to love. In my heart, the bands repelled love. They always had.

I threw the rubber bands as far as I could—out into the darkness. They each made little chinks in the darkness, making it so I could see tiny, little rays of light from the other side. My heart jumped, feeling I might actually have a chance. Blindly, I raised my hands up toward the light and gasped with relief, warmth instantly rushing through my body. Jeremy grabbed my hand. Sawyer too. They pulled and pulled, pulling me out of the shadow, out of the darkness, into the light.

“I couldn’t see you,” Jeremy said when I came out of the darkness. He pressed me to him, his heart beating wild. “You were gone.”

“You guys, come on!” Sawyer herded us frantically into the clinic.

There was more to be done. I had to get rid of Kenzie. I slammed the door behind us. The shadow couldn’t return. It had already been here.

I doubled over, trying to catch my breath. Through the window I saw something. I furrowed my brow, wondering if I fainted. Must have. What I saw couldn’t be true. Definitely not real. Kyle Ryan from school—he was outside with the shadow! I watched with a chill as Kyle beckoned to the shadow, seeming to shout at it. He raised his arms high in the air and in a flash of light,
poof!
The shadow was gone.

I blinked, my heart racing, but I didn’t get the chance to focus on what happened. Instantly, Kenzie was excited again, thrilled beyond containment that she was about to plow into a bundle of money.

She kissed Jeremy, wild and quick, then ran, pranced, to the room with the curtain. Her excitement brimming, she whisked back the fabric.

Then she screamed.

“Noooo!”

There wasn’t a pile of money on the bed.

What we saw was her body, hooked to machines and an IV.

But.

Her body had a knife in the heart. Kenzie’s body was dead.

CHAPTER 49

No one could explain what happened. Who had plunged the knife into Kenzie’s heart? When Darcy had checked on her last, Kenzie had been fine. And Darcy was a nurse. She’d been at the clinic the whole time. I think she would have noticed a dead body if she saw one. Especially one with a knife plunged into its chest.

We would have blamed the killing on Kenzie, but she was clueless to our haphazard plan.

I was shaking and Darcy was worried about my vitals. She insisted I rest in one of the rooms in the finished part of clinic. She led me and the guys to the lit section of the building, explaining, “We’re almost fully operational. We’re only finishing up on the reception area.” The rest of the examining rooms were totally that—examining rooms. Totally set up with monitors and medical equipment and no tarps in sight. That’s how everyone was able to fool Kenzie into thinking she wasn’t in a hospital. She would have refused to visit her body, to risk being put back into her old self, but no way would she have ever figured her body could have been at a veterinary clinic.

However, before the guys left me to rest, Jeremy pulled me aside. He played with a tendril of my hair. “You may be over me,” he said, leaning his forehead against mine. “But I’m not even close to being over you.”

Then he left. Just walked away. Leaving me with an ache in my heart.

The guys left so I could be alone to rest. But ugh! I wasn’t alone. I’d never be alone. Kenzie would be here with me forever. She was so smug about it too, knowing now we could never send her back, there was nowhere to send her. Kenzie’s body was no longer viable, of course, and Ethan was gone because Kenzie’s body was gone—or anyway that’s the way it
seemed
. Only … there was this nagging feeling at the back of my brain—like Ethan was gone for a different reason. That he otherwise could have still been around, searching for me. After all, Kenzie’s blood was in me, so it seemed Ethan could have still existed—through his ties to me. Only … he was gone. It was just a feeling I had, but it was strong. I was missing something.

Anyway, Kenzie was set. Even if there was no money, she was getting what she wanted. She would get to be with Jeremy forever.

“You know,” I said to Kenzie, “Jeremy doesn’t stay with a girl very long.”

“He doesn’t stay with
other
girls,” Kenzie admitted. “But he’ll stay with you.”

I rolled my eyes. “How can you be so sure?”

“You’re so stupid,” she said. “Everyone knows he’s like, chained to you. Only you. That’s why Trista did what she did.”

My heart stopped. I’d forgotten about Trista—that Zack said Micah had told her everything, and that we should call her, that she was in New York and would want to help. I’d totally forgotten. But hearing Kenzie mention Trista now made me jolt. “Trista?” I shot up to a sitting position. “What do you mean? What did she do?”

“I’m sure she’ll explain any minute,” Kenzie said in a singsong voice. “Trista, come out!” She called loudly. “I know you’re here. No one else would have killed my body.”

What? A shiver ran down my spine at Kenzie’s crazy words, but I didn’t really get to contemplate them, because right then, to my utter shock,
Trista
stepped into the room. She was here. In the clinic.

She looked sheepish, like she was embarrassed Kenzie knew she had been hiding. But that seemed like a bizarre reaction. Why was she embarrassed? Why wasn’t she fuming mad? Kenzie had just accused her of murder. But that was only one of the many, many thousands of questions running through my brain.

What was going on? What was Trista
doing
here? How did she know
we
would be here? I tilted my head at her in stunned confusion. She met my gaze with a hard glare.

Whoa. What was that about? It was like a punch in the stomach.

Kenzie laughed. “She’s here because she’s been watching my comatose body, obviously. Obviously she knew at some point your little band would try to reunite me with my former self.”

“Wrong, Kenzie,” Trista said. “I wasn’t
watching
the body.” She shook her head with disgust, then seemed to be done talking to Kenzie. She went on, though. Only now she was apparently talking to me. “When we moved here and my aunt explained what happened to my cousin, Sophie Jones—that some guy hacked her up trying to find Kenzie—I figured the guy was Ethan—as Micah calls him—in some poor doofus’s body and that Kenzie finally took over some unsuspecting girl’s body to get away from him. But I didn’t know she got into
your
body. I just thought she picked some random person and ran.” She glared at Kenzie/me. “I was actually happy for her—that she got the transference to work. That’s what I consented to move here for—I wanted my aunt to teach me how to do the transference.”

I stared at Trista, completely sick, choking on all the information she spewed. “Your aunt?”

Sophie Jones was her cousin? She knew Kenzie? Was
related
to her?

“Yes,” Kenzie said, as though I’d asked the question aloud. “Trista’s my cousin,” she verified. “We weren’t exactly close—my family was always poor and was looked down on by hers.” She narrowed my eyes at Trista. “Plus there was the geographical separation—my family always lived in New York, hers in Washington. But her family came to visit us for a month the summer before last. Trista worked on her dark powers with me. My mom taught Trista things she was aching to know—about spirit transference.”

I furrowed my brow, not believing. Trista had dark powers too? Because she was part of the same family as Kenzie? None of it made sense. I didn’t want to hear from Kenzie. I didn’t trust her, and I didn’t want to hear her twisted lies. I wanted to hear from Trista. I needed her to explain what was going on right this minute. My chest was constricting so bad it hurt.

I turned to Trista, tried to get her to look me in the eye. “If you knew about Kenzie—that she was your cousin—why didn’t you say anything?”

Trista set her jaw, looking defiant, but it was Kenzie that went on.

She curled my lips into a wicked smile. “Trista didn’t know. I never came out while she was around—and the band kept your secret—even from her. Until the end, when Micah thought she could help you.”