“The Bastard beat and butchered me for over three years because he was positive I could bring my mother back from the dead,” she hisses, wearing her trauma like battle armor. “If my magic is capable of bringing her back, then there’s no reason it shouldn’t work for Felix too.”
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, trying to push the image of Callie burning alive from my mind, but the memories are hardwired in my incorporeal brain. The visceral sensations attack my thoughts and unconsciously, I gag and cough even though I don’t have a body to physical feel these things.
With concern etched across her delicate features, Callie drops to her knees beside me, murmuring, “This is only if you want to. It’s still your choice. I-I just thought…”
“No, I didn’t mean...” I try to reassure her, shaking my head then forcing myself to look into her eyes.
She has beautiful eyes, deep and endless shades of grey that shift with her moods. Now they look like storms on the horizon with sparks of lightning. The idea of really being able to touch her, not just in dreams, but in this world of flesh and blood is so overwhelming, I feel like shouting. Anything to let it out. Because in this form, that’s all I have. My words.
“Yes,” I whisper, attempting to hold in how desperately I want this. Just because I’d rather fade from this world as myself doesn’t mean I want to die. “Make me a real boy.”
Callie laughs with tears in her eyes and nods her head. “Done.”
“No, not done,” Donovan objects, his hands digging into the armrests of the chair to the point where the tips of his fingers are white. “How do you plan to get this ‘vessel?’ Bodies R Us?”
“And ignoring the moral implications for a moment, just because your…father believed it was possible doesn’t mean we actually know how,” Kaleb reasons, crossing his arms over his chest. His fingers tap nervously against his biceps.
“We? So you’ll help?” Callie questions, hope coloring her husky voice.
Hope that’s promptly ruined when Kaleb replies, stone-faced, “I didn’t say that.”
“I’ll help,” Connor volunteers, his voice low and measured, then after a beat, he ominously finishes, “Whatever you need.”
Nolan looks over at Connor, his arctic blue eyes taking in Connor’s deceptively calm demeanor, before shifting his gaze to me. He’s extremely pale and appears like he’s about to vomit when he croaks, “Me too.”
Callie offers up a small smile to both of them. “Thank you.”
They nod in return. Connor’s is a lax acknowledgment while Nolan’s head jerks up and down.
I hate the idea that this is dividing my friends, but not enough to turn down another chance at life. For once, I’m going to be selfish. The best I can manage is to try and not take it personally that two of my best friends would rather I blink out of existence than help. Well, they’d rather I move on. Either way, I’d still be gone from their lives.
“Great, still didn’t answer our questions,” Donovan prods, leaning forward while still gripping the armrests. “Or do you expect the perfect person to drop dead in front of us when we’re ready? Assuming, again, that we can figure out how in the first place. In case it hasn’t been mentioned, bringing back the fucking dead is big hell fucking no in the supernatural world. Not something we can Google.”
“The Bastard has rooms filled with books on the occult at…at my old home in Arizona. I guarantee that what we need is there,” she answers, while, with her back to me, she shifts so close I have to be careful not to accidentally touch her—her body now a physical barrier between the guys and me.
My jaw drops as I stare at the back of her head, her blonde hair a tangled mess of waves that nearly brushes the floor. She’s willing to go back to her own personal hell…for me.
Connor’s face clouds with a dark rage, realizing at the same time what this means for Callie, but he keeps quiet. His distaste is only shown in the harsh line of his mouth and the sharp tic of his jaw.
I don’t understand his relationship with Callie. He’s crazy protective of her, more than any other person I’ve ever seen before, but he doesn’t argue with her when she puts her mind to something. I’d ask if I thought for a second that he’d actually explain it to me, but that’s never been his way. When it comes to Connor, we’ve accepted that if we need to know, he’ll tell us either through action or using the few precious words he deems necessary.
Callie’s willingness to return to that house—I refuse to call it her home—in Arizona, takes all the wind out of Kaleb’s self-righteous sails, and he slumps back into the armchair with one hand covering his mouth.
Slowly, he shakes his head side to side. “Callie, we couldn’t possibly ask—”
“I’m doing it,” she interrupts, every part of her body rigid with determination. “Even if I have to do it alone, I’m doing it. I’ll find the answers and do what must be done to give Felix a second chance. I won’t let him…” She looks over her shoulder at me, our faces close enough that I can see the differing starburst threads of grey in her irises. “I won’t let you die.”
“I’m already dead,” I murmur.
She makes a face that I can’t help but smirk at, muttering, “You know what I mean.”
For a moment, we just look at each other, like we’re cataloging every detail, and my mind fills with all the ways I love her while bitterness scrapes along the barrier between thoughts and feelings.
I know I love her. I know it like I know my own name, but without a body, I only know it. I can’t feel it. In this moment, I want to feel it. I want to drown in it. I want every fiber of my being bursting with it. The words sit pressed against my lips, but I swallow them. Until I know that I won’t fade from existence, I can’t burden her with how I feel. Also, not something to confess in a room filled with people, even if they’re my best friends.
“The body?” Donovan questions yet again, interrupting Callie’s and my stare off.
As much as it hurts, I can’t say I blame Kaleb and Donovan’s concern. Despite what Callie says, if this works, I’ll be taking possession of someone else’s body. Someone else’s life. I push down the nagging voice that I’m nearly positive is my conscience, because damn it, I want this. I want to live.
