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“For what it’s worth, you’re not hurting me.”
“Can I hurt you?” I ask. I’m genuinely curious. “Can this hurt you?”
“Maybe it can hurt the body,” he says softly. “I don’t know if it can hurt me.”
I stare at him. “Can you like, switch bodies?”
“Not at will,” he says. “It’s not that straightforward.”
“So what do you have to do?”
“You know, kill someone and then take over their body.”
A knot closes in my throat. “You…have to kill someone to take over their body?”
“No,” he replies. He sounds genuinely offended. “I don’t kill people. I was just messing with you.”
I glare at him and he sighs.
“Okay, look, maybe that was bad timing,” he says. “But all I do is find someone who wants a trade-off. I give them power, they give me their body. I wouldn’t take something from someone without asking.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” he says, a thin smile on his face. “It’s more fun like this.”
“But it doesn’t hurt them?”
“I didn’t say that,” he says. “But, well, I can’t feel it. So what difference does it make to me?”
My heart hammers in my chest. “Maybe I should go back in,” I say. “Maybe they do need to do the exorcism. I clearly need all the help I can get and I’m afraid the longer I leave this for, the more this is hurting them. And it’s not like you’ve been in my dreams lately, so what difference does it make?”
“Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not there,” he says softly. “And these exorcisms, they’re only going to make you weaker until your body gives out. I don’t think that’s what you want.”
“I want dreamless sleep,” I reply. “I want to wake up without a cold sweat or three pairs of eyes looking at me like I’m going to break if I do anything even slightly difficult. I want to worry about how many people come to my shows and how to pay my rent and the men my friends are seeing. All of this is too fucking much. I’m tired, Mal. I don’t know how I can help when I’m so tired all the time.”
“It won’t help,” he says. “They can’t exorcise you because they don’t know what they’re dealing with, and…”
“And what?”
“And things are worse than they know. Things are worse than even you realize. You’re just part of a much bigger, scarier epidemic. And you’re…”
“What?” I ask when he trails off. There’s something he clearly doesn’t want to tell me.
“Look, to be completely honest with you, I have no real investment in how this ends either way. I just want you to stay alive. I think there might only be one way for you to do that.”
“Which is what?”
“I would think that’s obvious,” he says softly. “You have to win.”
TRINE
Before I can ask him how I’m supposed to win—or exactly what I’m supposed to win at–he grabs the brown bag of trash from the footwell, throws it in the back, and turns the key in the ignition.
“I won’t take you far,” Malon says. “And I promise I’m going to bring you right back if that’s what you want. There’s something I need to show you.”
I eye him suspiciously, but I don’t really have anything to lose. I don’t think Malon is going to hurt me. I trust him. I wish he’d told me things from the beginning, but I suppose it makes sense that he didn’t.
“I should tell them,” I say.
