Chapter 5 #2
The front door opened, and two officers entered, along with a large man wearing a jacket with Coroner printed on the back of it.
“Cole!” Dell shouted, surprised she remembered his name in all her distress.
“I know!” he said, and flipped pages in the book. “Just let me—”
“Fix it! Now!” she wailed. She didn’t know the rules of the afterlife, but she was pretty certain if the coroner took her
body away, it would only be a matter of time before she was on a slab in the morgue, and from there, chances were slim of
rejoining her physical self with whatever astral plane being she’d become at the hands of the bumbling man before her.
“This would be easier if you weren’t actively trying to break my wrists!” Cole said, and attempted to pull out of her grip.
With a frustrated grumble, she released him and decided to take matters into her own hands. She looked around at all the wan
faces in the room. Her father was talking to the police with Tommy and his mother. Her mom was helping Mariana with coffee.
Alex, Andy, and Jason had stood and looked ready to step in wherever needed.
Out of all of them, she knew only one of them would believe what was going on. Any of them would do anything for her, but
only one of them would believe she’d been accidentally transitioned to the afterlife and was haunting her own house in her
nightgown.
“Jason!” she cried, and ran to him. “Come on, I need you to hear me! Please.” She swiped at his arms. “Come on, it’s me! It’s me, it’s me, it’s me.” When he didn’t react other than a slight shiver,
she punched her hand into his head like she could squeeze his brain. “I know you can feel me. Jason!”
He stumbled back a step and held his hand to his forehead.
“You okay, man?” Alex asked, and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
Jason pressed the heel of his hand between his eyes and took a deep breath. “Yeah. Guess I’m just in shock still.”
“You really shouldn’t do that,” Cole said to Dell.
She whipped around and glared at him.
“If you’re going to touch them—which you shouldn’t—keep it limited to their limbs. It makes them feel sick otherwise. Something about major organs.”
Dell turned back to Jason and found him looking as queasy as the morning after New Year’s Eve. She grimaced. “Sorry, Jay.” She studied him a while longer, noting the bend to his brow and the way his eyes narrowed and flicked back and forth as if he could sense her standing there.
“It’s me,” she whispered, praying he’d hear her. “Come on, Jay.”
As she stared at him, her best friend of fifteen years, who knew her inside and out, she realized she needed to give him a
sign. Something he’d recognize to mean she was communicating with him. But what? She couldn’t pick anything up to throw. Thought
of using her ghosty energy to make a light pulse to the beat of their favorite Gaga song danced through her mind, but that
seemed above her skill set. She’d been dead only for an hour.
Turned out haunting was a lot harder than they made it look in movies.
“Oh!” she said when an idea struck her. “Can I possess someone and talk through them?” She turned to Cole with an excited, hopeful smile.
He frowned in disapproval. “You really, really shouldn’t do that.”
“But it can be done?”
“I—” He hesitated like he didn’t want to hand over the keys to an expensive car she might crash.
She continued grinning at him, feeling hope bubble up inside her for the first time.
“Yes, it can be done,” he said in defeat.
“Great! How do I do it?” She scanned the room for the ideal candidate.
Both of her brothers stood nearby, but the idea of being inside either one of them was not appealing.
All she could think of was their teenage bedrooms smelling like socks.
Her dad had heart problems, so she didn’t want to give him a scare.
Her mother already looked an inch from fainting anyway.
As she gazed around at the other options, she realized she needed to outsource.
If she possessed one of the people in this room, they’d all think that person had lost their mind.
No, she needed to find someone Jason would recognize but who was not one of her relatives.
It came to her in an instant.
She turned to Cole with another grin. “I know who I need. Follow me.”
“Ms. Rodgers, I really do have to warn you against this!” Cole said as he followed on her heels. They’d made it back outside,
past the reporters, and onto the path leading back to the park.
“I don’t see any other options!” Dell called over her shoulder. She still marched barefoot in her nightgown, but it wasn’t
a bother, seeing as she couldn’t feel much at all. A breeze off the bay ruffled her skirt around her thighs as she crossed
onto the park’s lime-green lawn.
“There!” she said, and pointed when she saw Robbie sitting on his bench. Even on a Saturday morning, he was as reliable as
taxes.
“Do you even know this person?” Cole asked, and hurried after her. “Is he safe?” His tie flapped in the wind, and he clutched
his book in one hand.
“Kind of, and let’s hope,” Dell answered as she approached Robbie. He wore his standard uniform of all black and a pair of
scuffed Chucks. He sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his phone in his hands, concentrating on whatever he was looking
at.
“So, how does this work?” Dell asked Cole when he finally caught up. “Do I just . . . jump in?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done it because it’s against the rules without permission.”
Dell rolled her eyes. “Then grant me permission.”
“I can’t. I don’t have the clearance.”
“You are not helping my cause here, buddy. Give me the book. I’ll look it up myself.”
Cole pulled the book away when she reached for it. “No.”
“Fine, then I’ll just figure it out on my own.” She placed her hands on her hips and turned back to Robbie.
He was still studying his phone and now chewing his chapped lip.
Cole grumbled and began flipping pages in the book. “Your stubbornness is living up to expectations,” he muttered.
Dell shot him a smug smirk but was happy to see him helping.
“The rule book says a successful pairing requires acquiescence from the host,” he said with his finger pointing at the open
page.
“Acquiescence from the host?” Dell asked. “Is your whole rule book written like an SAT vocab list?”
“It’s a very old book.”
“Must be. What else does it say?”
“That acquiescence is simplest when the host is under the influence.”
“Oh perfect. I’m pretty sure this kid is stoned all day. Does it say anything else?”