“Thanks, I couldn’t go back in there,” Gray said.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Um.” Nolan looked at his feet.
“Just kidding,” Gray said. “God, that was humiliating.”
Nolan swept his bangs back. “What happened?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Gray said, staring down the hall. “I don’t know French. Well, besides bonjour, oui, and now pourquoi.” She looked at Nolan. “Do you think there’s a spell for instant language fluency?”
Nolan’s brows jumped. He looked around quickly and stepped closer to Gray. “Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about that around here.”
Gray stared him in the eyes. What she really wanted was to tell him she was back. If Charlene could tell Ryan, Gray ought to be allowed to tell Nolan. The hallway probably wasn’t the right place to do it. Nolan already looked startled that she’d addressed him at all. Was Charlene that intimidating? And he’d all but had an epileptic fit when she mentioned the word magic in public. Imagine his reaction if she did something really crazy, like go invisible?
Gray instantly thought of Raj. He delighted in magical misbehavior. But McKenna was still an unsolved mystery. Why had he run after her one day and ignored her the next?
Some questions were better left unanswered.
Nolan Knapp suddenly seemed feeble-minded compared to Raj. Live a little. That was Gray’s philosophy since dying, anyway. She lifted her chin. “Have I said something to make you uncomfortable? My, what a good little warlock you are.”
She saw his frown deepen, whether at being called a warlock in public or the obvious set down she couldn’t be sure. “Merci for the assistance with my bag.”
Hey, she knew a fifth French word.
Gray turned on her heel and walked away before Nolan could answer. She wanted to believe that her snooty words were all part of the act she was putting on, but the truth was Nolan had frustrated her.
As promised, Ryan appeared in two more of her classes. Before the day was out Gray had been groped no less than ten times by Blake, gotten slapped on the ass by Pete Sutherland (just how many guys was her sister sleeping with at school?), endured Brittany and Kiki’s mean-spirited blather, and worst yet, had nothing but a chocolate Slim Fast for lunch. At least Blake spent lunch with his homeboys. If he’d tried to feel her up in the cafeteria, Gray would’ve been way too tempted to throw the shake in his face.
Speaking of the boyfriend, he was waiting for her after the last bell rang. Gray had to turn away from him to get inside Charlene’s locker and Blake took that opportunity to run his hand down her back.
His hand didn’t linger long before he began scratching at his head. The smile on Gray’s face was hidden with her head inside the locker. So maybe she’d given Blake a slight case of the itchies across that thick skull of his. She couldn’t exactly slap him across the face. Not unless she wanted Charlene to murder her in her sleep.
Her smile expanded. Charlene couldn’t touch her.
Gray shut her locker and pushed past Blake. “Hey,” he said, falling into step beside her and sliding an arm around her waist. “Wanna come over . . . maybe fool around?” He pulled her against his side.
“Sorry, Blake, I have plans.”
He stopped abruptly. “With who?”
“Myself.”
Blake grinned slowly. “Oh, yourself, huh?” He began poking her in different places. “And what do you have planned for yourself? A little rub and poke?”
“Blake, stop it!” Gray stomped her foot on the ground as she spoke.
Without warning, Blake stopped and sighed. “All right, what did I do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you just tell me so I can stop guessing?”
Gray followed the movements of students in their rain coats exiting the building. If only she could be so lucky. She turned to Blake and tried to speak in her most convincing voice. “You didn’t do anything. I just have plans, okay?”
“Right,” he said, straightening up. “Fine. See you tomorrow.”
Yeah, and why don’t you go screw Jenna Hocking?
Okay, where did that come from? It wasn’t like Blake was Gray’s boyfriend. But he was cheating on her sister. Her cheating sister. Ugh, Gray was stuck inside Charlene’s own sleazy high school soap opera. Maybe this was hell.
She needed her body back.
* * *
What did one bring to her own gravesite? Flowers? Trinkets . . . shovel?
Gray parked on the road outside St. Ann’s Cemetery and trudged through the iron gates. Cemeteries had always seemed like such a waste of good parkland, but today Gray was relieved her body was encased in a box below the earth rather than incinerated.
Her steps slowed along the paved path. She hadn’t been to see her father’s grave in a couple of years. She used to visit on his birthday and Father’s Day. No one could accuse her of neglecting to pay her respects anymore. Now her body was a few feet from his. A corpse for company.
Dad’s gravesite was on the other side of a big oak.
To Gray’s annoyance, there was a figure lingering in the area of her gravesite. This was a private matter. As she neared, she saw the figure wasn’t just in the vicinity of her resting place—he stood right in front of it. At least someone hadn’t forgotten about her—even if that someone was Raj McKenna.
For a moment she considered making herself invisible. Given her surroundings, it felt too creepy and oddly disrespectful toward the dead. But god, it was tempting, especially when Gray saw Raj take an object out of his pocket, set it on her tombstone, then snatch it away when he caught her movement from the corner of his eye.
Gray walked up beside him. “Boo.”
Gray may have been smiling, but Raj certainly wasn’t. His anger gave her the chills. It wasn’t as though she’d caught him doing anything embarrassing like crying. No, McKenna looked every bit as badass as Gray remembered him. He wore a black jacket over a pair of tight dark jeans. Like the ones in her dream.
Gray shook the thought away and nodded toward her grave. “Didn’t figure you as the sentimental sort, McKenna.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.” Raj gave her a look of pure loathing. “What do you want, Charlene?”
Gray’s smile widened. “I’m not Charlene.”
Raj folded his arms over his chest. “Oh, you’re not, are you? Someone put you under a spell again?”
Gray nodded. “I am under a spell—a resurrection spell gone wrong.”
Raj’s mouth was tight. His expression made Gray want to laugh. He wanted to believe it so bad. She could see the begging in his eyes. Raj probably never dreamed he’d meet a resurrected soul. It’d blow his mind. Forget the invisibility spell. That was a card trick in comparison.
“Don’t believe me?” Gray asked cheerfully.
“No,” Raj said. The word came out as a faint whisper.
Gray circled her grave, coming to a stop in front of the headstone.
Graylee Perez
Forever In Our Hearts
She lowered herself to the ground and lay down, her head barely touching the tombstone.
Raj watched her warily. “What are you doing?”
Cold seeped from the earth into Gray. Goosebumps scattered over her bare legs. She closed her eyes. “Maybe if I concentrate hard enough I can transfer myself back inside my body.”
Raj folded his arms. “And then what? Claw your way up to the surface?”
Her eyes popped open. “So you believe me?”
“I don’t know.”
“What if I made myself invisible?”
“You and your sister could both know that spell.”
Gray sat up. “You think Charlene’s as powerful a witch as me?”
“No.” Raj reached his hand down and Gray took it, relishing the firm warmth of Raj’s grip as he helped her to her feet, then quickly released her hand.
&
nbsp; “Better not,” she said, dusting potential bits of grass off her backside.
“How come you look like Charlene?”
Gray laughed. “How come I look like my identical twin sister?”
“You know what I mean,” Raj said, waving his hand over Gray. “Makeup. Hair. Skirt.”
Gray glanced down at the pleated miniskirt. “I know, right? What a hussy.” Raj didn’t return her grin. “What’s the matter, McKenna? Aren’t you happy to see me?” Gray would’ve thought Raj would show a little more pizzazz.
“It’s really you?” he asked in the same somber tone.
“It’s really me. Well, sorta. This is Charlene’s body. I guess mine’s still buried six feet deep.” Gray glanced down and kicked at the damp grass. She chuckled. “Caught in the ol' casket. Nothing but a bag of bones.” She noticed the tight frown over Raj’s face. “What?”
“It’s not funny.”
“Just trying to lighten the mood with a bit of comic relief. How do you think I feel knowing my corpse is rotting in the earth?”
“Is that what went wrong with the resurrection spell—you were put inside Charlene’s body?”
Jeez, he was all business.
“Worse. We’re stuck sharing this body, fifty-fifty. I get it every other day.”
“When does the switch happen?”
“At three every morning. My mom thinks that’s when I died.”
“Have you tried staying up for the switch?”
“Of course. I stayed awake Sunday night into Monday morning. I watched the time change.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing happened. I thought I’d found a loophole, but then I woke my mom up and she said it was Tuesday morning—THIS morning.”
“So it’s really you?” Raj asked again.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Good.” Raj put his hands in both pockets.
Gray followed the movement with her eyes. “What was that you put on my grave?”
“Nothing.”
“I saw you start to put something on my tombstone. I want to know what it was.” Gray took a step closer and reached for Raj’s pocket. He grabbed her wrist before she could dig inside his pants for the mystery object, then secured her second wrist. She writhed under his grasp and Raj tightened his hold.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Perez.”
Gray nearly laughed. After being groped all day by Blake, Raj was telling her to keep her hands to herself? “What’s the deal, McKenna? You were about to give me some trinket, anyway. Do I only get it if I’m dead?”
Raj released her and took a step back. The pained look on his face made Gray instantly regret the taunt. “I meant to give it to you earlier.” His gaze was mysterious and somber. Eyes like those could hypnotize a person. “A couple days after you . . . died.”
“Valentine’s Day?” Gray wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.
Raj began studying the lawn of the cemetery.
Gray suddenly understood Raj’s fascination with the ground. The grass was obnoxiously green. Probably from all the human fertilizer below.
“Want to get out of here?” Raj asked.
Gray glanced sideways at her grave then nodded. “I don’t think lying in the damp grass above my grave is going to solve my problem.”
Chapter Fifteen
“So what are you going to do?” Raj asked as they headed to the parking lot.
“I don’t know. My mom’s waiting for her mysterious contact to get back to her. Whoever brought me back better be able to fix this. I can’t spend the rest of my life trapped inside Charlene’s body. I don’t even get full access to it. I’m a part-timer. Half a human. And I don’t even get a cool identity. I get to be the sister skank.”
“I take it she’s aware of what’s happening.”
Gray snorted. “She made me a manual on ҅How to Be Charlene.’ Oh yeah, there’re instructions on everything from hair and makeup to acceptable behavior. I’ve got a dress code and everything.” Gray glanced down once more. “Thus the miniskirt. Even when I’m myself I don’t get to be me.”
Gray had only been half paying attention as she walked alongside Raj to the parking lot. His car was the sole vehicle around. “Did you drive?” he asked.
“I’m parked on the street.”
“Wanna grab a mocha at The Daily Grind?”
A hot mocha sounded good and it wasn’t like this was a date. Gray had bumped into Raj. They just happened to be two people in the same place at the same time with a simultaneous craving for caffeinated chocolate.
Gray walked around Raj’s car and opened the door of the passenger’s side. The handle lifted without interference. “Still not locking your doors, McKenna?” She caught his eye across the hood of the car. Raj flashed her the first smile she’d seen since . . . well, since she’d died. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that mischievous, self-assured grin.
“At least this time I can see you getting in.” They both settled into their seats. Raj rested his arms on the steering wheel and stole a look at Gray. “You still haven’t explained your invisibility spell to me.”
“You really want to know that spell?” Gray asked.
“Yes, I do.”
She grinned and motioned him closer with her finger. Raj pressed his lips together and shook his head so Gray leaned across the armrest. “I’ll take it to my grave.”
* * *
Raj chose the table in the back corner of The Daily Grind. The Grind wasn’t your typical dark-paneled, cozy coffee house. The outer walls were glass and the place had a high ceiling. It looked modern, light, and clean. There was the additional benefit of drawing an older crowd rather than McKinley students.
Gray had already sucked down half her mocha. She was trying to take time to enjoy it, but it was way too tasty.
“What happened with the spell?” Raj asked. He didn’t lower his voice or shift uneasily the way Nolan did when discussing magic in public.
Gray drank another sip of her mocha. “No idea. My mom asked to have both her daughters. She didn’t specify having us in separate bodies.”
Raj, who had been tapping the table before, now tapped his white enamel mug. It was probably better to have him tapping tables and cups than flicking his Zippo on and off inside a café. “How did it happen exactly? Were you pulled out of a magical realm?”
“Nope.” Gray took another sip. “There was nothing. No consciousness. Nada.”
“There can’t just be nothing.”
“I’m telling you there was nothing.”
Raj stopped tapping his cup. “You must not remember.”
“Maybe ’cause there’s nothing to remember.”
Raj leaned forward. “Or maybe you weren’t really dead. Maybe you were in an alternate dimension. That must be why your mom was able to get you back.”
Gray crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair. A smile quirked over her lips. “This really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
Raj straightened up. “What?”
“My account of the hereafter . . . or lack thereof.”
“I hardly think you’re an expert.”
“Right. I only died and came back to life. So many people know what that’s like . . . for a minute. Don’t forget I spent seven whole weeks in sweet oblivion before returning—none of this dead for several seconds, saw the light woo woo.”
“You’re jaded.”
“Funny, I thought that description better suited you.” Gray finished the rest of her mocha.
Raj raised a brow. “Would you like another?”
“I probably shouldn’t.”
Raj stood up. Gray was glad he didn’t try to talk her out of it. She began digging through her bag. “Gray,” he said. “Let me get it.”
She just stared at him and he must have taken her momentary lack of protest as permission. Raj strode over to the order counter. When they first arrived, Gray had made sure to order and pay for her own drink. This wa
s not a date.
She studied his muscular form at the counter. The way he leaned against it, casual, but not sloppy. When the barista turned to make the drink, he commenced tapping the counter with his left pointer finger.
The barista turned to say something to him and Raj stopped. His hand moved down to his pocket and he fingered whatever secret trinket he was hiding in there.
Gray’s trinket.
She intended to lift it off him before the day was out. What was it he planned to give her on Valentine’s Day? God, please don’t let it be jewelry or a promise ring. But that was ridiculous. Those things were only for people who’d been going out and they most certainly were not going out. She wasn’t even supposed to be alive.
Raj returned with a large mug and set it in front of Gray. “Thanks,” she said.
“My pleasure.”
She didn’t like the way he was staring at her so she lifted her mug and said, “There are no mochas in heaven. But then again . . . there’s no heaven, either.”
Worked like a charm. Raj frowned.
“What happens if you can’t get back inside your body?”
So she wasn’t the only one trying to change the subject, though this topic was about as pleasant as the dark void.
“I don’t even want to think of that as a possibility. How would my sister and I choose a college? What if Charlene decided she wanted to attend the Sorbonne?” Gray slapped a hand to her forehead. “And I can forget about a semester abroad in Barcelona. Charlene would never go for that. Maybe this is worse than being dead.”
“Don’t say that.”
Gray looked Raj in the eyes. “Why not?”
He glanced down and hesitated a moment before pulling his hand back and letting it slip under the table. Raj dug inside his pocket and then held out his fist to Gray. After a pause that seemed to last an eternity, Gray placed an open palm under Raj’s hand, but he didn’t release the object. She jerked her hand with impatience. Did he expect her to pry the trinket out of his fingers? Finally Raj dropped it into her palm and pulled his hand back.
Gray felt the object before she saw it. The beads, stone, and silver were warm from being inside Raj’s pocket. The moment it landed in her palm she curled her fingers around it and felt a hum reverberate through her entire body. Passion. Longing. Anguish. “What is it?” she whispered. It had power, whatever it was.
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