But I really, really didn’t want to take it. My chest was tight with fear. I could hardly breathe, I was so scared. I mean, the last time I’d been to that place, I’d nearly died. And I had no way of knowing whether or not Paul had told me the truth. What if I tried what he’d said, and I ended up somewhere even worse than where I’d ended up before?

Although it would be hard to imagine any place worse.

Still, what choice did I have? None.

I just really, really didn’t want to take it.

But I guess we don’t always get what we want.

My heart in my throat, I thrust my hands into the hot, churning water, and grabbed twin handfuls of shirt. I didn’t even know whose clothes I had hold of. All I knew was, this was the only way I could think of to prevent a murder.

Then I closed my eyes and pictured that place in my head I had hoped never to see again.

And when I opened my eyes, I was there.

chapter

seventeen

I wasn’t alone. Paul was with me. And Craig Jankow, too.

“What the…?” Craig looked up and down the long dark hallway, as eerily silent as Brad’s party had been loud. “Where the hell are we?”

“Where you should have gone a long time ago,” Paul said, carefully brushing lint off his shirt—though, since this was an alternative plane, and only his consciousness, not his actual body, was on it, there was no lint to brush. To me, Paul said with a smile, “Nice work, Suze. And on your first try, too.”

“Shut up.” I was in no mood for pleasantries. I was somewhere I really, really didn’t want to be…a place that, every time I returned to in my nightmares, left me feeling completely physically and emotionally drained. A place that sucked the life out of me…not to mention my courage. “I’m not exactly happy about this.”

“I can tell.” Paul reached up and felt his nose. Since we were in the spirit world, and not the actual one, it was no longer bleeding. His clothes weren’t wet, either. “You know the fact that we’re up here means that our bodies, down there, are unconscious.”

“I know,” I said, glancing nervously up and down the long, fog-enshrouded hallway. Just like in my dreams, I couldn’t see what was at either end. It was just a line of doors that seemed to go on forever.

“Well,” Paul said, “that should get Jesse’s attention, anyway. Your suddenly dropping off into a coma, I mean.”

“Shut up,” I said again. I felt like crying. I really did. And I hate crying. Almost more than I hate falling into bottomless pits. “This is all your fault. You shouldn’t have antagonized him.”

“And you,” Paul said with a spark of anger, “shouldn’t go around kissing—”

“Excuse me,” Craig interrupted. “But could somebody maybe tell me exactly what—”

“Shut up,” Paul and I said to him, at the exact same time.

Then, to Paul, I said, a catch in my voice, “Look, I’m sorry about what happened at your house. Okay? I lost my head. But that doesn’t mean that there is anything going on between us.”

“You lost your head,” Paul repeated tonelessly.

“That’s right,” I said. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I did not like this place. I didn’t like the white plumes of fog that were licking my legs. I didn’t like the tomblike stillness. And I especially didn’t like that I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. Who knew where the floor might drop off from underneath?

“What if I want there to be something between us?” he asked.

“Too bad,” I said, shortly.

He glanced over at Craig, who was beginning to wander down the hall, regarding the closed doors on either side of him with interest.

“What about shifting?” Paul asked.

“What about it?”

“I told you how to do it, didn’t I? Well, there’s other stuff I can show you. Stuff you’ve never even dreamed you could do.”

I blinked at him. I thought back to what he’d said that afternoon in his bedroom, about soul transference. There was a part of me that wanted to know what that was all about. There was a part of me that wanted to know about this very, very badly.

But there was an equally big part of me that wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Paul Slater.

“Come on, Suze,” Paul went on. “You know you’re dying to know. All your life you’ve been wondering who—or what—you really are. And I’m telling you, I have the answers. I know. And I’ll teach you, if you’ll let me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “And what do you get out of this magnanimous offer of yours?” I wanted to know.

“The pleasure of your company,” he said with a smile.

He said it casually, but I knew there was nothing casual about it at all. Which was why, in spite of how much I was dying to find out more about all the other stuff he claimed to know, I was reluctant to accept his offer. Because there was a catch. And the catch was that I was going to have to spend time with Paul Slater.

But it might be worth it. Almost. And not because I’d finally be getting some insight into the true nature of our so-called gift, but because I might, at last, be able to guarantee Jesse’s safety…at least where Paul was concerned.

“Okay,” I said.

To say Paul looked surprised would have been the understatement of the year. But before he could say anything, I added, gruffly, “But Jesse is off-limits to you. I really mean it. No more insults. No more fights. And no more exorcisms.”

One of Paul’s dark eyebrows went up. “So that’s how it is,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s how it is.”

He didn’t say anything for so long that I figured he wanted to forget the whole thing. Which would have been fine by me. Sort of. Except for the Jesse part.

But then Paul shrugged and went, “Fine by me.”

I stared at him, hardly daring to believe my own ears. Had I just engineered—at great personal sacrifice, it had to be admitted—Jesse’s reprieve?

It was Paul’s nonchalance about the whole thing that convinced me I had. Especially his response to Craig, when the latter reached out and rattled one of the doorknobs and called, “Hey, what’s behind these doors?”