Dead Girl in Love

ready to make amends for my mistakes. You’re my only hope for a second chance.”

“Me?” I shook my head. “You can’t be serious.”

“But I am. Deadly serious.” He stared deeply into my eyes. “Amber, will you help save my soul?”

8

“I can’t help you,” I insisted.

Walking among rows of flowers, shrubs, and trees with a dead guy who spouted poetry and stole bodies was weird, but finding out that he wanted me to save his soul was weird squared to infinity.

“I beseech you, Amber, give me a chance.”

Gabe’s mix of old-styled and modern language, spoken in such a deep refined voice, made me feel like following him to the ends of the universe. He looked so vulnerable, like a lost child trying to find his way home, that my heart ached for him.

“I don’t have any special powers, and I don’t know how to help you.”

“Use your connections to the other side.”

Connections? This was a word that came up a lot whenever I researched becoming an entertainment agent. Knowing the right people in influential places was like an “open sesame” spell that magically unlocked doors. If Gabe had asked me to help him get into an audition or how to become a Hollywood star, I’d be right there offering advice. But this was beyond my knowledge — especially since my only “contacts” on the other side were my grandmother and my dead dog Cola.

“Sorry.” I shook my head. “You’re looking at the wrong Temp Lifer if you expect connections. I’m a newbie without any influence.”

“Your grandmother is head of the Temp Lifer program.”

“So?” I asked warily, wanting to kick myself for telling him about Grammy Greta’s job. It had slipped out when he’d trapped me on a boat and I’d been desperate to escape.

“I hope you’ll convince her to see me. If I can explain that I’m sorry and want to return, then I could go back without interference from the DD Team.”

“I can’t just pick up my cell and call her,” I lied.

“Leave a message through your GEM.” He rushed on before I could interrupt. “Don’t look so surprised that I know how GEMs work. Remember, I was a Temp Lifer.”

“Until you turned Dark,” I accused him, wondering if I was crazy for talking calmly to the most-wanted dead criminal alive.

“I had a good reason.” He glanced around as if to make sure no one was close, then gestured that we sit on a bench in the shadows of shade trees and roses. “Despite all the injustices in my Earth life, when I became a Temp Lifer I excelled at my job. I’d thought I’d found my purpose in death. Everything was going great — until they assigned me the body of a shy young gentleman.”

“How long ago was this?” I sat a safe distance from him on the bench so that he couldn’t touch me.

“Around the turn of the century.”

“Really? I thought it was much longer, like before I was born.”

“The twentieth century,” he clarified. “My Host Body lacked the courage to approach the girl he loved and was going to lose her to another suitor. I was prepared to woo her with sweet words and romantic bouquets. Flowers always win a young lady’s heart.” He gestured over to a garden of brilliant blossoms in red, yellow, pink, and lavender. “But when I met his young lady, everything changed.”

“Why? Did you fall in love with her?”

“Quite the opposite.” His eyes narrowed. “She was the daughter of the woman whose betrayal sent me to the gallows.”

“No way!”

“Unfortunately, it’s true. But I had no alternative but to perform my job. A Temp Lifer must always follow through on his Host Body’s plans,” he added with a bitter snort. “I recited Barrett and Lord Byron, and wrote a love sonnet for my host’s sweetheart. When I proposed marriage, she eagerly accepted. I gave her a ring — but I couldn’t go through with it. All I could think about was how her mother had destroyed my life. So I yanked the ring off her hand and told her she was a fool to believe in love.”

I gasped. “No!”

“It was the only way to toughen her foolish heart and to save my Host Soul from marrying into a murderous family.”

“You wanted revenge,” I said.

“Justice,” he insisted. “Afterwards, I knew no one would understand and I could never go back to being a Temp Lifer, so I switched into another body. It was amazingly easy. I quickly discovered there are more freedoms to being in a temporary body. No rules, and powers that you won’t find in your precious GEM.”

“What sort of powers?”

“Mind connecting, memory manipulation, and astral transporting. You’ve been told you can’t leave your Host Body until they decide to call you back — but that’s not true. You could leave that body any time.”

I shook my head. “I’ve tried and it didn’t work. The only way I can switch is when my assignment is over.”

“That’s what they want you to believe — but it’s not true. Help me meet with your grandmother, and I’ll teach you the secrets of tapping into your power.”

“I don’t want to learn your kind of secrets.”

“Not even how to mind-blend with your Host Soul? You could go to your friend right now and ask her anything. Don’t you have questions you’d like to ask?”

Of course I did — but I wasn’t about to admit that to him.

“It’s unfair how Temp Lifers must figure out their missions with so little information,” he went on. “Especially since those who run the program are aware of these useful skills.”

“You mean my grandmother?”

“Of course. She’s privy to many secrets that she’ll never reveal. But I can show you, and you’d never have to rely on a GEM again.” His voice was so sultry, so tempting …

I didn’t want to believe him. Yet Grammy had joked about not using a GEM. She’d said they were annoying (which was true), but maybe she had another reason. Did she know how to pluck memories from her Host Body? Is that why she seemed so comfortable doing her job without the stresses I was going through? But wouldn’t it make more sense to arm me with more powers, too? It wasn’t fair to leave me stuck in confusion while I struggled to make sense of my assignment.

I thought back to the rare moments when I’d picked up memories from the bodies I’d temporarily inhabited. It had always happened randomly, without any warning. I’d assumed it was a gift from the other side to help my assignment. But if what Gabe was saying was true, I’d accidentally tapped into my own powers.

Still, if I was supposed to know these things, Grammy would have told me. I trusted her far more than I trusted a Dark Lifer.

“I’ll pass on the lessons,” I told him, running my hand idly over a rough edge of the bench. “I’d help you without any bribes, but there’s nothing I can do. You can’t meet with my grandmother.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not there.” I gestured to the sky as if the clouds floating overhead hid a portal to the other side. “Grammy’s away … on vacation.”

He knitted his brows, regarding me skeptically. “No one vacations from the other side.”

“I can’t contact her, but I can get a message through my GEM to the DD Team and ask them to give you a second chance.”

“No!” He jumped up from the bench, nearly tripping over another hose that snaked across the path. “If I go back, it will be on my terms — not captured pitifully by the DDT. They hate me.”

“Grammy says hate isn’t allowed where she lives now.”