Allie had soul-surfed her way back to Graceland as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough. She arrived too late to save Nick, but she could not let herself mourn what had happened to him. The only way she could help him now was to finish the job he’d begun. She didn’t understand what was going on until Mary had pulled herself back into Everlost from the living world. Had Mary been alive? As in flesh-and-blood alive? Well, at least the top half of her had been. This kid in the gray uniform had done it somehow—but now the hole into the living world was closing.

Neither of them had seen Allie lurking there. Good. Quickly she skinjacked a female security guard coming into the room.

From a living world point of view, the Jungle Room seemed perfectly normal—except for an overpowering smell of chocolate, and a shrinking hole in midair the size of a grapefruit. Through that hole Allie could see the back of Mary’s head. So Allie took her fleshie and reached through the hole into Everlost, grabbing Mary’s hair, and she began to tug with all her might.

As she pulled, Mary fought like a shark on the end of a line, but she had lost her balance. Allie pulled again.

“Let me GO!” Mary demanded. Her will was almost strong enough to send Allie flying away from her, so Allie twisted her hand, making sure her fingers were snagged and knotted in Mary’s long copper hair, unable to be freed no matter how Mary worked against her. Then Allie added her other hand as well, pulling on her hair like it was a tug-ofwar.

There were two of them working against Mary now, Allie pulling, and Zin pushing, but it still wasn’t enough. Then suddenly there was a third hand in Mary’s hair, and a hand pulling on her chin, and two hands grabbed her by the armpits—yet somehow all those hands were Allie’s. She had skinjacked a guard—but two tourists had come into the room as well, and Allie was now seeing things through three different sets of eyes.

The Intolerable Nexus of Extremes had a different effect on every Afterlight, and now Allie wasn’t just skinjacking a single person, she was skinjacking three at the same time—and all three of them had a single purpose: to pull Mary Hightower out of Everlost, and into the world of the living!

“This will not happen!”

But for all her will, for all her fury, Mary could not fight that many foes. As the tingling passed through her chest, her waist, and down her legs, she knew that there was no stopping this. But if she was going, she was not going alone! She grabbed onto the Ripper, with hands as tight as claws, and pulled on her. Both of them slid through into the living world.