“My… body’s? Her thoughts? She doesn’t have any. I’m here now.”

I nodded slowly.

“Is that bad?” Kyle whispered.

“I don’t know enough about it to tell. It’s probably not good, though.”

Kyle’s eyes tightened.

“How long have you been here, Sunny?”

She frowned, thinking. “How long is it, Kyle? Five years? Six? You disappeared before I came home.”

“Six,” he said.

“And how old are you?” I asked her.

“I’m twenty-seven.”

That surprised me—she was such a little thing, so young looking. I couldn’t believe she was six years older than Melanie.

“Why does that matter?” Kyle asked.

“I’m not sure. It just seems like the more time someone spent as a human before they became a soul, the better chance they might have at… making a recovery. The greater the percentage of their life they spent human, the more memories they have, the more connections, the more years being called by the right name… I don’t know.”

“Is twenty-one years enough?” he asked, his voice desperate.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“It’s not fair!” Sunny wailed. “Why do you get to stay? Why can’t I stay, if you can?”

I had to swallow hard. “That wouldn’t be fair, would it? But I don’t get to stay, Sunny. I have to go, too. And soon. Maybe we’ll leave together.” Perhaps she’d be happier if she thought I was going to the Dolphins with her. By the time she knew otherwise, Sunny would have a different host with different emotions and no tie to this human beside me. Maybe. Anyway, it would be too late. “I have to go, Sunny, just like you. I have to give my body back, too.”

And then, flat and hard from right behind us, Ian’s voice broke the quiet like the crack of a whip.

“What?”

CHAPTER 56: Welded

CHAPTER 56

Welded

Ian glared down at the three of us with such fury that Sunny shivered in terror. It was an odd thing—as if Kyle and Ian had switched faces. Except Ian’s face was still perfect, unbroken. Beautiful, even though it was enraged.

“Ian?” Kyle asked, bewildered. “What’s the problem?”

Ian spoke from between his locked teeth. “Wanda,” he growled, and held his hand out. It looked as if he was having a hard time keeping that hand open, not clenching it into a fist.

Uh-oh, Mel thought.

Misery swept through me. I didn’t want to say goodbye to Ian, and now I would have to. Of course I had to. I would be wrong to sneak out in the night like a thief and leave all my goodbyes to Melanie.

Ian, tired of waiting, grabbed my arm and hauled me up from the floor. When Sunny seemed like she was coming along, too, still joined to my side, Ian shook me until she fell off.

“What is with you?” Kyle demanded.