While Kiara’s demise was handed to us on a silver platter, Amber’s proving to be a harder target. Gigi’s vanity and Kiara’s secret life were clear Achilles’ heels to exploit, but with Amber, what you see is pretty much what you get. The best we can hope for is to totally freak her out with a proper haunting and irrefutable proof of it.
The previous night was my last in the clinic. This morning, I was released from observation with a slap on the back and a prescription. So tonight’s my first chance to see how the Dexid works from the comfort of my own bed.
After a “Yay, You Sleep Like the Dead” celebratory dinner with my mom, I climb the stairs to my room. The nylon restraints that decorate the four quadrants of my bed lie open, awaiting my arrival to justify their existence. For a moment, I consider using them as backup, just in case. But as quickly as the thought ripens in my mind, it rots. The concept of just in case feels like a betrayal—to Wes, to the new me. There are no safety nets for what we’re doing and no going back. Like the strong, fearless young woman I am, I stick out my tongue at the restraints and pop four Dexid: two from Grady’s stash and two from my very own prescription bottle. For the first time since I was a kid, I get into my own bed and prepare for a peaceful night’s sleep.
Peaceful is not what comes next.
My body thickens, expands, weighs down heavily on the softness of my bed. I feel my cheeks and throat marshmallow-puff out until my eyelids shut closed and there’s no room for my breath. My arms, my legs, my torso are all swallowed whole, sucked into the quicksand of the duvet. I am absorbed into the suffocating foam of the mattress.
There is nothing left.
Then…
<gasp>
I awake in the station, relieved to have survived being eaten alive by my bed. Is this what sleeping at home will be like from now on? Or is it the four Dexid playing cruel tricks on me? I find Wes, who is as excited as ever, and I decide not to mention my man-eating mattress for now. We get to work.
We locate Amber, pursue her onto the train, stalk her into her dream, and…
Invade
her
body.
The clock reads 1:15 a.m. on Amber’s computer, which I’ve just brought to blinding LED life with the click of a mouse. Her webpage is already open, and her ever-present webcam begins live streaming me, as Amber, sleepy eyed but ready for my close-up.
Or am I?
My eyes aren’t adjusting to the computer light like they should. I squint at it in an effort to dull the searing black spots that come from looking at it for too long. The tingling sensation that accompanied my previous spirit walks now burns my flesh, converting the once-pleasurable electric hum into a crackling alarm. This body itches, feels too tight.
Everything is off tonight, from being devoured by my duvet to feeling like a donor organ that’s been rejected by its new host. I want out. Now.
I notice a heavy paperweight beside the computer and for a second actually consider using it to knock myself out of this place, when a pubescent male voice chirps behind me.
“What are you doing?” Amber’s pimply faced, beanpole of a stepbrother, Matt, asks as he enters the room. Matt is the one remnant of Amber’s past that she can’t escape. They were loser lovebirds for a week in fifth grade until their parents started dating. Suddenly, what was likely the only good thing in either of their social lives became fodder for some seriously gross teasing. Matt was all I could think of that might make Amber squirm.
I step away from the desk, tucking my fisted hands behind my back, and stare at him. My scalp is throbbing. I want to rip all the itchy hair out. I don’t know how much longer I can maintain this self-control.
Then I see that half-cocked grin of Wes’s as it spreads across Matt’s brace-face. I relax.
Though the plan had been for Wes to overtake Matt’s sleeping body all along, it’s a relief to see a sign of him inside there. I leap to my feet, ready to throw myself/Amber at him, but he raises a hand to stop me. He points at the webcam—a silent reminder of our mission. I come back to myself, remembering the script. There will be plenty of time to play. First thing’s first. I wink at Wes/Matt with Amber’s long-lashed eye and slip back into my spot in front of the computer.
“What am I doing?” Amber asks in the bad porn acting voice that I manipulate. “Why, stepbrother, I’m just sitting here, waiting for you.”
“But ours is a forbidden love,” Wes, as Matt, replies. He walks over to Amber and kneels next to her, making sure he’s fully in the frame of the webcam. “We mustn’t.”
“Oh, but we must,” porno Amber says. Then Wes and I, as Matt and Amber, proceed to make out.
When we hatched the plan, I admit I was curious to know what it would feel like to kiss my boyfriend through the mouth of someone else. I mean, it isn’t every day you get the opportunity to do something so randomly weird. I expected it to be funny, or trippy, or hot. But it isn’t. At all. Maybe because it’s Amber, who I currently loathe, or the fact that I’m not the least bit attracted to Matt. Or maybe it’s because this, more than the hair cutting or the Instagram exposé, feels a little too much like a violation. After a few moments, I start to feel gross. I try to pull away, but Wes stays with me, pressing Matt’s mouth deeper and harder onto mine.
I play along for another tongue twist or two, until finally, I can’t take it. I slam the laptop shut and shove Wes off.
“What was that?” he asks, wiping saliva from Matt’s mouth.
“That was gross,” I reply, folding Amber’s arms across her chest.
“It wasn’t meant to be fun,” Wes says, rolling his eyes. “It was meant to be effective. Let’s make sure the webcam was working.”
“It was,” I say coolly. The itching scalp returns.
“Then we should know by homeroom if incest is best!” He laughs, and Matt’s voice cracks.
I duck out from under his arm and throw Amber onto her bed.
“Come on now,” he says. “We’re only doing what we agreed to. This is about justice. Remember, Amber recorded Gigi kicking your ass in the bathroom and then Snapchatted the highlights. And what about that poor Jenny girl you mentioned? Doesn’t she deserve to be avenged? You were the one who thought making Amber cheat on her new boyfriend would offer that justice. But if you’re having second thoughts—”
“I’m not,” I snap, partly from frustration with Wes, partly from the hivey burn that’s traveling across my body. “I just…it feels wrong.”
“Of course it does!” Wes says. “Look at these two. There’s nothing titillating about getting it on with either of them. That said,” he adds, flashing that knee-weakening smile, “I like kissing you in any form.”
Wes puts Matt’s hand on Amber’s leg. “Try this for me. Close your eyes.” His fingertips gently caress my lids shut. “And hear my voice,” he says in a whisper so soft that Matt’s squeaking frog-like tones disappear, and I can imagine it’s Wes, body and soul, beside me. When his lips find mine, I’m no longer Amber kissing Matt, but Sarah hungering for Wes.
I sense his body, hovering above mine like we’re locked in synchronous orbit, as it guides me back onto the bed until I am lying flat underneath him. I gasp quietly as his weight presses against me, and I wrap my legs around his thighs. We push our pajamaed bodies together, a desperate attempt at fusion, not on Amber’s bed, but in the void of the subconscious that defies space and, for a period of no determination, eradicates time.
I taste him, hear his sighs, feel his breath. I forget that it’s not him I’m touching, and in a moment of blissful amnesia, I open my eyes.
Matt’s face floats above me.
I push him off and stumble out of bed. I shake my head, my hands, wringing my sin out of me. And that’s when I see it—the computer is open again, and the camera light is on.
I look at Wes, stunned. Matt stares back at me blankly and shrugs. The crackling buzz returns, and I feel Amber’s dinner erupt inside me. I run to her bathroom to puke it up. When I’m done emptying her stomach, I need to escape. I hit my head on the doorframe, hard.
I stand above Amber’s hollow body as she stretches and sighs, dazed from my attack.
I hear the grunts of the Burners, who have been waiting, as they close in behind me.
I am still.
I welcome them.
I don’t know how to run from this.