See Me (17 page)

“If I may interrupt . . . ” Owen raised his right hand. “We’re losing sight of our goal. Mr. Higgins, your help is crucial to Jonathan’s survival, and time is of the essence. There’s a very real possibility that his spirit may evaporate if we don’t find a permanent body for him immediately.”

My stomach coiled as Owen reiterated his latest theory. Apparently hearing the word “evaporate” again had affected Jonathan as well, because he jumped to his feet.

“What Amy just told you is true,” Jonathan said. He came over to stand next to me, then gestured to his torso. “I’m not Reverend Gabriel. I’ve just borrowed the minister’s body temporarily. My name is Jonathan Miller, and I really need your help.”

“Well, this is just dandy.” Mr. Higgins rubbed his hands against his thighs and shook his head, before turning to Nicole. “It’s bad enough that you disobeyed me, but now you’ve involved Reverend Gabriel in one of your shenanigans. Well, it won’t work. You’re still grounded. And after this stunt, I’m afraid you aren’t even going to know what the outside of your room looks like, young lady.”

Nicole’s face crumpled. “But, it’s not my fault. Amy made the story up, not me.”

I clasped my hands in prayer position and stared at Mr. Higgins. “I know it’s hard to believe at first. I was totally shocked myself when Jonathan took over
my
body.”

“He’s the one to blame.” Nicole pointed to Owen, whose forehead wrinkled. “You’ve brainwashed my best friend into thinking she’s in love with your zombie friend.”

Jonathan’s gaze flicked to mine, and I flushed.

“Me? I’m an innocent bystander.” Owen’s voice rose an octave, and he stood. “Do you think it’s fun for me to watch them get affectionate while Jonathan’s in the minister’s body? That’s beyond inappropriate. And I was less than pleased when Jonathan zombied my body, but I’ve come to terms with it and now I’m doing the right thing.”

“I’ve had enough of all this zombie talk.” Mr. Higgins puffed up his chest, his face turning red as he touched his palm to his cheek. “It’s making me hot . . .”

“Hot?” I asked. Prickles darted up my arms. I watched Mr. Higgins’s body suddenly jerk sideways. His chin dropped to his chest, and his eyes drifted closed.

Then Owen darted next to me and caught the Reverend’s body, which had started to collapse. “Um, a little help here?” he said, staring at me.

“Oh, right,” I said, wrapping my arm around the minister’s waist. It had taken me a few seconds to realize that Jonathan had vacated the minister’s body and had apparently knocked Mr. Higgins out of his body. A little warning would be nice next time.

“Daddy?” Nicole dropped to her knees on the carpet, and made her way over to her dad’s body, which was flopped sideways on the couch. “Oh,
no
.” Her voice rose a pitch and she flashed me a panic look. I think all of my drama gave him a heart attack. I’m sorry, Daddy. Come back. I’ll never get another piercing again.”

“Your dad will be fine, Nicole,” I grunted as I helped Owen drag Reverend Gabriel’s limp body to the loveseat. He may not be as big as Mr. Higgins, but he sure wasn’t light. We set the minister’s body down in an upright position with his head leaning back and his eyes closed. “He’s temporarily in zombie land, which is kind of like floating. It takes some getting used to but it’s not that bad.”

Nicole kept an arm around her dad as she turned to me wide-eyed. “He isn’t dead?”

“No,” I said, wiping my sweaty hands together as I stepped away from the minister’s body. Then I watched Mr. Higgins’s body, waiting for Jonathan to bring it back to life, and make that awkward lurch. “Your dad has been zombied.”

“Z-Zombied?” Nicole said, gaping at her dad.

Suddenly, Mr. Higgins’s thick hands flexed. His head rolled in a slow circle, then his head came up and his eyes opened. “Man, he sure put up a good fight.”

I smacked Mr. Higgins’s arm. “You should’ve warned us before you did that. You really scared Nicole, and Owen barely caught Reverend Gabriel in time.”

“I’m sorry.” Mr. Higgins’s hand, which I knew was being controlled by Jonathan, reached for me, but I backed away. I could barely handle Jonathan in the young reverend’s body, but no way could I deal with him touching me as Mr. Higgins. That would be wrong on so many levels.

Jonathan dropped his hand and continued talking. “But we weren’t getting anywhere trying to convince him through words, and the thought of evaporating has me antsy.” Jonathan’s gaze drifted behind me. “Uh oh.”

“What?” I asked, following the direction of Jonathan’s gaze over to Reverend Gabriel’s body on the loveseat.

Instead of sitting there vacantly, Reverend Gabriel’s eyes had opened. His head turned slowly, and seemed to be taking in each of our shocked expressions. Then his body rose to its feet, he puffed out his chest, and he turned to Jonathan, wearing a look that could kill.

Chapter Eleven

Five minutes ago, Jonathan had zombied Mr. Higgins’s body to prove that he was real. Mission accomplished. Unfortunately, the proof didn’t have the desired effect. Instead of driving us to the secret military base on Treasure Island as we’d all hoped, Mr. Higgins—who I’m pretty sure was currently occupying Reverend Gabriel’s body—was chasing Jonathan around the room.

“Stop it!” I shouted, then dove onto the couch as Jonathan whizzed by at high speed. “Mr. Higgins, stop!”

Owen ducked out of the way. “Amy, that might not be Mr. Higgins in the reverend’s body. It’s possible that Reverend Gabriel floated all the way here and reclaimed his body. But I don’t see him as having this kind of temper.”

Nope, neither did I. I’d seen Mr. Higgins get worked up before though, so this body must be inhabited by Nicole’s dad now. But I couldn’t be sure. I tried to reason as I jumped on the couch to get out of the way. “We don’t have time for vengeance, Mr. Higgins. Or Reverend. Whichever spirit you are. We have an artificial body to confiscate.”

“What’s going on in here?” Brynne suddenly appeared in the room, her honey-blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, and her attention fixed on the two men running around the sofa. She wore a white tank, a denim skirt, and white strappy-heels.

Not that this was the time to think about a bestie outing, but was she going to Alex’s party with Nicole?

Brynne’s gaze drifted over to Owen and her jaw dropped open. “Why is
he
here?” she squeaked.

“Brynne!” Nicole raced across the room and threw her arms around our stunned friend. “You’re never going to believe this, but Owen’s ghost friend is
real
. He just zombied my dad, and now we think my dad’s in Reverend Gabriel’s body and is trying to get his own body back. But it might be Reverend Gabriel intent on revenge. I’m
so
going to be sent to military school after this.”

“Get out of my body this instant!” Reverend Gabriel’s body yelled, raising his fist in the air.

Okay, so that was definitely Mr. Higgins in the reverend’s body.

“This was
not
part of the plan,” Jonathan said, breathing hard, barely escaping Reverend Gabriel’s hand’s grasp.

At the last minute, I jerked out of their way, lost my balance, then fell backward off the end of the couch. My scream cut off when a pair of arms caught me. I glanced up and saw Owen and his mop of blond hair. Oh, no. Brynne so did
not
need to see him rescuing me right now.

“You okay?” he asked, frowning.

“Yeah, uh, thanks.” My gaze darted to Brynne, and I hoped she’d somehow missed me doing the backflip into her crush’s arms. No such luck. Her penciled brows came together. I wiggled out of Owen’s hold, then scampered over to Brynne, and grasped her hands. “You have to know I fell by accident, and would’ve preferred to hit the ground than upset you in any way.”

Brynne scooted aside as Jonathan barreled by, then she leaned toward me. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me on purpose. But what happened between you and Owen?”

Due to the chaos in the room and Jonathan’s possibly impending evaporation, I decided to summarize. “It started when I told Mrs. Beckencourt that I thought UFOs were fascinating. Owen got the very mistaken impression that I liked him. Then Jonathan zombied me at school, you drove him home in
my
body, and Owen came over to help me since he’s the only one with an open enough mind to believe that my body had been snatched by a zhost.”

Her brow lifted. “A zhost?”

“Zombie-ghost. I don’t know what else to call it.”

Her gaze flicked to Owen, who crossed his arms as he surveyed the two men. Then she turned back to me. “That’s cute. But go on.”

“Right before you get zombied there’s all of this heat and suction and tingly feelings while your spirit is being pushed out. Well, that’s when Owen kissed me. And it was only for a few seconds. I made it
very
clear that any mistaken attraction on my part was only from Jonathan being near me.”

“But
he
liked
you
? He
kissed
you?”

I raised a shoulder. “Mini crush, because he thought I liked UFOs. But he’s over it now.”

“Okay.” She nodded, then gestured to where Mr. Higgins in Father Gabriel’s body had cornered Jonathan in Mr. Higgins’s body by the entertainment center. Her baby-blue eyes widened. “Why is that minister getting all up in Mr. Higgins’s face? And why is Mr. Higgins backing against the wall with his hands raised? He’s usually pretty intimidating.”

“It’s exactly what Nicole told you.” I flinched as Mr. Higgins shouted up at Jonathan. “Jonathan’s body died, but his spirit is still alive. Owen and I are helping Jonathan find another body, and there’s a secret military operation at Treasure Island that is producing artificial bodies to boost the military during war. We need Mr. Higgins to get us onto that base so we can snag an artificial body for Jonathan before his spirit evaporates.”

“Amy’s in love with the zombie,” Nicole chimed in.

I brought my hands to my chest. “I’m not sure
what
I’m feeling. But I definitely don’t want Jonathan’s spirit to evaporate and Owen says that possibility increases the longer we wait.”

“Then we need to stop wasting time,” Brynne concluded, placing her hands at the sides of her mouth like a megaphone. “Everybody freeze!” she shouted, sounding surprisingly forceful.

Everyone’s gaze shot to Brynne’s angelic face. She smiled and waved her hand. “Thanks for cooperating. Amy has something to say.”

I stepped forward. “Um, just to clarify—are you Mr. Higgins or Reverend Gabriel?” I asked.

“I’m Bill Higgins.” He gaped at his surfer-looking reflection, clad in minister’s clothes, that stared back at him from the mirror on the wall. “I think. What has he done to me?”

Jonathan kept his palms up. “Just trying to convince you I’m real, sir. If you sit down, I’d be happy to give you your body back.”

Ten minutes later, Jonathan was back inside the minister and Mr. Higgins had his body back. He made the call to his contacts for us, and discovered that Owen’s source had been correct about the secret operation on Treasure Island producing artificial bodies for war time. Unfortunately, his source had been wrong that the military was running it.

A private organization was leasing the land, creating the artificial bodies, and planning to sell them to the government at a very high profit. Which sounded like a very good business for a private company. Unfortunately for us, it left us no inside way to sneak on the premises.

****

All of our hopes had seriously deflated as Jonathan, Owen, Brynne and I left Nicole’s house and walked to our cars. Nicole’s dad seemed to understand our dire situation now, so the possibility of Nicole being sent off to military was off the table. But there was no way he’d let her hang out with us tonight. Not that it mattered at this point, since we had no idea what we were going to do.

Owen kicked a pebble off the walkway. “I can’t believe my source was inaccurate about it being a military operation.”

“
That
is the part you’re focusing on?” Brynne snapped, apparently disenchanted with Owen for the first time in her life. She stared at him like he was lame. “Jonathan needs one of those artificial bodies, and we have no inside contact to get us on base.”

The corners of Owen’s mouth turned down. “I’m aware that’s the priority. I was just expressing my thoughts. Why are you so upset with me?”

“Forget it,” she said, shaking her head.

Jonathan stopped when we reached the sidewalk. “Look, I don’t want my situation to cause any tension between you guys. We tried and it didn’t work, but we shouldn’t be upset with each other.”

I wanted to tell Jonathan that Brynne’s annoyance was caused by way more than one little annoying comment from Owen. Brynne crossed her arms, refusing to look in Owen’s direction.

“I could call another one of my sources,” Owen said.

Jonathan shook his head. “Thanks for offering, but it’s getting late. You guys have better things to do than chase down another contact for me. They probably wouldn’t have any connection to the secret operation anyway since it’s privately owned.”

“Jonathan’s right,” I said, taking in the surprised looks on everyone’s faces. I was done messing around when Jonathan’s existence was at stake. “Let’s just go to Treasure Island and check it out our ourselves.”

“That could be considered trespassing.” Jonathan peered at me, and I saw his eyes full of worry. For a moment, the reverend’s eyes seemed to glow emerald green, like the eyes of the boy in the news article.

Owen’s car keys jingled as he pulled them from his pocket. “Reconnaissance is an excellent idea. I’m in,” he said, firmly.

Brynne raised her chin. “I’m coming, too.”

“No, Brynne.” I turned to her, feeling so grateful to have her as my friend. Not only did she have complete faith in me about what happened with Owen, but now she was willing to trespass onto private property for me. “I know how strict your parents are and I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble. Thanks for offering, but you should go home.”

Instead of agreeing, Brynne’s hands shot to her hips, and she scoffed. “I’m done being the perfect girl my parents want me to be. I get straight As, I’m captain of the cheerleading squad, and I’ve never broken curfew in my life. But still they don’t pay attention to me. They only care about how I make
them
look. That’s wrong.”