Aspen grins, and that’s enough of that conversation.

 

“She seems different.”

I spin around at the sound of Aspen’s voice. I thought I was alone in the kitchen.

“What do you mean?” I ask cautiously.

“Better,” she says. “It’s like I finally have my sister back. Good call bringing her here. I think it’s helped her.”

I blow out a subtle release of air. “Yeah. Yeah, she’s definitely much better.”

“She looks tired, though. And she’s lost weight.”

I nod. “I’m keeping an eye on her. Like she said, she had the flu last week.”

“The flu?” Aspen asks with a tilt of her head. “She just told me it was food poisoning.”

Shit.

Layla and I need to make sure our lies align in the future.

I nod once. “Yeah. That too. Shitty week.” I grab my cell phone and Aspen follows me as I head outside, where Layla and Chad are.

Layla is seated at the patio table, next to a heating lamp I turned on after dinner. Chad is sitting at the edge of the pool with his feet in the water. I heated the pool yesterday when we realized they were coming.

I walk over to Layla and press a kiss to the top of her head before sitting down next to her. She grabs my hand and smiles at me.

We spend the next half hour pretending our worlds are right side up. We laugh at Aspen’s and Chad’s jokes. We force ourselves to appear relaxed. We even make plans to go on a road trip with them in two months.

A road trip we know can’t happen if we don’t figure out a way to solve this.

It hits me as I’m sitting here—why Layla is willing to risk her life in order to get her life back.

It’s because she doesn’t have a life at all while she’s stuck in this house at Sable’s mercy.

We can’t risk leaving this place when Layla is merely a temporary possessor of her own body. And what would life be like for Layla if I forced her to remain in our current setup? She’d be a visitor to this world . . . at Sable’s mercy. We’ll never be able to leave. We won’t even be able to take the trip we just planned to take with Aspen and Chad in two months.

This is it. This will be her life. Exhausted and imprisoned.

I’m pulled out of my own thoughts when Layla laughs loudly.

I catch myself staring too hard at her every now and then, but I’m fascinated watching her just be herself, even if she is forcing it. But there are moments—a split second here and there—when I forget this isn’t our normal.

But it’s not our normal. Hanging out with her sister can never be normal. It’ll have to be meticulously planned. She’ll never get to leave this place with Aspen.

Even their visits here can never be normal. When Chad and Aspen go to bed tonight, Layla is either going to have to figure out how to stay awake all night in order to prevent Sable from taking back over, or I’m going to have to figure out how to keep Sable quiet if she wakes up while Chad and Aspen are still in this house.

Maybe that’s why Layla put Chad and Aspen in the downstairs bedroom. That way, if Sable were to take over momentarily while they’re here, they might not hear any commotion from Sable before Layla can slip back into her.

“Layla told me you put in an offer on this place?” Aspen asks, looking at me. I must have been tuned out of their conversation, because I’m not sure what led to this question.

I nod. “Yeah, last week. Should be closing soon.”

“I hope you know we’re going to be here all the time. Wichita isn’t that far away, and I miss this place.” She looks at Layla. “I even miss you,” she says teasingly.

Layla smiles and reaches out, squeezing Aspen’s hand. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you too. I can’t wait for everything to go back to normal.” Her words are sweet, but Aspen has no idea how much double meaning lies behind them.

Layla’s back is to the pool, so she doesn’t notice when Chad gets out of the water and makes his way to the deep end. He backs up until he’s about ten feet from the pool. Then he takes off his shirt and starts sprinting toward the water. He jumps, wrapping his arms around his knees, and yells right before he makes a huge splash.

Layla’s whole body jerks from the unexpected commotion behind her.

Almost immediately, I see the change. It’s like I can tell the exact moment when Layla slips out of her body now.

I freeze when I recognize Sable has taken over. The unexpected splash in the pool must have startled Layla, like the night the lightning scared her.

Sable’s eyes widen, and she looks over her shoulder, sitting straight up in her chair. She stands up suddenly, knocking her chair backward. “What the . . . ?” She looks down at her arms, then up at the house. “How did I get outside?”

I stand up immediately and try to slip between her and Aspen, but Sable takes a quick step back. “Don’t you dare come near me!” she screams at me.

Shit.

Aspen stands now. “Layla? What’s wrong?”

Sable continues to back away from me. She points at me while looking frantically at Aspen. “He’s drugging me! He won’t let me leave!” I shake my head, ready to defend myself, but before I can open my mouth, Sable pulls one of her shirtsleeves up, revealing the bandage on one of her wrists. “He keeps me tied up!”

I lunge toward her to stop her, but before I reach her, her arm falls to her side and her eyes close. I stand in front of her, gripping her shoulders, trying to shield her from Aspen’s view. Layla inhales a slow breath, and then she calmly opens her eyes. I see the fear pool in her face.

“What is wrong?” Aspen says, her voice louder and full of panic. “What do you mean he’s drugging you?” Aspen pushes herself between me and Layla, breaking us apart.

Aspen is holding Layla’s face in her hands, trying to get her to look at her and not me.

I grip the sides of my head and take a step back. I have no idea how she’s going to explain this slipup.

Layla’s eyes are wide, as if she’s struggling to figure out a way out of this. I have no idea what to say. Aspen looks over her shoulder and glares at me as if I’m a monster.

“Just . . . kidding?” Layla says, completely unconvincing.

“Wh . . . what?” Aspen says.

Chad is sloshing over to us now, his jeans leaving puddles of water behind him. “What’s going on?”

Aspen points at Layla. “She . . . she just said Leeds is drugging her. And keeping her tied up.”

“I was kidding,” Layla says, looking back and forth between them, attempting to explain away the outburst. She’s forcing a smile, but everything is so tense now.

“That’s a weird thing to joke about,” Chad says.

“I don’t think it’s a joke,” Aspen says. “Show me your wrist again.”

Layla tucks her sleeve beneath her thumb and pulls her hand away. “It was an inside joke,” she says. She looks at me. “Tell her, Leeds.”

I don’t know what to tell her. At this point, there’s no way Aspen will believe a word that comes out of my mouth. But I nod anyway and move closer to Layla as I wrap a hand around her waist. “She’s right. It’s a weird inside joke. It’s only funny to us.”