Page 49 of Devil Inside

“Jordan!”

I figure it’s Lys, dragging me back to reality, but when I turn, I realize she’s still sifting through the greens. Her back is to me, leaning over the stall. It wasn’t her who called.

Who was it then? Am I just hearing things now, too? Voices?

It’s the song. The song in my head is calling out for me.

I swear someone called my name. A woman. Their voice cuts through the crowd, but when I glance around, for the life of me, I can’t spot anyone.

“Jordan!” There it is again. My name.

Who’s saying it? I search the crowd, sifting through the steady stream of faces, an endless parade of parents and couples, laughing, chatting,dripping, only to land on—

her

—a woman standing by herself. She’s facing me, wearing a pair of oval sunglasses. Smiling. I can’t help but glance past her at first. She’s not someone I recognize.

I do a double take.

I’m sure she’s looking straight at me even though I can’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses. There’s bound to be about ten yards between us, but she hasn’t moved. She’s wearing a romper the color of eggplant. Her red hair curls in tight ringlets. A dusting of freckles covers the bridge of her nose, seasoning her cheeks.

There’s blood on her face. Dried to her chin. On her teeth.

That’s blood, isn’t it?

“It’s me,” she offers.

Who is she?

Now there can be no doubt who said his name. Jordan lays his eyes upon us. The uncertain look in his eyes pierces this skin. Hurts us from the inside, a thorn at our heart.

He doesn’t know who we are. Doesn’t recognize us. Not in this skin. Not this vessel.

“It’s me,” we say.

We were wearing someone else during our last encounter. He wouldn’t know us—know me—without our former flesh. This body is new to him, just as it is for us.

“Who are you?” The look on his face curdles into something we’re not expecting.

Fear.He is afraid of us.

Perhaps he should be.

I’m lost in her face. The ruddy crust dried to her skin isn’t blood. It’s fruit juice, for fuck’s sake. Cranberries or beets orsomething. It glistens against her chin, her lips.

“I’m sorry... Do I know you?”

“Don’t you?”

The words don’t sink in. This is not what I was expecting, not what I was expecting to hear from her, this total stranger, at all. But there’s something about the way she says it, the certainty of it all, that sends this chill down my spine, even in eighty-degree weather.

I’ve never seen this woman in my life. Never met her. I don’t know who in the hell she is.

How does she know my name?

Head injury, I think. It’s possible. It’s because of my brain getting rattled around from the accident, isn’t it? Patches of my past—people’s faces—have been completely swallowed up. No getting them back now. Is that why I’m blanking on who she is?

No—I’m positive I’ve never met her before. I would remember her, I’m sure of it. Then how in hell does she know who I am?Who the fuck is she?