He teetered, as if fighting the memories. Hands closed around both of my arms, and I realized Derek had moved behind me. I could feel him there, strong and solid, his warm hands rubbing the goose bumps on my arms.

“Let him go, Chloe,” Derek murmured. “Whatever he’s saying, you don’t need to listen to it.”

“Yes,” Dr. Banks said. “Yes, you do. You don’t understand. Everything went wrong. We made mistakes. An error in the calculations-”

“With the genetic modification?”

“Yes, yes.” He waved aside my interruption. “I told them. I told them. But they ran the tests and everything seemed fine. Only it wasn’t. They manipulated the data.”

“Manipulated the data?” I said.

That got Derek’s attention. “What data?”

“For the modifications,” I said. “What does that mean?”

“They changed the data so it gave the proper results,” Derek said.

“Yes,” Dr. Banks said. “Correct. See? Even a child can understand. But they couldn’t.”

“So Dr. Davidoff manipulated the data-” I began.

“Davidoff?” Dr. Banks snorted. “A fawning puppy who does whatever he’s told.”

“So who manipulated the data?”

Dr. Banks continued like he hadn’t heard. “The experiments. Oh God, the experiments. Testing this and testing that, pushing the boundaries to discover what he could create and what he could sell. Such dreams. Mad and grandiose dreams of knowledge, power, and the fantasy of a better life for our kind. Fools that we were, we believed, and gave him free rein. He didn’t care about us. And he doesn’t care about you. That’s why it’s critically important that you-” He started to fade. “The magic in this place. You need to pull me back.”

I did, gently at first, but he kept disappearing.

“Harder. Chloe. I need to tell you-”

He faded before I could catch the rest. I summoned again. He flickered in and out, and I caught only words, none meaning anything out of context.

“He’s being pulled away,” I said.

“Let him go,” Derek said. “We’ve got enough.”

“He was trying to tell me something.”

Derek snorted. “Aren’t they all? Must be a rule in the ghost handbook-if in danger of evaporating, make sure you’re in the middle of a dire pronouncement.”

I tugged off my necklace. I handed it to Derek, but he tucked it into my pocket.

“Keep it on you, okay?”

Dr. Banks came through easier now, but he wouldn’t stay. When I ramped up the power, he said, “No, Chloe. You’ll bring Royce.” He faded, his voice pulsing in and out. “…else…try…Clear your mind…focus on me…don’t pull…just focus.”

I did. He kept talking, telling me to relax, focus not on yanking him through, but welcoming him.

The back of my skull began to throb. I kept going until a sharp, sudden pain made me gasp. I waited for Derek to ask what was wrong, but he just sat there, watching me.

Another stab through the back of my skull. Then a flood of ice-cold water rushed through my veins and I tried to scream, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t make a sound.

“Chloe?”

I heard Derek, but couldn’t even move my eyes his way.

“Do you want my help?” Dr. Banks whispered. “You need to welcome me in.”

Welcome him in? In where? I’d barely thought the question when I realized the answer.

He was trying to get inside me.

I fought, mentally trying to shove him out, shut my brain down, block him, but that ice kept spreading through me. Derek’s hand closed on my shoulder as he reached to grab the necklace from my pocket. I toppled over backward like a statue.

I caught a blur of motion, like Derek had lunged for me, but everything was fuzzy. Even his voice was distant and muffled. The only words I could hear were Dr. Banks’s, crooning inside my head.

“Just relax,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you. I’m only going to borrow your body. I need to fix this. I took the easy way out, killing myself before I’d put an end to the horrors I began.”

My mother had been warning me about Dr. Banks, that he’d been driven mad by what Royce had done, by his role in it. And now he was inside me.

I felt the floor scrape my back, saw the ceiling whoosh past, like Derek was dragging me by my ankles. The room flickered and went dark. When it popped back, I was staring at the ceiling.

“Wha-what happened?”

I felt my lips move and heard my voice, but no one answered. I got to my feet.

“Chloe, come on,” Derek said behind me. “Say something.”

“Say what?”

I turned. He was crouched across the room. A pair of legs stretched out, sneakers pointing to the ceiling. My sneakers. My legs.

I raced over. There I was, lying on the floor as Derek fumbled to get the necklace over my head. I lifted my hand. It was my hand-still covered in scratches from the forest last night.

“Derek?”

He didn’t answer. I reached for his shoulder.

My fingers passed right through it.

I was a ghost.

My eyes opened then-the eyes on my body, lying on the floor. The lips curving in a small smile that wasn’t like mine at all.

“Hey, there.” The voice coming from those lips was mine, but the tone, the inflection, were wrong.

Derek frowned, and tried getting the necklace on me again.

The other me batted his hand away. “I don’t need that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

Derek smacked my hand away and yanked the necklace over my head. The pendant hit my skin and I felt the slap of it, hot as a burning brand, and I gasped-me and my body, gasping in unison. A flash of darkness. Then I was staring at the ceiling again.

Derek’s face appeared, green eyes dark with worry.

“Chloe?”

I breathed. That was all I could do. Inhale. Exhale. I felt Derek’s hands around mine, and I focused on that.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I-I-I-”

A voice behind Derek laughed. “Do you think I can’t get back inside you? I will. Then I’ll help your friends stop the Edison Group.” Dr. Banks loomed over me, face in mine, eyes flashing with madness. “We’ll hunt down the other subjects and I’ll end their suffering, and then I’ll end your friends’. Once they’re gone, you’ll follow, and you can all be together…in the afterlife. I will finish this.”

“No, you won’t,” I said, getting up.

He smiled. “You might have the power, Chloe, but you have no idea how to use it.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

I reached out and shoved him-with my mind and with my hands, pouring all my rage into it, and for a second, I swore I actually felt him. Then he flew off his feet, sailing backward, screaming as he disappeared.

“Chloe?”

Derek touched my shoulder and I wanted to turn around, collapse against him, and tell him everything. I steeled myself against the urge and took a deep breath.

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “As soon as we can.”

As it turned out, we’d be leaving sooner than any of us dared hope. Andrew had returned, alone. Russell was gone. He’d packed and left his apartment before Andrew had got there.

We could hear Margaret and Andrew on the speakerphone with other group members. It was clear, Margaret said, that we were indeed more than they could handle, and the best way to relieve themselves of the burden was to hand us over to someone else-namely Aunt Lauren and, if they could find him, Simon’s dad.

I didn’t care that Margaret’s motivation was purely selfish-I could have run in there and hugged her.

We were leaving tomorrow, heading to Buffalo. That meant it was time to start planning in earnest. Andrew asked me to provide details of the laboratory. I tried-this was the moment I’d dreamed of-but every word was a struggle. It was like someone cut my energy cord. I was completely drained and numb.

The guys helped. Simon drew the lab floorplan as I explained. Derek got me a glass of ice water. Even Tori murmured “Are you okay?” at a break in the conversation. Only Margaret seemed oblivious, grilling me until she finally had enough and dismissed us. I made it into the parlor, walking only until I found an armchair, then curling up in it. I was asleep the second my eyes closed.