“No.” What I’d done to him that day in my backyard was much worse. I’d stopped his heart forever. I shivered, partly at the memory and partly at how cold it was in the morgue. I guess I should at least be thankful that he didn’t remember Hades raising him in the graveyard at the school. “Please, Matt. I am Jodi. I know I look different, but it’s me. It’s really me.”

He turned and headed for the door, his movements jerky in the unfamiliar body. “Jodi!” he yelled.

“Matt!” I grabbed his arm and raised a finger to my lips to quiet him before someone came to see what was going on in the morgue. “It’s me. I’m in someone else’s body, but it’s me.”

“Are you crazy? Did someone do something to you, too? Is that what you’re trying to tell me? It wasn’t you who hurt me and Jodi? Someone else did it, and they hurt you, too?”

I shook my head, not knowing how to make him believe me. I should’ve known this would happen. But he was Matt. He knew me that night in the cemetery at school when Hades brought him back. He’d even recognized me in the Fields of Asphodel when every other part of his memory had faded away. He didn’t know himself, but he still knew me. I’d just assumed he’d know me now.

“Ask me anything. I’ll do anything to prove to you that I’m Jodi.”

“Listen, I’m sorry if you’re hurt, but you have to understand you’re not Jodi. Jodi is my girlfriend. She has brown, wavy hair and the most amazing green eyes. She looks nothing like you.” His voice was soft and sympathetic.

This wasn’t working. He thought I was some poor girl who’d wound up at the end of a prank gone wrong.

“Matt, my name is Jodi Marshall. My birthday is December eighth. My best friend is Melodie. She’s your best friend, too. She introduced us. You and I have been dating—or at least we were until—”

“Until that guy came along. Alec or something.” His face looked strained as he struggled with the memory.

“Alex. His name is Alex.”

“I hate that guy. He tried to hurt Jodi.”

Damn it. He still didn’t believe I was me. Not even after I’d spouted all that off. “How would I know all this if I wasn’t Jodi?”

“Are you friends with Alex? Did he put you up to this?” Matt’s head turned from side to side as he scanned the morgue. “Where is he? Does he have Jodi?”

“No!” I was more frustrated with myself than Matt. None of this was his fault. I looked around helplessly for an answer. My eyes fell on the steel walls. Matt would be able to see his reflection in them if I could just get him to focus on that instead of trying to find me—or what I usually looked like at least. “Come look at this.”

He put his hands up in defense. “Listen, I get that you’re upset, but—”

“Look at your reflection.” I tried to keep the annoyance out of my voice, but he wasn’t listening to me.

“My reflection?” He stared down at his hospital gown. “Where are my clothes?”

“Look at your hand, Matt. You have a birthmark on the side of your left palm, right? Or you did, but it’s not there now.”

Matt stared in horror at his hand. “What’s going on?”

“Look.” I pulled him closer to the steel wall and under the lights. He held his eyes on me for a moment before looking into it. The second he saw his reflection, he gasped. “That’s not me.”

Chapter 11

I didn’t know where to start, but at least he’d be more open to hearing the crazy things that had happened now that he saw he wasn’t in his own body.

“Am I dreaming?” Matt shook his head, still staring at his reflection—well, at Brian’s reflection. “That’s the only explanation. That’s not me. Not my face.”

“Okay, Matt, please listen to me. I am Jodi. I look different, just like you. And, no, you’re not dreaming. This is all real. It’s going to sound unbelievable, but I need you to trust me.”

He raised his eyes to me. “Jodi? It’s really you?”

I nodded, tears forming in my eyes.

He rushed over to me, pressing his lips against mine. I froze, not knowing what to do. He thought we were still together. Matt didn’t know anything about me and Alex. To him, I was still his girlfriend. I was human now, which meant that he and I could be together. That fact wasn’t lost on me, but neither was the fact that I loved Alex. Still, my unresolved feelings for Matt were lingering, keeping me from pulling out of the kiss.

My lips gently parted, and without really meaning to, I was kissing him back. This was how our first kiss should’ve been. I wouldn’t stop his heart this time. Being with him felt right. In this moment, being with Matt was what made sense.

But Alex. I slowly pulled away from Matt, leaning my head against his chest. Tears dripped onto his hospital gown. My tears. For once, I didn’t have to worry about what that would mean. I wasn’t a danger to him.

“Don’t cry. I’m here. I don’t know what happened to us, but it’ll be okay. I promise.” Great. Now he was the one reassuring me. This wasn’t at all what was supposed to happen.

“You don’t understand.” I stood up straight, trying to find the courage to break his heart. We couldn’t be together. No matter how right that kiss had felt, it couldn’t happen again. I wouldn’t do that to Alex. I wouldn’t cheat on him. Crap! Technically, I already had, but I was putting an end to it now. I wasn’t the kind of girl to kiss another guy behind her boyfriend’s back, but this was such a gray area. I was technically Matt’s girlfriend, so I’d technically cheated on him with Alex. Only Matt had died, and that sort of ended our relationship, whether he was aware of it or not. Now, I was Alex’s girlfriend, and here I was kissing Matt. Ugh! I hated technicalities. There wasn’t room for them when it came to human emotions.

“Jodi, what is it? Do you know what happened to us?” He was looking at me like he just wanted to make things better—for me. All he cared about was me. God, this was going to be so hard.

“We’re in other people’s bodies. I promise I’ll explain everything, but right now we need to get out of here without anyone seeing us.”

“How? We’re in hospital gowns, and we don’t have money to take a cab anywhere.”

He was right. I looked around, spotting the files at the ends of our gurneys. I pulled out Liz’s. “Elizabeth Roseman. It says she didn’t have any living relatives.”

Matt pulled Brian’s file. “Brian Gehris. That’s whose body I’m in?”

“Yes.”

Matt shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around everything I was telling him. “Personal belongings. He must have had a wallet on him when he died, right? The file says he was killed in a car accident.”

I looked around again, wondering if they’d have personal belongings stored in here to return to the families. Not likely. This place was empty, sterile. “There’s nothing here.”

“Okay, then how about…” Matt walked to the closet in the corner and pulled out some hospital scrubs and white sneakers.

“Perfect!” I motioned for Matt to turn around while I got dressed. Just like always, he was a perfect gentleman. My sneakers were big, but they’d do. Once we were both outfitted like hospital staff, we checked the hall and prepared to make our exit. We had to get out of there before someone came for the bodies. They wouldn’t leave them here for long, or they’d decay. That also meant we had to get out of this town quickly so no one recognized Liz and Brian suddenly walking around after being pronounced dead. I could see the back exit, and judging by the darkness on the other side of the window, it was night. That would help. We kept our heads down and walked out of the morgue as if we worked there. We even took Liz and Brian’s files and pretended to study them to avoid talking to anyone we passed on the way out.

Outside, we ditched the files in the dumpster and walked down the road and across the street to a cemetery, of all places. At least I felt at home in one of those.