The Displaced Detective: A Body Hopper Tale -Part 1
by Limbo’s Mistress

“Here you go, Detective” the barista behind the counter said with a little smile. “One double espresso latte with whole milk.”

I returned the smile as I reached out to take the cup of steaming coffee. “Thanks,” I said.

The pretty young clerk smiled again and turned to help her next customer, leaning slightly over the counter. Instinctively, my eyes slid down to admire her pert rear showcased by a pair of tight jeans.

After a brief, yet appreciating glance, I turned my eyes away, feeling a little ashamed. After all, despite being a perfectly lovely example of the feminine form, the girl working the café’s counter was several decades my junior. Ogling her bottom only reinforced the realization that I was turning into a dirty old man.

I took a sip of my coffee, heading across the floor toward the exit. The caffeinated goodness surged down my gullet and into my bloodstream, giving me a much-needed energy boost. I’d only managed about two hours of sleep in the last four days, trying to wrap my mind around my current case.

I knew the answer to the mystery was right before me, and I hoped the espresso would allow me to crack it open soon.

Stepping through the door, I emerged onto a busy downtown sidewalk. Even though it was still early on a Tuesday morning, the plethora of shops and offices attracted citizens in droves. I even had to perform a little spin to keep from getting run over by a briskly-walking mother pushing a stroller before her.

“Sorry,” she called out, not bothering to slow down. Her brown ponytail swayed wildly with her quick steps.

I sighed and shook my head, watching the parent zig-zag through the throngs in her path. Maybe she was late for a doctor’s appointment. Or perhaps she wanted to get in her morning exercise before heading back home in time to put the baby down and have some lunch. Hell, for all I knew she was on her way to one of the many restaurants in the area, meeting her husband for a family lunch date.

Another sigh, heavier this time, came through my lips.

I’d been a lifelong bachelor. Now, watching the young mother vanish into the crowd, I once again realized that the family life would never be for me.

Being a police officer in a large city meant a job filled with danger. Being a homicide detective meant work hours that were completely unpredictable. While working on a tough case, I sometimes only made it home just long enough to shower and change clothes. Too many of my buddies had seen their own marriages fall apart under the strain.

Being married to a cop, was something I’d never had the heart to inflict on any of the women I’d dated. It just wasn’t fair to them.

With a shake of my head, I moved down the busy sidewalk to where I’d parked my car. The late August morning was sunny, with just the barest hint of a breeze to make the temperature comfortable. As such, the streets were more crowded than normal.

I set the coffee cup down on the car’s roof while I fished the keys out of my pocket. My fingers had just pulled them free when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a commotion taking place down the block.

Turning around, I watched as someone fell backward onto the curb, as if knocked aside by a much-larger person. Immediately after, a couple of other were jostled to the side. Whoever was heading in my direction didn’t seem to give a crap about the rules of sidewalk etiquette.

As the disturbance came closer, I slipped my keys back into my pocket before away from the vehicle and back onto the sidewalk. My first instinct was a purse snatcher or a pick pocket was doing their best to escape with their ill-gotten gains, unconcerned about hurting someone else in their getaway attempt.

Strangely though, I also noticed there were no screams of “help!” or “stop, thief!” If the perp was truly fleeing from the owner of whatever they’d pilfered, the sounds of dismay should usually be right behind.

The clump of pedestrians a dozen yards away from my position leapt aside as the source of the commotion broke though. For a second, I was stunned by what I saw.

A girl, probably no more than sixteen or so, burst through the crowd, stumbling a bit as her right shoulder collided with a rather heavy set man. Golden blonde hair, glimmering in the morning sun, flew back behind her as she sprinted full-speed in my direction.

She was dressed in the pleated skirt and blazer combination of one of the area’s private schools, though she didn’t seem to be carrying a backpack or a purse. As she grew closer, I noticed that her eyes, a brilliant shade of green, were wide with what was either fear or panic. She didn’t seem to notice me, nor the shiny badge on my belt. Instead, she continued to sprint along the sidewalk, her black shoes slapping loudly on the concrete.

She glanced over her shoulder, looking back in the direction from which she’d come. I followed her gaze to see the crowd parting again, this time to allow a large man in a black leather jacket, faded jeans, and a pair of mirrored sunglasses, to step through.

The running girl turned her face forward again. This time, there was no mistaking the fear in her pretty face. Not fear. Sheer terror. Definitely not the expression one would find on a common thief afraid of being caught.

It was the kind that someone would wear when terrified for their life.

As if to re-affirm my deduction, the man in the sunglasses reached beneath his jacket and brought out a large handgun. He raised his arm, sighting down the barrel at the fleeing teen’s back.

I surged forward, one hand reaching for my own pistol, tucked securely in the holster under my shoulder while the other reached out toward the girl. Even as my fingers wrapped around the grip, I knew I had moved far too late.

The business end of the man’s weapon jerked up slightly from the shot’s recoil. A half-second later, the schoolgirl arched her back, as if she’s been punched between her shoulder blades. Her mouth dropped open in a cry of pain as she was hit. Her feet stumbled, sending the petite form tumbling toward the hard sidewalk.

I managed to catch her around the waist before she could face-plant on the concrete. At the same time, I yanked the Glock free from its mooring and pointed it at the man.

“Police!” I yelled, aiming at his torso. “Drop the gun and get on the ground!”

The shooter finally turned his attention from the girl to me, seeming to notice me for the first time. The barrel of his weapon didn’t swing in my direction, but the smirk on his face indicated he didn’t consider me much of a threat.

“Drop the gun!” I yelled, louder this time, mostly as a warning to the civilians around the perp to get the hell out of the way. I was a pretty decent shot, but there was too big of a chance of hitting one of the clueless pedestrians.

The girl in my arms moaned, drawing my attention for a moment from the gun-wielding man. I turned her over a bit, expecting to see a large, smoldering hole in her back and the scarlet flow of her lifeblood leaving her body. Instead, I discovered a tranquilizer dart lodged into the skin of her back. It was only about the size of a house key and had a dark blue plumed stabilizer.

I glanced up from the girl to see the man had broken open his weapon and was in the process of loading another round. Before he could snap the slide closed and fire again, a Good Samaritan, in the form of a burly-looking construction worker, clocked him across the head with a wicked-looking wrench. The girl’s attacker crumpled to the sidewalk like a house of cards in a strong wind.

A hand touched my face, drawing my attention back down to the girl in my arms. She had turned her face to look up at me. There was a ton of sadness in those green eyes. As if they’d seen far too much for someone of her youth.

“You’re going to be okay,” I told her, brushing some blonde strands out of her face. In the distance, I could hear the whine of approaching sirens. The Calvary was on the way.

Her gaze rolled around, losing focus as whatever drugs had been in the dart ran rampant through her system. I said a silent prayer that the man’s intention had been only to render her unconscious. If the contents were deadly, I doubted the teen would survive until help arrived.

I glanced back up to see that the construction worker was sitting on top of the unconscious man. He looked over in my direction and gave me a thumbs-up gesture. I opened my mouth to tell him to make sure the man’s gun was out of reach. Just in case he woke up before my colleagues were on the scene. However, before I could say a single word, a soft hand pressed against my cheek.

Turning my face down, I found myself looking into the girl’s emerald-colored eyes.

“I’m sorry about this,” she whispered, not taking her gaze from mine. “I really am.”

I started to ask what she was sorry about, but a sudden wave of vertigo rolled through me. The world spun around as if I’d just stepped out of the center of a micro-tornado. For the briefest of seconds, I thought I was looking up at myself, my lips curled down in a disappointed frown.

Then the darkness claimed me.

* * * * * * * * * *

I noticed the rave taking place in my head before anything else.

One moment, I was completely unconscious, unaware of anything. The next, an agonizing throbbing bolted through my temples, dragging me up from the depths of the abyss. I opened my eyes, wincing from the brilliance of the light that rushed in and sent the pulsating beat in my noggin all the way to eleven.

I squeezed them closed again, breathing rapidly as I tried to focus past the searing headache. After several moments of getting myself under control, I finally cracked the lids open again, this time turning my head slightly. The action caused a wave of nausea to slam into my gut, but I swallowed back the bile, reclosed my eyes, and breathed through the sensation until it passed.

Then I tried again.

I opened my eyes to see I was in a hospital room. The walls were a bright yellow color that reminded me of daffodils. There was a white privacy curtain on a silver track set in the ceiling and a television on the far wall. It was turned to one of the national news networks. Glancing at the information scrolling across the bottom of the screen, I noticed it was the same day as the incident outside the café. Good. That meant I hadn’t been unconscious too long.

Turning my head some more, I could see the sky on the other side of the room’s windows was painted in deep reds and purples. Evening.

When I shifted beneath the sheet, which was a lot scratchier than the ones I used at home, I realized something wasn’t right. I lifted my head to look down at myself, wondering what I might find. After all, something had led to me being in the hospital. I just couldn’t remember much past looking down at the girl in my arms.

Had the guy who looked like a reject Terminator shot me with a dart as well? At that thought, the memory of the gorilla-sized man wearing a yellow hard hat smacking mirror-shades with a wrench came rushing back to me. The girl’s attacker hadn’t had the chance to take another shot.

Not at her, nor at me.

If I wasn’t shot, then why did I black out and require hospitalization? Right on the heels of that came an even bigger question: why the hell was I cuffed to the bed?

But not one bit of my previous history prepared me for what I saw.

One end of the shiny restraints was wrapped around the curved metal of the bed’s frame. The other encircled a wrist. Not my wrist, because my wrist was a lot thicker than the dainty one that seemed to be attached to the end of my arm. And my fingers were not slender and painted a dark shade of pink.

I flexed my arm, staring as the tiny, nearly hairless limb tugged against the shackles. The pounding in my head, which had started to recede, picked up in tempo. Along with my heartbeat.

Finally tearing my gaze from the wrongness of my right arm, I looked to the rest of my body. As much as I hadn’t expected to see what I had when I looked at my arm, I was even less prepared to discover the obvious outline of a pair of feminine breasts beneath the sheet covering me. As my breath entered and left my lungs, the mounds beneath the thin linen rose and fell in synchronization.

I blinked several times, trying to process the impossible situation. Before I could get much past the fact that I wasn’t actually having a nightmare, the sound of someone moving drew my attention to the other side of the bed.

“You’re awake,” said a very familiar voice.

I turned my head to see myself sitting in a chair, an open magazine sitting on my lap. I was still dressed in the same the gray slacks and light blue dress shirt I’d put on that morning. There was a small rip in one of the knees of the pants. I brought my gaze up from my duplicate’s attire to look at his face.

The me siting in the chair, whom I suspected was not a drug-induced hallucination, held up his hand.

“Please do us both a favor and don’t scream,” he said, leaning forward. He glanced over at the open door for a second before turning back to me and lowering his voice. “I’ve been waiting for hours for you to wake up so we could talk alone. If you start yelling and screaming, it’s going to bring in a bunch of people. That would not be good for either of us.”

I had opened my mouth to ask what had happened to me and why I was looking at myself. However, the questions, which no doubt would have been voice rather loudly, stopped long before they could exit my mouth. Instead, I looked over at the closed door of the room for a moment, then nodded before looking back at him.

“What’s going on?” I asked in a voice barely above conversation volume. Surprisingly, I wasn’t totally stunned to hear my tone was higher than I was accustomed. Years on the job had given me the ability to compartmentalize my emotions and operate strictly from a point of detached logic. In this case, I appeared to have a female body, so it would only be logical to have a voice that matched.

Of course, I wasn’t sure how long my calm was going to last.

“Well,” the me sitting in the chair said. “Let’s start with the obvious. You’ve noticed that you’re not in your own body, right?”

“Of course,” I said dryly, my new voice made me sound more like petulant teen than a seasoned detective. “That much was a given. Care to tell me how I ended up in the body of that girl from the street? I mean, it is her body I’m in, right?”

The man who looked like me nodded his head. “Correct.”

My mind flashed back to the hand pressed against my cheek, the pity in those green eyes, the softly mumbled apology, … and the image of looking up at myself before blacking out.

“Or would it be more appropriate to say that I am in your body?” I arched a brow, though I wasn’t sure if it carried the same weight as it had before.

The man wearing my face nodded. “Very astute, Detective Rollins. I’m pleased the transference didn’t scramble your brains into mush.” A small smile played across his mouth. It was an expression I couldn’t ever recall making.

I frowned in response, though something told me it came across as more of a pout. “Well, thank heaven for small favors.” I locked eyes with the body snatcher and tugged on the handcuffs. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, do you mind?”

He looked at the metal shackles and reached into my pants pocket to produce a set of keys. Selecting one of the smaller ones on the ring, he stood up and approached the bed. Right before leaning over, he gave me a dubious glance.

“You aren’t going to attack me, are you? If I remove the cuffs?”

I rolled my eyes, stiffening as soon as the gesture was complete. I never did that. In fact, it was a long-ingrained opinion that people who did roll their eyes deserved a good smack. Drawing in a slow breath, I held it for a moment before answering.

“No,” I said, trying to keep my tone as non-threatening as possible. “I didn’t plan on it.” I gestured at my new, more petite form with my free hand. “Besides, do I look like I could actually hurt you if I did?”

The Not-Me shrugged. “You might be a lot smaller and weaker than you were, but you still have all your training and experience. For all I know, you are a black belt in a dozen different martial arts.”

I started to roll my eyes again, balling my hand into a tight fist to fight against the urge.

“I’m a homicide detective, not a damned ninja.”

He looked at me for a moment, then reached over and unlocked the cuffs. I pulled my wrist free and rubbed at the tender flesh. Those things were uncomfortable even as a guy. I could already see where I was going to have a bruise on my much more delicate skin.

“Thanks,” I said. Grabbing the rails with both hands, I pushed myself up into a sitting position. The top of the sheet slipped down to reveal the generic blue hospital gown covering my body. The weight on my chest shifted, indicating that I wasn’t wearing anything beneath the garment.

The motion also sent loose strands of gold falling into my face. I huffed and pushed it back, only to have some of it fall back down again. Gritting my teeth together, I pointed at him.

“Well?”

A look of confusion appeared on his face. Much like the little smirk from earlier, I decided I didn’t like that expression on my mug either. “Well … what?”

I sighed. Perhaps my brains hadn’t been stirred by the exchange, but I was beginning to think hers had. “Swap us back.”

A deep frown crossed her face. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean ‘can’t’?” I said, fighting to keep my voice from rising any higher. “You obviously were the one who switched us. Otherwise, why apologize before you did it?” I pointed at myself and then at him again. “So, put us back where we belong.”

Now it was his turn to sigh. “I can’t. The drug in that dart isn’t just to knock me out. It’s to keep me from Hopping.”

“Hopping?” I asked, staring at her. “As in hopping from body to body?”

He nodded. “Yes. Makes it easier to catch us, I suppose.”

I held up my hand. “Wait. Make it easier for who to catch you?”

“The Order of the Dawn.” He shook his head. “Before you ask, I don’t know much about them. Mostly just rumors and whispers. All I do know is that they hunt down people with special abilities. Some they kill. Others they recruit. Apparently Body Hoppers are at the top of their target list.”

I arched a brow again. “So the guy with the dart gun was one of the members of this mysterious Order?” I could feel the wheels in my head beginning to turn. I never could resist following the trail of a mystery. Apparently not even when the subject was me.

“Yes. They realized I’d hopped sooner than I expected. I didn’t anticipate having to run in a skirt and dress shoes.”

I stared at him for a few seconds, turning his words over in my mind.

“So, this body,” I said, waving my hand at the teenage girl I’d become. “This isn’t yours? Like, your original one?”

He shook his head. “When I woke up this morning, I was a thirty-three-year old Asian investment banker. I was on my way to meet with a client when the Order grabbed me.”

I nodded, indicating for him to continue.

“They came after me while I was standing on the corner waiting for my Uber to arrive. I fought them off as long as I could before one of them managed to stab me with a syringe. As soon as I realized what they were planning, I panicked.” He shrugged his shoulders again. “There was a young girl standing on the corner next to the car. Apparently the commotion of the abduction had piqued her interest. We locked eyes and …”

I sighed, leaning my head back into the pillow, remembering the way the teen had looked into my own eyes before the world went wacky. “And you hopped into her to get away?”

“Yeah.” There was shame in his voice. Regret that sounded sincere. “I switched with her and took off running down the street. Their car drove off for about half a block before stopping. I guess she must have started screaming about losing her body before the drug knocked her out.”

“That’s when Mr. Aviators started chasing you through downtown?”

“Mr. Who?”

“Aviators. The mirrored sunglasses the perp was wearing are called Aviators.”

He nodded. “The Order wears those for protection. A Body Hopper has to be able to look into their target’s eyes in order to swap. The mirrored glass prevents the exchange from happening.”

A sense of dread passed through me. “Oh shit.” I sat back up and looked at him. “If you just reacted in a panic when you, uh, hopped, then you don’t know who I am, do you?”

I received a contrite look in response. I didn’t like the way it sat on my face.

“Lieutenant John Rollins, right? Metro City Homicide.”

The eye roll happened before I could stop it. “No, genius,” I snapped. “Not that me. This me.” I tapped the center of my chest. “This body you stole and subsequently stuck me in. Who is she? Like, her name?”

He shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t really get the opportunity to check her backpack for her student ID. I was a little preoccupied with running for my life.”

I opened my mouth to say something harsh, but closed it without making a remark. I had to remember that this guy wasn’t an officer with training. He was a civilian.

“Okay,” I said after a minute. “Let me ask you something. Do you think this Order is still gunning for you?”

He didn’t hesitate in responding. “I’ve no doubt about it. Especially since chasing me has put one of their members in the emergency room.”

I thought about the construction worker and his big wrench. “Yeah, I saw him get taken down hard.”

“Massive head trauma. Doctors aren’t sure he’s going to live. Much less wake up.”

I nodded. “If that’s the case, some of them might show up to check on him. They might also ask about a young girl who came in at the same time.” I nodded my head at the small closet on the other side of the room. “I need to get dressed and we need to get the fuck out of here.”

I threw back the covers, blinking stupidly for a moment as ten toes sporting hot pink polish stared back at me. Then I shook my head and turned to slide off the bed. My heart hammered in my chest as I realized that, just for a second, I thought the color was particularly cute.

I shoved the thought away like a live grenade. Because I was sure, as the Bard once wrote, “that way madness lies”.

Walking over to the closet, I opened it and was rewarded, if I could call it that, with the discovery that the private school uniform was hanging up inside. Sighing, I grabbed the clothes, tossed them on the bed, and grabbed the hem of the gown.

As I started to pull it up, I looked over to see my own eyes staring at me. Watching my actions with an air of interested curiosity.

“Really?” I said, dropping the gown back down to automatically plant a hand on my hip. “We need to get gone, like, ASAFP and you want to enjoy an underaged peep show?”

He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, then shook his head. The redness of his cheeks told me just how much I’d shamed him. Good.

“I’ll, uh, wait outside the door,” he stammered.

I waited until the door closed behind him before resuming my change of clothing. Pulling off the gown, I was thankful that the orderlies hadn’t removed the panties along with the bra. I felt guilty enough looking down at the breasts of a high school girl I didn’t even know. I certainly didn’t want to have to face any other intimate parts of her anatomy.

I pulled on the skirt, zipping it up the side. Even though the bottom reached almost to my knees, it seemed a whole lot shorter. I tugged down on the hem, but the material didn’t stretch.

“Get a grip,” I said softly. “It’s a damned skirt. It’s supposed to be sort of short.”

The bra was next. Picking it up, I studied the straps and clasp for a moment. Sure, I’d removed plenty of these from women over the decades. Putting one on myself shouldn’t pose that much of a problem. I thought about it for a second, then remembered a trick my girlfriend from college had used. I grabbed the thick side straps and pulled them around my navel, hooking the ends together. Then I turned the contraption around, slipped my arms down through the shoulder straps, and pulled the cups up onto my chest.

Of course, I wasn’t as smooth as Kara had been. One of the cups folded when I pulled it up, leaving me with half and exposed boob. Sighing, I tucked myself back in tightly, grabbed the white blouse and black knee-socks, and finished getting dressed. Slipping my feet into the scuffed black shoes, I picked up the blazer and looked at the crest embroidered on the left breast pocket.

St. Pius X Academy. The most prestigious private school in the state.

Shit. No only had Mr. Investment Banker swapped me into a stolen body, he’d obviously had the bad fortune to pick one that belonged to a well-to-do family. The longer we hung around the hospital, the likelier someone would figure out who Detective Rollins' Jane Doe really was.

I had no intentions of facing the Order of the Dawn or the parents of the girl I currently was.

I slipped into the blazer and cracked opened the door.

Not-Me was standing with his back to the room, sweeping his head back and forth to survey both ends of the hall. I waited until he gave me a quick nod before stepping outside the room.

The hospital was a commotion of activity, with nurses and orderlies rushing back and forth, conferring with people in white lab coats. The volume certainly helped to explain why no one had come to check on me during my time of new self-discovery. Given the hectic pace of the obviously overworked nurses, it made sense why an otherwise healthy girl who was simply unconscious would be low on their list of priorities.

Especially if said girl had a member of law enforcement sitting by her side.

“Let’s go,” I said to the man wearing my face, nodding my head toward the bright red exit sign in the opposite direction of the busy nurses’ station.

I started toward the door to freedom, getting several paces ahead of my body when I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I spun around to see he was looking back at the room we’d just vacated. It took me a second, but I noticed the door I’d closed when we left was now open.

Listening to the warning sensation of my gut, I turned and resumed my egress. Only this time, at a much faster pace. Just as I put my hands on the bar running across the front of the door, I heard someone at the end of the hall yell.

“Hey! Where are you going? Get back here!”

I pushed the door open, turning my head to look past the man behind me to the hospital room. Standing there right outside the open door were two men. One was an older gentleman in a long, white coat, a clipboard in his hands. Obviously, the doctor assigned to Little Miss Jane Doe. From the look on his face, I assumed he had been the one to call out to us.

The other man, who wore mirrored sunglasses and held a walkie-talkie in his hand, began to march in our direction. I couldn’t see where his eyes were focused, but I couldn’t shake the sensation that his attention was directed solely at me.

For a brief second, I considered the option of having us stand our ground. I usually made it a point not to run from trouble. I was a cop, after all, even if I was currently inhabiting a teeny-bopping schoolgirl. However, I couldn’t be completely sure the man wearing my face would be able to be convincing enough to pull off actually being me.

Then again, if Not-Me pulled his badge and managed to take control of the situation, the two of us would still end up in a small room in the downtown precinct, being grilled with questions neither one of us really wanted to answer.

“Go!” I said to my doppelganger and pushed open the door. The white metal steps of the stairway went down to another door, also marked as an exit.

I took the steps two at a time, momentarily enjoying the heady rush of youthful vigor and agility. Other than the way my small breasts bounced around, I found the return of my vitality to be something wonderful. The man behind me surged past, slamming open the door with his shoulder. The impact made me wince.

“Careful, doofus. That’s my body you’re banging around, you know.”

He shot me a worried glance, then reached down to grab my hand.

“Well, if they catch us, they’ll probably put a bullet in it.” He ran down the sidewalk toward the parking lot, practically dragging me behind him. “Unless they take us alive and discover that the person they’re after is now in you. Then they’ll probably put the bullet right between your blonde pigtails.”

I stumbled with the thought of dying in this body, feeling the chill run through my blood.

Fortunately, my companion managed to keep me on my feet as we left the sidewalk and rushed past the sea of cars parked in the hospital’s lot. The streetlamps, arranged in neat rows, created little circles of light. We fled across the asphalt, sliding in and out of the shadows.

“Please tell me you didn’t ride in the ambulance,” I said in a voice that struck me as way too whiny. “Please, please, please tell me you drove my car here.”

Before he could answer, the sight of my dark gray sedan came into view. Barely suppressing a gleeful yelp, I pulled my hand free and raced to the driver’s side. Not-Me came rushing along right behind me, sparing one quick glance over his shoulder to check for any followers.

“Quick, give me the keys.” I said, holding out my hand.

He shook his head as he came up next to me. Pulling the keys out of his pocket, he unlocked the door and pulled it open. When I scrambled inside and stopped behind the wheel, he didn’t wait for me to get the hint. Sliding in right behind me, his larger bulk easily pushed me over the leather seat and into the passenger side.

I shot him a glare of pure annoyance.

“Like, what the fuck, dude?” I asked. Then I slapped my hand over my mouth, my eyes widening in horror.

He nodded grimly as he pulled the door closed and fired up the engine. “Yeah, I was afraid that was going to happen,” he said in a sympathetic voice. “I noticed it earlier.

Without so much as a warning, he dropped the car into gear and peeled rubber out of the parking lot. I barely managed to get my seatbelt clicked securely before we emerged onto the lightly trafficked street and zoomed down the road.

I glanced into the mirror on the side of my door, seeing no other vehicles racing to catch up to us. Then I looked over at myself.

“Noticed what? I asked, my pulse starting to quicken with an alien emotion. Fear. “What is happening?”

“There are certain … consequences … to Hopping. Certain changes.”

My already racing pulse shot into the redline as my mind rolled through everything I’d said and done and felt since waking up in that hospital bed. Before the words left his mouth, I already knew what he was going to say.

“Being in that body has already started to corrupt your mind.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You’re beginning to turn into her.”