Too Broke For Afterlife

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"Judy."

I groan as somebody grabs my shoulders, shaking me awake.

"No," I mumble, pressing my face into the pillow. 

Just five more minutes, let me go back to sleep.

"Get up," the person hisses.

Once my brain starts working and I recognize the voice, my eyes shoot open.

I'm staring right at Isabella, bent down to my sleeping bag.

"Oh my god."

She furrows her brows. "What?"

I look into her face, trying to find a hint to whether I'm still dreaming or not.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"Are you real?"

Isa blinks a few times. "Yes?"

"Am I dreaming?"

"I highly doubt it."

"That's not a definite answer."

She rolls her eyes. "You're not dreaming, you are awake. And you need to get up now."

I look around and recognize the hotel's basement. No more bedroom action.

Okay but I have to do just one more test.

"Can you take off your shirt?"

Isa stares at me.

"No?"

"Okay, good."

I push her away in order to get up.

"Where are the others?"

"In the hotel room. Why did you just ask me to-"

"It doesn't matter. Should we go to them?"

I check what I'm wearing. Shirt and shorts. Just like I did in the dream. And suddenly I feel really awkward. 

I almost had sex with my ex. Without her knowing. 

And as much as I hate myself for it, I really want to go back to sleep and continue from where we left off. But there is no time for that. 

"Put on some clothes and then come to room 383. We'll be waiting there."

Isabella leaves me alone and I hurry to throw together an outfit. 

All my brain is screaming is sex, sex, sex. Goddammit, hopefully I can somehow distract myself. 

A few minutes later with brushed hair and a slap in the face, I leave the basement. 

Now I will have to be really careful. Walter hasn't gotten around to programming the hotel room into the teleportation device, therefore I have to walk.

Walter hacked into the security cameras so that's a huge advantage but if any employee sees me come up the stairs, our secret hiding spot will be revealed and we will be in huge trouble. 

The stairs up the basement lead to a small hallway so luckily there is not a lot of traffic.

Once I arrive at the door, I press my ear against it. 

I can hear two people talking which means I'll have to wait until they are gone. 

Boring. If I could at least hear what they are saying.

I decide to use the wait to sort my thoughts. 

What happened last night was more or less a mistake but now I'm sucked into it and I know myself too well to say that I'll stop.

I said yes to DREAMS but that means I'll have to separate it from real life. Only that way I can build a healthy friendship with Isabella. If she finds out what's going on...I don't even want to imagine that. I might as well throw myself off the building.

The voices get quieter which lets me believe that they are walking away.

Once I can't hear them anymore, I quickly unlock the door and rush into the hallway so I can close it again. 

I look around and luckily, there is no one here. My ears did a good job.

Okay, now I just have to find room 383 and hope I don't run into any of my ex collea-

"Judy? Is that you?"

I stop in my tracks and swirl around.

"Did you dye your hair? Cute!" 

Kira walks over to me, a fake smile on her lips.

God f*cking dammit. Why did we have to change bodies yesterday? Couldn't I have stayed Olivia for a bit longer?

"H-hey."

"What are you doing here? Are you back on our team?"

F*cking hell. I don't have time for small talk.

"No, I'm...visiting someone. Let's talk later, okay? I'm in a bit of a hurry, sorry."

I turn to leave but she grabs my arm.

"Wait. Judy…"

"Yes?"

Kira clears her throat. 

"You and I are friends, right?"

"Uhm…"

We never talk. I don't have her number. I don't even know her last name.

And when I was still working here, she openly bullied me for liking women.

So no?

Or is this one of those fake friendships Isa taught me about? The ones that only exist to bring each party advantages.

I'm going to regret this.

"Yes?"

"Can you do me a favor?"

Yup. Fake friendship. I called it.

"What is it?"

"It's because of Jordan…"

Not that shit again

I'm ready to come up with an excuse and leave her standing but all of a sudden, Kira starts crying. 

"I miss h-him s-so m-much!"

Completely overwhelmed with the situation, I pat her shoulder. "I'm sorry. But I really don't have time right now."

The volume of her yowling increases tenfold. 

Great, this will definitely grab attention. Attention that I really don't need.

"P-pleaseee! I need to t-talk about it!"

F*ck. What should I do?

I can't just leave her like this. 

"Can we go to your room?" She looks at me with pleading eyes.

My room. Haha. Tell another one.

"I don't think-"

"Please! Please, Judy. You need to help me!"

I sigh. "Fine. Let's go."

<<<

In front of room 383, my heart is beating faster than I ever thought it physically could.

Kira can not find out what's going on. If she does, we'll have to take her hostage as well. And the more witnesses, the worse.

I take a deep breath and knock against the door, with the wailing girl glued to my shoulder.

After a bit, the door opens and Isa sticks her head through.

"Finally! We were- oh. Uhm."

She stares at Kira. "Hi?"

"Isabella! You're here as well?"

"Yes? What are you doing here?"

Kira sniffs. "I ran into Judy and she said she'd help me."

"Really?"

Isabella throws me a death glare and I shrug my shoulders, trying to signal that I didn't have a choice.

She turns around. "Guys, we've got a...visitor."

After some rustling and running from inside the room, Isa opens the door with a sigh and lets us step inside.

The hotel room is nice but not as fancy as the suite Isa had back then. I can't spot Walter or the man they kidnapped but Parker is standing near the window, staring at Kira with wide eyes.

She barely looks at him as she falls onto the bed and starts sobbing again.

I awkwardly sit down next to her, patting her back. 

Isa raises an eyebrow. "Okay so what's going on here?"

"Do you remember Jordan?" Kira presses out. The others visibly tense up.

While side-eyeing Parker, Isabella mumbles. "Maybe we should lea-"

"He didn't return!" Kira whines. "He just left! What happened? Did you guys hear anything? You knew him after all!"

Yeah. We do know him. We actually know him pretty well. 

I'm a bad liar so I look to Isa for help.

She sighs. "I'm sorry, I did not. And I barely knew him anyway, we only spoke once or twice very briefly."

Kira nods. She looks sad and defeated. "Of course. My bad."

Seeing her this depressed makes me feel guilty in a sense even though I am not involved in this at all.

"Could I please use your toilet real quick?"

"Uhm…"

Isabella and Parker look at each other with wide eyes.

Of course. They hid the guy in the bathroom. What excuse will they come up with now?

"That's not possibly because-"

"There you go, Willy."

The bathroom door has opened and Walter comes out, pushing a man in a wheelchair.

The man is wearing a hat and sunglasses. I bet he is unconscious.

Walter looks at Kira. "Excuse me, I had to help Willy with using the toilet. These hotel bathrooms aren't very barrier free."

We all stare at him in disbelief, except for Kira who seems to believe him.

"That's okay." She gets up from the bed and makes her way to the toilet.

Once the door is closed, Walter takes a deep breath and whispers: "That was close."

"Too close." Isabella looks like she is ready to smack his face but holds back. "What now? How do we get rid of her?"

I get up from the bed. "I brought her here so I'll take care of that. Unless somebody else wants to use this chance to talk to her…"

I look straight at Parker.

He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't have anything to say."

I sigh. "Poor Kira."

He hisses. "What do you want me to say? I'm Jordan but that was just me as a ghost inside a robot? You think that would cheer her up? She is your problem now."

"Fine." I fix my clothes as I turn away.. "But you're an asshole."