Rare Find by Dale Mayer

Ronin was at her side. Ronin? Where was he? Had that been a bad dream? Or was this the bad dream? She knew it was impossible to sort through realities if she didn't ground herself in one of them. She’d tried to ground herself in her house.
     
    But she either hadn't been – or had her ground had moved.
     
    And that terrified her. She hadn't realized that was a possibility.
     
    In the distance, she heard sounds of a door opening. Her muscles came to life. Waiting...
     
    Maybe she was at home? No. She couldn't be. She had to remember that. And if she wasn't at home, she wasn't in her own body, and therefore the muscles she could move as if her own – weren't hers.
     
    Talk about a mind bender.
     
    She had to consider that this was a possession – one where she had somehow possessed someone else. How could she have been forced to do that against her will?
     
    She'd never heard of it happening to anyone else without their effort. Of course not. That would be too easy.
     
    And that idea of possession was obviously not the whole answer because in order for her to possess someone else, they'd have to be here too.
     
    They'd have to be sharing the same body.
     
    And that just creeped her out. How could anyone drag a soul out of its body and into their own? And even if they could – why would they? That just didn't make any sense.
     
    Especially when she didn't want this.
     
    She'd never considered possession in the sense of wanting to possess another soul. She'd heard Stefan talk about other cases where possession had happened. Where someone else stepped in and took over a person's body…regardless of the original owner.
     
    Is what she was going through the same sensation of what a person trying to possess another felt like? Did they want to feel strong young muscles tightening beneath them instead of their current existence?
     
    Or was this something else again? Damn, but she wished she could see. Something. Anything. But her eyelids wouldn't open. Why? Then it hit her. Because they weren't her eyelids?
     
    Yet.
     
    A door slammed shut. She heard a muffled sound that was oddly close. Her body shifted, tightened. Apprehension rippled through her. Nausea climbed her throat. But was it hers or her host's?
     
    Separating host from visitor would be impossible if she couldn't detach. Tabitha tried to shut out the many conflicting sensations and just listen. And footsteps were striding across a hard floor toward her. Steel-toed boots on concrete maybe? At least a work boot. Heavy. So it was likely a male approaching, one with a slightly uneven gait. So she definitely wasn't at home. She could think of many other places that she'd been in this last year that might sound like this.
     
    She could sense her body – or the body she was in – tightening, as anger and panic built. The footsteps strode closer still. Her body quivered. Then a sharp clatter sounded. She jumped back. It was close. So damn close. And it wouldn't quit. As if this person walked with a pipe dragging along the side of a cage and made sure to bang on every pipe in the metal cage. Clack. Clack. Clack.
     
    Cage? Hell. Was this person, now her, a prisoner?
     
    And the footsteps would then belong to her captor. Asshole.
     
    She shuddered and felt an answering ripple from all around her. So weird. Yet in a strange way, almost comforting. She and her host were connected. Their emotions and reactions connected. It was hard to be disturbed by this as she could sense the other person's reaction to her every emotion.
     
    It meant she was not alone in this body. Only there was also some sort of disconnect between them.
     
    The sounds grew and grew and changed tone as if someone raked a pipe along several different cages. Her stomach cramped with every step taken. If he was trying to psyche her out, he was succeeding.
     
    She wanted to hide. To back into the furthest corner where he couldn't find her. But somehow she thought she might already be as far