"Excuse me?" Jessamine set her hands on her hips, hoping holding on to something would cease her sudden shaking. What had brought that on? The vision of herself with abnormally glowing blue eyes, or the fact that Avery had just claimed she was possessed?

Possessed? What the fuck?

"You heard me," said Avery, relaxing in the seat, setting his clasped hands behind his head. His attitude was much too calm for the situation. Yet when he spoke again, his voice was uneasy, less confident and boastful as she'd heard it in his YouTube videos when announcing something so dire. "Something is, and has been, inside your mind, most likely since your accident. It's what's preventing you from remembering the details, and it doesn't want you to remember because it doesn't want you to go back."

Jessamine's jaw dropped. She dug her nails deep into her hip-bone. "Let's say I believe you—and for the record, I don't—why are we, why are you only realizing this now?" She gulped; her jaw wouldn't return to its place, continuing to dangle from her face as if about to fall off and shatter at her feet. How could she be firm with him if her body wasn't responding to her commands? Or claim to not believe him when clearly something in her was off? "And how is it, this... thing... no longer blocking my memories, if that's what was happening?"

Leaning forward, setting his hands in his lap, Avery frowned. "The house—seeing it triggered you. As in actually triggered you, activating something inside, doing something to lower your possessor's defenses."

"Possessor," Jessamine cringed, "ew. Can we call it something else? I'm... I'm not... no, this can't be possible." Her legs were giving out, but Avery was fast—he hopped off the chair and swung it behind her just as she fell, and she swiftly landed on the cushions with a huff.

Avery kneeled before her, his face level with her knees. "But that's what it is, and there's nothing else to call it. Thing, maybe?" Jessamine nodded. "Thing, then. Well, seeing the house caught this thing off guard, and your conscience is getting stronger now, your mind is fighting it. You're gaining the upper hand and it's struggling to block your natural memories."

"Gee, fancy vocabulary," said Jessamine, fanning herself as beads of sweat streamed down from her temples. Avery grabbed a tissue from the desk and handed it to her for her to mop up her perspiration. "But okay... again, let's say this is true... how would I be possessed and not know it?"

She recalled the encounter with Louise; how she'd read Jessamine's inner-most thoughts, explored the memories she herself couldn't summon, and had fainted after coming into lengthy contact with her. Such events should have prompted her to believe what Avery was saying, and yet she doubted.

It couldn't be true. Something, someone, inside her mind?

No way. I can't accept that.

"It's not fancy," said Avery, straightening up to lean against the desk, instead. He folded his arms, but then used one hand to scratch at his cheek. "I've seen this before, worked with possessed people before. Not stuff I do for my YouTube channel—this is the dark shit Jamie and I don't want to film." He flinched, averting his gaze to the floor. "And the thing is, the signs of possession were there, always have been... but you didn't know to look for them. The being was dormant, I'd assume."

Jessamine had had no clue Avery performed other paranormal tasks behind-the-scenes. She'd been under the impression he put everything on camera, wanting everyone to see it—and so he'd gain more followers.

"Dormant?" She imagined some demonic creep peacefully slumbering in a corner of her mind. Tranquil, yawning, then being shaken up by the video. "Fuck."

"It didn't need to manifest; its only role was to protect your memories, most likely. But now... it's having a hard time with that, so it is manifesting, and becoming aggressive. Which makes you aggressive, irritable, moody. It's active," Avery swallowed hard, "which makes you nauseous. It's a foreign host, an entity that doesn't belong in your body."

The corners of her lips were tugging down, and an uncomfortable swelling in her gut. Was that being in there? All cozied up in her belly, pulling on the membranes and veins and muscles to make her sick?

No, no... it's not real, there's no such thing, it's all bullshit.

"And the animals!" Avery snapped and stood up straight. "How they're weird around you and growl; you said that, yeah?" Jessamine shrugged in response; she didn't like being reminded how poor, innocent creatures couldn't stand the sight of her. "That's because they sense the presence in you, the thing that doesn't belong. Animals detect that, remember?"

As a frigid jolt chilled down her spine, Jessamine covered her mouth with a trembling hand. It was all flashing before her now, connecting, making too much sense for her to dismiss everything as unreal. The visions of her aggression towards others—that she'd noticed that day more than ever—and the animals snarling at her, people looking at her strangely, as if afraid to speak too loudly near her, afraid to animate her temper. Then there was that heat that Louise had mentioned, the overwhelming warmth in her blood. And the recurring, traumatizing nightmares that she'd started to accept might have been real moments she'd experienced.

Jessamine didn't want to admit it, but all that awkwardness had begun after she saw Amy's video. She hadn't been herself since; though she'd been moody since the accident, too, but she never questioned that much. Not until now.

There was also the ominous connection with Avery. The zap of energy they both got when they first met, and their hands touched. Was it because the thing inside her had a feeling Avery would figure out it was hiding in there? Did it know who Avery was, was it wary of him, and that was why it kept giving her off-putting vibes whenever Avery was around her?

No, thinking all this amounts to me accepting it's real and I can't, I can't...

"Fuck." She sucked up the spit that had gathered in her mouth; hot and acidic tasting, she hoped it'd go down her throat and not shoot back up and out her mouth. Her stomach grumbled, and gurgling noises came from her attempt to swallow her spit. "But... what about... you? Where do you fit into all," she cringed, "this?"

Avery approached and stooped in front of her again. He set his hands on her knees, holding himself up. "If you're asking why you and I had that electricity when we first touched... I'm not too sure about this, but I think... that thing doesn't like me. It acts up whenever I'm close, yeah? Worse when I touch you?" He raised his eyebrows. "Do you feel worse when I'm up in your business, like this?"

With a grimace, Jessamine issued a quick nod. "It's... bothering me, yeah. I felt like the aggression worsened when you walked in, but I chalked it up to you just being downright irritating to me. But," she bunched her lips, scrunched her nose, "last night? Last night was different. You weren't annoying me, you were... um..." she sensed her cheeks overheating, "you were arousing me." She chewed on her lip and stared at the paused image of her on the security camera screen.

Avery sucked his lips in, as if trying to hide a smile. "I can't explain that. Could have been the alcohol? Maybe it dimmed your strength, dimmed that thing's strength, too, allowing your true emotions to shine through." He looked ready to smirk, to blush at the notion that Jessamine was attracted to him, and had admitted it out loud. "If you're drunk, it is drunk? I'd have to research that."

Jessamine couldn't stand to watch her otherworldly self on the screen, so she settled for gaping at Avery's hands still cupped over her knees. "Why doesn't it like you? Because it knows what you're up to? How would it know when I didn't even know, at first?"

Avery shook his head. "Beats me. But that could be—it figures I'm going to take you to that house, eventually. And it now knows I'm investigating Amy, and she was there, likely inside of it..."

"Oh, shit." Jessamine slammed her hands on top of his, startling him. "Could this thing be something from around, or even inside the house, then? Not some random spirit or thing I picked up in the forest, but... something with more meaning? A significance, a tie to the house?" She'd shocked herself with her own speculative words. It wasn't like her to feed into the fantasies of the paranormal, but she was so caught up in wanting to understand that her thoughts poured out before she could control them. "Like something that got out and decided to live inside me?"

Avery's eyes narrowed as he assessed her, taking in her words. "Hm," he took his chin between his thumb and index finger, "it has to be from there, yeah. More so since it animated the most when you saw the house, right?" Jessamine acquiesced. "And from the visions you've described so far, and then according to your mom, the footage she saved from your phone... well, it sounded like you were in that house. It wouldn't be stupid to think the thing originated from there and jumped into you and hitched a ride out, using your body. The why is the puzzling part."

She'd come to that conclusion herself, though it made her gag to remember it. The nightmares of bloody hallways and screeching scratches on doors and bodies and blue orbs—those weren't outside, but inside. She never saw herself actually entering the place, but where else would she have been? Had she and Landon and Angela stumbled upon a different building nestled in the woods, and she'd gone into it? Or was it all a hallucination that Avery believed was real?

Two spooky houses in the same forest? That doesn't sound plausible.

"Maybe it's as simple as what we've already assumed. It would rather you not go back to the house, and it dislikes me because it doesn't want me to go there looking for Amy." Avery perked up to his full height, his shadow towering over Jessamine as he retreated into his thoughts, squinting at the wall behind her.

"So it... what, it hopped into me and helped me escape, then? Does that mean it's," she blew out a breath of partial relief, "it's benevolent?"

"Or," Avery blanched, "it's malevolent. It's preventing us from going there to save the others that might still be locked in that place. Hostages. It's protecting whatever's inside there, guarding its... prey."

"Prey." Jessamine shuddered at the word and shrank into her seat. "Landon. Angela. The others... and Amy... they might all still be in that house? We're not even sure they ever entered it, any of them. But if they did..."

Avery's gaze darkened, clouding over with theories and ideas and scenarios; or so Jessamine imagined, from how he went silent for a few minutes, watching her, lips moving as if to speak.

It took him a moment to finally say what he'd been thinking. His gaze was insistent, and though not unkind, it caused a river of shivers to flow down Jessamine's back.

"They might have. Or they were taken, shoved inside by force. And there's only one way to find out for sure." He sighed. "You. You're our only way."

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