“You what?” I nearly yelled, jumping up from the couch and walking over to Luke. He looked remarkably calm considering he’d just said that he’s literally seen a ghost.


    “I think I saw her. Or, at least, I assume it must have been her, unless there’s another ghost hanging around with us. Short, pink dress, pigtails, right?”  I nodded. “That was her.”


    “Where did you see her? What mirror?” I asked, turning toward the mirror in my hotel room. All I saw were our reflections - Luke’s looking fairly normal, if potentially a bit bored for the situation, and me looking significantly more frazzled than normal. It had been a long day.


    “Not that one,” he said, following my eyes. “It was when I went into Caitlin’s room. I was standing there, explaining to her that we should call Circe back, and then arguing with her when she didn’t want to call her because she didn’t want her freaking out at her again. I’m not sure I won that argument, by the way.”


    “And you saw her while you were arguing?” I asked.


    He nodded. “We were talking, and I turned toward the mirror, and it was so weird! It was like there was a little girl that was just standing there next to me, like she just appeared out of thin air. And Caitlin sure as fuck didn’t see it, because she was looking at me and she didn’t mention anything.”


    “Could Caitlin see her in the mirror?” Liam asked, leaning over the back of the couch with rapt interest.


    “I didn’t get a chance to ask,” Luke answered. “She was just standing there for a second, and then she kind of waved at me, like this,” he said, holding his hand up in the air without movement, “and then she was gone.”


    “She must have wanted just you to see her,” Liam said. “That’s what you said, right, Andi? That ghosts are only seen when they want to be seen?”


    I stared blankly at the two of them, not fully processing Liam’s question. The idea of answering any questions other than “what the fuck was going on” seemed preposterous, anyway. Luke couldn’t see ghosts. Hell, the whole reason for them starting the channel was to find evidence of ghosts - that’s not something you’d need to do if you saw ghosts all the time, like I do. But he’d somehow seen this one, when I couldn’t even see her without the camera between us.


    “Hello? Earth to Andi,” Luke said after however long I had been standing there, not responding to them. “This seems like a good thing, doesn’t it? She seemed friendly.”


    “But she doesn’t seem like a ghost,” I finally said. “She shows no signs of other classic ghost behavior. It just doesn’t add up.”Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    “Well, if she’s not a ghost, then I suppose it’s a good thing that we’re working with someone who has experience with demons, isn’t it?” Liam said. “Maybe Circe didn’t know what she was talking about with ghost possession, but maybe she knows a thing or two about demons.”


    “Let’s hope,” Luke said, looking at me with a worried expression. “Clearly, whatever this is is not going away on its own.”


    I sighed - I had been thinking the same thing. “Well, at least we haven’t seen any signs of you being actually possessed again.”


    “Have we even tried it?” Luke asked.


    Liam shrugged and grabbed the camera sitting on his desk. He turned it on and handed it over to me. “See anything?”


    I held up the camera, trying to focus on Luke as well as I could. He looked particularly tired today, as the darkness around his eyes proceeded to get darker, and the rest of his skin looked a little sallow. It was a wonder we hadn’t noticed. But then again, we’d been focused on other things, and we had no reason to suspect that the exorcisms wouldn’t work. “Nothing that I can see,” I said, handing the camera back to Liam.


    “Well, that’s good, right?  You only saw it the one time, and who knows, maybe it was just a trick of the light or something, and he’s really just got this ghost that likes him.”


    I nodded, not wanting to get into how unlikely that was. If it was a trick of the light, they both would have immediately seen what I was looking at, after all. But, I also somehow instinctively knew that not letting him have any hope would not help anything. “Do you have any idea when Circe is going to get here?”


    “She said she was going to head out straight away, and from here, she’s close enough that she’ll probably just drive. So, maybe four hours?”


    “In that case,” Liam cut in before I could ask anything else, “you look like you could seriously use some sleep, my dude. We all probably do.”


    “Yeah,” Luke said, barely containing a yawn as he spoke, “I don’t think that would be a terrible idea, either. Want to set an alarm for four hours, and then we can go over some footage before she gets here?”


    “Sure, that works.”  Luke waved his goodbye and headed out of the room. I stood to follow him, thinking that a quick nap would probably do me a lot of good, too, but Liam grabbed my arm before I could move. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?” he asked me quietly.


    I sunk back down into the couch, more to stall the conversation than anything. “I mean, probably, Circe apparently knows what she’s doing, and as soon as the demon isn’t attached to him, he’ll be fine.”


    Liam looked at me, his expression more stern than I had ever seen it. “Please don’t lie to me,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “I saw your face when he was talking about what happened. If he’s seeing the demon, do you think there’s any chance of bringing him back?”


    I sighed. “Quite frankly, I don’t know. I don’t really know anything about this demon, stuff. And I don’t even know if the little girl is even a demon, or if she’s something else. All I know is that I’ve never met someone who has suddenly started seeing ghosts without a near death experience.”


    “Well,” Liam said, giving a half-hearted smile, “maybe being in the prison was a lot less stressful for him than it was for us.”


    I raised my eyebrows. “You were literally holding on to rotten corpses.”


    He shrugged. “And we all experience things differently.”  He paused for a moment, and the silence felt nearly overbearing. Then he said, “I’m just worried about him, is all. He doesn’t look like he’s slept for more than a few hours since before we even went to the Peters Building. And he seems so much less… interested in what’s going on, if you know what I mean.”


    I nodded. “I noticed how tired he looked, too.”  I looked at my phone - it was currently closing in on 8 in the morning, and though there was still energy flowing through my veins, I knew that if I didn’t get at least a little sleep, I’d be worthless when Circe got here. Not that she’d even want to see me, much less need my help. But I wanted to be there if there was an option.


    I stood up from the couch, and this time, Liam didn’t stop me. He hardly looked at me as I turned to go. I turned back quickly to give him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “We’ll get it figured out,” I promised, “even if I have to call in every favor I have. We’ll save him.”