A light, electronic beeping was the first thing I noticed. It was rhythmic and steady, but sounded familiar in a way that I couldn’t quite place. Slowly, I opened my eyes against the harsh light that was shining down on me.


    “Holy shit, she’s awake,” said a voice I couldn’t instantly recognize. “Liam, wake up!”


    As my eyes slowly adjusted, I heard the sound of something shaking immediately next to me, then a mumbled “What?”


    “She’s awake, Liam,” said the first voice, his tone urgent.


    “Fuck, Andi!” the second voice, Liam, said, flipping into action mode. “Andi, can you hear me? Are you alright?”


    I fully opened my eyes, forcing myself to focus on the faces in front of me, rather than the too-bright light behind them. Luke and Liam both sat by the sides of my bed, looking at me expectantly. “What’s that beeping?” I asked, trying to look around the room, but my head was killing me.


    “You really focus on the important questions, huh?” Luke joked, grabbing my hand closest to him.


    “Fuck, Andi, we thought you were dead there for a moment,” Liam said, clearly less amused by the situation than Liam was. He reached up and brushed my apparently disheveled hair out of my eyes. “The beeping is a heart monitor.”


    “I’m going to flag a nurse and let them know she’s awake,” Luke said, standing up to leave the blue room.


    Then it clicked - that’s why the room looked so weird - I was in a hospital room. “Why am I here?” I asked, my voice still holding trace amounts of grogginess.


    “We don’t exactly know,” Liam said, running his hand up and down my arm. “No one really had their eyes on you at the time. We were in the middle of Luke’s exorcism, and all of a sudden, you fell to the ground and started spasming. The doctors asked us if you had a history of seizures - we didn’t know, but there doesn’t appear to be any on your medical record, once they found you in the system.”


    I shook my head. “No history of seizures,” I agreed. “And I don’t know why I fell either, but I had another dream again.” I tried to sit up, but Liam pushed me back down with gentle force.


    “Later,” he said. “You hit your head pretty bad when you fell, and kept going in and out of consciousness, so you should take some time to rest. And now that you’re awake, I’m sure they’re going to want to run a thousand more tests. And don’t worry about the bill at all - it’s all on us.”


    All thoughts of the dream I’d had wiped from my mind momentarily at that. “You can’t!” I protested. “You’ve known me for less than a month - that is way too generous!”The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    He shrugged. “Call it worker’s comp. Isn’t that right, Luke?” he asked as Luke walked back into the room, followed quickly by a nurse.


    “Getting injured is a hazard of the job, I’m afraid,” he agreed. “At least you didn’t end up being the one with the ghost in your ass.”


    ***


    I was in the hospital for two full days before the doctors felt I was healthy enough to be discharged. Liam was right - they had to have run just about every test on record, but they weren’t able to find anything that might have caused the seizure. Per the doctor who came in to explain it to me while I was filling out the discharge paperwork, sometimes it just happened, but they sent me away with some seizure medication and a notice to call my primary doctor if anything like that ever happened again.


    They did also insist that, at least until my head wound was fully healed, I should stay somewhere where someone could keep an eye on me, and Luke and Liam were quick to say that I’d be staying with them for the time being. Frankly, it was probably my best option. And they even somehow managed to get the doctor’s permission to drive back to Los Angeles, so within two hours of me getting fully discharged, the three of us and Caitlin were on the road in a rented SUV.


    I stared out the window as we drove, partially staring at the desert beside us, and partially staring at my reflection in the glass. Somehow, when I fell, I’d split a large part of my head open, and it had to be stapled back together. That process also evidently involved the removal of a large chunk of my hair, so it now looked like I had a pretty punk sidecut. I didn’t mind it, especially with the addition of the staples.


    I reached up to lightly touch the scabbed skin. It stung, but not as much as I would have imagined for a wound of that size. Before I could touch it much, though, Liam’s hand grabbed mine. “The doctor specifically told you not to pick at it, or else it’ll leave a scar.”


    I shrugged. “I kind of like the look of it. Maybe a scar to make it permanent would be a nice touch.”


    “Well,” he said, squeezing my hand lightly, but not letting it go, “then after you get all healed up, if you want to get a tattoo there, be my guest. We’re supposed to be watching over you, and I, for one, think that includes keeping you from scarring yourself.”


    “Second,” called Luke from the front seat. Even injured, he didn’t take pity on me when calling shotgun.


    “Third,” Caitlin agreed, “and if I have to pay to get your blood out of this car, you’re going to have to do a whole string of solo videos to make up for it.”


    I couldn’t help the smile that touched my lips, even though I wanted to continue to pout about them all being bossy. “So you’re still planning on having me make videos with you, even if I got injured and ruined the shoot?”


    Caitlin chuckled. “As if that would ruin the shoot. One of our highest grossing videos involved Liam falling out of a tree and breaking an ankle.”


    “Definitely wasn’t worth it, but it was great for views,” he joked. “But of course, we’re still planning on having you in the videos. If you’ll have us after your hospital stay, that is.”


    I shook my head. I hadn’t been planning on staying with them after we figured out what was causing the hauntings. Making new friends had never been part of my plan. But I had to admit, it was nice to have someone who cared enough to sleep in a chair in my hospital room, just so I wouldn’t have to be alone. Besides, I had grown to like their company, and even if I still found their videos to be a little ridiculous, that was part of the fun of them, wasn’t it?  “Sure, I’ll stick around. For now,” I added, when Luke and Liam started cheering a little bit too quickly. “And we’re bringing my cat to the house, and you’re paying for cat sitting every time we go on a shoot overnight.”


    “Your mom should be at the house not long after us,” Caitlin said. “I called her while you were getting discharged and told her the plan. She just about tried to drive up here when you were in the hospital, but I told her that between me and these two idiots, we had it handled.”


    One last thing I had to worry about, I thought, staring out the window again. It was starting to get dim outside, which made my pulse rise a bit. That was probably the worst part for me - even though I knew ghosts didn’t come out more often in the dark, I’d always been drawn to it. Part of the goth aesthetic, I think. But since the last dream especially, every time I was in a dark room, I thought about that barb through my chest. Obviously, that hadn’t actually happened, but there was something that had happened, and that made it even more disconcerting. Who’s to say that the next time, it wouldn’t be real. I pulled my hand from Liam’s and started picking at one of the staples again, the gentle ache of pain distracting me just enough that I didn’t think about it.


    Liam sighed, grabbing my hand again. “That habit started fast,” he said.