“Nope, no, absolutely not,” I said for what seemed like the millionth time as we opened the door to our room. “You must have misheard it.”


    “I think we both know I didn’t mishear anything,” Luke said, sounding significantly calmer than I felt.


    “It’s been trying to keep me away from you this whole time!” I argued. “It makes no sense that it would have switched to me.”


    “It could be talking about Caitlin?” Liam offered, but even he sounded like his suggestion was only half-hearted. We all knew it wouldn’t be her - while she came with us on these hunts, she never was particularly involved with them. Plus, as per usual, she was chipper and perky and had slept great. A demon possessing her would never stand a chance.


    Me, on the other hand…


    “You did say you haven’t been sleeping well,” Luke pointed out, clearly following my train of thought.”


    “You haven’t,” agreed Liam. “Even less than me, if that’s possible, and I’m not even trying to heal.”


    “Well yeah,” I said, trying to come up with an argument for that, but I couldn’t. “We’ve been busy,” I finally said. “We’ve had videos to edit and comments to go through, plus I’ve been moving, and I had to order a lot of the stuff that I left behind.”


    Liam grabbed my hand softly, reassuringly, and I assumed for a moment that he was going to side with me. But instead, he lightly squeezed it and said “That’s all true, but other than moving, we’ve all been dealing with the same thing. Hell, Caitlin does the most fan interaction out of all of us, and look at her,” he said, gesturing her direction. She flashed a bright smile for a moment before her serious expression flashed back. “Plus, while your head wound healed, you’ve got to admit that it’s taking longer than I’d expect for you to gain your strength back. I mean, you’ve been out of the hospital for about a week, and you can still barely manage to walk around this building. I mean, Luke and I have had our fair share of head wounds, and while the actual cuts can take a while to fully heal, we’re always up on our feet after a day or two.”


    I shook my head. While I couldn’t really refute anything that they were saying, it just made no sense to me. I’d always been the one freeing ghosts. I’d been the one interacting with them and helping them move along. Even at this point, while I didn’t know what else the little girl could be other than a demon, there was still a part of me that didn’t believe it. And yet, it was the only thing that made any sense. “I can’t be possessed,” I said, nearly as a whisper.


    Liam squeezed my hand and then pulled me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me. I pressed my face into the heat of his chest, breathing in the scent of laundry detergent mixed with the stale air that permeated the whole of the ship. “It’s okay,” he said, and I felt the vibration in his chest more than I heard the words. He ran his hand down my hair, trying in vain to soothe me. “If the demon jumped to you, it’s okay. We’re here with you no matter what.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm the rush of blood that pounded in my ears. Panicking would do no good - if anything, assuming that the little bit of research I did on demons was at all accurate, it would only give it ammunition. “And, on the plus side, if it jumped into you, that means that whatever Circe did worked. We can have her come back and do the same thing to you, and then you’ll be fine.”The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    “No!” I said, before I had even fully digested his words. I pushed away from his chest, and while I a part of me expected him to be angry at that, he merely raised his eyebrows in question. “We can’t just do that again, because it didn’t get rid of the demon. All it did was make it jump into me, and I don’t want it to jump into you!”


    “Are you insinuating that I couldn’t handle a little bit of demonic possession?” Liam tried to joke, but it fell flat. “Look,” he said, taking my chin in his hand and lightly running his thumb over my cheek. I hadn’t even realized that I’d been crying until I felt the moisture spread under his touch. “If it’ll make you feel better, what if the rest of us do everything we can to make ourselves inhospitable to a demon, too?”


    “Absolutely not,” Caitlin said, already pulling out her phone. “I’ll get it organized, but if you think I’m drinking anything Circe pulls out of her bag, you’d better think again.”


    “All of us except for Caitlin, who will be sure to be far enough away that the demon has no hope of getting to her,” he added. “I don’t mind chugging some holy water if it’ll help this situation.”


    “The holy water isn’t the part you should be wary of,” warned Luke. “Whatever oils she gave me last time gave me heartburn for a solid week. But if it’ll get you unpossessed, I’ll give it a shot,” he said with a sigh.


    “I think we can squeeze some Tums into the video budget,” Caitlin said, rapidly typing. “But we might have to up Circe’s appearance fee if we keep pulling her back every few days.”


    “This has got to be the last one for a while,” Luke said. “If we keep going back and forth between ghost hunt and exorcism videos, our audience is going to lose faith in us. There is only so many times that we can show them an exorcism before they lose faith in us.”


    “True,” Caitlin agreed. “But I don’t think three is that number - three exorcisms is a story progression. I would definitely detail you taking the holy water and oils, though. You’ll have to show growth and all.”  She tapped a couple of final keys passionately, then slid her phone back in her pocket. “Circe says she’s not surprised, but she’ll meet us at the house tomorrow. For now, let’s finish up this ghost hunt and get some rest before we drive back. We’ve got…” she pulled out her phone again to look at the time, “7 more hours until check out.”


    Luke and Liam looked at each other, having the sort of internal communication that only they understood. After a moment, Luke turned away from him and toward Caitlin. “How about you and I just go shoot some B-roll?” He suggested. “I think we have plenty of actual content from tonight, especially if we use the footage from this conversation,” he said, pointing to the still cam that was still pointed toward where the EMF meter had been. I turned to look at the camera that I’d all but forgotten. “It might not be a good angle, but they can hear the realness of our conversation, then. The last time we did that, it was a big hit. And then Andi doesn’t have to be here by herself in case something more happens.”


    I crossed my arms in front of myself, raising my eyebrows. “I’m a fully grown woman,” I reminded them. “I don’t need a babysitter.”


    “You don’t,” agreed Liam, “but you’re also injured and the target of a demon. Forgive me if I’d rather not have you in this room by yourself. Besides,” he said, grabbing my hand, “maybe we can hang out and watch a movie or something?”


    I sighed, fighting the flush that I felt rising to my cheeks. “Fine,” I sullenly agreed. “I guess I’d prefer not to be fully possessed, although I’m not sure what you could do about it if I did.”


    “We really need to invest in some holy water pistols for these situations,” Luke joked, and Liam broke his eye contact with me to flash him a quick smile. Caitlin, however, just pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head lightly.


    “I’m working with a bunch of idiots,” she muttered to herself, loud enough for us to be able to hear as well.


    “Yeah, but you love us,” Luke said, bumping her lightly with his elbow.


    “Unfortunately for all of us,” she agreed.