?? Content Warning: This chapter contains intense supernatural encounters, spiritual battles, dissociation, emotional trauma, and moments of possession-like states. Reader discretion is advised.

  Darkness isn’t just the absence of light, it’s a presence all its own. A living, breathing void. And this one? It isn’t just dark. It’s ancient. Starved. The kind of blackness that presses against your spirit, whispering that you’ve been abandoned by the very concept of warmth.

  I’m here.

  Not in my body. Not in the spirit realm either.

  Somewhere else.

  I drift, suspended in a place where time doesn’t tick. Where even thought feels like rebellion. There’s no up, no down, just me and the clawing echo of my own sanity fraying.

  My instincts scream. This isn't the afterlife or a dream. It's a trap. A spiritual ambush masquerading as stillness.

  I try to move, scream, even blink—but there’s nothing to move. Just a hollow version of myself fading in and out like a fraying signal.

  Then, without warning, I’m yanked upward like a puppet on snapped strings.

  And this time, I land hard.

  My spirit slams back into my body like a crash landing from a forgotten realm. I choke on nothing, lungs blazing, limbs spasming. My hands scramble against the floor, searching for ground that still feels real.

  Alec is beside me in a shift, pulling me to his chest, murmuring words that sound like they’re meant to anchor me.

  I shove him away, not from rejection, but desperation. My voice scrapes the inside of my throat.

  “We need to get her out of here. Where is Aleesha.”

  He doesn’t take offense. He knows me too well.

  The team reacts on instinct. No hesitation, no questions. They’re already moving, bags snatched, gear secured, eyes sharp. When someone like me loses composure, the unspoken rule is: run first, debrief later.

  Then comes the sound.

  It cuts through the room like a jagged blade, low and guttural, as if the house itself has found a throat to growl from. The sound isn’t heard—it’s felt, vibrating in my bones, rattling the fragile pieces I just reassembled.

  I rise.

  Energy sparks beneath my skin like a storm looking for a place to land.

  “If you think for one second I’m scared of you,” I snarl at the suffocating air, “you’ve clearly mistaken me for someone less dangerous.”

  I spin, arms rigid, and let loose a scream that splits the silence like a flare. It isn't just noise—it’s raw spirit, my fury turned kinetic.

  “You felt me,” I mutter, grinning like someone who’s had just enough of everything.

  Samuel’s voice reaches through the chaos. “Boss… you good?”

  I glance at him, jaw clenched, teeth bared. “Peachy. Just annoyed that Casper thinks he’s got the upper hand.”

  He flinches, but the tension breaks—just enough.

  I cross the room and lift Aleesha from Samantha’s arms. Her tiny form shivers against mine.

  My voice softens to a whisper. “I’m not mad at you, sweetheart. I’m just mad at the thing that thought it could scare you.”

  A glance at Alec—his subtle nod, his too-handsome smile—tells me everything I need. He’s good. We’re good.

  “Someone call Mr. Grant. Tell him to meet us at HQ.”

  The drive is quiet. Too quiet. Jamey orders food like it’s a routine run, but the silence stretches like tightrope. We carry the weight of what we left behind—and the dread of what we’ll return to.

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  At the mansion, I pass Aleesha into Sam’s arms. “Watch her. I need a minute.”

  She nods, but she knows the truth. We all do.

  No one walks away from a battle like that untouched. Some come back dimmer—light flickering just a little less than before. Some hear whispers for days, long after the spirits are gone. Some forget how to sleep in silence.

  I shower.

  I don’t remember walking to the bathroom. I only know I’m there when I see steam fogging the glass and red bloom across my skin. My hands move on autopilot—scrubbing, scraping, chasing something that soap was never meant to touch.

  It’s not blood. Not sweat. It’s something deeper. Something the dark left behind.

  It clings to the marrow of me.

  I press my palms to the tiles, chest heaving. For a second, I swear the water runs black. I blink—it’s clear again. Hallucination? Trauma? Or just truth my eyes aren’t ready to hold?

  By the time I wrap myself in a towel, the ghost of it still lingers. Not on my skin. Inside it. A haunting in the shape of a memory.

  Downstairs, the scent of crispy chicken and toasted bread fills the air, as if lunch could pretend the world hadn’t just turned upside down.

  But my eyes find Mr. Grant instantly.

  Because when you’ve just clawed your way back from hell, you stop believing in normal.

  He looks hollow. Haunted. A man who’s been screaming silently for too long.

  “We need to go back,” I say, dropping into my chair. “But you stay here. With Aleesha.”

  His face fractures—anger, grief, desperation—all crashing into each other. “I just want a normal life,” he says. “For her. For me.”

  “There’s no normal after this,” I say gently. “But there’s control. Training. Survival. Without it, this thing doesn’t end. And neither do the attacks.”

  His chair screeches as he stands, fury radiating. Aleesha flinches in Sam’s arms.

  Still, I hold his gaze. Unflinching. A silent standoff.

  Then… he exhales. Picks up his chair. Sits.

  “I’m tired,” he whispers. “I’m just… tired.”

  He crumbles. Hands to his face. Shoulders shaking. He finally lets go.

  No one interrupts. This grief isn’t just about ghosts—it’s about losing the illusion that life could be simple again.

  After a long pause, I speak quietly. “You should be grateful she has us. We had no one. When I was four, I told my mom the boogeyman was real. She laughed. Thought it was bedtime drama.”

  I kneel beside him, wrapping my hand around his. “At least you listened.”

  Aleesha watches us. Eyes wide. Tears streaked down cheeks that have seen too much already.

  “If we don’t help her harness it,” I say, “it’ll devour her.”

  He nods, silent but changed.

  Alec steps in with perfect timing, offering him a glass of water. “We protect her, we protect you. It’s that simple.”

  Mr. Grant takes it, hands trembling.

  Later, we return.

  The house greets us like a predator. The air thickens, every breath heavy. I feel it—a pressure coiling in my chest, like something waiting just beneath the surface of reality.

  Then it hits—sharp and electric. A spiritual gut-punch straight to the soul. My knees buckle. I hit the floor hard, vision pulsing red.

  “Mother—fff—fooey…” I wheeze, every nerve in my body rattling. Darkness spills into the room, not as shadow, but as pressure—like the air’s turned to wet cement.

  I push through the weight, elbows trembling, jaw clenched.

  “You think this’ll keep me down?” I snarl, breathless but defiant. “Please. I’ve survived high school, heartbreak, and holy fire. You? You’re just overpriced smoke with control issues.”

  The moment I say it, the thing reacts.

  Not with sound.

  With force.

  In a split-second, we’re yanked upward—our spirits torn from our bodies, tethered but twisted. Our physical selves dangle a few feet above the floor, heads thrown back, arms slack, suspended like ragdolls under invisible strings.

  I stare at the ceiling—no, the sky—disoriented, disarmed. The world is upside down. My mouth opens to shout, but no sound escapes. We're locked. Silenced. Held in place like offerings mid-sacrifice.

  I catch Alec’s gaze across the room—he’s frozen too, hovering in the same grotesque position, yet his eyes are blazing. Not with fear.

  With fury.

  Time stretches. Seconds feel like minutes. And then—without warning—we're dropped.

  The room slams back into place, gravity takes over, and our bodies hit the ground with unceremonious thuds.

  The moment we touch earth, the paralysis shatters like glass.

  I gasp, rage blooming in my chest.

  “Oh, hell no,” I mutter, pushing myself upright. “Float me like a cursed balloon one more time, see what happens.”

  Alec flashes beside me, spirit form ignited—calm but deadly. We don’t need to speak. The battle’s back on.

  No time to hesitate.

  Above us, darkness churns like ink in water—alive, angry, aware. It spills from the ceiling in slow, purposeful waves, hissing where it kisses the floorboards, like the house itself is trying to shrink away from it.

  Alec’s aura erupts beside me, a burst of divine heat that holds the entity at bay for just a breath. Light radiates from him in silvery ripples, buying us precious seconds.

  I close my eyes briefly, sending my senses outward—not searching, but reaching. Past the smoke. Past the fear.

  There. A pulse. The core.

  I nod once. Alec doesn’t wait for words.

  We surge upward—synchronized, practiced. Our spirit forms cut through the suffocating veil, racing toward the upper level where the darkness thickens, pressing in on all sides like a living wall.

  But something is wrong.

  The energy up here feels wrong—off-tempo, as if the house is holding its breath.

  Then we feel it.

  Too late.

  We turn, just in time to hear Jamey scream.

  The entity strikes from below. Not with claws. With absence. The kind that consumes.

  Jamey’s spirit is yanked backward—twisted, swallowed into the void before we can blink. One moment, he’s with us.

  The next?

  Gone.

  No echo. No flash. Just—

  Silence.

  — — —

  ***Author’s Note:***

  Some battles are loud, but others are silent until they steal what matters most. Thank you for reading Chapter 2. Your presence here is divine.

  — Mandy