Chapter 9

Zak and I gathered our stuff and brought into the house. I was going to have to go shopping later this week. Most of my stuff wasn't really meant to be on television. I felt and looked like a hobo compared to the guys. I had placed all of my stuff in my room, even my journals. I didn't have much to begin with.

I told Zak that we would start it in the living room. I gathered a couple of the supplies from the bag. Just some of the stuff. Most of the work would have to come from Zak and how bad he wanted to get rid of them. Leonard told me that we would also have to get rid of the thing that was following me. He seemed to be cetian that I wasn't going to get rid of him. He was right. I didn't want to get rid of him yet.

Gracie, Zak's dog, greeted me as I went in the living room. I set the stuff on the table and she wagged her tail at me. I started to pet her. She seemed to be okay with me. I was glad that she was.

"Okay, so what are we doing, exactly?" Zak asked me as he came in the room. I looked up at him and smiled.

"You are going to sit on the floor and hold this crystal. I want you to think and focus on good thoughts. Think of anything that has happened or something that just makes you happy. That will help you." I told him. He took the crystal as he sat down. He held it in his hands and he closed his eyes. I then grabbed his wrist.

"Wait, there are some things that are going to happen. You might start to feel angry for no reason. That is fine. you might start to get suicidal. That is expected. Just don't act or make any decisions while you feel like that." I told him. He nodded his head at me. He then went back to closing his eyes.

I started to burn the sage while he sat there. I could see that it was already effecting the attatchments. It was gratifying to see them react to it already. He must have been really thinking of something that was nice. 

"Now I want you to think of you being attatched to a lot of strings. Like you are a balloon with many strings. Cut them. Start getting rid of them. When you start to feel different, I want you to stop." I commanded him. He nodded his head and I could see that he was focusing on what I told him. 

I watched around him. There were some things that were starting to disolve. There were a total of 6 that went away completely. He then stopped and gasped. I looked at Zak and he looked like he was worried.

"What is wrong? What happened?" I asked him. He started to pant and he looked at me.

"I started to feel really bad and I thougth of something horrible." He told me. I nodded my head and I moved closer to him. I grabbed his hands. He seemed to melt into me. I thought that it was a little weird.

"What was it? Tell me what it was." I said to him. Gracie then came over and sat next to me. I felt like she could understand.

"I wanted to get up and throw you out. Like literally throw you out. I wanted to hurt you." He confessed to me. He seemed to be really scared by that thought.

"It was just a thought. I was glad that you stopped though. Sometimes, that might become reality. I think that we have done enough for today, though. You were able to get rid of a lot more than I thought you would." I told him in a proud tone. He looked at me and petted Gracie.

"Thanks." He said to me. I then got off of the floor and picked up the crystal and the sage. I put it out and took it to my room. Leonard was sitting there and he looked at me.

"You have really pissed the others off. They are going to do something to him and it isn't going to be pretty. I hope that you are ready for this." He told me. I sighed and looked at the ceiling.

"Yeah, I know. I think that I am ready for it. Whatever happens, it is just something that will help him, right?" I said to him. I then walked to the bed and I sat on it Leonard was then sitting there with me.

"It may not. I have a bad feeling that something really bad is going to happen. I just want to make sure that you are ready for this war." He explained. I nodded my head and closed my eyes.

I spent the rest of the day in my room. I was really too scared to leave the room. I had placed a hex bag by the door. I didn't need anything, other than what was attatched to me, coming in the room. It was bad enough with the black mass. It was now able to dig into my memories and bring up the bad stuff.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 Waking up wasn't hard for me, that next morning. I had been awake most of the night. I kept hearing things in the living room. They weren't good noises. I knew that they weren't coming from Zak. At one point, Gracie came in my room and jumped on my bed. I let her stay with me. I spent most of the night rubbing her ear or holding her paw.

"Good morning." Zak said as Gracie and I walked in the kitchen. He was in some sweats and a tight shirt. I was wearing my sleeping clothes that consisted of short shorts and a small t shirt.

"Morning." I replied to him. I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat next to him on the bar. There were attatchements all over the kitchen. And they were all staring at me. I sighed while I drank my coffee.

"Where was Gracie at?" Zak finally asked. I looked at her and she was laying in the kitchen.

"She slept with me. She seemed to be really upset." I told him. Zak nodded his head.

"It's okay to kick her off the bed, of you don't want her there. She is a dog. I am sure she can handle that sort of rejection." He told me. Gracie lifted her head up and looked at us as if she understood what he just said.

"No, it's really okay. I just thought that she would want to sleep with you and not a complete stranger." I told him. He nodded his head and took a sip from his coffee.

"I think it was because I had a bad dream. She seems to want to wake me up. I guess she figured that she would get more sleep if she was with you." He told me. I then turned all of my attention to him.

"You had a bad dream? What was it about?" I asked him.

"It was just a bad dream. I promise you that I feel totally normal." He told me. I rolled my eyes and looked back around the room. This time a couple of them were looking at me like a was fresh food. I grabbed my chest and looked for my necklaces.

"What is it? You look like you just saw something horrible." Zak said to me. I sighed and looked back at him.

"It is just what I am seeing. I promise you that it will be nothing." I told him. I was sure to use the same tone and the same words so that he would know how it felt. He smiled at me and got up.

"Are you okay, though?" He asked me. I nodded my head and looked at his dog.

"I am going to get dressed. Are we going to be working today?" I asked him. He smiled at me and nodded his head.

"Awesome." I said before I left the room.

I went in my room and I pulled out my nice pants and a nice white shirt. I figured that would be nice enough. I put on a pair of heels as I went to the bathroom to apply some makeup. Once I was completely dressed, I walked back into the living room. Zak wasn't there yet.

"You look hot. Who are you trying to impress?"  Leonard asked me. I sighed and looked at my outfit.

"Does it look like I am trying to impress someone? I thought that it would be nice for me wear. You know, professional and all." I said to him.

"Yeah, it looks professional. But it makes you look like you got all dressed up for someone. Speaking of someone, Zak is having problems at night. He can't sleep and he has been having a lot of nightmares. Like screaming in the pillows. That is why the dog came to you." He told me. I sighed and sat with him on the couch.

"I thought that something was wrong. I should have gotten up." I said to myself. I then thought about what I should have done. Leonard touched my knee and I looked at him. I could feel it.

"What is it?" I asked him.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. You couldn't have known. Besides, it might have given him the wrong signals." He told me.

"What would it have told him?" I asked Leonard as I changed my position so that I could look right at him.

"That might mean to him that you are interested in him. Are you?" He asked me. I closed my eyes and looked around. He wasn't in the room and neither was his dog.

"I think that I am. He is really handsome and he seems to care. I am just scared, honestly. I am scared right now. I have been telling myself that I couldn't be loved by anyone, ever again. Not as long as they knew that I was a freak." I confessed. I wanted to cry about it.

"Besides, Nick doesn't like me anyway. I think that I scare him." I told Leonard.

"You don't scare Nick. He is just unsure about you. It's because the stuff that we deal with seem to be evil or angry." Zak explained to me as he came in the room. I got off of the couch and I fixed my pants.

"Who were you talking to anyways?" He then asked me. I sighed and looked at Leonard.

"Just to my attatchment. He seems to like to talk. He is sitting on the couch." I told him. Zak then looked at the couch and his eyes widened.

"I can see an imprint." He whispered. I smiled at him and Leonard was smiling too.

"Yep, that's him. So how much of that did you hear?" I asked him. He then started to blush. It was really cute, to see him get like this. 

"I am not sure. You said something about getting up and I heard the rest." He told me. I then went in my memory to think of how much he had heard. 

"Well just so that you don't get any ideas, I was talking about Aaron." I told him. He had heard about me telling Leonard about him. Zak smiled and nodded his head. 

"I will do my best to not tell Aaron about your little crush." He told me with a smile. He knew that I was lying.

After that embarrassing moment, we went to his car. He offered to car pool with me to the office. I took his offer as I got in his sports car. As we went to the office, it was quite between the two of us. We had the radio on, so I was focusing on the lyrics that were playing.

"You aren't a freak." Zak said as we pulled on to the highway. I looked at him with wonder. I then knew what he was talking about.

"Zak, don't talk about something that you have no knowledge on." I told him. That was a good response.

"Same to you. None of us think that you are a freak. You are a person that can see things. That isn't weird. That is just your normality. I think that it is really cool, just so you know." Zak told me. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"Thanks, I will try to remember that." I told him. I then went back to looking out my window.

When we got to the offices, I thought that it was a little weird. It was an actual office building. Zak and I got out of the car and went in. He went to the elevator and I saw that we were going to go to the 7th floor. I held on to the rails and he stood in the middle of the elevator.

"Don't like elevators?" He asked me. I shook my head and closed my eyes as we went up. Once it was opened, we walked out. I followed Zak to an office.

"Hey, Nick." Zak said as he walked in. I looked around and I made a mental note that this was Nick's office. Nick looked up at us and smiled.

"Hey, what's up?" He asked us as he scooted away from the computer.

"Just got in. What about you?" Zak said. I smiled at the two of them then I backed out of the office. I left the two of them there to talk. I walked around the offices and I saw Aaron's. I walked in and there he was.

"Hey, Aaron. Whatcha doing?" I asked as I walked in. He looked up at me and smlied really big.

"I was just looking at some new places for us to go. What about you?" He asked me. I sighed and sat in the empty chair.

"I am just wandering around. Zak is busy talking with his boyfriend." I told him with a smile. He laughed at that and got up.

"Well let's go explore around." He told me. I got up and the two of us walked around the floor.

I learned that the floor was mainly ours. No one rarely came up here, they would do a lot of weird stuff. He showed me the tech room. It was really impressive. I thought that it looked like a new age lair. He agreed with me. We then went to their "fun" room. It was a room that was full of weird things. It looked like the inside of a Halloween box.

Billy came in the office a little later. Aaron and I found him trying to fix the copier. He was looking the same as me. He was wearing a nice button up shirt and some nice pants with loafers. It was weird to see him like that, since he had a really big mohawk.

"It seems like the techs are afraid of loosing their jobs." Nick said as he came in the room with Zak. Zak, Nick, and Aaron laughed at that. Billy then looked at me and saw that we were dressed nice. 

"Maybe. You don't know. We might be coordinating something." Billy said. I rolled my eyes and looked at the others. 

"Billy, they are just jealous because none of them know how to button up a shirt with out getting frustrated." I replied. Billy smiled at me and the others looked at their clothes. They were all wearing nice t shirts and jeans or cargo pants. 

"That was a good one." Aaron told me with a smile. 

"Come on, Lea. We have some work to do." Billy said as we walked to the room with the computers.

I sat next to Billy and we got to work. We just went back through the footage and re watched for anything that looked weird. I pointed out everything that I saw, just in case if he saw something there too. Billy was really grateful about that.

Once we had gone through all the cameras, we marked the areas where we wanted the others to see too. I had to collect Nick, Zak, and Aaron to come see the footage. They came willingly. I figured that they would be interested and invested in this part.

We sat around and watched it all again. They agreed that we had some stuff. Nick stayed for the EVP recordings. He cuaght some stuff, but I was able to catch the rest. I had no idea how to work the equipment, but Billy was able to do that for me.

Once the day was over, I left the building with Zak. I saw that Nick was looking at me in a different way. He seemed to be more calm and interested in me. While Zak was driving, I saw that we were going into Las Vegas strip.

"What are we doing?" I asked him. He smiled at me and sped up a little.

"Well we can do what you want. I just thought that you would want to come over here." He explained to me. I smiled at him and nodded my head.

"I was actually wondering if I could go shopping. You don't need to come. It is just for some clothes." I told him. I could see that he was thinking of places for me to go.

"I know of places. I will go with you, don't worry." He told me.

We then went to the mall that was there. Zak led me to some stores. I had money to buy the clothes. Zak offered to buy them for me, but I nearly yelled at him in the first store. Leonard took his card and threw it on the floor. That made him back off.

Once I had gotten a couple of bags of clothes, we left. He was surprised at how fast I was. I was too, to be honest. I thought that it was going to take longer, but I wasn't looking for much. On our way back to his house, we went to eat. He took me to a little dinre that he liked going to.

"So what will you be having today?" The waitress asked us. Zak looked up at her then at me. She looked like she could be his mother.

"I think that I will have the usual." Zak told her as he handed her the menu. She then looked at me and smiled.

"And what will the lucky woman be having?" She asked me. I looked at the menu again.

"I will have the soup of the day." I told her. She took my manu and smiled at us as she stood there.

"What makes me so special?" I asked her before she left.

"Well, Zak only brings close friends here. The last woman that he brought here was a long time ago." She told me. I smiled at her as she left. I looked at Zak once she had gone in the back.

"Wow, Zak. I didn't think that you would have a place like this." I told him as I took a sip from my drink.

"Well, I do. Let's try to keep it that way." He told me. I knew that he was kidding.

we were told by a bunch of older people that we would make a good couple as we sat in the booth. I would blush each time one of them told us that. There was an older man that was like me in a way. He was able to feel auras. He came over and told us that he could and he told us to let it happen. That made us pretty awkward.

When we got the house, I went to my room. I just didn't want to get in a conflict with him. He didn't seem angry either. It was still a little awkward for him and me.