𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝟭𝟬. 𝘿𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙪𝙨 ?

𝘿𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙪𝙨 ?

The group was ready, armed, focused, buzzing with the familiar, reckless confidence that came just before a mission. 

They had even taken the time to transform Jane. Thick black eyeshadow smeared across her lids in dramatic strokes, curls slicked back with wax and a fresh outfit pulled together from Dottie's scavenged wardrobe.

She looked nothing like the soft-spoken girl Erin had met on the rooftop.

She looked like them, like one of Kali's soldiers.

What unsettled Erin most wasn't the change itself, but the fact that Jane didn't seem bothered by it. In fact... she almost seemed to like it. Like she fit here. Like she wanted to.

Erin couldn't understand why. Why a girl who had a home, a real home, with a family who knew her name and waited for her, was choosing to sit among thieves and killers in a rotting warehouse.

Why she would choose them, people with nothing, people who took everything, when Erin would have given anything to have what Jane had walked away from.

Once everyone was gathered, they piled into the van. Erin, as always, claimed her spot at the very back, wedged against the rear doors, knees to her chest, notebook balanced in her lap. The road was long. It was always long. It gave her too much time to think.

Music blared through the shaky speakers, Axel and Dottie shouting lyrics out of tune while Mick drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The van rattled like an old tin can, but inside, everyone was loud, laughing, alive.

Everyone except her.

After nearly an hour, Jane made her way down the narrow aisle, bracing herself against the walls as the van swayed. She slipped onto the floor beside Erin, sitting cross-legged, hands folded neatly in her lap.

"You write a lot," she said, glancing at the notebook. "Is it a journal?"

Erin closed it before answering.

"Something like that."

Small talk always made her feel like she was being pushed into a shape she didn't fit. Jane, however, looked completely at ease like awkwardness simply didn't exist in her world. It was disarming. Almost irritating.

"Why don't you talk?" Jane asked. "You never really talk."

The question caught Erin off-guard, so frank it almost sounded like an accusation. Her lips parted, but the words didn't come right away.

"I just... don't have that much to say."

She wasn't sure that was true. But it was the only answer she had.

Jane nodded, quiet for a few heartbeats. Then:

"Kali said you can read thoughts."

Erin's gaze flicked to the front of the van. Kali was leaning toward Mick, whispering something with a smirk.

Jane's eyes came back to her.

"Can you read mine?"

One of Erin's eyebrows lifted.

"Most people don't actually want me to."

"I do," Jane said, shifting so she faced her completely. "I want you to try."

Erin stared at her. There was a steadiness in Jane's eyes, open, unguarded, trusting in a way Erin had never seen before. It made her uneasy.

But after a moment, she nodded.

She closed her eyes. Let the noise of the van fade. Let her mind fall into that strange space she had lived with all her life. She could feel the presence of minds, seven of them, each one like a faint pressure, a voice humming behind a wall.

She searched for Jane's.

Once she found it, she reached for the edges, delicate, stubborn, threaded with a strength that felt almost physical. Opening a mind wasn't simple. It was like prying apart a door with invisible hands.

After several seconds, something gave way.

And the flood hit her.

Images, faces, voices crashing through her like a storm. A man in a police uniform, speaking softly. Children running through woods. A basement. Boys shouting the name "El". Fear, terror, warmth, hope. A monster stretching across a wall like a living nightmare. A lab. Blood. A man she knew instantly, Papa.

Erin gasped, ripping herself free, eyes snapping open. Jane felt the break and leaned in, concern drawn across her face.

"Are you okay?"

Erin nodded or tried to. Her head buzzed, vision unfocused. She wiped at her face and her fingertips came away red. Her nosebleed was already trailing down to her lip.

"What kind of monster did you fight?" Erin whispered. "And what is the... Upside Down?"

Jane opened her mouth to explain, to warn her, to share something no one else in the van could ever understand—

But the van lurched violently and came to a stop.

They hadn't stopped because they'd arrived. They stopped because the van was nearly out of gas.

The vehicle rolled into an old gas station on the outskirts of nowhere, one of those places with flickering neon, cracked pavement, and a convenience store that smelled like bleach and stale cigarettes even from the parking lot.

"Fuel and supplies," Mick announced from the driver's seat, killing the engine. "Everyone out."

The doors burst open with the usual chaos, Dottie stretching dramatically like a cat, Axel jumping out before the van even steadied, Funshine hauling the back doors open to grab the empty water jugs. Jane stood, dusting off the new clothes the others dressed her in earlier, and paused, waiting for Erin to move.

But Erin didn't.

She stayed seated in the very back corner, notebook still clutched between her fingers, knuckles pale. The world outside felt too bright, too loud, too close after what she had just seen inside Jane's head.

Jane hesitated, studying her with that strange combination of curiosity and instinct. She looked like she wanted to speak but then Kali appeared at the door.

"Let's go girls," Kali said, tapping the roof twice.

Jane gave Erin one last glance, then hopped out to join the others.

Kali didn't move right away. Instead, she kept the van door propped open with her hip, arms folded, gaze sharp enough to cut.

"I don't know what's wrong with you lately," she said quietly. "But this—" she nodded toward the gas station, toward the mission waiting just beyond it "—this is important."

Erin didn't look at her. She stared at the floor, thumb brushing the corner of her notebook.

"Don't screw it up," Kali added. "Remember why we do all of this."

Her voice held no room for softness. Kali didn't need Erin to feel better, she needed her obedient, aligned, useful.

For a long moment, Erin said nothing. She swallowed, throat tight.

Finally, she forced the words out, low and flat: "Trust me. I know why."

Kali's jaw tensed, as if she didn't believe her but she didn't push. Not here, not now.

She exhaled through her nose, a small, controlled sigh. Then she stepped back and slid the van door shut with a harsh metallic thud.

Erin flinched at the sound.

Outside, Kali crossed the lot and entered the convenience store with the others, letting the cracked glass door slam behind her.

Erin stayed exactly where she was, alone in the dim, quiet belly of the van. She pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, but the images didn't fade.

They looped behind her eyelids, relentless, jagged, too vivid to be imagination.

It wasn't the violence of Jane's memories that unsettled her.

Not the blood, not the terror, not even him, the man with the hollow voice she had once called Papa.

No.

What terrified Erin was the familiarity.

She had seen parts of this before.

The silhouettes in the forest. The heavy breathing in the dark. The oppressive heat that wrapped around the skin like a second, burning layer. The monstrous shape crawling from the shadow, the one with no face, only teeth.

She had seen it in dreams. Months of dreams. Nightmares so real they left her trembling and drenched in sweat. Dreams she never understood, dreams she assumed were just fragments of trauma, twisted stories her subconscious invented to torture her on bad nights.

But now those same images lived inside Jane's memories.

They were real.

They belonged to someone, someone who lived through them.

Someone who wasn't her. Someone connected to Jane.

Erin sucked in a shaky breath, her heartbeat thumping at the base of her skull.

The van around her felt suddenly too small, too quiet, too still.

Outside, she could faintly hear the group inside the gas station. The crash came first. Then the clatter of an entire shelf collapsing.

Erin straightened instantly, spine rigid against the van's cold wall. 

Before she could process it, the station door flew open.

Axel burst out, breathing like he'd swallowed fire, a rain of stolen candy bars spilling from his hoodie as he sprinted toward the van. Dottie followed right behind, half-hysterical, muttering "shit shit shit" under her breath as if the words could undo whatever had just happened inside.

Funshine shoved through the doorway next, dragging Mick by the collar with one hand and shepherding Jane with the other.

Then Kali appeared last, slamming the door open hard enough to rattle its hinges.

"Move!" she barked.

Everyone bolted for the van.

Erin stayed frozen where she sat until Jane stumbled into view.

Erin needed only a second to put it together.

Jane hadn't pushed the station owner.

She had thrown him.

With her mind.

Mick slid behind the wheel so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet. "Get in, get in, get in!" he yelled as the others piled in.

Axel dove across the seats. Dottie slammed the side door shut. Funshine barely made it in before Mick turned the key.

Kali grabbed the open passenger door, pausing just long enough to look Erin dead in the eyes.

"You better be ready," she warned sharply.

And then Erin heard it, the rising, unmistakable scream of a police siren.

Kali didn't wait for an answer. She threw herself into the van and Mick floored it, gravel spraying behind them as the vehicle shot forward.

The siren wailed louder, chasing them down the empty road.

- ⏳-

The rest of the drive unfolded in weighted silence, at least for Erin.

Behind her, the others whispered, fidgeted, let the adrenaline of the gas-station incident simmer into restless energy. But Erin sat pressed into her corner of the van, the engine's humming vibration rattling against the memory of the things she'd seen in Jane's mind.

By the time they rolled into the quiet suburban street, night had already smothered the sky. Every porch light seemed miles away, leaving the neighborhood dim, hollow, almost abandoned. 

Mick killed the engine, and the sudden stillness pressed itself into the van like a held breath. Mick twisted around in the driver's seat, eyes scanning each of them through the dark.

"We should case the place," he said. "Stick to the routine. Erin, you can start scanning. We've got time."

Before Erin could even nod, Kali cut in, jerking her chin toward Jane.

"We also have her."

Every gaze shifted to Jane. Erin's brows pinched together, a faint knot of unease tightening in her chest.

Kali leaned forward. "Can you look?"

Jane didn't answer with words. She simply closed her eyes. A beat. Then two. And then her eyes snapped open again.

"He's watching television."

Mick nodded. "Is he alone?"

"I saw him," Jane murmured. "No one else."

Kali smiled, proud, almost triumphant. "Good enough for me."

Dottie bounced in her seat. "Me too!"

Funshine rose, cracking his knuckles. "Let's do this."

Erin was the last to stand. She didn't bother verifying how many minds occupied the house, even though it was second nature to her. If Kali didn't wanted her help, fine.

Mick opened his door. "Meet you around back."

The van doors slid open. Masks went on. They moved quickly, silently, slipping into the building and down the hall until they reached the apartment door.

Kali nodded once at Jane. Jane lifted a hand, invisible force brushing over the lock. A soft click, the deadbolt surrendered.

Inside, the television flickered blue across the living room. The man on the couch leaned forward, tapping the top of the screen as it suddenly sputtered to black.

Kali stepped in first. "Hello, Ray."

The man jolted violently, spinning around. He was in his fifties, maybe older, balding, soft around the middle, utterly ordinary. The kind of man you wouldn't look at twice at a grocery store.

"Jesus Christ!" Ray yelped, stumbling backward.

He spun to run straight into Funshine's massive chest. Funshine didn't even need to touch him; the man froze, winded by sheer presence.

"Sit down. Please," Funshine said.

Ray backed toward the couch in blind panic. When he didn't move fast enough, Funshine shoved him down with a firm hand, pinning him without effort.

"I said sit down."

Ray lifted his hands in surrender. "Just—please. Take whatever you want."

Axel crouched in front of him, smirking. "Oh, we will."

Dottie hyperactively chimed in, "Where's your wallet?"

Ray swallowed hard. "Bedroom. My bedroom, my jeans."

Dottie grabbed Axel's sleeve and pulled him toward the hallway to search.

Kali stepped in front of Ray, the man trembling in his seat. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled off her mask. Her cold gaze locked onto his, unblinking.

She motioned to Jane and Erin.

Jane removed her mask instantly. Erin hesitated until Kali's sharp, weighted stare forced her to comply.

"Do you remember us?" Kali asked.

Ray shook his head frantically. "I—I don't know what you—"

Kali didn't let him finish. Her eyes narrowed, and the air around her shimmered. Illusion washed across the room like a ripple, Jane, Erin, and Kali all shrinking into younger versions of themselves: small, frightened children in hospital gowns.

Kali's voice hardened. "What about us? Do you remember us now, Ray?"

Ray's expression twisted, recognition dawning, dread choking him. He opened his mouth—

Kali struck him across the head.

He dropped to the floor with a groan, clutching his skull.

"Please—please—"

"You hurt Mama," Jane said.  

She flicked her hand, and Ray's body flew across the room, slamming into the wall.

Erin flinched at the impact. Blood trickled from the cut on Ray's scalp. He trembled on the floor, sobbing.

"Please... listen," he gasped. "I—I just did what he told me. He said she was sick."

Kali didn't soften. Neither did Jane.

"You had a choice, Ray," Kali hissed. "And you chose to follow a man you knew was evil."

Ray gulped for air. "Wait! Wait! I can help—I can help you find him."

Erin felt something shift in the air. A prickle of danger crawled up her spine. She closed her eyes, reaching outward, searching.

Kali's voice cut sharply. "Find who?"

"Brenner!" Ray cried. "I can take you to him!"

Erin's eyes flew open, panic flashing across her face.

"Kali," she said, voice tight.

"Papa is gone," Jane muttered.

Ray shook his head violently. "No...he's alive."

Kali stepped closer, looming over him. "You can't lie to us, Ray. We'll know."

"I'm not lying! I swear—"

"Kali!" Erin raised her voice.

Kali whirled around, irritation sharp on her tongue. "What?!"

Erin's expression drained of color. Her voice dropped, low and grave.

"He's not alone."

Thank you so much for reading this far! 🎡

I had a bit of trouble writing this chapter, but here it is!

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