Justin walked downstairs leaving JC alone with his thoughts. It probably wasn’t the best idea given everything that’d happened, but even before all this demon stuff started JC liked to spend some time alone. He’d offered JC to come downstairs and watch some TV with him, but JC declined and Justin didn’t want to push at that moment.

Over the past couple of days Justin had left JC alone and didn’t force him to talk about everything that had happened because he knew that JC liked to deal with things on his own. But the more that he thought about it the more he realized Lance having a demon in his head, him seeing it before it happened, and now seeing that another bad thing was going to happen seemed to be interrelated. And he was sure that what JC experienced in Lance’s head was important to all of that. JC wouldn’t talk about what’d happened willingly, so Justin knew that they would have to force him to. As he entered the kitchen he found Lance unloading the dishwasher.

“Want some help?” Justin offered.

Lance shrugged. “If you want.”

Justin stepped closer and grabbed a bowl, placing it on the top shelf. As he rubbed a towel over a particularly wet dish, he decided now would be a good time to talk to Lance about JC.

“Have you talked to JC today?” he asked.

“No.” Lance looked up from the dish he was drying to raise an eyebrow at him. “Have you?”

“No. Well, yeah, but not about himself,” Justin said.

Lance placed the glass in the cupboard with the others. “Sounds like JC.”

“Yeah, but he needs to talk to us about what happened,” Justin replied.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” Lance laughed and shook his head.

Justin looked at Lance in surprise. “What?”

“You get so pissed when one of us keeps a secret from you, but as soon as the tables are turned, you don’t hesitate to do the same thing,” Lance explained.

Justin thought about what Lance said and realized that there was some truth to it. A couple months ago he’d tried to get all their secrets out in the open, but that was before he started having nightmares. Being in JC’s shoes made Justin understand where JC was coming from. It made him understand why he preferred to keep his own pain and distress out of conversations. He kind of felt remorseful at the way he’d treated JC and others about their secrets, but thinking back he probably wouldn’t have change anything because he hadn’t really forced JC to talk until after he’d collapsed since his secrets had affected his health. But bringing himself back to the present Justin decided that it’s hard to determine what secrets should be talked about and what shouldn’t. For now, all he knew was that they needed to know what happened.

Justin shook his head, dismissing what Lance said. “I know I haven't exactly been consistent with how I feel about secrets, but this time is different. We need to know what happened.” He paused. “He must know something important if it's screwed him up this much. And maybe if we had all the information, we could put a stop to it.”

“Do you honestly think that if he knew how to stop all of this he would keep it to himself? It must be personal,” Lance replied.

Justin sighed but nodded. It made sense because JC was very protective of them and always tried to fix their problems. But on the other hand, what if he’s got a plan and keeping it to himself, not wanting them to get involved? Knowing that Lance would just dismiss it if he brought it up, Justin instead said, “But aren’t you the least bit curious? I mean, he was in your head.”

“Maybe a little, but not enough to force him to talk. Like I told Chris, he’ll talk when he’s ready.”

“I don’t want to force him, but I still think we need to know what happened,” Justin said.

“Justin—“

“Fine. I’ll drop it,” Justin said, interrupting Lance. “But I am going to ask him about it.”

Lance nodded. “That’s your decision, but don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work.”

Justin reached into the nearly empty dishwasher to grab a spoon and nicked his finger on a knife. Immediately he pulled his finger up to his mouth and sucked on it. “It’s not funny,” he said in response to Lance’s small smile.

Lance managed to school his face back to neutrality and continued drying the damp dishes. Justin removed his finger from his mouth and saw that the bleeding had stopped, but that it left a small cut behind. Deciding he was done helping Lance, he leaned against the counter and watched Lance put the dishes away.

“Is Joey going home?” Justin asked a minute later. He was kind of surprised that Joey was still hanging out with them. He figured that he would’ve went back to his family a day or two ago.

Lance glanced back at Justin as he put the final dish away. “You want him to leave?”

“No.” Justin shook his head. “I just feel like we’re hogging him. He hasn’t spent much time with Kelly and Brianna.”

“Well,” Lance dried his hands off, “I did talk to Chris. He didn’t tell me everything, but he did say that Joey’s having some problems with Kelly right now.”

Justin looked surprised. “Really? I knew he was frustrated with her because she couldn’t trust him not to drink, but I didn’t know it was serious.”

“Yeah, so it would probably be best if you didn’t bring it up unless he does,” Lance replied.

Justin nodded, but before he could say anything JC came walking into the kitchen. JC didn’t spare him or Lance a glance as he opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. He watched as JC crossed back through the kitchen, probably heading back upstairs and knew that now would be the time to hint that he wanted to talk to JC eventually about what’d happened.

“Hey, JC?”

JC stopped in his tracks and turned around to face him. “Yeah?”

“You want to talk later?” Justin asked. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lance look down and shake his head.

JC stared at him blankly for a minute before he turned and walked away without a word. It was shocking to hear such a blunt approach from Justin, who had pretty much been on his side through most of their ordeal. He had been the one insisting on his behalf that he didn’t need therapy. Being badgered by Justin added to his existing frustration towards his friends. It was getting tiring dealing with them constantly pestering him about what happened the other night.

Walking past the living room, he was almost to the stairs when Chris, who was sitting in the living room, called for him.

JC backtracked and stood in the doorway of living room. “What?”

“Come sit down for a minute,” Chris requested, patting the couch he was sitting on.

JC sighed, but moved forward to sit in the armchair. He figured he might as well see what he wanted or else he’d probably keep bugging him until he gave in anyway. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could go back upstairs. But Chris wasn’t talking, his head turned to the TV.

“Can you believe Kurt Loder still does the MTV news? He needs to get a life,” Chris said.

“Just say what you want to say so I can leave,” JC snapped, not appreciating Chris’s attempt to ease into the conversation.

Chris nodded, clearly not fazed by JC’s short temper, and turned his body to face JC. “You didn’t act all that surprised when Justin passed out this morning.” Chris paused. “So what do you know that we don’t? Cause it sure seems like you know something.”

“I don’t,” JC lied. “But even if I did, why should I tell you? I told you about the demons and you didn’t believe me, so why would you now?”

JC rose from the chair and walked out into the hall to leave only to be stopped by Chris’s arm on his shoulder forcing him to turn around. “I’m sorry, man, but it’s kind of a hard thing to believe when your friend tells you something like that.”

“Well, you should have! When I have been known to make up stories?” JC shot back.

“Never, and I said I was sorry. It’s just that the odds of demons actually attacking us is like what, a million to one? I was just going by the numbers,” Chris joked.

“Everything’s a damn joke to you!” JC yelled. His eyes moved over to the kitchen doorway and saw Lance and Justin standing there. He felt something inside of him snap. “I only came down for some water and what do I get? Bombarded with questions!”

“JC,” Chris started, but JC continued ranting.

“Leave me the hell alone!” he yelled and threw his water bottle.

Unbeknownst to JC, Joey had just reached the bottom of the stairs as the bottle went whizzing towards his head. He ducked just in time, however, and bent down to pick it up, looking at it in confusion.

JC, with his attention fully focused on the other three, shouted one final request, “Mind your own damn business!”

JC turned around and stormed passed Joey, grabbing his water bottle out of Joey’s hands on the way. Halfway up the stairs he heard Joey ask, “What the hell did you guys do?”

Lance sat on the couch in the living room with the other guys, except for JC of course. They’d been watching TV for a while, but it didn’t have Lance’s attention. He was wrapped up in his thoughts. It had been scary to see JC yell like that because that rarely happened. Normally when JC felt cornered he’d snap at them, but he never really yelled like he had. Even when he freaked out with Derek he was more upset than angry. JC had a history of getting overly upset and hysterical, but never outright furious. Knowing this, Lance realized that it was probably a good thing that JC let off some steam after everything he’d been dealing with lately.

The real surprise came when Lance tried to talk to JC a little after he went back upstairs. He had sent JC a mental message if they could talk only to be left with the feeling of a door being slammed in his face. Lance attempted to repeatedly send his request to talk, but he could tell that JC wasn’t receiving the message. Normally, even if JC didn’t respond, he could sense JC’s emotional or physical reaction to what Lance had said. But now, he got nothing. It was like their connection had been completely broken. At least temporarily anyway. Lance had no idea it was even possible, but if anyone could figure out how to close off a telepathic connection, JC could.

Part of him wanted to talk to someone else about it, but he knew now wasn’t the time for that. Besides, the others didn’t really know anything about how their connection worked, so they wouldn’t be much help anyway. Maybe when JC wasn’t so pissed, he’d ask him how he was able to do that. Lance relaxed back against the couch and tried to focus on the TV when a loud scream came from the basement.

“Guys!” JC yelled. Lance could hear the fear and panic in his voice. Immediately he and the other guys jumped off the couch. The four of them ran for the basement and down the stairs.

Once his feet hit the basement floor Lance’s mind absently registered that the door slammed shut, but it didn’t concern him because he figured he’d pulled it closed behind in his haste to get down the stairs. Lance stepped forward and looked around the basement. JC was nowhere to be seen.

“Everyone heard him, right?” Lance asked, checking to see if he’d really heard it even though he knew he had.

“Yeah,” Joey agreed.

“Where the hell is he?” Chris asked, coming out of the bathroom.

Then they heard pounding on the basement door and JC yelling through it. “Guys!”

Lance ran up the stairs and yelled through the door. “JC? What are you doing up there? We heard you yell from down here.”

“That wasn’t me,” JC replied. “Now open the door.”

Lance tried the knob only to find that it wouldn’t turn. “It’s locked.”

“Well, then unlock it,” JC said.

“I can’t. It’s stuck,” Lance replied.

“Let me try,” Chris said, pushing past him. Lance backed down a couple stairs to give him some room. Joey came up behind Chris and they watched as Chris continued to jiggle the doorknob. Quiet mumbling could be heard from the bottom of the stairs. A quick look confirmed that it was Justin. Lance walked the rest of the way down the stairs and over to Justin who he could hear clearly.

“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit,” Justin mumbled to himself, blue eyes wide with worry and fear. His body was stiff and tense.

Lance put a hand on his shoulder trying to put him at ease a little. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Justin repeated incredulously. “We’re in the basement!”

Lance realized that he was right. Justin had warned them to stay out and it didn’t even matter that they did because they were in it now. A feeling of dread filled him as he realized that they must’ve been lured down here, but for what reason he didn’t know. But before he could even come up with a plan or try to console Justin, he felt Justin’s shoulder be pulled out from under his fingers and saw him thrown sideways into the end of the bar with a sickening crack.

“Justin!” was the only thing Lance had time to yell before he too was throw across the room. Through some bit of luck he managed to land on his couch, the force causing him to roll onto the floor. As he lied on his stomach trying to get his bearings, he watched as Chris got thrown straight into the back wall and Joey onto the pool table. He could also hear the pounding on the door resume. No doubt JC was probably freaking out.

It took a minute, but Lance was finally able to get everything to focus again and could get on his feet without any real trouble. His attention was drawn over to the pool table where Joey was lying. There was a dark figure hovering over Joey with two inky black hands wrapped around his throat, strangling the life out of him. Joey was gasping and weakly struggling against the smoky transparent figure with red eyes that was trying to kill him. Lance stood, shocked at what he was seeing, but knew that he had to try to do something.

He ran over to Joey and saw that Justin was starting to pull himself off the floor. Lance tried to grasp the demon’s arm to pull him off Joey, but his hand went right through the demon’s arm. Instantly Lance felt déjà vu of when Katrina had tried to smother JC with a pillow, and they couldn’t grab hold of her to stop her either. The demon didn’t spare him a glance. It must not be worried about them being able to stop it.

“What do we do?” Justin yelled.

“I don’t know!” Lance shouted back.

Justin shook his head. “We have to do something!”

They frantically scanned the basement looking for something they could use to help Joey and get the demon off of him, but they couldn’t find anything that seemed like it would help. Chris rummaged through his pockets and ended up pulling a book of matches out of his pocket. “I have matches!” he yelled.

Lance looked at Chris in disbelief. “What the hell are those supposed to do?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Chris argued, stepping closer to Lance.

“Stop it!” Justin yelled, stepping between them. “We need to help Joey!”

“How are we supposed to help him? We can’t touch the damn thing!” Lance replied, running a shaky hand through his hair. His eyes landed on Joey who was getting progressively paler and his lips were tinting blue from lack of oxygen. He had never felt so useless knowing that he was watching Joey die in front of his eyes.

Just then there was a flash of light and they yelled Joey’s name in unison. Next thing they knew everything went quiet. Lance couldn’t even hear JC beating on the door anymore. When the light faded they saw Katrina Bass forcefully pulling the demon off of Joey before she and the demon disappeared. Immediately Joey let out a gasp and began to cough violently from the lack of air. They rushed over to him and helped him to sit up, which eased the coughing allowing Joey to breathe better.

“Are you OK, Joey?” Justin asked, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Joey nodded, still breathing heavily, but his color was returning. Lance sighed in relief. He had honestly thought he was going to lose his friend and was thankful Katrina became a guardian angel that watched over them instead of the vengeful spirit she’d been because it allowed her to save Joey.

Lance was forced to take his eyes off Joey and look at Chris when he asked, “What the hell just happened?”

“I dragged the demon back to hell and forced it to stay there,” Katrina said as she reappeared on the opposite side of the pool table that Joey was still sitting on.

“Thanks for saving, Joey,” Lance said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Joey croaked, his voice hoarse.

“What’s going on?” Chris asked, bringing Katrina’s attention back to him. “Why was a demon trying to kill Joey?”

Katrina sighed. “The demons have been after the four of you,” her gaze lingered on Joey and Lance, “because they know how much it would affect JC to see you guys hurt.”

The four guys looked at each other with wide eyes in shock. “Why would they want to hurt JC?” Justin asked.

“I don’t know, and I don’t think the demons attacking you know either. They’re just following orders from someone else.” Katrina paused. “Just like I was when I tried to kill JC a year ago.”

“What? How’d you end up with demons?” Lance asked, surprised and afraid of the answer.

“It was before I made it into heaven. I was stuck here because I refused to let go until I got my revenge, so they sought me out and at the time I was so filled with hate and the need for revenge that I agreed. But I couldn’t do it,” Katrina said.

Lance frowned in confusion. “I thought you tried to kill him because you wanted revenge?”

“It’s true that I had strong feelings of hatred and vengeance towards JC, but it was never my idea to kill him. I was bound to the cabin and never expected JC to show up willingly. I was swayed into doing it,” Katrina explained.

“So we were drawn to that camp for a reason?” Lance asked.

“I wish I could say for sure, but if I had to guess I’d say the one in charge of the demons attacking you is responsible for it,” Katrina said. Lance paled at the thought that some evil being was responsible for them arriving at the cabin where they’d almost lost JC. It was unsettling to think that it could’ve planted the idea in his head since he’d been the one to suggest it.

“Who are the demons working for?” Chris asked.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s a devil,” Katrina said.

Justin’s eyes got bigger. “The devil? As in Satan?”

Katrina shook her head. “No. There are many creatures that exist in Hell and I think there are devils that answer to Satan. It seems that a particular one is in charge of what happens to your friend.”

“So this…devil sent a demon to kill Joey?” Chris asked.

“Yes, and I believe there will be others. You all will have to be very careful because I’m sure they will be back,” Katrina said.

“Is there anyway to stop them?” Joey asked roughly.

“I’m sure there must be some way, but you’ll have to figure it out,” Katrina said.

“Can’t you help us?” Lance asked.

“Since I’m a guardian angel now I can’t stand in the way of the devil’s plans. I can protect you, but I don’t know if I can protect JC,” Katrina told them.

“We’ll find a way,” Justin said determinedly.

Katrina smiled softly at him. “I wish you all the best of luck, but I must be going.”

“Thanks.” Lance paused. “For everything.”

Katrina just smiled and faded, leaving them alone in the basement. They exchanged looks of disbelief with each other. What they had just learned was insane. JC had been right. The demons were after them, but wanted to kill him. The only solace Lance could find in the situation is that they still had time to try to figure out what exactly was going on and how to get JC out of the middle of it. Without a word being said, they all agreed not to tell JC what they’d found out. They didn’t want to put that weight on his shoulders because Lance knew that he would feel responsible for everything that happened. More than he did now anyway. Lance just prayed they could figure it all out before it was too late.