Joey followed Lance up the stairs with Justin and Chris bringing up the rear. They opened the door to find JC pulling himself off the floor. He looked relieved. No doubt JC had thought the worst, not knowing what had been going on.

“Are you guys all right?” JC asked.

“Yeah,” Lance said and nodded.

“Speak for yourself.” Chris rubbed the back of his head. “You landed on your couch.”

“What happened?” JC asked concern apparent on his face.

The four of them exchanged looks before Justin said, “A…demon tried to…it strangled Joey.”

JC’s eyes widened and he looked over at Joey, eyeing him critically. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Joey said.

JC frowned. “Are you sure?”

Joey nodded. “But I’m really wiped. I think I’m going to go lie down.”

Joey left the kitchen and walked upstairs before he reached his bedroom. He was kind of tired, but he was more upset and shocked than anything. Tiredness was his excuse so the guys wouldn’t have to see how upset he was. Lying on his bed, he stared at the opposite wall, his attention diverted when he heard a knock on his open door. Joey looked over and saw Chris standing in the doorway.

“What’s up?” Joey asked, sitting up and waving Chris into his room.

Chris shrugged, sitting on the end of Joey’s bed. “Nothing.”

“So why are you up here then?”

“I thought you might want someone to talk to,” Chris said.

Joey hesitated, considering telling Chris that he was fine and didn’t want to talk. But he realized if he did that, he’d be no better than JC who they always yelled at for keeping everything bottled up and not saying what was on his mind. He sighed and paused for a few more seconds to gather his thoughts. “I don’t know what to do.”

“About what?” Chris asked.

“About everything.” Joey paused. “I almost died.”

Chris nodded solemnly. “I know.”

“But that’s not even what bothers me.” Joey took a breath before he continued, “What bothers me is that I would’ve died not seeing Kelly and Brianna one last time. I would’ve left them alone.”

“But you didn’t die, and you can still go home and see them. I know things between you and Kelly aren’t great, but maybe this could be your motivation to work things out.” Chris paused. “I know you miss them.”

“I do. I want to go home and fix things, but I’m afraid to,” Joey replied.

“Kelly would understand—“

Joey shook his head and cut Chris off, “That’s not what I’m worried about.” At Chris’s raised eyebrow, he amended, “Well, it is, but that’s not the main thing.”

“Then what?” Chris asked.

“If I go home, I won’t be able to come back. She told me that I had to stay away until I was ready to stay committed to her and Brianna. But I want to be here for you guys. I want to help you figure this out,” Joey said.

“We can handle things here, and we’ll call you if anything happens. You don’t have to worry about that,” Chris replied.

“But what if it happens again? What if the demons come after me again and Kelly and Brianna get caught up in the middle of it?” Joey looked at Chris with worriedly. “I don’t want that to happen, Chris.”

Chris reached with his right hand and placed it on Joey’s arm. “You don’t know that’s going to happen.”

“I don’t want to risk it, but I don’t want to not see them either. I miss them so much. What should I do, Chris?” Joey asked.

“It’s not up to me. It’s your decision,” Chris told him.

Joey nodded. He knew Chris was right. It was his decision, but he wasn’t sure what to choose. Not seeing his wife and daughter was starting to take its toll on him, especially now that he’d nearly died. His chest ached with the desire to see them again, but he knew that he couldn’t leave the guys without this being resolved. And he couldn’t go home for a few days and come back if something happened. Joey knew he couldn’t tell Kelly the truth either, not yet anyway. That left him with only one option.

“I’m going to stay,” Joey said.

Chris nodded, not looking too surprised. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Joey replied.

“Are you at least going to call her?” Chris asked.

“And say what? That I’m not coming home because I’m afraid that if I do the demons that are after JC will hurt them?”

“You could tell her the truth,” Chris said.

“No, I can’t. She probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.” Joey shook his head. “It’s better this way.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Chris said.

“I am.”

“OK.” Chris patted Joey’s leg and pushed himself off the bed, grimacing as he did so.

Joey frowned. “Are you OK?”

“Yeah, my arm just kind of hurts. I must’ve hit it when I was slammed into the wall,” Chris replied. “But I’m going to leave you to get some rest now.”

Joey nodded and lied back down because he was kind of beat. “Thanks, Chris.”

Chris gave him a small smile. “No problem.”

After Joey and Chris left, it was just the three of them standing in the kitchen. A silence fell over the kitchen and Justin surprised Lance and JC by storming outside, slamming the glass sliding door so forcefully on his way out that it bounced back. They exchanged concerned looks.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Lance volunteered.

JC nodded. “OK. Whatever.”

Lance raised his eyebrows in surprise, but didn’t say anything. He just silently followed the path that Justin had taken outside. JC watched him go, knowing that Lance had been surprised that he hadn’t objected to Lance talking to Justin because he figured that he would want to talk to Justin himself. But the truth was that JC didn’t want to talk to Justin because he didn’t want to see Justin upset, knowing that he was the reason for Justin’s torment.

JC turned around and headed upstairs to check on Joey. He wanted to make sure that he was all right, knowing that his near death experience must’ve affected him a lot. It sure had when he’d nearly drowned in the lake at the cabin. Not to mention he wanted to see with his own eyes that Joey was as fine as he said. He had thought all of them were dead when all the screaming stopped and the basement became eerily quiet.

Reaching the top of the stairs, JC took a right towards Joey’s bedroom. As he neared the door to the bedroom, he stopped when he heard voices. Standing just outside of the doorway and enough to be out of sight, he listened to Chris and Joey talk.

“We can handle things here, and we’ll call you if anything happens. You don’t have to worry about that,” Chris said.

“But what if it happens again? What if the demons come after me again and Kelly and Brianna get caught up in the middle of it?” There was a slight pause. “I don’t want that to happen, Chris.”

“You don’t know that’s going to happen.”

“I don’t want to risk it, but I don’t want to not see them either. I miss them so much. What should I do, Chris?” Joey asked.

JC pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against, not wanting to hear anymore. He felt even worse than he had downstairs when he’d let Lance talk to Justin. It hurt to hear the agony that Joey was going through having to make the difficult decision if he should go home or not. And JC knew it was all his fault. With a sigh, he walked back downstairs to sit in the living room to wait for Justin and Lance to come back in and make sure Justin was all right.

Lance closed the sliding glass door behind him and walked towards Justin who was angrily pacing back and forth in front of the pool. When Justin turned to continue pacing, his head rose and met Lance’s gaze before he continued pacing. It wasn’t surprising that Justin was upset because he was too. They’d learned so much and it was a lot to deal with in such a short period of time. Justin stopped pacing and turned to face him when he got close enough so they could talk.

“Why does this stuff keep happening to us?” Justin asked, not even giving him time to ask what was wrong.

“Katrina—“

“I know what Katrina said,” Justin interrupted. “It’s just not fair! What has JC done to deserve demons trying to kill him and hurt us? Nothing that I can think of. The man doesn’t even like to kill bugs. So what do the demons and this devil have against him?”

“I don’t know, J,” Lance said.

“Exactly!” Justin made a fist with his left arm and slammed it into his open palm. “If we don’t know, how the hell do they know? Because if JC did something to warrant demons coming after him, he would’ve told us,” Justin ranted.

“Let me see your arm,” Lance said. He’d been watching Justin’s arms move about while he was talking and noticed that the left one looked funny.

Justin stopped ranting and blankly looked at Lance, who was staring at his arm in confusion. “What?”

“Let me see your arm,” Lance repeated.

“Why?” Justin asked, letting Lance take his left arm and look at it. Lance frowned as he turned Justin’s arm around to get a good look at both sides. It was then that it became clear that something was wrong with it. He quickly deduced that it must’ve happened when Justin got throw in the basement, but he wondered why Justin hadn’t brought it up sooner. Surely he had to be in pain.

“Justin, look at it,” Lance said.

Justin looked down, but didn’t give any acknowledgement that he knew what Lance was talking about. “What about it?”

“It’s all red and swollen.” Lance pressed against his arm. “Does that hurt?”

Justin shook his head. “No.”

“Justin, I think your arm’s broken,” Lance said, not believing that Justin couldn’t feel any pain. “You should be feeling some pain.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“C’mon, we have to go the hospital,” Lance told him, letting go of his arm.

“What? Why?” Justin asked.

Lance stared at him incredulously. He couldn’t believe Justin was arguing this because it needed to be fixed, even if his claim that he didn’t feel any pain was true. “Your arm is broken. It needs to be taken care of.”

“But I’m telling you it doesn’t hurt,” Justin said.

“Then you must have a high tolerance for pain,” Lance replied. “Now, let’s go.”

Justin sighed, but followed Lance into the house. JC looked up from the couch he was sitting on in the living room. “What’s wrong?” he asked, noticing the frown on both of his friends’ faces.

“Justin broke his arm,” Lance said.

“Just now?” JC asked, confused.

“No.” Lance shook his head. “He must’ve broken it when he was thrown into the bar.”

“He’s standing right here,” Justin muttered.

“Are you OK?” JC asked.

“I’m fine,” Justin said.

“You’ll be even more fine when we get your arm fixed,” Lance replied, leading the way down the hall with Justin behind him and JC following both of them. They almost made it to the front door when they ran into Chris.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“We’re taking Justin to the hospital to get his arm fixed,” Lance said.

“It’s broken, no it doesn’t hurt, and yes, I’m fine,” Justin said before Chris could even ask. Lance knew that Justin must be tired of having to repeat himself.

Chris nodded. “I’ll go get Joey.”

A few minutes later all five of them were in Lance’s SUV and were on their way to the nearest hospital with Lance driving. It was a short ride there, and they found a parking spot as close to the ER entrance as they could get, and walked inside. Justin walked up to the receptionist desk and smiled at the nurse.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I uh broke my arm,” Justin said.

“Here are some forms you have to fill out,” the receptionist smiled at him and handed him a clipboard with the necessary forms to complete, “Perhaps you can get one of your friends to help you.”

Justin shook his head. “No need. I broke my left arm, so I think I can manage.”

“Well, just fill out the forms, have a seat and a doctor will be with you shortly,” she said.

Justin sat down to the right of Lance and began to fill out the forms. A few minutes passed and Justin groaned. “Why do they have to ask so many questions?”

“It’s not that many, J,” Joey objected. The others looked at him and he added, “I had to fill them out when Brianna got that cold a couple years ago and scared the hell out of me and Kelly.”

“Well, if I have to write anymore my right hand’s going to need looked at too,” Justin complained, shaking his right hand.

“Quit whining and finish filling out the forms,” Chris said.

“But why do they have to ask such stupid questions?” Justin looked down at the form he was currently on. “’Do you do drugs?’ Do they honestly think that even if I did, that I would answer yes?”

“They’re just covering the basics in case someone has some drug in their system that would react badly with any medicine they could be given,” Lance replied.

“But I don’t do drugs,” Justin objected.

“Which they will take note of on your form,” Lance said and tapped the forms. “Finish up.”

“All right, all right.” The waiting room lapsed into silence again as Justin finished the rest of the form. By the time he was done, he only had to wait a few minutes before his name was called. Justin stood up to follow the doctor back into an examination room and Chris tagged along.

Lance sat in the waiting room with Joey and JC while Justin and Chris went back into the examination room. He picked up a magazine off one of the end tables and began to flip through it. The magazine was at least six months old, which made it hard to find something that would occupy his attention and led him to getting lost in his thoughts.

So much had happened in the past few hours and it was all begging for his attention. He didn’t blame Justin for storming out of the kitchen and ranting about it all because he felt the same way. Katrina’s explanation had answered some of their questions, but it also raised some more, all of which Justin brought up outside. It was unnerving to think that some devil had some personal vendetta against JC and wanted him dead.

And to make matters worse the demons wanted to torture JC before they killed him, so they went after them. First it was him with the demon in his head and now they’d nearly killed Joey. Lance didn’t know what they would’ve done if Katrina hadn’t showed up. He was thankful that she had, but it had been kind of weird seeing her again. It had been nearly six months since they’d seen her, and even longer than that since he’d found out she was his biological mother. That thought was still weird for him to think about, but it didn’t freak him out anymore like it had when he’d first found out. He supposed that her helping them and not killing JC had something to do with it.

Speaking of JC, Lance looked to his left and saw that he hadn’t really moved since they’d first sat down. He wasn’t reading anything, just sitting there staring at the wall across the room. Lance looked closer at him and took in the paleness of his skin, which highlighted the bags under his eyes. It made him wonder if JC was getting sleep.

“Are you OK?” Lance asked, figuring it would be easier to talk to him through their connection since Joey was sitting there playing with his cell phone by opening and closing it. The color had fully returned to Joey’s face, which put Lance at ease. It had been disturbing to see Joey so pale and watch his struggles become weaker as the life was chocked out of him. Lance’s thoughts about Joey were interrupted by an empty feeling, which let him know that JC must’ve received his message and closed their connection off again.

“Are you OK?” Lance asked aloud this time since JC blocked his mind from him.

JC tore his gaze from the wall and placed it on Lance instead. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? You look like crap, man,” Lance said.

“Thanks,” JC replied dryly.

“Seriously, are you sleeping?” Lance asked.

“Yeah, I’m just tired. It’s been a long day,” JC said. Lance nodded knowing he wasn’t going to get anything else out of him and didn’t want to end up causing a scene by pushing him. Because he knew that once they confront JC about how he takes care of himself, there was a good possibility that it could get ugly. So Lance let it drop, but knew that he would bring it up later with the other guys.