“What the hell is wrong with this person?” Justin asked, looking at an amateur website with a black background with orange flames and red text. There were also sketches of demons.

“Well, apparently he thinks he’s the Prince of Darkness reincarnated,” JC said dryly.

Justin laughed and shook his head as JC went back to the search results page. They’d been researching for nearly an hour for some way to get rid of the demons through protective spells or whatever else they could find. After breakfast, the five of them had decided to start looking into getting a concrete plan, so they’d broken up the tasks to make it easier. But so far he and JC weren’t having any luck.

A laugh turned Justin’s attention to Chris who was leaning back in the recliner with a smile on his face. He’d been working on calling some of the people he went to college with to see if they could help with pulling Lance’s memory from the cabin when he was young. It was an unspoken agreement that Lance would be the one to have his memory of the cabin recovered because they were wary to try something like that with JC again considering how he’d reacted with Derek.

But so far it hadn’t seemed like Chris had been successful either. Though, if the smile on Chris’s face was any indication, he was enjoying catching up with old friends.

Justin looked at Chris expectantly as he hung the phone. “Nothing?”

“No.” Justin sighed heavily and Chris added, “It’s all right. We’ll find someone. I still have like five more people I haven’t tried yet.”

“But what if they changed careers?” Justin asked.

“I guess it’s possible, but there’s this one chick, Nicole. She was the most dedicated person I knew. No way she would’ve switched,” Chris said.

Justin watched Chris flip through an old faded orange notebook that apparently held the numbers of the people he knew from college. “You calling her?” Justin asked as Chris punched numbers into his phone.

“Might as well,” Chris said.

Justin just nodded and sat back against the cushions on the couch. He glanced to the left over JC’s shoulder occasionally. There wasn’t much for him to do since JC was on his computer and Chris was on the phone, so he was getting bored and antsy. They needed to find a solution and Justin felt so useless just sitting there not doing anything to help.

Absently he scratched at his side until he felt JC’s hand cover his, stilling the motion. Justin looked over at JC confused. “What?”

“Don’t scratch,” JC said, not even taking his eyes off the screen.

“But it’s itchy,” Justin whined as he continued to scratch at the stitches that were starting to irritate his skin from healing.

JC grabbed Justin’s hand again. “You’re going to pull your stitches out.”

“I just want them gone,” Justin said. “They’re really annoying.”

JC sighed and glanced over at him. “We’ll call your doctor later and set something up, all right? Just try not to scratch your side.”

“Fine.”

Justin paused and squirmed at the uncomfortable feeling of his side being itchy and not scratching it. He really wanted to, but knew that JC would just yell at him again. But then that feeling increased as his left arm started to itch beneath the cast. It was driving Justin crazy and he tried to look around the room for something he could use to stick in his cast to alleviate the itching. Sighing in relief, he spotted a pencil on the table and picked it up before trying to shove it into the narrow space between the cast and his skin.

“Give me the pencil.”

Justin turned his attention to JC who had his right hand held out expectantly with a stern expression on his face. He sighed as he pulled the pencil out of his cast and placed it in JC’s hand. “You’re so anal.”

JC didn’t say anything, but placed the pencil on the end table next to him before he went back to browsing websites. Justin leaned over his shoulder more, trying to get himself to focus on something else besides the itchiness in his arm and side. But his attention was diverted when he heard Chris begin to say goodbye.

“Thanks a lot, Nikki. You’ve been a big help.”

Justin sat up and tucked a leg under himself as he leaned forward anxiously. It sounded like Chris might’ve actually gotten somewhere. “She can help us?” he asked once Chris removed the phone from his ear.

“Well, she can’t help us with the whole memory thing because she specializes in clinical psychology. But she gave me the number of a guy that’s supposed to be able to help us out,” Chris explained.

“Aren’t you going to call him now?” Justin asked.

“I was going to talk to Lance and Joey first. See what they want me to do.”

Justin opened his mouth to volunteer to ask them since he wasn’t doing anything when there was a cry of frustration on his left. He turned his head to see JC pound the keyboard angrily.

“These damn people are freaking crazy! Anyone who’s had a real experience with demons isn’t going to devote an entire website to it! Why the hell are we even wasting our time with this crap?”

“We’ll find something,” Justin tried to assure him, putting a hand on JC’s shoulder.

JC shrugged off his hand. “You guys have been searching the Internet for how long? I thought you guys had a plan. I never would’ve volunteered to help if I had known we were just going to be screwing around.”

“Well, that didn’t last long,” Chris said.

“What?” JC asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’re already looking for an excuse to back out of helping,” Chris said.

JC rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m part of this?”

“A million, but even then it still wouldn’t be enough. Because I know that you’re not as committed to this as you say you are,” Chris said.

“Then why am I going through all these stupid websites trying to find a solution?”

Chris shook his head. “I don’t know, but I’m sure you have your reasons.”

“And me actually wanting to help can’t be a reason?” JC asked.

“Not when you were so adamant about not being involved before.”

“C’mon, JC. Just ignore Chris.” Justin clicked onto a new website. “Look, this site looks promising.”

Justin hated watching JC fight and this was the second time within twenty-four hours. It added unnecessary tension and Chris was just adding fuel to the fire by making remarks that he knew JC would respond to. The best thing he could do was try to divert JC’s attention and let the argument fizzle out. But his attempt failed as JC’s eyes snapped from the computer screen back to Chris.

“Well, I was right to feel that way, wasn’t I? I’ve been sifting through psycho ramblings about how demons are so awesome and their best friend or whatever the hell.” JC shook his head and muttered, “What the hell was I thinking getting a summoning ritual off the Internet? It probably wouldn’t have worked.”

“Which is a good thing, JC,” Chris said, fixing him with a stern look that dared him to deny it.

“No, I know.”

“It doesn’t sound like it. Sounds like you’re angry about not being able to kill yourself,” Chris said.

“I’m not. This is my life we’re talking about and I want to be around to live it,” JC replied.

Chris leaned forward in the chair, his eyes narrowed. “You weren’t too concerned about that when you tried to give yourself to the demon.”

“That was before. I’m in it now,” JC said.

“So you say,” Chris replied dryly.

“You know what? I’m tired of you accusing me of not being part of this, so maybe I should just go back to dealing with this myself while you guys scramble for a solution,” JC told him and roughly set the computer down on the coffee table in front of him before rising to his feet.

“JC, you can’t go,” Justin said as he reached up to grab onto JC’s shirt. JC sighed, but allowed Justin to pull him back down onto the couch. “We need you. We can’t do this without you.”

“Why? It’s not like he’s doing much,” Chris mumbled.

Justin turned his head to glare at him. “Would you just shut up? Why are you purposely pissing him off? Do you want him to seclude himself like he used to do? Because that’s surely what’s going to happen if you keep pushing him. JC’s part of this and wants to help, so just back off.”

A tense silence settled over the room before Chris finally said, “I’m going to go talk to Joey and Lance. See what they want to do about that guy.”

Justin watched him go feeling a little bad for yelling at him, but it’d been necessary. Chris had been out of line continuously accusing JC of having ulterior motives and purposely getting him riled up. Sure JC’s turnaround on the matter was kind of sudden, but Justin wasn’t going to question it. He trusted JC and refused to believe he could be capable of deceit like Chris was suggesting.

Lance looked off of his library card as he typed the number into the textbox on the computer screen. He and Joey were responsible for finding more information on JC’s birth mother. Joey was currently reading over the articles that they’d gotten at the library earlier that week while Lance was trying to utilize resources on the Internet to find some new information. His first thought was to try to use the library’s online database since it’d helped them before.

Once his library card number was correctly punched in, he had full access to the database that Lance and Justin had used when they first found out about JC’s mother. But now that they knew what her name was he could use that to be more specific and hopefully get better search results. As he pressed enter, a new page loaded that showed he had ten results that contained her name. It wasn’t much, but it was more than Lance’d expected.

The first five results he tried weren’t much help. Three of them had been articles that they already had and the other two had just mentioned that she went to some charity event in New York City. But the next search result elicited something interesting.

Lance quickly read the article and his eyes widened. Apparently JC’s mother, Alison, had a little sister who died in a plane crash. She’d gone up in a small twin engine as a pilot, training to get her license when the engine just malfunctioned, causing the plane to fall in a downward dive. And this was just days before Alison died at the cabin.

“I think I found something,” Lance said, spinning his chair around to face Joey who was sitting on the couch over by the window. He figured this would be something important to share.

“What do you got?” Joey asked, looking up from the papers he had in his lap.

“Alison had a little sister that died in a plane crash. Days before the demons killed her,” Lance said.

“So? What’s so weird about that?”

“The demons might’ve been behind it,” Lance said.

Joey frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“Because of how close it was to Alison’s death. Think about it, Joey. We’ve seen what the demons are capable of. They could’ve easily fixed it so the plane would crash,” Lance explained.

“I guess, but that’s only one person. Maybe if someone else that was close to her died it’d be easier to believe the demons were behind it,” Joey said.

“What about the boyfriend?” Lance asked. “When did he die?”

Joey shuffled the papers until he found the article that talked about the death of JC’s father. “Uh…May 28th.”

“That was exactly a week before Alison was killed.” Lance paused and nodded. “I knew it. I knew the demons had to be behind it, and it’s starting to make sense now.”

“What is?” Joey asked.

“Don’t you see the connection, Joey? The demons killed those people just like they’ve been trying to do to us,” Lance said.

“Yeah, but we’re not dead,” Joey pointed out.

“Well, no, but we probably should be. I mean, the only real reason we aren’t is because we have Katrina helping us out.”

Joey nodded. “But that still doesn’t prove anything.”

“I know, but at least it’s a new theory we can kind of look into,” Lance said.

“I guess, but what I don’t understand is why. Why would the demons want to kill the people close to them if all they want is the person who made the deal?” Joey asked.

Lance shrugged. “Maybe it’s a thing where they want to cause as much pain as possible before they kill the person.”

“Yeah, but what if you hate your family and aren’t close to anyone?”

“Who knows, but I don’t think that was the case with Alison. Maybe I can try to see if anyone else who knew her died,” Lance said.

“How are you going to do that?” Joey asked.

“There’s got to be a list of people that went to her sister’s funeral. That’s a good place to start.”

Joey nodded and turned his attention back to the papers as Lance brought up a news archive site that he had membership to. He clicked on the link to login and immediately punched in his username and password only to find out that the combination wasn’t correct. Lance knew that it had to be the password that was wrong because he used the same username for almost everything, while he made a point of constantly changing his passwords. Normally that was a good thing since it protected his information online, but right now he was blanking on what the password was for this particular account, especially since he hadn’t used it in over a year.

His concentration on trying to remember his password was broken by Joey who blurted, “F23GP03.”

“What?” Lance asked, staring at Joey in confusion.

“That’s your password,” Joey said.

Lance eyed him warily as he entered the password Joey just said and it immediately gave him access to the member’s only page. Lance’s eyes narrowed as he realized that Joey was right. “How did you know that? You going through my stuff?”

“No.” Joey shook his head. “I saw it like how I saw your keys.”

“Just now?”

“Yeah. I was just reading about the car accident some more when the next thing I know I’m seeing you at the computer before it kind of zooms in on your hands. I saw you typing the password,” Joey explained.

“That’s really weird.”

“Do you believe me now that this is our connection?” Joey asked.

Lance nodded. “Yeah, I believe you. I mean, there’s no way it was a coincidence that twice in one day you get these weird vision things of me.”

“I know. It’s weird how sudden it came on.”

“Yeah and that you seem to know stuff that I can’t remember.” Lance’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d said. “You can remember stuff for me. I mean, the key and the password. I was wracking my brain trying to remember and you get this…image or whatever of exactly what I was concentrating on remembering.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re going to want to test it out?” Joey asked, eyeing him warily.

“Because I do.” Lance took a deep breath. “I’m going to try to remember what happened that day at the cabin.”

Joey groaned. “I knew it.”

Lance nodded. “If we can figure out what happened, then that’s one more piece of the puzzle we have.”

“All right,” Joey agreed after a few seconds of silence.

Lance nodded and focused all of his attention on trying to remember what’d happened the day that JC’s mother had died. It was a weird feeling to sit there and wrack his brain while knowing that there was no way he was going to actually be able to pull up that memory himself. After nearly a minute or two of concentrating, Lance sighed and leaned forward in his desk chair as he let his attention fall on Joey who was sitting on the couch staring blankly in front of him.

Immediately Lance felt his stomach being to churn. What if he’d done the wrong thing forcing that memory on Joey? The other two times sounded like they’d happened so quickly and this one was already going on for a couple of minutes. Could Joey somehow get stuck in a memory? Lance hoped not, but couldn’t dismiss that thought as he began to fiddle with his watch.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance saw Chris walk into the room. “Hey, man. You guys have any luck?” Chris asked.

“I think I did the wrong thing,” Lance said, ignoring Chris’s question as his worry for Joey consumed him.

Chris frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I forced Joey to remember what happened at the cabin for me and now he’s just sitting there. It’s been a couple of minutes and he’s barely moved. Something gotta be wrong,” Lance rambled.

Chris took a step forward hesitantly with a concerned expression on his face and looked at Joey for a few seconds before he turned back around to face Lance. “He’s fine,” he assured.

“How do you know?” Lance asked, as he spun his watch around on his wrist.

“Because that’s exactly what you and JC look like when you go into each other’s heads,” Chris said, glancing back at Joey and frowning in confusion. “Though I don’t understand why Joey’s like that in the first place.”

“So you really don’t think something’s wrong?” Lance pressed.

Chris shook his head as he leaned against the desk. “No, but I do think you owe me an explanation. I’m confused as hell here. Since when can you force Joey to read your mind or whatever?”

“I’m not forcing him. Well, I guess in a way I am, but not intentionally…”

“Dude, can you just explain it without speaking in circles?” Chris asked.

Lance nodded and took a breath to calm his still jittery nerves. “Joey’s able to remember stuff that I can’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s already happened two times today. The first time was this morning before we left. I was looking for my keys and Joey got an image of me leaving them in the lock,” Lance said.

“Wait a minute.” Chris held up a hand. “Did you just say that Joey had a vision?”

“No, they’re not visions. It’s like a flash of an image or something,” Lance said.

“Well, judging by the state he’s in now I’d say it’s more than just a flash,” Chris replied, gesturing to the couch where Joey was sitting with a blank look on his face.

“Either way he sees memories that I’ve forgotten or are trying to remember.”

“You said there was a second time?”

“Yeah. I was trying to remember a password that I haven’t used in a long time when he just blurts it out,” Lance said.

“And he saw it?” Chris asked.

Lance shrugged and nodded. “He said he actually saw me typing it.”

“So this is your and Joey’s connection?”

“That’s what we’re thinking,” Lance said. “And that’s why I wanted to see if I could get him to see what happened at the cabin.”

Chris sighed. “Well, I guess there’s nothing more for us to do than wait for him to come out of it.”

“I just hope this isn’t all for naught,” Lance said quietly as he stared at Joey. He would feel so much better once he knew for sure that Joey was fine and no damage had been done. It would be a bonus if he saw the memory of the cabin, but at the moment Lance’s main concern was making sure Joey was all right.

There was no reason for Lance to worry though because Joey was fine. His sole attention was focused on the scene playing out in front of him. For the third time that day he had access to Lance’s memory only this time it was of what’d happened that day at the cabin.

Joey found himself in a bedroom that looked oddly familiar. Suddenly he realized where he’d seen it before. It was the room that JC had slept in when they went on that vacation and stayed at the cabin over a year ago. He couldn’t help the shudder that coursed down his spine at that thought. And knowing what was coming just made it even worse. 

There was laughter coming from the floor and Joey’s eyes fell onto a pair of small boys. One was sitting with legs tucked underneath and he absently brushed away the dark bangs that fell into his eyes. Clearly that was JC as he appeared when he was five. And Lance was lying on his stomach across from him as he scribbled more than colored a picture of a bunny. 

“How are you boys doing?” Alison asked as she knelt down beside them. 

“We’re coloring,” JC said. Then he held up his picture for her to see. “I’m coloring a puppy.” 

She smiled at him. “That’s very good, Josh. We’ll have to hang it up on the fridge.” 

“Look at my bunny!” Lance said and awkwardly held his picture with one hand raised as high as he could reach. 

“It’s very nice. You boys color beautifully.” 

JC looked up at her with wide, innocent eyes. “Can we get a puppy, Mommy? My birthday’s really soon.” 

Joey saw her smile falter for a second before it was back in place. “We’ll see.” 

JC nodded and went back to coloring his picture, but stopped when Alison started to pull at the collar of his shirt. 

“Mom,” JC whined as his little body tried to squirm away from his mother. “You’re in the way.” 

“Just hold still for a second, sweetie,” she said. Joey watched as she fussed with JC’s shirt and pulled out a necklace that’d been hidden underneath. 

It took Joey a second before he recognized what it was. JC’s Leo necklace. Joey was amazed to see that JC’d had it so early. He’d always thought it was something that JC got when he was older. 

“Are you done with your juice?” Alison asked him. 

JC grabbed the glass of what looked like apple juice and took a drink from it before he offered it to her with a smile. “Yep.” 

Alison accepted it before she stood up and walked over to a desk in the corner. She held the glass in her left hand as she leaned over the desk looking at something. As Joey took a step closer he realized it was a journal. Her eyes scanned the page it was open to before she flipped it over. Apparently satisfied, she nodded and left the room with the glass in her hand. 

Joey crossed the few feet and stood in front of the desk, looking down at the journal she’d just been looking at. His eyes widened at what he saw on the page. She wrote that she couldn’t take watching her friends and family die and that she knew she had to put a stop to it. But she didn’t want to sacrifice her son’s safety, so she found this psychic named Sydnie who helped her gain protection spells to try to ward off the demons for as long as possible. He tried to flip the page, but let out a frustrated sigh when he discovered that he couldn’t. 

But then his attention was diverted by a loud crash that came from the hallway. Immediately Joey abandoned the journal, but stored the information in the back of his mind for later, knowing it’d be important. He got to the doorway just as JC did and what he saw startled him even though he knew what would happen. 

Alison was standing there with broken shards of glass laying at her feet, but she wasn’t alone. A dark wispy demon with red eyes stood before her. 

“Please, can’t I have more time? Just a few more days,” Alison begged. 

“You knew this was coming. You’ve been a successful musician for ten years and now your time’s up,” the demon said, closing the gap between them slightly. 

“Don’t kill my son. Please. I’m the one you want. Just take me and leave him alone.” 

“It’s your fault for having a child. You knew what would happen if you had children while under contract,” the demon replied. 

“Mom?” JC asked, timidly as he shifted his weight anxiously. 

Alison’s eyes widened in fear as she saw JC in the doorway. “Get out of here, Josh!” she ordered. 

She turned around only to gasp as the demon wrapped a skeleton like hand around her neck. Her face lost color and when the demon let go, she dropped to the floor. Joey knew that she was dead. 

“Mom!” JC yelled as he ran forward to Alison’s side. He reached out to touch her arm only to jerk his hand back as if he’d been burnt. Then he looked up and his eyes grew large as he saw the demon. It took all of two seconds for him to let out a terrified scream before he turned on his heel and ran in the opposite direction. 

The demon immediately vanished while Lance stumbled into the hall after JC. “Josh! Where you goin’?” 

Joey quickly followed Lance out into the front yard with luscious green grass and tall trees surrounding the area. He watched as JC tripped, causing him to fall to the ground. As JC looked up the demon appeared in front of him and Joey felt his heart race. He obviously knew that nothing bad happened to JC, but it was scary to see the demon floating menacingly above him like that. 

JC whimpered softly as he scooted backwards, trying to put as much space between him and the demon as possible. The demon moved forward with a creepy hand outstretched only to suddenly stop as if it’d run into a brick wall. Then without another thought the demon disappeared. 

Joey watched as JC shakily got to his feet and his eyes dart around the surrounding area before he took off running. 

The yard faded away and was replaced with Lance’s study. Immediately his eyes focused on Chris and Lance watching him expectantly.

“Are you OK?” Lance asked, his forehead creased with worry.

“I’m fine,” Joey said.

“What’d you see?” Chris asked.

Joey looked at them both, knowing that there were so many questions and he actually had the answer to some of them. “We need to talk.”