Justin scanned article after article. He’d arrived at the library with Lance about a half hour ago. Shortly after JC had gotten off the phone, Lance had said that he was going to the library to see if they would have better luck finding information about JC’s birth parents since the Internet wasn’t helping them much. Immediately Justin jumped at the chance to get out of the house and asked if he could go. At first the guys had said no because they didn’t want something to happen to him. But then Justin had pointed out that they couldn’t keep him inside forever, and they’d relented.

He was really worried about JC and him finding out what they were up to before they had a solution. They’d really thought they were screwed when JC was on the phone earlier talking to his mom because they were afraid that she told him about the crazy story Lance had come up with and how they needed his birth certificate and other important documents. But in the end it they’d been freaking out for no reason because JC hadn’t found out what they’d done or else he would’ve come downstairs yelling and pissed off. Now it really put a rush on them to find some information because it would be worth it to have JC screaming at them if they had the information they needed and at the very least a working solution.

Glancing to his right at Lance, he was sure that Lance probably appreciated the help. They hadn’t really been able to help at Lance’s house since Lance was using his computer and they hadn’t brought their own. Justin had a feeling that they would find something before they left today, especially since they’d split up the work. Both of them were using databases to do a nationwide search through old newspapers, but Lance was looking up JC’s father while he was looking up his mother.

“I’ve got something,” Lance said as if he’d known what Justin was thinking.

“Yeah?” Justin asked, abandoning his computer to look over Lance’s shoulder.

Lance nodded and gestured to the screen in front of him. “May 28, 1981 a tractor trailer on I75 lost control and collided with a car that 33-year-old Thomas Ahamay had been driving.”

“He die?”

“Killed on impact,” Lance said, turning to look at him. “Maybe that’s why they didn’t get married.”

Justin shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

“What about you? Find anything?” Lance asked.

“Actually…” Justin repositioned himself in front his computer. “There’s a bunch of articles about her. Apparently she’s a very talented musician. She plays a bunch of instruments and has performed in different music halls across the country.”

“Must be where JC gets it from,” Lance mused and Justin nodded. He’d thought the same thing whenever he’d first discovered her advanced musical ability. It was kind of weird researching JC’s parents, especially when they didn’t know if he even knew anything about them. But at the same time it was interesting because they were learning something new that could possibly bring them closer to stopping the demons from killing JC.

“It also says she composed a bunch of different pieces.” Justin paused briefly, trying to think if the name sparked anything in his mind because he thought it’d be cool if he’d come across something of hers in the past but didn’t know it. “For all the great reviews she got, I don’t remember hearing about her.”

Lance gave him a knowing look. “Well, first off, you weren’t even born when she was composing. And second off, I’m sure a lot of people don’t know who she is unless they’re into classical music.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Is there anything else?” Lance asked, peering over his shoulder and squinting at the screen.

Justin turned his head slightly to look at him and frowned when he saw him squinting. “Where are your glasses?”

“I forgot them at the house,” Lance said.

“You’re going to screw up your eyes,” Justin replied.

“I only need them for reading.”

Justin raised an eyebrow and gestured to the computer and surrounding books. “What do you call this?”

“Researching,” Lance said simply.

“You’re going to give yourself a head—”

“Justin,” Lance interrupted and tapped at the screen.

Justin rolled his eyes and sighed. He wasn’t really surprised at Lance’s behavior because he’d thrown himself into research ever since they’d had that group discussion a week ago after JC’d made himself sick. But Justin was concerned that Lance might be overdoing it. The rest of them were partially responsible for Lance taking on the majority of the load, but now that they were helping it was easy to see how irritable this was making Lance. Earlier he and Chris had seen Lance fighting with JC from where they’d been talking on the patio. Normally JC and Lance got along well and hardly ever fought, and Justin was afraid that they’d cause a rift between the group which would be damaging since it was important that they all stick together and prepare for what could happen.

“That’s all I’ve really found so far. Though, I have noticed that there seem to be less articles about her the closer it gets to the year JC was born.”

“She probably wanted to take a break once she got pregnant,” Lance reasoned. “Why don’t you fast forward to 1981, the year he was adopted?”

Justin nodded and skipped ahead until he landed on January of 1981. From there he slowly scanned through the newspaper articles. Nothing caught his eye until he reached the beginning of June. “Whoa,” Justin whispered.

“What? Find something?” Lance asked.

“A lot more than something.” Justin paused and read, “’Oakwood Cabin Rental has temporarily closed their camp in Southern Florida, just 120 miles outside of Orlando, due to a string of deaths that took place this past weekend. The first, and probably most tragic, occurred on Friday the sixth when two children were swimming in a lake. Young Amanda, age five, accidentally drowned after hitting her head while horsing around with her friend. Her family was devastated, especially her mother who was found the next morning hanging from the ceiling fan in the room her daughter stayed in.’”

Lance frowned. “Is there more?”

Justin nodded. “’But the final death that took place later that evening has coroners puzzled. Thirty-one year old Alison Weston was thought to have committed suicide as well, but after the autopsy, no cause of death can be determined. Her five year-old son, Joshua, who had been present while the little girl drowned, was found wandering the woods surrounding the Oakwood property. He currently sits in foster care until other family members can be contacted, or else he’ll remain there until he’s adopted. Oakwood Cabin Rental said in a press conference that they’re in no way responsible for what’d happened, and that they’ll use the time that it’s closed to do some much needed remodeling.’”

“I think we found a big piece of the puzzle,” Lance said.

“Yeah, but there are still too many questions. Like how JC’s mom died,” Justin replied.

Lance read over the article and said, “Well, the coroners don’t even know.”

“So…you think it was the demons?”

Lance shrugged. “It’s certainly possible considering what we’ve dealt with. And if they were after her, it would explain why the demons are after JC now.”

“But why would they be after her? She seemed like a good person,” Justin said. In a way it’d been a relief to find out that JC’s mother had been killed because that meant she took good care of JC and that none of those horror stories they’d all heard about happened to his friend. But now there were even more questions about why the demons would be after her, and more importantly, why they decided to go after JC too.

“I don’t know, J.”

“Maybe we should ask Katrina,” Justin suggested.

“Why?” Lance asked.

“Because she was there. Maybe she knows something or noticed something weird about JC’s mom,” Justin said.

“If she did, don’t you think she would’ve told us?”

“She refuses to help us, so I wouldn’t put lying past her,” Justin said.

Lance narrowed his eyes. “She’s an angel. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, she’s not helping us either.”

“Because she can’t get in the way of the devil’s plans,” Lance defended. “She wants to help us in any way she can, but we need to find a solution ourselves.”

“And how the hell are we supposed to do that? We barely managed to find out what we did,” Justin said.

“We?” Lance repeated. “I’ve been the one doing all of the research. What have you been doing?”

Justin was momentarily stunned before anger took over. “Screw you, Lance. Between being kidnapped and having visions, I haven’t exactly had any time to help research.”

Lance sighed heavily and looked down at his watch. “I think we’ve found all we’re going to today. We need to get back and fill in Joey and Chris.”

Joey pulled the covers back and climbed into bed. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, but he wasn’t that tired because he had too much on his mind. A lot had gone on earlier that day, and things weren’t the best between them and JC. It’d started that morning when JC had yelled at Lance for drugging him the night before, but it got even worse later when JC’d found out that Lance and Justin had left the house. JC had been mad that Joey and Chris had let Justin leave the house considering what’d just happened to him. They’d argued with him saying that they couldn’t do anything about it now and eventually JC left in a huff.

A couple hours later Justin and Lance returned from the library, but before Joey or Chris could ask them how it went JC came back into the room. Immediately he launched into a similar rant that he’d expressed earlier while Lance and Justin were gone. It was understandable why he was so upset over it because he’d watched Justin get taken right before his very eyes, but he needed to accept that they couldn’t stop Justin from going out. Justin had reiterated that point and promised that he’d be careful, which had been enough for JC to let it go.

After JC’d left the room, probably to seclude himself in his room, Justin and Lance had filled them in on what they’d found out about JC’s birth parents at the library. They’d told him and Chris about the tragic death of JC’s father and the mysterious death of his mother. It hadn’t been as surprising as Joey had thought it would be. He had a feeling that it was because he found it hard to believe that JC’s adoption would’ve been caused because the state had to interfere. But still it was a lot of information to take in and process. Since both of them had died it wasn’t like they could hunt down his mother and ask her why the demons were after her. Some of their questions had been answered, but it’d also brought up new questions that seemed even more impossible to answer than the last ones. And before they could even figure out what their next plan of action should be JC had come walking back into the room, effectively cutting off their conversation.

Joey tiredly shook his head. There was so much drama already, and it would only increase when JC found out what they’d learned by going behind his back. To Joey it wasn’t a matter of if JC would find out but when. Overall he felt terrible about it, but at the moment it was their best option since asking JC was out of the question. He dreaded the day when JC did find out because it would only make the tension worse. It had first appeared when JC had told them that he didn’t want any part of looking for a way out, but it only seemed to mount as the days passed, especially after last night with Lance drugging him. The sooner all of this was over and they saved JC, the better.

The racing thoughts in Joey’s mind started to slow, allowing haziness of sleep to creep in. After lying there for a minute, his eyelids closed of their own accord. It didn’t last long though because he sensed someone had entered the room, which shook him out of the light doze he’d fallen into. He opened his eyes and his heart skipped a beat when he saw someone at the foot of his bed, but quickly realized that it was Chris.

“God, Chris,” Joey complained, putting a hand over his heart. “You scared the crap out of me.”

Joey expected Chris to laugh and make a joke about how he was such a girl for being so jumpy, but he didn’t joke or laugh. He just stood there staring at him. It unnerved Joey, but figured that maybe Chris couldn’t sleep and didn’t know what to say.

“Can’t sleep?” Joey asked. There still was no answer so Joey added, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s so much you don’t know,” Chris said finally.

Joey raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Thanks a lot.” Joey rolled his eyes and threw up his hands in exasperation. He didn’t know what was up with Chris and he waited a few minutes in silence to see if he would say anything else. Finally he couldn’t take it and said, “You know what? I’m going to try to get some sleep now, so I’d appreciate it if you got out of my room.”

“You need to keep a better eye on JC,” Chris said as if he hadn’t heard him and they hadn’t just been sitting in creepy, awkward silence for the last couple of minutes.

Joey shook his head. It was just like Chris to randomly blurt out what was on his mind. “We are.”

“Not good enough,” Chris replied.

“Why are you blaming all this on me? You’re supposed to be watching him too.”

Joey thought back to the last week and realized that maybe Chris was right. They weren’t keeping that great of an eye on JC because he’d been having problems sleeping. If they weren’t careful they would have yet another relapse on their hands, and they couldn’t let that happen. It’d already happened too much.

Joey sighed and looked down as he rubbed at his eyes. “What are we supposed to do then?”

There was no answer and Joey looked up to find that Chris was gone. It was like he hadn’t been in his room at all, and it really freaked him out that Chris was able to enter and exit his room without making any noise. Joey slowly lied back against his pillows feeling more awake than he did ten minutes ago. There had to be some reason that Chris would come into his room in the middle of the night and say that stuff, and he had every intention of finding out tomorrow morning.

“Let’s go clubbing.”

Chris looked up from his coffee and smirked. “I don’t think the clubs are open at nine o’clock in the morning.”

“Very funny, smartass. You knew what I meant,” Justin said, shoving Chris lightly from his seat next to him at the kitchen table.

Lance frowned. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not?” Justin asked.

“Because JC about had a coronary when we went to the library for a couple of hours. How do you think he’d feel about you going clubbing?” Lance explained.

Chris raised an eyebrow. “You siding with JC?”

“No. I’m just saying what his reaction’s going to be when he finds out,” Lance said.

“What if we all go out?” Justin suggested.

Lance shook his head. “I don’t think he’d want to go out.”

“But it would do him some good. Do us some good. Things have tense lately, and this could be our chance to relax and ease some of it,” Justin insisted.

“It worked last time,” Chris said, cutting off Lance before he could object. He was with Justin on this one. Clubbing didn’t sound like a bad idea, especially if it could return things to normal, at least for a few hours. Last time it’d been successful and JC had been smiling and laughing, so it was possible it could work this time too.

“I still don’t think he’ll go for it.” Just then Joey walked in and Lance asked him, “What do you think, Joe?”

Joey poured himself a glass of orange juice. “’Bout what?”

“All of us going clubbing tonight,” Justin said before Lance could.

Joey shrugged as he put the juice back. “Sounds good to me.”

“But do you think JC would agree?” Lance insisted, standing straighter against the counter.

“I don’t see why not. I mean, if he goes then he has no right to be pissy, right?”

“Right,” Chris agreed with Joey. “Besides, there’s four of us and only one of him. We can force him if we need to.”

Silence filled the room with only sounds of the four of them eating their breakfast. Joey drained his glass and set it in the sink before he focused his attention on Chris. “What was up with you last night, Chris?”

“What do you mean?” Chris asked.

“You came into my room in the middle of night and scared the crap out of me. Do you realize how quiet you are when you want to be?”

Chris gave Joey a look mixed with amusement and confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was sleeping in my bed.”

“You’re sure you weren’t in my room last night?” Joey asked.

“Yeah, I think I would know if I had been.” Chris paused. “What did I say? Anything?”

Joey nodded. “I’m not really sure what though. It was pretty cryptic. Then, you just disappeared.”

Justin choked on the milk that he’d been drinking as he started laughing. “You can disappear?” he asked Chris.

“Let me try.” Chris closed his eyes and squeezed his face in concentration. After a minute he opened his eyes and looked around, laughing at the crazy idea Joey proposed. “Nope, still here.”

“This isn’t a joke!” Joey exploded, his face contorted in anger.

“We wouldn’t joke about something like this,” Justin soothed.

“Maybe you were sleepwalking,” Joey said, after a moment silence.

“I’m telling you, dude. We both went to bed at the same time and I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow,” Chris replied.

“Maybe you were dreaming, Joey,” Lance suggested.

Joey shook his head. “I wasn’t. I’d started to doze when I thought I felt someone in the room staring at me, and sure enough when I opened my eyes Chris was there.”

“And I said ‘cryptic things’?” Chris asked, eyebrow raised with a small smirk tugging at his lips. It sounded kind of funny.

“Yes!” Joey yelled in exasperation before he looked around and lowered his voice. “You said that we needed to keep a better eye on JC because we weren’t doing a good enough job.”

Chris raised his right hand in the air. “I swear to you, Joe. I never said that.”

“What if you have a demon in your head and that’s why you don’t remember?” Joey suggested.

Instantly the mood darkened as the lightheartedness that been caused by their laughter was zapped from what Joey said. Chris felt bad about making fun of Joey and not taking what he’d said seriously because considering what they’d been through it could be a possibility, especially since it’d already happened to Lance. The thought that he could have a demon in his head or possessing him made him uneasy, and as he looked around the kitchen at the others he could see he wasn’t the only one.

“Do you think it’ll happen again?” Justin asked Joey.

Joey shrugged. “It’s possible I guess.”

“We’re going to have to keep an eye on you tonight after we come back from clubbing,” Lance said to Chris. “So we can know for sure.”

Chris nodded in acceptance. He wasn’t going to fight them on that because he wanted to know for sure, so that if he did have a demon in his head they could try to get rid of it. Though, Chris wasn’t even sure how they’d be able to do that because it’d been JC who had gotten rid of the demon in Lance’s head, but he’d been able to get into Lance’s head since they were connected. While he hoped that he didn’t have a demon in his head, a small part of him wanted it because if it turned out that he wasn’t visiting Joey in the middle of night then that meant something else was. And that wasn’t something they were equipped to deal with.