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I’m pretty sure there are some things in the dark that we’re not meant to see.

The three of us wait outside the basement door like we are in some kind of limbo. My dad and Sage are stuck in the basement. Jacob is walking up the stairs to tussle with some monster.

“Now what?” I whisper. “What’s he going to do?”

I hear Jay swallow thickly. “Something like I did last week. I’m not really sure. Jacob warned me about tonight, saying that there would be too much energy in one place. It would bring the demons out of the portal and whatever else has been lying dormant on the other side of these walls and the walls you can’t see.”

“Oh my god,” I cry out. “Why did you come over then?”

“We were debating,” he says. “But we couldn’t know for sure.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dawn says. “I had no idea.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Jay says quickly. “It’s better this way.”

The laughter erupts again, seeming to come from all corners of the house, our heads swiveling around trying to find the source.

“How is it better this way?” I ask incredulously, so close to peeing my pants. The laughter feels like its permeating my very soul, turning it sour and black. “I can’t stand this!”

“Easy now,” he whispers to me. “I’ve got you.” He glances at Dawn and then holds his hand out for her. “Come here. Nothing is going to happen to you either.”

She takes it and if I wasn’t scared shitless, I’d be swooning a little over Jay, taking an older woman’s hand and making her feel safe.

And so there we are, two girls in the dark, hanging onto his hands for dear life.

“Is Jacob going to be okay?” I ask. “I don’t hear anything.”

Even the laughing has stopped. Upstairs sounds like radio silence.

“Jacob will always be okay,” Jay tells me soberly.

“You can say that again,” Dawn says, trying to sound light about it but failing.

“Because he’s immortal like you,” I point out to Jay.

“More or less.”

“But what if his head gets chopped off?”

Jay gives me a strange look. “If his head gets chopped off? I don’t know.”

“What if your head gets chopped off?” Not the most appropriate question considering the circumstances, but hey it’s preventing me from thinking about what’s really going on. AKA, it’s preventing me from really losing my shit. Besides, I’ve always wondered.

“You are such a morbid girl,” he comments, almost sounding amused.

“You rip the heads off demons and travel to a dead world,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t talk. Also, you’re not answering my question.”

“Well,” he says, licking his lips. “I assume I would die. I would at least hope I’d die. I don’t want to operate with my head doing one thing and my body doing another.”

“Why not, most guys are like that.” I pause. “So if you can die, then you’re not really immortal are you?”

He sighs. “Semantics.”

“But vampires—”

“Can we not talk about this right now?” Dawn pleads.

Suddenly there are knocks at the door beside us.

A scream dies in my throat.

“Breaker isn’t doing anything,” comes Sage’s voice. This time there’s a tremor in it. “And, um, I think we’re not alone down here.”

Oh. My. God. My dad.

“Dad are you okay?” I cry out.

“Yes sweetie,” I hear him say, though his tone is equally as strained. “I think there’s a raccoon down here. A rabid one. Must have gotten in somehow and . . .”

I glance at Jay. We both know that’s not a fucking raccoon.

Jay promptly takes my hand and gives it to Dawn. “Don’t let go of each other.” He turns to face the door squarely. “Stand back from the door,” he commands.

“But that means going down to the racoon,” my dad says shakily. There is something so terrible in knowing two grown men are scared.

“Come on,” Sage says and I hear them walking down. He’s trying to sound brave. “Mid-way, it’s enough.” He pauses. “Okay Jay. Hurry.”

Jay comes at the door foot forward, easily stomping the door open with one quick blow. The door swings hard against the wall and comes off the top hinges, the front of the door caved in where Jay’s boot met it.

There are a few seconds where I’m sure something has happened to them, where they don’t appear and it’s only dust motes floating among the iPhone beam.

Then comes my dad, face pale and shiny with sweat, and Sage, who towers over him but looks equally as rattled. Sage nods back at the door.

“We might want to find a way to keep that closed for now,” he says edgily.

Jay nods, reaching past him and pulling the door shut. I’m not sure what exactly we’re supposed to do now with something in the basement and something upstairs, when suddenly all the lights go on with an electrical CRACK!

The house hums back to life. The fridge in the kitchen, the fan in the living room.