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Hollis pulled the towel from the rung and unlocked the door. He opened it slowly, and as he expected, Yulia and Annie were waiting for him.

Annie was crouched low, Bible in one hand, crucifix in the other. Yulia threw the remaining herb water at him, and he skidded back, caught drops of it in the towel.

“STOP!” he shouted, before she could begin chanting. “This isn’t working the way you think!”

“How does it work, then, demon?” Yulia said, her eyes flat and cold.

“Just give me a minute to explain.”

“Fuck you, Hollis!” Annie shouted.

In his panic, he’d missed the steak knife in Yulia’s other hand, but he was definitely noticing it now.

“Just put the knife down and give me five seconds,” he begged.

Yulia twisted her wrist, fluorescent light flashing off the blade. “No.”

Things were rapidly getting out of control again. Hollis could feel the sweat sliding between their shoulder blades. Walt was, mercifully, silent.

“I know this is fucked up. I know and I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what to do. You don’t understand—”

“Then explain it, for fuck’s sake, what the hell happened to me?” Annie sobbed.

“I’m trying!” Hollis cried. “I don’t know what you want me to say. Oh, I got possessed, but we figured things out. How would you even have reacted to that? Realistically, what would have happened?”

“You could have told us!”

“No, I couldn’t! By the time that was even an option, I... we... Annie, it’s so much more complicated than that.” Hollis shook his head.

“How do we even know who we’re talking to?” Annie was starting to hyperventilate. “Does your mom know? Does anyone know? What the fuck, Hollis! What’s wrong with you?!”

“HEY,” Yulia barked over Annie’s hysterics. “You keep saying we won’t understand, but you haven’t even tried. Try.”

Hollis took a breath.

“First, how did you figure it out?” he asked. “It’s been happening for so long.... On the first day I hoped you would somehow know it wasn’t me. That you’d... save me or something, I don’t know. What happened that made you—”

“The day we took you to get drug tested, your eyes were a different color. I told Yulia and she... she wanted to try this to be sure,” Annie said.

“At dinner.” Yulia stabbed the point of the knife into the ground. “It said we.”

“What?”

“It said, We’re not doing that anymore .” Yulia stared at him, unblinking. “How long has it been, Hollis?”

Hollis closed his eyes for a moment, opened them to study the floor.

“That day I went into the woods and didn’t come out until late, when I stopped answering your calls. That was the night we met. He was... shivering and cold. He was scared. And he was desperate. He was dying, and I was kind and thoughtless.”

Walt was quiet, listening. Hollis put a hand on his knee and squeezed.

“It’s been a little over three months. For the first month it was all him. He walked me around and used my voice. Asking questions in my head to make sure he got things right. He was... kind and thoughtless too. Every day, he tried hard to make sure he didn’t scare anyone. He was patient at school, sweet to my ma, helped out around the house. Followed any strong rules I gave him, he’s... It’s not what you think at all, and I understand why you feel the way you do, but I’ve had time to—”

Annie’s face was twisting in concern, and Yulia’s eyes got even harder. So Hollis paused and tried again.

“Never mind. Eventually, we just worked things out, figured out a way for both of us to... be me, I guess. We’re sharing, for now, and I’m fine the way things are. If I wasn’t, I would have asked. By the time I could physically ask you to help, I already knew him, Yulia.”

“How come you aren’t like Annie was?” Yulia asked, unmoved. “You’re not sick.”

“You have to make a deal with him. Like a crossroads demon, but I think getting sick is our fault. I think maybe there’s a certain suspension of belief that our minds and bodies can’t handle and when there’s discord with that, we get sick.” Hollis shook his head, exhausted.

“When I made my deal with him, my first thought was What have I done? I knew that in some small way, it was my fault, and there was a moment when I surrendered to it. But Annie was doing something else, she wasn’t ready when she took him from me.”

“I didn’t take him from you; he jumped into me.”

Hollis met her gaze.

“No, you took him from me. Yulia somehow severed whatever part of this that makes the transfer voluntary and made it involuntary. Whoever touched me would have taken him. It could have been anyone, he could have been lost, it could have—”

Annie pointed, scared.

Hollis looked down to see his left hand over his heart.

“That was me, not him. You can talk to him if you want, but he’s really upset, and to be honest, I... I don’t want you to.”

“Annie could have been hurt, you mean,” Yulia said slowly. “Annie could have died . If he’s a ghost, he’s already dead, Annie was the one at risk. Why don’t you like her anymore?”

“I don’t dislike Annie... he doesn’t like her actually. He likes you though. He... he actually thinks you’re really hot. It’s fucking... embarrassing.” Hollis didn’t know what else to say about that.

Yulia looked pensive, but that confession seemed to break the tension enough for her to put the knife down.

“There was a day. You were acting... I mean, we flirt, but you seemed serious,” she said, uncomfortable. “I didn’t know what to think.”

“He was being serious. I was screaming at him to stop. I think that was in the first week or something. God, you have no idea how bad it was in the beginning, I don’t even know how to articulate it. But if I could have talked to you and asked you for help, I would have. You’ve got to believe me.”

“Why doesn’t he like me?” Annie asked, soft and sad.

Hollis sighed and leaned back against the bathroom door. “You look like someone he knew.”

Tell her I’ll talk to her about it later.

“He says he’ll explain it later. Maybe tomorrow or something, I’m sorry.”

Yulia settled down and held the knife in her lap. She looked around the room at the candles still burning bright, at the chicken who died to make this exorcism possible. At the rosary that hadn’t worked at all.

Hollis followed her gaze to Annie’s wrist. “I don’t know. Maybe the crucifix and candles didn’t work and your stuff did because he’s not a demon... and he’s Catholic.”

Yulia’s frown got deeper.

“Was Catholic?” Hollis tried.

“Give me a second to think,” Yulia finished resolutely.

“Is he telling you that we can’t be friends anymore?” Annie pressed.

Hollis shook his head. “No, it’s not that, it just... He feels sad and anxious whenever we look at you. It wore on me, I guess. I’m sorry, Annie.... I should have been a better friend. To both of you.”

Yulia got up and started blowing out the candles.

“I think it would be good if you left for now, Hollis. Annie and I need some time to talk and think. You should come back tomorrow.”