Avery Boomer wasn't one for positivity. Not that he was a depressed guy with a brooding frown and walked around kicking at rocks and grumbling; he just knew better than to have high hopes. He knew better than to expect something good from this world, especially after all it had done to shove him down. And while he usually had no issue maintaining a smile and putting on a show to pretend like he was all right, he wasn't certain he'd ever be able to do that again. Not anymore.

Fuck this life, man.

On the drive back from Nevada, he was as far from positivity as he'd ever been. Sure, he'd potentially saved the world, but at what cost? Amy was dead. Jamie was dead—murdered. And Jessamine was...

He sniffled, gripping the steering wheel tighter, his fingers growing stiff, sore. Thinking of Jessamine was the worst part of it all. The emotions swelling in him about her; the guilt, the betrayal, the hatred, the feelings. Every time her face flashed inside his mind—in her regular, barista-beauty form, or her dark demonic version—he gritted his teeth and willed the car to progress faster. To roll onward, to go at such a velocity that he could no longer see anything around him. But mostly, to give more distance between him and the portal where he'd pushed her to her demise.

He'd had no choice. It was that, or kill her. And there was no way would kill her, even after what she'd done, even after—

Without meaning to, without wanting to, he glimpsed the rearview mirror. The covered lump in the backseat hadn't moved, courtesy of Ada's magic. She'd immobilized it and make sure it remained concealed at all times, to not distract Avery. He was grateful; if the blanket had shifted and showed Jamie's face, his dead eyes, his bluing lips, the dried blood on his neck, Avery would have had to pull the car over and hurl his guts out on the side of the road. And he wasn't positive he'd be able to get back behind the wheel after that.

He'd already contemplated stopping to throw up several times, but he had nothing to regurgitate. All he'd do was hack out his lungs and take deep gulps of the dry Nevada air, hoping it'd sear through him, rip his emotions out. Maybe rip him out, so he no longer had to think.

He shook his head, knowing full well he wouldn't have been able to stop, anyway. Ada and Faz had settled inside him, insisting he'd need them to get home safely. "You aren't in the best state of mind," Faz had reminded, in his gentle, annoyingly soothing tone. "We can take control whenever you need us to, and it'll allow you to relax, to rest," Ada had added, her timbre far from as reassuring.

There'd be no relaxing, no resting, Avery was certain. Not for a long time, if ever. If it'd been up to him, he'd have stayed in that portal's basement, crying until he had no liquid left in his being. Cajoling Jamie's body while praying to some god he didn't believe in, begging for his friend to revive. He'd have tried again and again to wrench that damn door open, screaming for Jessamine, to bring her back. He'd have battered Ada with questions and demanded that she go fetch Jamie's soul and bring it the hell back, that she heal his wounds, that she save him.

But the demon door wouldn't open again, ever. Not if Ada had her way, and not if Avery wanted the world to remain safe. That door lead to doom, despair. To death. To open it again would unleash that death, and Avery had dealt with enough of it already.

And Jamie's soul... he hadn't needed to ask Ada to know for sure. Jamie was gone, long gone. On to another dimension of peace, or potentially wandering Limbo. Regardless, he was in a better place than here.

Avery didn't want Ada and Faz inside him. He didn't want anything inside him, ever again. Hadn't he stopped the demon invasion? Didn't he deserve some respite after all he'd gone through? Why did these damned Guides need to keep bothering him? He'd done everything they asked, and lost a shit-ton for it. They should have quit pestering him by now.

And yet, he was cornered. He needed to get home, and contained little energy for the drive. He had nowhere to sleep except his car, and he wouldn't leave Jamie's body to rot in a bloody basement loaded with bad memories. Nor would he seek to explain the corpse if he tried to check in at a hotel.

"We need to take him to the California portal," Ada had said, sweeping a calming, albeit impossible to actually feel hand across his spine.

Waves of tranquility poured into him, but he didn't want them. He wanted to tear things apart, to punch walls, to punch people, to kick at the demon door, to rip the sympathetic faces from the Guides who'd been staring at him. They'd apologized, they'd swarmed him with comfort and sympathy; he didn't want it.

"If we bury him there quickly, it will ensure his ghost is with me, at my portal. He will probably end up in Limbo, where I can watch him. It's my... responsibility."

Responsibility? Avery wanted to spit at her cautious, composed face. He wanted to dig his nails into her skin, remove it from her bones, claw her eyes out. No, it wasn't her fault that Jamie was dead, nor that Jessamine was gone; but she had killed Amy, and that was enough for him. He needed to blame it all on someone, aside from himself, and Ada was the perfect villain.

"You're boiling up," said Ada now, speaking inside Avery's mind. A subtle, swift voice; one that urged him to ease his tension, to remember he was currently controlling a vehicle and getting close to swerving off the road.

"Yeah, well, I'm pissed," he said, releasing the wheel for a second, to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead. It'd been a warm, borderline sweltering day in Nevada, and he was eager for California's humidity to enter the car, instead. "And about fifteen thousand other feelings, so give me a fucking break."

Ada zipped her lips shut, but Avery felt her fidgeting about inside his brain. Faz was there too, more of a silent comfort, knowing it was best to not prod at Avery in times like these.

Ada could learn a lot from this guy.

"So what comes next?" Avery bit the insides of his cheeks, regretting starting a conversation he wasn't sure he wanted to have. "We bury Jamie, and then what? You said—"

"—nothing comes next." Ada was matter-of-fact, her usual stern self poking through the comforting act she'd been putting on for Avery's benefit. "Nothing concerning you, at least."

"But you said we might have unearthed something else," said Avery, squinting at the horizon. The sun was rising, and he wished it wouldn't. He wished it was still nighttime, and he wouldn't encounter other cars, wouldn't have to avert his gaze and ignore passersby. Wouldn't have to act like this was real, that he was alive when everyone else wasn't.

All he wanted was to throw himself into his bed and shove a pillow over his head and forget, forget, forget.

"I'm..." Ada's voice was hesitant, but charged with things she wasn't ready or willing to say. "I sense that the world is unbalanced, but I don't know what it means. Did we unearth something? Maybe. But if so, I don't know what it was and I don't know how to go about looking for it. Not clear on where or how to start. So I'd rather not debate this until I know."

Unearthed something?

Avery scoffed. All they'd unearthed was how deeply emotional he could get, how attached. How easily he could fall in love. All those women who'd told him he was heartless, that he was an asshole, a coward with no soul, an over-sexualized bastard who only thought with his dick. Ha, this proved them wrong, so, so wrong.

He'd been holding in tears for too long, but the farther he got from the Nevada portal, the more he was unable to control anything. Especially not the images of Jamie in his mind; Jamie trying to interfere, Jamie getting in the way, Jamie grabbed by Jessamine. Her cackle, Jamie's instant realization of his looming death; the way his gray eyes had enlarged, how the fear had scrawled all over his features. His shoulders drooped, dejected, relenting. He'd given in, well aware he'd have no means to escape demonic-Jessamine. Avery had tried, and though he'd survived her, Jamie hadn't. Jamie was gone.

He also couldn't get the reminiscence of Jessamine's fang-like teeth out of his head. Her smirk as she ogled Jamie, preparing for her meal, reveling in the thumping veins in his neck. She'd licked her lips and sucked up all his life-force, and she'd enjoyed every second of it. If she'd been able to, she'd have probably drained him of even more blood.

Avery knew it wasn't her. She, the real Jessamine, hadn't done this. She'd been an innocent witness to it all, locked up in her brain, unable to physically fight the demons. Still, her demonic face, the reddening eyes and the dark hue of the glow around her, the evil that had radiated and punctured everything in its passage... it all haunted him to the point of wanting to let go, let loose, let the car crash into a tree—

"I'll take over," said Ada, her energy propping Avery's hands onto the steering wheel. It wasn't a question; she maneuvered Avery into the back of his own consciousness, taking away all his control. "You're in no state to drive, and you need rest, as much as you think you don't deserve it," she said, her voice coming out as his, speaking through his lips. Though she sounded like Avery, it was her cadence, her vocabulary, that gave her away as Ada.

Avery snickered, though his face didn't mirror the movement. He was caged in his own mind; his facial expressions were no longer his own. "You have no idea what I think."

"You'll thank me later when you're not dead in a ditch near the road," she said, adjusting the rearview mirror away from the vision of Jamie in the back seat. "Think what you want to think. Faz and I aren't here to judge you. We're here to get you home so you can mourn your friends properly and get on with your life. And to do that, you need to stay alive."

Sulking, Avery metaphorically crossed his arms—he couldn't fold them, since he was nothing but a specter in his consciousness. If anything, because he was stubborn and clung to life by a thread, he allowed Ada to steer him on to safety.

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