Avery shot back to life out of nowhere, propelled out of a heavy dream. Groggy, confused, as if drugged, he sucked up breath after breath of oxygen.

He regained consciousness, regained control of his body. He was still driving down a deserted highway, but the dryness had dissipated, and there were clusters of vivid green trees along the road.

He was back in California.

"When did we pass the border?" He wanted to rub his eyes, but as the Guides had relented their domination over him, he couldn't let go of the steering wheel. The road was uneven, bumpy, and he didn't like the idea of driving one-handed.

"An hour or so ago," answered Ada, nicely nestled in the confines of his mind, likely analyzing the dream he'd had. If that were the case, she'd better keep her mouth shut.

He blew out a breath and smacked his lips; he was thirsty. "I think I need a break."

"We're close enough that we should push through," said Ada, stern but not pushy. She sounded less tense than before; maybe she'd enjoyed driving in Avery's place. Nothing to worry about but the road, the speed, the passing scenery. Or maybe Avery sleeping had given her a reprieve from his weighted thoughts. "And I wanted to talk about that dream you had."

Avery groaned.

Of course she does.

"What about it?" He gripped the wheel. "It was a dream, nothing more, nothing less. I have those all the time. And what's in them has never been, and never will be, any of your business."

Ada cleared her throat, a curious echo inside his brain. "It was something peculiar that got my attention, though. And more so because it wasn't really a dream, was it?"

Avery gritted his teeth and peered out at the line of trees ahead. "Not that I have anything to explain to you, but no. It wasn't a dream. It was a memory." He averted his gaze as another car passed him in the other lane, and he didn't want anyone to think he was talking to himself. He didn't want to be talking to Ada, but it'd be a waste of time trying to change her mind. "A memory of the moment I saw a ghost as a kid. I told you about that, didn't I?"

"That was your memory of it?" Ada came off as genuinely interested, and something about her tone bothered him. "That was how it happened for you? Your discovery of the supernatural, that is."

"More or less," said Avery, frowning. "I was young, so it's obviously blurry. But it's what got me into ghosts, hauntings, the afterlife. The supernatural, as you call it. That whole experience is a part of who I am."

"Yes," Ada's voice grew shaky, a bit distant, "I'm aware of it. All of it. That moment where a spirit guided you back to your parents? I was there."

Avery almost slammed on the brakes. His foot was jittery. "What?" He breathed in, out, and tried to stabilize his trembling hands. "What do you mean you were there?"

Ada didn't respond at first, but Avery felt her shifting about inside his consciousness. Hesitating, ruminating over her next words.

Avery didn't have time for her internal debates. "Explain yourself now, Ada. This is a serious comment. A serious matter. You're claiming you saw that incredibly important point in my life and then you're silent? Talk."

"I didn't see it," she said, sounding like she was swallowing a large lump. "That ghost... it wasn't a ghost. It was me. I was the one who guided you."

This time Avery did slam on the brakes, jerking himself forward and almost smacking his forehead on the dashboard. He probably would have gone through the glass if Ada and Faz weren't inside him, protecting him. They both screamed within his mind as he redirected the car off the side of the road, under a cover of trees.

He kicked the door open and exited the vehicle, sucking in gulps of oxygen. The air in the car had been more suffocating than he'd anticipated, and now that he breathed in the outdoors, he realized a stench stuck inside had been messing with his sanity. Jamie's body was starting to reek, and this break was necessary. Not only because of what Ada had said.

That ghost was her? All this time?

A sudden nausea swarmed up from his gut and he held on to the driver's side mirror to keep upright. "You," he heaved, "you were the being that helped me when I was lost in the forest?" His heart thumped so hard in his rib-cage he worried it might explode. "You were the one who changed my life, and you're only telling me now?"

In a whoosh, Ada erupted from Avery's body, leaving him shivering. She manifested before him in all her blue splendor, bright enough to blind him despite the daylight. "This is a face-to-face conversation," she said, her voice no longer confined to his mind, now spilling out, billowing through the trees. She was loud, almost as if she was mad at him.

"Why are you yelling?" He glared at her, focusing on the tree-line behind her near transparent form. "I'm the one who has every right to be pissed right now! You've been lying to me since the second we met!"

"I'm not..." She pressed a hand to her forehead and deflated, all her intoxicating, radiant energy melting off her. "I'm not pissed. And I wasn't lying. It's a lot to process, and hard for me to explain, and I'm not even sure I'm allowed to. But knowing you," she quirked an eyebrow at him before looking down at the ground, "I don't have a choice."

Driving her point home, Avery crossed his arms and tapped a foot to the concrete, expectantly.

"Right," she straightened up, "you don't remember which forest you were in back then, correct?" Avery nodded. "Well, it was the woods where I dwelled, connected to the ghost portal. Your dads and you were hiking, I sensed your human energy, but you were all steering clear of my limitations. Except for when you broke off from their route and got lost." She pursed her lips, but she still didn't look at Avery. "I saw you, and was worried you'd wander too close to the border with the portal. If any other Guides noticed you, they wouldn't hesitate, I knew."

Avery placed a hand to his torso, feeling his heart swelling inside his rib-cage. Alive. "You... weren't going to kill me? Like you did to other trespassers? Like you did to," he flinched, "Amy?"

Ada grimaced. "I'm not as heartless and ruthless as you like to think I am. You were a kid! I couldn't kill you. Other Guides might have contemplated it, like I said, but some of my kind aren't as attached to humans as I am." At Avery's rising eyebrows, she stiffened. "You have me all wrong, and I'm hoping that by sharing this with you, you'll realize that."

"Go on," he said, waving at her to get it over with. He knew she had more to say, and refused to start the engine back up until she was finished. No more surprises that almost made him crash the car.

"Even if I had opted to kill you, you... emitted a weird energy that gave me pause." She narrowed her gaze. "Something told me not to touch you, to approach you at all. I did get close enough to direct you away from the limitation, but that was it."

"A weird energy?" Avery's hand fell from his chest and dangled at his side.

"I should have known back then that you were the second half of the prophecy. But I hadn't expected that part to manifest as a child." She shook her head, as if waking herself from a nightmare, as if shaking out of a string of bad thoughts. "But it was you, the other part of the vision. I knew you weren't the vessel, but you were attached to it."

"The weird energy was my... soul? The part of me that linked with your prophecy?" Avery prodded at his chest, his belly, his hips, as if he'd be able to feel that energy himself. "You already knew I was tethered to all this shit, all those years ago?"

"Yes. And yes, the energy came from your soul." Ada sighed. "In truth, I should have killed you then and there, if anything to prevent the prophecy. But I wasn't certain that was how it worked. What if killing you only brought on another individual to take your place?"

Avery's hands balled into fists and he sensed his cheeks overheating. She'd spared him, and that was great—but he was still upset that she hadn't told him all this sooner. He'd been working with the creature who'd opened his mind to the supernatural, who'd given him the passion he'd revolved his entire life around. And he hated her even more for it. Her, a neutral-appearing being who kept secrets and knew too much and had urged him to destroy the woman he was falling in love with, all because of some damned ancient prophecy? She gave him his love for ghosts—and she wasn't even a ghost. It had all been a lie.

"And again, why are you telling me now, hm?" His legs tensed, so rigid he feared they might snap if he didn't relax them. "Why tell me at all when you could have kept it from me, like you've done with so many other things?"

Her only reaction to his rage was to shrug. "I felt your pain, your difficulty moving on from everything that's been happening. Though I'd planned to keep this to myself forever, I figured telling you this tidbit of information might help you. Might get you on track to heal. And I wanted to make you see I'm your ally, yeah? My cause is aligned with yours, Avery."

"Your cause?" Avery snorted and was sure smoke came out of his nostrils. "We don't have the same causes, Ada. You're all about getting spirits to their resting places while harboring ultra secret prophecies that involve the entire world. I'm just out here trying to survive. We're not allies."

She moved forward, as if about to reach out a hand; but stopped short at Avery's snarl. "But we are allies. Not friends, no. But we're on the same team, Avery. I had access to your thoughts, your heart, your soul—trust me, I feel the way you do. And I understand you more than you know."

Avery recoiled backwards, tripping over a few rocks. He didn't fall over, but kind of wished he had, so he could hide his face, so he could conceal the emotions taking over his expression.

So he'd been right—Ada could access everything he held inside, everything he purposely didn't share out loud. All his regrets over Amy and how their relationship played out. His disappointment that Jamie stayed with him, and the sorrow following his death. His feelings for Jessamine, and his ominous lust towards demonic-Jessamine. Every little snippet that coursed through his head while she possessed him, she'd read, she'd analyzed. And she, again, knew too much.

"Fuck this," he said, yanking the door open and slipping into the vehicle. He buckled up and started the engine, readying to leave Ada behind. But she snuck in through the car roof and settled into the passenger's seat, fixated on him.

"Are you going to let me back in?" Her timbre was so tentative, almost kind, that he gagged at its lack of genuineness.

"I don't need you. I'm wide awake." Faz rumbled about inside; he'd been quiet this whole time, but grew agitated, left alone to swim in Avery's jumble of irritated thoughts. "Faz, you can stay inside, help me focus. She rattled me up too much."

He got the vehicle moving and back on the road, ignoring the sulking, see-through blue being seated next to him. Her energy was toxic again, worsening his fury. Why couldn't she travel outside, flying beside the car or something? Did she need to be so close?

"I do need to be close," she said, in response to his internal comments. "It's important for me to stay near Faz, and keep an eye on you."

"Whoa, do you read minds now, too?" His nails dug into the leather of the steering wheel. "I'm not talking to you. I can't handle this, not until I've gotten some sleep, some real sleep, not that bullshit passing out while you take over my body sleep. Not until I've processed everything that happened."

"I don't read minds; but I've grown to know you well, Avery." He growled, but she didn't relent, her arm outstretching to slide against his arm. She was cold, but strangely soothing. "Yes, you loathe that, and you don't believe it, but being locked in someone's head is the best way to truly get to know them. You don't trust me, you'll never trust me, but trust this: we are on the same side."

Avery spotted a turn in the road that he recognized—they were closer to home than he'd presumed. "I'm not on the same side as someone who hides things for no reason and is cryptic about everything. With someone who basically altered my life, who brought me into this stuff, this field, and never thought it was important to tell me until now."

"I didn't want to distract you from your role," said Ada, dipping her chin. She wasn't quite sitting, as some of her form molded through the seat. But she was bent in half, giving the appearance of someone about to slip off a chair and cry on the floor. "Telling you about all this would have made you just as enraged, but you'd have walked away. Jessamine would still be out there murdering humans and opening demonic doors. Did you want that?"

Avery didn't respond, but he didn't think he needed to.

"But seeing those memories... it pulled at my heart, Avery. I had to clarify things. I wanted to be on the same page, for you to be aware that I've been a part of your life for longer than you thought."

Avery's foot came dangerously close to pushing the brakes again, but he bit the insides of his cheeks, opting to not put his own existence at risk. Instead, he cruised through the exit he needed to take, and slowed his speed progressively as he approached a red light.

"I never asked for you to be a part of my life."

Ada cringed, clasping her hands. "Well, I was. You and Jessamine both. And Jamie, to some extent. His death affected me, too, you know."

Avery lifted a trembling finger. "Do not speak about Jamie. Not you." He gently replaced his hand on the steering wheel as the light turned green. "And it wasn't plain death, Ada. It was murder. Jamie was murdered by those demons, and I'm never going to get over that. No matter how many speeches you give me, how many memories you clarify for me. Now would you shut the fuck up so I can get us home?"

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