She needed air. The room was suffocating, its confined coffee aroma straining through Jessamine's lungs and worsening her earlier jitters.

When assured the crazy line of patrons had lessened, and one of her co-workers could take over her coffee-making duties, Jessamine threw off her apron and dashed past the EMPLOYEES ONLY area and down the corridor to the side-alley door. She thrust it open, her eyes squinting against the sudden light—the employee hall was dark, with everyone out front working, and her boss locked in his office.

Her lungs scooped up the fresh air like handfuls of water found in a dry desert, and she let the breeze splash over her face, infuse into her skin. Yeah, the fried fish stench from the next-door restaurant disturbed her process, but she preferred that over the stuffy seriousness from inside the shop.

What the fuck was that? That electro-shock, that jarring vibration that had shot up her arm at the simple contact with Avery? It was like they were robots who'd short-circuited when touching, or like touching fire and letting it roll up your arm and consume you, flesh and bone and all. She'd done some stupid things in her life—including drugs with similar effects—but never had she experienced such a sensation when touching another human being, especially for the few seconds she'd touched Avery.

Weirder still—he'd felt it, too. What Jamie interpreted as bad flirting had in fact been, from what Jessamine understood, Avery trying to figure out what the heck had happened. He'd been dazed, still, when she shimmied off to get outside, but was drinking his coffee, sitting stiffly in his seat while Jamie babbled on about who knew what. Jessamine had tuned him out, desperate to concentrate on her work before someone noticed that she'd been botching all the orders.

That electric jerk was a more intense version of what she'd felt when watching that video of Amy a few days ago, she remembered. More so when the house had appeared on screen and given her the creeps. It was the same startling clash, followed by a weird pulse of déjà vu; so did she know this guy?

"One million viewers on YouTube?" She rubbed at her throat as it ached when she spoke. Her next step would be to guzzle down her entire water bottle when she got back inside. "So he is famous, then? And for some reason, it stunned me?" She scoffed. "I've met celebrities before and this has never happened."

It had to be something else; some other detail about him, about his energy—ugh, she hated that word—that fucked with hers and put her off balance.

She sat on the stoop leading up to the door and put her head between her knees, breathing in and out deeply. Her legs were hot, her leggings gluing to her thighs. It had gotten steamy and warm behind those machines, and not the kind of steamy and warm that Jessamine preferred.

As much as she loathed to admit it, it was Avery's energy that had done this to her. And her energy had done this to him. She didn't believe in that crap—souls and supernatural links and anything supernatural, in fact—yet she'd witnessed it first-hand a few moments ago and couldn't seem to shake it.

Supernatural—she sat up straight, cracking her back, but the motion actually helped her ease her tension. She stretched out her arms and lifted a little to fetch her phone from her rear pocket—where she'd stored it before rushing out.

Her fingers hovered above the locked screen for a few minutes before she decided. "Fuck it," she said, putting in her code and going straight to the YouTube button on the second part of her homepage. "I need to see it."

The red glows—Avery had mentioned those, and she didn't recall seeing them. The best way to test all this, to comprehend what had happened, was first to determine if he was full of shit or not. She didn't fall into those ghost-catching videos people like Amy and he—likely—posted, but if she did view red glows on screen as he'd said... well, maybe it'd mean their encounter had been something a bit more occult than she'd thought.

She went to the search bar and typed in "Amy LaRoya", immediately coming up with her main page. One million followers for her, too. And her page was filled with videos categorized in folders like "Real footage of ghosts" or "Not the fake evidence like those other guys." The banner above the pictures showed Amy—a busty brunette with melt-worthy chocolate eyes and a set of lips curved into a sexy smile. Her fingers were twirled in her hair, and the coquette-ish glance she was giving shot a pulse through Jessamine—a different one, more pleasant, prompting her to grin back at the immobile picture of Amy.

"If only she'd come into the shop," Jessamine said, her voice turning husky, her heartbeat growing faster—but the good kind of fast, the fast she welcomed, with the flush creeping up her chest and settling over her cheeks. For women, she didn't have a set type—but if they were on the bustier side and had a dark gaze and a certain sly sassiness to them, she was all in. Though she thought she and Amy might be good friends, too; she had a calming, friendly aspect to her, and her eyes, though obscure, were kind.

Shaking out of her growing sexual fantasies about a woman she'd never met, Jessamine scrolled down to the most recent video—the video labeled "Amy's last video—have you seen her?" She wondered if Avery had posted it; he'd mentioned he was the one who'd received said video and sent it to the press.

Her thumb hovered over the screen, hesitant to press onto the video and play it. Her mom warned her to stay away from this stuff for a reason, yes. And if Jessamine were to tell her she went against her request because of a dude and a fucked-up electro-shock of an encounter, she'd mentally slap her for being so careless, so easy to succumb to her cravings. "For a man? Are you serious, Jessamine?"

It wasn't clear how much her mom knew of her life, but Jessamine had never hidden her high libido and what she'd do to satisfy it. The few memories from her old friend group and the things they'd done were... troubling.

"Ugh, I can't think about that now." With a sigh, she placed her thumb on the "play" button and waited for the video to load.

She turned the volume up and watched as the screen showed what might have been perceived as a daytime stroll in a dense forest. Amy's steps were steady, her voice clear and not weighed with worry, and she spoke about rumors she'd heard that had drawn her here.

"It's so strange," Amy said, flipping the camera to film herself as she walked. Her hair whipped on either side of her round face, flapping against her tanned cheeks. "Someplace so close, and no one's captured any footage of it? It's probably a false lead, but... oh well, here we go."

There were comments at the bottom, expressing how Amy usually shared her location right away; they asked, why all the secrecy? Why hadn't she said anything? Why did everything cut off so fast? She could have texted it to the person she sent the video to, if she was so adamant on keeping the location hidden.

Jessamine winced. She knew all too well that when in traumatizing situations, when confronted with danger, one's morals and habits often disappeared. She didn't remember her own forest adventure, but she recalled other situations when she was younger, and how panicked she'd been, losing all sense of who she was and how she usually reacted.

No, Amy had done everything she could, under the circumstances.

The clearing came into view, like on the news. They'd definitely fiddled with their clip and adjusted it to their liking. This version was darker, and the whistling leaves sounded more sinister, almost like actual whispers. The sky wasn't blue, it was sepia-tinted, with clouds clogging overhead and looking ready to shoot down and wrap around a victim and squeeze them to death.

When Amy filmed the house, Jessamine got chills. Violent ones, this time. She could barely remain sitting on the stoop, and had to stand up, hoping to shake them off. They rattled up and down her arms, crawled down her legs, crippled her spine as if eating at her bones. She'd never shook so much, never so intensely. She somehow paused the video and put the phone on the steps.

Then came the nausea. It had been faint a few days ago, but now it was more prominent, that thickness in the throat, that discomfort in the belly. Not pain, but a vague sensation that something was wrong, something was upset, and something wanted to dash up and spew out of her mouth. A dizzy wave flew over her and she grabbed at the nearby dumpster for balance. Her legs were so quaky, they were like pudding, jiggly and scattered with goosebumps.

The dumpster stench didn't help her stomach, though, so she gritted her teeth, gathered her strength, and hurled herself across to the next-door building's solid brick wall. She flattened her hands against it, taking breaths in, breaths out, letting the air load into her rib-cage and swoop around her erratically pumping heart.

Eventually—who knew if seconds had passed, or hours, she was too disoriented to tell—she calmed down enough to return to the stoop, and fell onto it while wiping the sweat forming above her brow. She was still trembling, and a cold perspiration was lathering over her arms, but she wasn't done—she needed to finish that video. Jessamine wasn't one to leave things unfinished, and no matter her disposition—crumbled, convulsing, a complete mess—she'd finish this. And prove to her mom that she could survive this, and that the video hadn't triggered her memories.

What had happened, and what was currently happening; was it something mental, physical, or supernatural? And would those glows—if they were there, if Avery hadn't made them up—be a step towards the latter?

She hoped he'd been wrong, hoped he'd lied. She gulped, pressed play, and tried her damndest to focus on the screen.

And there they were, immediately, as if summoned to show up for her. A reddish hue, like a red light in a smoky room, radiating from behind a badly boarded-up window near the ground. A basement, maybe? She paused the video, fixating on the color, hoping to denounce it as a regular red light, inside a house in a forest that no one knew for sure hadn't been inhabited.

The more she looked, the more her nausea intensified. Yet she couldn't pull away—she was transfixed, stuck on the sight of red, wondering how she hadn't noticed it on the news. Or had they filtered it out? Had they been afraid it'd be too much for their viewers?

Her eyes hurt, her entire body hurt, and when she finally lowered her phone, pain spread across her forehead. Great, another migraine. She needed medicine, and remembered she had a few pills in her purse, which was in the employee lounge.

The door had closed and locked behind her, and she didn't have her keys—she'd need to go back in through the front.

Wobbly, not quite recovered from her tremendous shaking spell, she walked to the end of the alley and made to turn onto the sidewalk and meander down to the coffee shop entrance. The door-bell rang, signaling someone going in or coming out—she slowed and waited, hoping for the former. She was in no mood or state to bump into anyone or for anyone to see her like this. She'd planned to hurry through the shop and hide in the back-room until she could compose herself.

To her dismay, someone was coming out—Avery and Jamie.

"Fuck," she mouthed, hurrying to conceal herself behind the bush that grew around the corner, attached to the front side of the building.

Maybe the guys would go in the opposite direction and wouldn't see her. But if they walked by, they'd only notice her if they looked really hard.

She squeezed her eyes shut and, with difficulty, crouched behind the shrubbery. It was stupid and childish, but of all people, she didn't want him to see her. She didn't want to risk re-connecting with Avery and reliving whatever the fuck that shock had been earlier.

"But it was so fucked up, dude," said Avery, his voice coming in her direction.

Shit. Please don't see me.

"I've never seen her before. What was up with that?"

Someone groaned—she assumed Jamie. "You're not going to shut up about it, are you?"

They were getting closer. Jessamine's eyelids were trembling with the force it took to keep them shut, to hold on to the hope that she'd remain out of sight from them.

"Come on, man, it was too strange to forget, okay?" Avery's tone was different; not so cocky and concise.

"So it was love at first sight, then? Don't they call it a lightning strike in French?" Jamie sounded mocking, and Jessamine imagined him rolling his eyes.

"Ew, dude, stop." Avery's voice grew irritated, deeper, on the defensive. "I mean, she was super cute. Those eyes... wow. And adorably flustered, too, I love that. But this isn't funny, okay? This isn't... it's not love stuff, it's something else, it's..."

"Ugh, please don't get poetic about it, you creepy prick," said Jamie, so close to Jessamine's bush she tensed and pressed her back into the wall, hard.

"Wait; where did we park?" Avery stopped, right in front of the shrubs, his back to Jessamine, who was cowering in her hide-out. "Oh yeah, that way."

Without another word, he and Jamie crossed the street, disappearing behind the cars, hurrying on to wherever their car was.

Sensing that the coast was clear, Jessamine stood up, stretched, then skidded over to the bench a few feet away from the entrance. She had to sit, regain her bearings before she waltzed into the shop, before she had to confront people.

Her phone blared out suddenly, with a spooky jingle that tickled the hairs on her arms and perked them up. "We're seeking the truth, whether or not you like it," said a voice, distorted, yet sounding slightly like Avery.

She thought she'd locked her phone, but in her movements, she must have unlocked it and clicked on something inadvertently. Thank goodness it happened after Avery and Jamie were out of earshot.

She stared at the screen and paused the video that had started. It was an episode of Paranormal Chasers, and she backtracked to its main page to find that it was... Avery's. His smooth, light brown face, his big blue eyes, wide with wonder and pride, and his upright posture with chiseled arms crossed over the tight shirt of his muscled chest as he posed at the top of the page, with Jamie in the background, towering behind him.

"Paranormal Chasers" — with hosts Avery Boomer & Jamie Kilgore

With one million followers.

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