Firmly lacing her beliefs with self-proclaimed lies and a fear of being unaccepted so deeply ingrained that it was almost unknowable from the outside, Amy paced around in the room.

She cut her path through the corn maze of her scattered possessions and tried, like a marooned buccaneer near his sinking ship, to find the bits of wreckage that would help her survive the open sea. Any damn piece of incidental sign that would keep her afloat, away from the depravity of the abyss where the great whites lay in wait. Their powerful teeth would sink into her flesh and everything that she believed was true would be torn, mercilessly, limb from limb.

I am not a science junkie.

Amy repeated this mantra over and over again until she could hardly say it wasn't true. She couldn't bear the thought of being anything close to a researcher when she was older, even if all her instincts and the damn aptitude tests in school kept mockingly reminding Amy of her 'calling'.

Amy couldn't repress that curiosity-bitch, like she couldn't keep herself from devouring coffee ice cream whenever the mere hint of it came floating in her mind's eye or from picking the wings off butterflies just to make sure that they were just caterpillars after all, pretending to be more.

In solitude Amy thrived, the sped-up recordings of her standing and messing up her room, talking to the air – rewind a little – laughing with it, and back again, flaking ash like a sketch made from charcoal. Something created from the intense combustion of something else. After everything that she had done before the very late lunch or the rather early dinner, she wasn't quite sure which; Amy was certain of one fact.

Something doesn't feel right.

Amy was trying not to host fear. But something about being human or being alive on this earth made her so frightened of the fact that she might one day lose that status. Dead and gone, like that one leaf the tree decided it didn't need anymore, and just tossed, useless and betrayed. 

It all just felt so impossible. Caleb Dawson made her afraid. Wesley Broad had been afraid of him. In his delusion, he could have screamed any name in the world; but in the severest of pain, he chose to say, 'Caleb! Stop, please!' He was the one hurting him, and not Amy. How long before he hurt her or someone she loved?

I can't go on like this.

What had depression been reduced to anyway? A fashion accessory people tried on for a couple of days, months, or years, till they suddenly were bored of it, moving on to better and bluer trends. But Amy knew what its wisps felt like, tasted them on her tongue, like the heat of a sacrificial knife coated with the blood of her comrades, about to grant her safe passage to the gates of hell. Amy needed to be saved from herself, to save him from her.

She fell onto her bed. Closing her eyes, she willed the anarchic ebb and flow of her thoughts to come to a halt. Confusion reigned supreme. Caleb had done nothing to merit her fears. Not yet anyway. An hour passed, or a minute, maybe even a second. When Amy's eyes fluttered open, Caleb was standing in her doorframe. 

A demon with a halo, he cast no shadow.

"When I was hitting Wes, why did he think it was you?" Amy asked, her voice quivering.

"I don't know, maybe I terrify him," Caleb said. "I have hurt him before."

Amy's mouth dried. "You ran away before I could finish the whole set of experiments," she said, running a hand through her rumpled hair.

"Haven't you done enough?" he said, bitingly. "I need to talk to you."

Staring at the ghost in her room, Amy wondered if it was a spell. A curse on her to think and think and think, till the scratches on her brain bled grey.

Caleb folded his hands against his chest. "My family is losing it. The police have turned my place upside down but have no other new leads in the investigation. We need to act."

"I'm doing everything I can to figure out –"

"That's not good enough! We need to find my body right now. It has been days while you've been wasting time messing around," Caleb accused her, rage fuming out of him. "I'm slowly dying of starvation or worse decomposing."

"Well, it's not as though you've been doing anything but complain incessantly," Amy countered. As if she was sitting on her ass doing absolutely nothing. "I did go to the forest looking for you that night. What else am I supposed to do, huh, roam around town putting up flyers?"

Caleb sneered, "At least you would be doing something productive."

"That's a bit rich coming from a guy who can't pick up a sock to save his life." 

He was riling Amy up and she was letting him. You know better than that. 

Fury blazing in the deep blue, he strode closer to the bed, his finger drawn squarely at her. "Every second I'm not wasting time with you, I have been searching for my body. I know Burke's end better than the back of my hand. But I can't dig or lift anything up. I fucking need you for that so please, I'm begging you. Help me."

They were both dragging air into their lungs as though they had run a marathon against their beliefs.

Amy shut her eyes, massaging them with warm hands and began with a little more prudence and a little less fear – "I'm sorry I haven't been the most active but all these experiments are to find clues about you. If you want me to take a shovel and start digging around the forest then fine let's do that," she said, a peal of incredulous, breathless laughter tailing the end of her sentence. "But I can do better."

"What do you mean?"

"Your teammates were talking about you last night. I think they might know something," Amy remarked.

"Surely they didn't have anything to do with this, the guys are idiots," Caleb said, casting a petulant, sideways glance at her. "I'm sure they were messing around."

"Stefan said that he wouldn't kick a guy for helping them from beyond the grave," Amy supplied, with not enough air quotes in the world to convey her scepticism. "We need to investigate this. You need to put your invisibility to some use at Natasha's birthday party."

"Alright, so tomorrow we go for a manhunt and then at Nat's party we look for answers," he said, finally winding down now that a solid plan had been agreed upon. It was as though Amy could see him deflate in real-time. "Do you swear to just give me a few days of your life and not focus on anything else? It's Thanksgiving break, you big nerd."

With a weak smile gracing her lips, Amy replied, "Only if you promise to keep the name-calling to a minimum."

Caleb grinned, taciturn as ever.

She swallowed, wiping her sweaty palms on her black skirt. Amy's hyperactive imagination had gotten the better of her. Caleb is a friend, she thought resolutely. She had to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Now, shall we continue?"

In the dark of the room, Caleb climbed onto the bed, his unruly dark hair close enough to touch. "Are you going to ask me for my blood?"

Amy drew a sharp breath. How did he know that?

"Keep your panties on, princess. I read your notebook while you were sleeping," he answered her unspoken question. "And I am not going to bite myself for it."

She extracted a small vial from her bedside table. Amy had nicked it from the biology lab a few years ago; an innocuous souvenir really. "At least let me get a hair sample."

Caleb threw his hands in the air. "You don't give up, do you?"

The tenuous undertones of the conversation went poof. Popped like a soap bubble. Amy laughed and clambered over to switch the lights on. "You know me all too well."

She watched Caleb pluck a strand of hair. "Since I can't hold it, you will have to maneuver it inside this," Amy said, opening the small bottle.

He nodded and with his tongue peeking out of his lips, he carefully tried to insert the strand into the vial. But predictably, it wouldn't go in. Caleb groused, "I'm tired of saying this but what's the point anyway? No one except you will ever see it."

"You're right," she said, halfheartedly. Amy chucked the vial away. Where it landed, she saw her spiral notebook and a sudden epiphany seized her. A last-ditch effort. She whispered, "Why aren't you in the nude?"

"Wouldn't you have liked that?" Caleb smirked, lolling on the bed like a cat.

"I mean, why are you wearing clothes? Technically all ghosts should be naked, shouldn't they? Clothes do not have a soul or whatever."

He thought about her remark for a second. "But I am not a ghost remember?"

"Can you take them off?"

"I know you are hornier than a forty-year-old Mormon nun but please have some decency."

"While hovering close to the subject, I have some biological questions," Amy mimicked his voice, and the way Caleb thoughtfully put his finger on his chin on occasion. "Do you sweat? Do you need to pee? Poop? Do you get hard? What if you try to touch yourself right now?"

"No, no, no, and what the fuck?" 

Amy knew she had him, she was practically sprawled under his skin. "C'mon don't be shy, Mr. Dawson," she said and cupped her face, her eyes glowing. "I won't tell anyone."

He scoffed. "You need to be locked away from like normal people."

Amy giggled, enjoying herself tremendously. "What will happen if you put your invisible dick inside someone, will that deviate too?" she asked, innocently.

"Why, are you volunteering?"

"Sure! I'll have sex for science," Amy bluffed.

"Oh, why don't you just jump off a cliff or something," Caleb said, his ears a furious scarlet.

"Don't be like that," she cooed and followed him around the room. It escalated to a point where Amy thought he would burst if she said the word 'penis' out loud. Who would have ever known? Caleb Dawson, high school bad boy, reddens like a cherub's butt cheeks at lewd suggestiveness.

Time had flown by, as time often does when one is too busy ignoring it. And soon at her continued insistence, the scene shifted to a somber one.

Caleb shrugged his dark jacket off and the simple white shirt he had underneath clung to him, defining his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Amy now realized how he must feel about all of the objects her side of the world. However hard she tried, she couldn't feel the material nor make the jacket budge because her fingers just wouldn't close around it.

And to anyone watching her, she was a promising candidate for mime school.

Amy delved around her closet for the cigarette lighter she had stashed there, under some of her more regrettable 'tween couture' choices. "Hold it up."

"Have you finally lost it?" Caleb said.

Oh, you have no idea.

"Let me try this. We had a deal."

A steely resolve flashed in Caleb's cobalt eyes. He balled his jacket and held it out, a sleeve flinging precariously between them. The sinewy veins in his forearm were a map, leading away from his pale four-point scar. "What if fire kills me?"

Amy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"What if the flames destroy whatever this is? Whatever I am."

"As far as we know, there is a negligible chance of that happening," she countered. "Nothing touches you. Fire won't either."

"How can you be sure?"

"I am not sure, but if it does then we should be prepared," Amy said. Why did it sound like she was lying? Like there was something else that was hidden beneath her words, an ulterior motive. "We won't know unless we try."

Caleb's jaw was set. "Just do it."

With a single click, the cool metallic bar had a sapphire-blue flame on top of it.

A cold bead of sweat slid down Amy's forehead as she levelled her gaze with Caleb. It was as though his eyes were on fire, and the reflected flame just a poor imitation of the inferno within them. Inch by inch, she brought the lighter closer to the jacket, her thumb throbbing with the erratic beat of her heart. The deathly whoosh of the chemicals inside the canister was getting louder and louder inside her head. The blue fire gave his sleeve a cautionary lick.

For a second that was longer than any Amy had known, nothing happened.

The lone flame burned bright, not bending away like other physical things but flickering as if in high wind. The jacket did not catch fire. Amy fell back against the wall, drained; as if she had run miles in a tempest. Vivacious relief washed over her, but the panic did not leave her eyes. Caleb was breathing hard. The ragged breaths of a man drowned.

Something rapped against her bedroom window, the sharp sound an awakening, and they turned together.

Amy had a visitor.

✧

A/N: And that (hopefully) concludes the series of experiments. Apologies for kind of trolling you guys with the chapter title; your boy has got to have some fun too. Who do you think is this mysterious guest? Funny answers only 👅