“If you try to call the ambulance one more time, I swear to God that I will break into your phone and delete your YouTube channel,” a shrill voice said, waking me up from my deep sleep. It took me a second to remember where I was - the voice made my pulse skyrocket, but I didn’t seem to be sitting against a wall anymore. I froze, trying to place the sounds around me.

  “We can’t just not call an ambulance!” protested a voice - Luke. His voice sounded frantic, like they’d been having this conversation for way too long already. “Last time she fainted here, she just about died. She could be dying now!”

  “She’s not dying,” said the first voice, almost sounding bored. That voice was more difficult to place as I swam through the murky depths of semi-consciousness. “But if you pull her out of this now, the demon will win, and then it’ll have all the time it wants to kill her. Do you want that?”

  “No, of course not, but,” Luke continued, but my attention to him stopped when I felt someone touch my arm. Luke and the other voice were too far away for it to be either of them. I immediately felt my pulse spike in fear, but the touch just lightly stroked my arm, as though the others weren’t having an argument about my life mere feet away.

  “Shh, it’s okay,” Liam said, mere inches from me. “You’re going to be okay.”

  My blood froze in my veins at the tone of his voice - the calmness of it perfectly matched the calmness of his voice when we were in the hallway. But that wasn’t Liam, I tried to remind myself as I felt my skin crawl where he touched it. But what if this isn’t Liam, either? I did what Circe (that was the other voice, I finally realized) had wanted and I fought back, but what if it wasn’t enough? She didn’t exactly give me clear instructions, after all. What if I thought I killed it, but it had come here to take over the real Liam? “You’re going to be okay,” he said again, clearly ignoring the others. “If I could help you fight it, I would. If I could take your place, I would. But I know you don’t need me to - if anyone can defeat this thing, it would be you.”

  “I’m calling them,” Luke said in the background. “Maybe they can keep her under and just keep an eye on her vitals or something. And then we can all be happy knowing that she’s fighting it, but also not dying.”

  “Yeah, good luck telling that to the medics, you dumbass,” another voice, Caitlin, said. I’m sure they’d be super happy to be called not to treat someone.”

  “Then what the fuck else do you expect us to do?” Luke snapped back. “Because I sure as fuck am not going to sit by and watch her die.”

  “You sure as hell are!” Circe snapped back. “If you don’t, she’ll die anyway, and make the demon more powerful on her way out, and then we’re all fucked. Besides, she won’t die. She’s smart enough to figure something out.”

  “Of course, she is,” Liam agreed, taking my limp hand in his and squeezing it lightly. “She’s been dealing with this sort of stuff for her entire life. As you said, if anyone can deal with this, she can.”

  I waded my way up through the muck of my mind while they continued to squabble. Whether he was real or not, the feel of Liam’s hand on mine acted as a tether for me to pull myself toward them. The movement was hard - after the fight, all I wanted to do was sleep, but there was some instinctual part of me that knew that if I gave into the urge to go to sleep right now, then I would sink deeper into the darkness and never find my way out. So, I pushed through as well as I could until finally, I was able to open my eyes a crack.

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  The room was in chaos. Liam knelt next to me, his hand still in mine, but his attention was on Luke’s argument with Circe and Caitlin. Luke still held his phone in his hand, but he clearly hadn’t dialed for help. Caitlin looked at him with sharp eyes, but she had a hand on Circe’s shoulder, as though she would hold the woman back if she had to. The room was filled with hazy smoke that seemed like too much to have just been from the candles, but I didn’t see anything that was directly on fire at that moment.

  Using what little strength I had, I squeezed Liam’s hand lightly, and his eyes rocketed back to mine. “Oh my god, Andi,” he said, taking his other hand and lightly cupping my face. When he touched me, I couldn’t quite conceal my wince, and he immediately removed his hands from me. His eyes raked over me, checking for the injuries that obviously wouldn’t be here in this body. “Guys, she’s awake!”

  “You see,” Circe said as Luke dropped his phone on the ground and immediately ran over to my other side. “I told you it wouldn’t be a problem. She’s strong enough.”

  “Strong enough to not die and not needing medical attention are two different things,” Luke snapped back at her before turning his attention back to me. “Are you okay? Can you speak?”

  “I think so,” I croaked. My throat felt like I was speaking through razor blades, but I was at least able to talk. “I think I killed it.”

  “Well, obviously you must have, or else you’d hardly be here right now,” Circe said, matter-of-factly. “But we all knew that you could beat the demon if you were given a chance. OR at least some of us believed that,” she said, glaring in Luke’s direction.

  Luke rolled his eyes. “I knew you could beat it, but I didn’t want you to die in the process. You’re not dying, are you?”

  “I don’t think so?” I asked more than answered. I tried to lift my hand so I could rake it over myself to look for any injuries I couldn’t feel yet, but I didn’t have the strength to move it. “Just…so tired.”

  “Fighting spiritual battles will do that,” Circe said. She knelt down next to Liam and passed him a small bottle of light amber liquid. “Pour this into her mouth, but make sure she doesn’t choke. It wouldn’t be great to bring her back from the brink of full possession only to have her choke to death.”

  Liam nodded and took his hand from mine. He gently lifted up my head so that I was at a better angle, then put the bottle to my lips. Whatever the liquid was, it had a savory taste to it, but it lightly burned going down. I fought the instinct to cough immediately, making sure I had swallowed every drop of it. “What is it?” Liam asked, handing the now empty bottle back to her.

  “Holy water and the anti-possession oils, mixed with a few herbs for health,” she answered with a shrug. “The most likely time to be possessed is right when you’ve gotten rid of one, and I’d rather not have to deal with this again anytime soon. I put in a little peppermint oil so the taste wasn’t so bad, too.”

  “You could flavor it the whole time?” Luke asked shrilly. “You know we hate the taste of those oils!”

  “Yeah, well,” she said, shrugging again, “I like her better.”

  Luke and Circe fought loudly in the background, but my eyes floated back to Liam again. He was watching me cautiously, as though he thought I were about to break at any moment. When my eyes met his, he gave me a slow smile. “Hey,” he said, nearly at a whisper.

  “Hey,” I whispered back.

  “You think you’re going to make it? You gave us quite a scare there.”

  “Yeah, I think I will,” I said. He started to reach his hand toward me again, but I quickly shook my head. I was happy to see him, but I knew I couldn’t have him touch me again just yet. Better for him to think that I was still injured than that I couldn’t be around him. It would at least give me a little bit of time to figure my shit out.

  “Guys,” Caitlin said, cutting through all of us, and everyone turned to look at her. “This is cute and all, but she said she was tired. Shouldn’t we let her rest?” Circe nodded.

  “I can carry her to her room,” Liam said, starting to move.

  “No!” I quickly said, and he stopped, everyone looking at me curiously. “No, I mean, I’d rather just rest here for a little bit. I’ll go to the room after I’ve had a chance to rest.”

  “You’re sure?” Liam asked, his gaze boring into mine.

  “I’m sure,” I said, smiling at him.

  Circe nodded. “That is probably for the best, anyway. Don’t want to exert any more strength than you have to at the moment. I’ll clean some of this shit up if you want to run and grab a few pillows and blankets, Liam, and we’ll let you have a chance to rest.”

  And I thought, finally, maybe I’d get a chance to rest without the threat of a demon visit.