To call Lacey's impulse decision - to take a bicycle lying against a building outside, firmly place her rear upon it, and start pedalling like the wind before anyone can catch her - "stealing" would, in her opinion, be a strong word. In her defense, the situation is dire: a walking corpse of a boy who may or may not still have a demon inside of him is about to expose everything they know about a murderer to the murderer and, if the universe aligns just right, become a murderer himself. Surely, if the owner were to confront her, she could just give them the whole spiel and they'd completely understand.

Y'know, if the whole situation wasn't completely fucking bonkers.

The ludicrousy of it all only makes her pedal faster. She's no athlete by any means, but she puts her all into it, rounding corners and streets and barely checking to make sure no cars or pedestrians are coming. Only a few minutes in and she's burning, red-faced, sweaty, but she doesn't stop. He's gonna fuck it all up, all of it. All my effort, for what? Fucking nothing. I'm barely holding everything together by a thread as is, and what does he do? He acts on impulse, doesn't regard anything I've said in the past! Fuck!

Tight wheels bounce over the curb and she goes flying forward. It's a boost she needs and she flies down the suburban sidewalks, wheeling into the street when she runs out of concrete. Her face is set into a hard, nostril-flaring scowl, and the hood pulled up over her hair does nothing to keep the rain from pelting her cheeks and blurring her vision. She growls and turns another violent corner, towards the railroad.

The landscape is a swirl of brown and grey, dead nothings. At some point it, and time, blends together with the rest of the world, and as the sky darkens with the impending drop of the sun beneath the horizon, the lot where they parked previously comes into view and she brakes so hard the tires screech over the old asphalt. She trips over the bike getting off but eventually abandons it in favor of her sore legs, which take her over the cracked blades of a dead field, to the pebbles that serve as the foundation for the tracks, to wet planks and beams of steel, to field again.

There, she sees a slim silhouette, a dark hooded figure against the grey and beige. He slouches as he walks, and when he turns to face the endless clearing, there's a tuft of honey-brown hair that sticks out from under the hood and catches on the sparse rays that remain. Lacey almost stops right then and there to catch her breath, but her work isn't quite done yet, so she drags herself forward. "Gideon!"

He turns his head slightly but only acknowledges her through his periphery. He continues on his fool's march.

Fuck you too.

Eventually she does catch up, but not without nearly collapsing a lung in the process. By then, it's nearly impossible to keep pace with him, so ready is he to pop Isaac a new one, but that doesn't mean she stops trying. "I've told you before...and I'll say it again," she gulps for breath, "but if you do this...he knows...and it's all over for Erie. Stop. Idiot."

He doesn't respond.

"Giddy Boy, I don't think you're in the right state of mind! Need I remind you, you were possessed last night! You are injured and malnourished and sleep-deprived! Look- you're limping!"

"I can focus on me later. Erie is out there, going through so much worse, and I need to get him out. Today. I'll let myself rot before I give up on him."

"What good are you to anyone dead? Certainly no good to me, since I have Darcy being the biggest little shit I've ever met. Just stop and think about this before you get yourself killed. You know he can probably take you, too? He and his accomplice?"

He doesn't even look at her. "Check your phone. Tell me if he's home or not. I'll compromise. He's there, I turn back. He's gone, we go in and we give that house another sweep, a thorough sweep. I need to find something, Lacey."

She's still scorching him with her twisted look, but she knows there's no changing his mind here. At the very least, she can take this compromise, so she angrily unlocks her phone and scrolls through everything she has on Isaac. On two apps he's shared the same photo of- oh, no. Is that the diner? There's yellow tape marking off the scene and various cops picking around the area. Lacey pales, but checks the caption and the time stamp regardless.

"A man can't even get his favorite dinner anymore. What's this town coming to? Definitely no place to raise a child. #CarelessIowa" - 4 mins ago

Lacey gulps. "So whether this works out or not, we might still be going to jail, but he's not here. Clear across town. I want you to know I'll do a lot for you but if we go down for this it's your ass I'm ratting out to save mine."

"That's fine by me," Gideon says. His voice is empty, but nothing like when he'd lost control to Malevolence. This is just him. Miserable.

They make the turn into the short path up to Isaac's extensive front yard, and once there, they rush up the steep hill and under the porch, out of the rain. Lacey grabs hold of a chunk of her hair and wrings it out while Gideon tips over the bucket from before and shoves the key into the lock. For someone with so much to hide, Isaac certainly hasn't learned from the last time someone - or someones - broke into his house. It almost makes her laugh with how brutally reckless it is.

When Gideon cracks open the door, a slinky creature, the cat from before, rubs herself on the threshold before crossing the porch and settling on top of a rocking chair in the corner. They pay each other no mind, and, after wiping their shoes off on the mat outside, they duck into the pitch black house of Isaac Boone and secure the door behind them.

An instant flash of color on the ground reflects against the polished floorboards and Lacey throws her shoulder back against the door. The purple and red dies out into nothing, but then Gideon takes a step towards her and they flash again. She takes a deep breath, soothes her soul, and then, after an angry swallow, she says, "You're wearing light-up fucking Skechers?"

"Oh, yeah. I lost the other ones so when I got back to the hotel room this was all I had. They're kinda tight."

"Why do you- Y'know what? Nevermind. Where do you wanna look first?"

There's a hum of consideration, and then the lights squeak over the wood and to the right before starting to rise higher and higher with every step. Lacey shakes her head and follows him up the stairs. "His bedroom," he finally says. "When I want to hide something important, I keep it in my bedroom."

"All right. One condition while we're here, we're not touching that basement. Agreed?"

No hesitation: "Agreed."

The upstairs hall is long, a straight-shot to the left and right. Through some of the open doors come squares of dark blue light, hardly enough to see by, but certainly enough to show that the walls sit barren of frames and the corridor is a narrow one. There's some fluttering with the shadows from the second door down, and Lacey holds her breath until she deduces it's just a curtain curling in front of an open window. From there, she can hear the sharp plunks of rain on the side of the house, on the floor inside. Probably an office or the bedroom, then. She taps her knuckles against Gideon's arm and points, and the two start for it.

The instant chill of the room makes her shiver involuntarily and she feels her skin prickle. It's definitely a bedroom, dressed modern, a king-sized bed wrapped in grey sheets and slick furniture likely holding his clothes and secrets. Gideon starts for the dresser to the side and Lacey to the window beside it, dragging it to a splintery close. Her breath fogs the glass and she starts digging through the other side of the open drawer. "What are we looking for?"

"Anything of Erie's I'll be able to find. Papers. Anything he's got wrapped up in here." They finish and he slams the top drawer closed before yanking open the next one. Lacey takes a deep breath, and with it, the heavy aroma from an uncapped bottle of cologne chokes her throat. She steps back to cough and, although she hesitates at first, clicks the lamp on a side table on. It bathes the room in a warm yellow glow.

They make quick work of the room. He goes from drawer to drawer, table to table, and she checks under the bed and in the closet. Nothing but pressed suits and things worth more than everything she's ever owned. All he finds is a pocket knife stuck in the corner of a drawer, and he pockets it for later. When they run out of things to check, she shrugs and slaps her thighs in exasperation. "Now what?"

"There's more rooms. We'll check them too."

"Gideon, we have no idea when he'll get back home. We have to hurry."

"Then come on."

On the way out of the room, his fingers tighten around her wrist, and although the pressure hurts, she lets him drag her to the hall, now hazed with the light coming from Isaac's bedroom. He takes her to the end of the hall, where they find the only closed door. They share a look - why keep this one closed when all the others are open? - and Gideon exchanges her wrist for the knob, shoving it open so hard that the door slams against the inner wall.

Another bedroom. It's so dark they can only see the outline of the bed, which takes up the majority of the room. It's much smaller than Isaac's with only a narrow space from the end of the bed to the wall through which to walk. Even then, a window takes up most of the wall. When Lacey trepidatiously sticks her hand in to flick the light switch, she's overwhelmed by pink. Everywhere, just...a flood of pink so bright it makes her nauseous. The comforter, the sheer curtains, the walls. It's only interrupted by flowery decals slapped onto the paint and light brown furniture boasting more pink atop it.

"Uh..." Lacey drawls. "So this is weird. This is...weird...because...see, this is a little girl's room, it looks like, and-"

"And Isaac lives alone," Gideon finishes.

They give one another disconcerted looks, with creases between their eyebrows and lips turned down. If this means anything, it can't be good. So for now, while she creaks over the floorboards trying to figure out where the hell to start, she'll pretend this was the room of a little sister that hasn't been back in years, a room that he just hasn't touched.

"Something's in here," Gideon says aloud, tone empty. "I can feel it."

He starts pressing down on the different floorboards, likely searching for a spot where they can be pulled up and checked underneath, but it's all too Nancy Drew for Lacey. She sticks to the obvious, and goes for the dresser that comes up to her stomach.

First, her fingertips latch onto the plastic gems glued onto the knobs, but then there's a shift in the air, a smell of musty decay that hovers under her nose, and her palms lift to the top of the dresser of their own accord, laying flat on a thin layer of dust. They push the dust aside and they roll up into chunks. Her eye twitches. A pinky bumps an unused brush. The back of her thumb brushes a pile of headbands and scrunchies. Flower clip-ons, a bracelet, a mirror, a- No. Go back to that mirror, Lacey. She lays her fingertips against the surface of a silvery compact mirror, an ornate design carved into the top. It sends a shock through her neurons, a rush of feeling through her veins, a pop of the air in her lungs. She gasps and clutches the thing in her palm. For a moment, she doesn't have the free will to unclasp her fingers from it - almost like she's a cadaver who died with this thing in her grip.

"Eugh," she says, finally loosening her hold on it and letting it clatter back to the wooden surface.

Gideon glances up, the strings of his hoodie dangling from his neck. "What?"

"Weird sensation. Lost control for a second, I think. I should probably pay attention to it, given, y'know, I see dead people and who knows what else."

He slowly pads over to her side, craning over her head to get a look at the compact mirror. Lacey takes it up in her hands again, still feeling the cold burn spread into her arms - but then it becomes too much, so she shoves it into his grip. "I can't hold that anymore. It's too uncomfortable."

"Feels just fine to me," Gideon says absentmindedly. Still, he splits it open with his uncut nails, and Lacey watches attentively as he exposes the two mirrors on either side. One of them is smudgy with a fingerprint.

"Don't touch the glass at all," Lacey rushes, reaching out to clamp it shut before he can do any damage. He simply nods and then turns it over in his hands. "Wait," she says. "Let me see that closer."

Stamped on the back, in the midst of the carved curls and swirls, sit three letters:

R.A.F.

"Ro-Anne Foster," Lacey says, breathless.

"Holy shit." His hands start to tremble something fierce so he sets the mirror down on the dresser so he can run them through his hair, tugging on the ends. "It's all connected, Lacey, all of them were here. He was in contact with all of them. He killed them, he killed-" Erie.

"No, no, no," she grabs onto his forearm to root him back to this earth. "Remember what the fates told me? He's still alive. If he was still alive then, he's gotta be alive now." Busted logic, but for now, it has to work. "Calm down before you bust a blood vessel in your forehead and I have to deal with it."

He turns away to try and collect himself, and Lacey pockets the mirror while he does. She wants to comfort him again, to say if they've found this, they can find something showing where Erie is here, too. But when she turns, a crack of thunder shakes the walls around them, and the light in the room flickers out, one, two, three, gone.

For a moment, they look to one another, faces lit only by a flash of lightning. Also lit by the flash, staring in through the window - two stories up - is a warped face, a pointed chin, white eyes. It presses a twiggy, dry hand against the glass.

Tap, tap, tap.

Let me in, Lacey Waits.

Tap, tap, tap. It's so cold out here, Lacey Waits.

Tap, tap, tap.

Naturally, Lacey shoves at Gideon's back and runs towards the window, salt packet in hand. She spills it out over the windowsill, and in response, that mouthless thing spreads apart a slit in the face to release a sharp whistling screech muffled by the glass. Bang! Bang! Bang!

"I can't even take a shit without these things being up my ass! Come on, Giddy Boy, time to go!"

"But we haven't even-"

"Need I remind you our time is always limited because of these fucks? Come on!"

She grabs his wrist this time and drags him out of the room, but as soon as they slip into the hall, the banging emanates from the opposite end of the corridor. Then, gurgling. The bathroom. Her mind reels through all the things that fresh hell could be, and it locks on the last time they were here, stuck in the terrible bathroom of Isaac Boone. Hands on hands on hands and wet smacking and a deep moan, straight from the drain, ah, there that wet smack is again, straight onto the tile. From down the hall they can even see a puddle of bathwater leak out across the floorboards, and Lacey's lunch starts leaking up in a similar fashion.

With a harsh bite on her lip, she rushes to the corner where the stairs meet the wall and lays down the rest of a salt packet in a line across the hall, blocking the disgusting little shit from making it past. She sticks her tongue out in its general direction and then gestures for Gideon to follow her down the stairs far after she's starting pounding down them. At this point, her heart thumps too heavily in her chest, and she doesn't have the wherewithal to focus on anything other than self-preservation to look back.

A poor mistake, really.

"Aren't we safer inside if the thing is out there and you have salt?" Gideon yells from the top of the stairs.

"We don't know what else is here, plus Isaac could get here any second. We gotta fuckin' go!"

Her sentence is punctuated by her foot landing on the first floor, followed by the rapid, violent hammering of something on the basement door next to her. She shrieks and stumbles away as the door quakes and bounces forward on its own hinges. She hurries to pick out the last packet of salt she has with her - even at home, she only has two little baggies left - and reluctantly spreads a line down in front of the basement door before backing up.

"You know what question I have?" Lacey asks no one in particular, tongue spurred by a nervous buzzing in her throat. She continues backing up and another flash lights the space for a brief moment. "Why do these things flock to Isaac's house like this? I have never, not once, seen more than one or two malevolent spirits in one place at a time before coming here. Is there like a portal in this bitch somewhere? Because if so, I'd be very interested in closing it. Do portals even exist? Don't know. I don't know anything and once we find Erie I'm fine with not knowing or doing anything with any of this ever-"

The house rumbles again, at the mercy of the atmosphere it sits in, and it grates on her ears in a way that makes her flinch back against a piece of furniture. At least, she thinks it's furniture until another bolt of lightning zaps the earth and forms of halo of light around her figure. Well, hers and anothers.

Immediately, she stiffens. She must be standing in front of a window. But windows don't have curves. The sheer white curtains run over her sleeved arms, too, but the window can't be open because there's no moisture running in from the rain and there's no draft.

The silky fabric brushes her cheek and she hitches in a breath. Her foot shoots forward, initiating escape, but an icy hand - definitely a hand - grabs hold of her calf. It feels like marble, that's how stiff the bones are, and even when she tries to wrench out, eyes twitching with a fear that staunches the shriek in her throat, it does nothing. She tries moving her other leg, but a hand clasps that, too. She reaches out for a lamp to the side.

A hand clasps that, too.

With shallow breaths, her eyes dart around in search of Gideon. He must've never followed her down the stairs. She squints at the top, but he's not there, either. Her eyes water because he went back to searching again and now fuck me I guess and then she sucks in a deep breath to scream for him but before she's even done inhaling another hand slaps over her mouth while another grabs at her other arm in unison and she squeezes her eyes shut tight because fuck fuck fuck.

She stands there, trapped, in paralyzed silence. A grandfather clock pushed off to the side ticks steadily, but Lacey's chest heaves with sharp breaths. The fingers over her lips smell of sour rot. She cringes but the cold grip tightens over her face. How is she gonna get out of this? She's locked in, and with every shift of her tense muscles, it feels like quicksand, where the situation just gets more impossible, where the icy breath on the back of her neck gets closer and wetter. It blows through the sheer curtain, and the silk of it presses up against her ear, slippery with artifice and moisture. The thing's teeth grind like gravel in its mouth.