I slipped away from Nick, Aaron and Billy. I walked over to a small belt of trees where I could see the sun rising between the interwoven, naked branches. I dug my iPhone out of my pocket and called home. It rang five times before she answered. Of course she was sleeping; it was barely eight in the morning. But I'd made a promise to her and I intended to keep it.

"Mm…hello?" I smiled at her sleepy voice.

"Hey baby," I murmured into my phone. I kicked at a dirt clump near the toe of my shoe. I was missing her a lot. Her voice instantly made me feel safe, despite the horror I'd just witnessed inside the house behind me.

"You're alive," she said softly. I could hear her moving in the bed sheets.

"Yeah, but I'm completely drained," I yawned. Perfect timing. "Did you sleep okay?"

"I never sleep okay when you're gone," she admitted. "I worry too much about you."

I flushed as I admired the sunrise. "I'll be home by tomorrow afternoon," I consoled. "You know, I'm looking at the sunrise right now and it reminds me of you."

She chuckled softly in my ear. "Oh really? Why's that?"

"Because, it's beautiful," I can hunt demons and be corny too, there's nothing wrong with it.

"Oh, you sap," she joked.

"I can practically hear you blushing all the way from Ohio," I laughed.

"Shh,"

"Is Avaya still asleep?"

"Oh yes. She had a rough night too, I think. She was worried about you."

I sighed. "Well when she wakes up tell her I'm okay. I miss you both."

"'Kay. I love you, Zak."

"I love you too, Lil."

I hung up, looked at the sunrise one more time with a more relieved sense of appreciation and headed back to the Ghost Adventures van. I clambered into the backseat with Nick, who had his head against the window and was fast asleep. I smirked at him while I pulled my seatbelt on.

"Aaron, you still awake?" I asked, leaning towards the front seat.

"Yeah, man," Aaron answered. He was a lot quieter than normal.

"You doing okay?"

"Um, yeah I'll be fine," he muttered. "I just need to get some sleep."

I frowned. We'd just finished investigating an old decrepit, extremely haunted family home in Ohio that had reports of demonic and poltergeist activity, and needless to say it had been rough. Aaron had been especially affected due to his fear and I was worried about him. He was never this quiet and reserved.

"If you're sure, man," I sighed. I was too drained and tired to argue with him. I could just hope he'd be better by the time we woke up and got on the airplane.

"Were Lily and Avaya worried?" Billy asked as he drove away from the house from hell.

"As always," I smirked sleepily. "I can't wait to get home to them."

"No doubt," Billy chuckled. "You've got a nice family back there, Bagans. They really love you."

"And I really love them," I mumbled as my eyes began to slowly close.

Nothing felt quite as good as the moment when I descended from the plane and my feet touched Las Vegas ground. I felt refreshed, renewed, and incredibly excited to hail a cab and get home. I checked the time on my phone. Lily was probably out in the backyard with Avaya and Gracie, reading a book. I felt more at home just picturing it in my mind.

With my job, it called for me being away from home a lot. Lily couldn't always come with me because she was working too and in all honesty, I didn't feel comfortable having her and Avaya with me. I tried to keep any bad energy that could attach itself to me away from my family. Regardless, the distance and the danger that came along with ghost hunting weren't comforting for me, my fiancée, or Avaya.

As I hopped in the backseat of a cab and told the driver where to take me, I sat back and reminisced on how I'd even gotten involved in this crazy profession. I say crazy because it really was insane, what I was doing. A lot of people just didn't understand. "Where's the enjoyment in trying to provoke the paranormal?" they'd ask. Those who weren't accepting declared me a fraud. They could say what they wanted. I did it because I know ghosts exist, and I want the rest of the world to know it too.

It'd started 7 years ago when I had seen that apparition in the bed and breakfast in Michigan. I'd been scared out of my wits and so confused, because I had never believed in ghosts. But when I'd looked up and seen that lady standing by the bed watching me, I didn't have much of a choice. There was no denying it once she disappeared before my eyes while I stood stock still. From there my fascination only grew. Thank god for Lily; she somehow put up with me this entire time I was spiralling into insanity. She let me figure it out and listened when I had something to get excited over. Nick had always believed in ghosts, and when I told him what I'd seen he got more excited than I had. Aaron was very reluctant to believe me, let alone research the paranormal world. The whole thought of it freaked him out. The more Nick and I delved into it the less time Aaron spent with us. We got him to come around though. A couple years later we were making a documentary where we went ghost hunting and it gained a lot more success than any of us had planned. From there we expanded into a TV show that aired on the Travel Channel on Friday nights. It was pretty incredible to be doing what we're doing for a living, but it definitely puts a strain on a few things.

Lily and Avaya still remained by my side throughout it all, though. Lily said as long as I remained safe she'd try to be okay with it. Avaya just didn't want anything to get to her at night. I swore to her I'd keep her protected. A lot had changed since I'd first met Lily, and although my newfound interests and job put a lot of stress on her sometimes, she had still said yes when I'd proposed to her last year. I think if she's still willing to marry me after being in a relationship that only got weirder over the course of 9 years, there's a good chance she'll stick around no matter what.

There were a couple times that I'd ended up bringing work home with me. Nothing too serious and whatever it was hadn't hurt Lily or Avaya. It'd caused a bit of a stir and scared us, but it didn't actually hurt us. It'd thrown some things and moved things around but it never attacked or possessed any of us, thankfully. After some heavy cleansing and purification of my entire house we managed to get rid of it. I was promised that we'd be safe from there on out, and I really hoped that was the case. I'd seen a spirit tug on Lily's hair and another give Avaya chills and that was all I ever wanted to see happen to them. It was because of my family that the thought of a spirit hurting a woman or a child made me taste poison.

Speaking of, I caught sight of my home out of the backseat window of the car. A huge grin broke out on my face and I had my seatbelt off and was paying the cab driver before he'd even put it in park. I rushed to get my bags out of the trunk and booked it up the front walk to the door. I didn't even bother going inside, I just threw my bags in there. I could hear Avaya's voice in the backyard along with the unmistakable sound of Gracie's tags on her collar jingling as she played. I crept around the side of the house to the fence and peeked over the top.

Avaya was throwing a ball for Gracie. Every time I saw her I was in awe of how big she'd gotten. She'd grown from a curious little five year old to an incredibly smart fourteen year old. And, she looked just like her mother. Lily was sitting on the patio with a book clutched firmly in her hand, just as I'd pictured it. Her long brown hair was up in a messy bun and she had a pair of my black sunglasses on. As soon as I saw her in her flowing tank top and shorts I needed her in my arms.

"Don't throw the ball over the fence again," Lily said. "I think the neighbours might scream at me if they catch me sneaking into their backyard to retrieve it again."

I unlatched the fence with eager hands and stepped into the backyard. "You won't have to, baby. That's my job."

They both snapped their heads towards me and squealed. Gracie barked and bolted into my legs with her tail wagging furiously. I laughed and scratched her soft ears. Avaya reached me first and nearly knocked the wind out of me with her hug. I held her to me and kissed the top of her head.

"I missed you, dad." She said. Her voice was muffled by my shirt.

As always, a part of me melted when she called me that. I'd never asked her to. So the fact that she did it anyway meant a lot to me.

"I missed you too," I said.

She pulled back and my eyes landed on my smoking hot fiancée. She was all flawless beauty, shiny hair, long legs and a smile that could shoot me dead. God, I fucking love her.

"I missed you too, daddy," she purred. Avaya gagged beside me.

"Save that language for tonight, you fox," I winked.

She laughed and threw her arms around my neck to kiss me. I held her flush to my body and dipped her backwards, smiling against her lips when she squealed into the kiss. God I'd missed her!

"Ew, that's enough," Avaya muttered.

Lily and I laughed and separated. Avaya walked back over to the edge of the patio to play with Gracie some more. Lily shuffled back to the table and poured me a glass of iced tea. I took it graciously and downed half of it right away.

"So, how was it?" Lily asked, taking her seat.

"Well we got plenty of good evidence, let me just put it that way," I answered, scratching the back of my head.

Lily frowned. "A bad kind of evidence?"

"I won't be forgetting that lockdown for awhile, I think." I sighed heavily and sat down on a chair.

"Did anyone get possessed?" Avaya piped up, throwing Gracie's ball for the millionth time.

"Not really," I answered, "at least not full-on."

"So there were partial possessions?" Avaya looked at me over her shoulder. Her brown hair, exactly like her mom's, cascaded down her back.

"I don't like the sound of that at all," Lily said sternly.

I swirled my iced tea around in its glass. "It wasn't so much me as it was Nick and Aaron," I explained. "Nick kept saying he was exhausted during the last three or four hours of the lockdown and when we got to the van he passed out right away. He was just eerily quiet; like he didn't even want to film anything. Aaron was really quiet, too. There was one room in particular he refused to go in and he wouldn't tell us why. I forced him inside and then after that he barely spoke a single word."

"Zak…" Lily sighed. She didn't like how controlling I could be over the boys during lockdowns. I don't think she liked my bossy side at all, regardless of who I was using it on.

"We gotta do it for the evidence, Lil," I said. "Ghosts love Aaron because he's vulnerable."

"I know, I know,"

"Did Aaron get scared out of his wits?" Avaya inquired.

"As always," I chuckled.

"Ah, it should be a good episode then."

I rolled my eyes and finished my iced tea. I looked over at Lily. She was picking at a loose string on her shorts. I could see that she was lost in her head as usual. The girl is the queen of over thinking things. I reached across the narrow table and lightly brushed her arm with my fingers.

"Hey," I murmured.

She looked over at me inquisitively and like I'd pulled her out of a daze.

"Everything's okay," I reminded her. I'd said those words to her a lot. Every time I came home from a lockdown she worried I may have brought something with me or gotten hurt. I remember when we did our first lockdown for our series at Bobby Mackey's Music World I'd come home with three defined scratches down my spine. She'd been livid over that. She wanted me to stop immediately but of course I couldn't. Thankfully she'd toughed it out for me.

"I know," she whispered. "I'm glad."

I held my hand palm-up on top of the table and she firmly grasped it in her own. I beamed at her and then looked out at my backyard where Avaya was now splayed out on her back in the grass while Gracie laid on top of her. I was feeling a dramatic change from the heavy sensation I'd been experiencing just the other night during lockdown. I was feeling incredibly light and happy and at peace with everything. I was back with my family where I belonged. I was home.

Lily kissed my jaw while she nuzzled against my side, clutching the blankets on our bed to her bare chest. I wrapped my arm tightly around her and buried my face in her hair, which still smelled like her coconut shampoo and conditioner combo. I breathed it in deep. You never realize the small things you miss when you go away for just a couple days. We'd both caught our breath and were settling down to sleep after taking some time to reconnect.

She sighed in contentment. "I can finally sleep easy tonight."

I chuckled. "Isn't that a relief?"

"I suppose you need it more than I do. You were out demon hunting until the wee hours of the morning like a crazy person."

"I'm not crazy, I'm passionate," I corrected. "And I'm used to having a weird sleeping schedule. I think, if worst comes to worst, I'll just lie here and watch you sleep for a little while. That always calms me into a semi-conscious stupor."

"Most people would be creeped out if they knew someone was watching them sleep," she giggled, "but you make it sound so romantic."

I grinned. "I am the romance master."

She looked up at me cheekily. "I think you just proved that, my man." Her fingers walked slowly up my bare torso.

I chuckled and bowed my head to kiss her, but as I did so a searing pain crashed like an angry wave in my head. I groaned and clenched my eyes shut to try and ward it off and it faded slowly but I could still feel a numb pain in my temples.

"Zak, are you okay?" Lily asked worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I responded through clenched teeth. "I think I just need a Tylenol."

"There's some in the medicine cabinet…do you want me to go get it?" she asked, pulling back from me.

"No, no, I can grab it, baby,"

I threw off the covers and shuffled off to the bathroom just next door in the hallway. I dug around in the medicine cabinet until I found the bottle of Tylenol stuffed behind the hydrogen peroxide. I shook two of the white pills into my palm and was about to toss them onto my tongue when the pain hit again. I faltered and the pills skittered into the sink, rattling against the porcelain. I gripped the edge of the marble counter with one hand and used my other to put pressure on my temples. Flashes of a dark hole filled my head. I was falling down the hole and it smelled of dirt and blood. I felt a sickening sensation of dread swallow me whole. It hit me as a wave of nausea and I gagged a few times, tasting the sour bile on the back of my tongue. I felt it slowly fading again and I threw my eyes open. They ached when the light hit them but I blinked that back, too. The nausea came back but receded quickly that time. It took me a moment of heavy breathing before I came around. I picked the Tylenol up out of the sink and sighed at them. I suddenly didn't think they'd be of much use. What I'd just experienced was unlike any standard headache I'd ever had. It was a terrible pain that I felt all over, like it was starting in my head and pulsing downwards through my nerves. I'd gotten a bad feeling with it. My body ached like I'd just won a war. I had a feeling that was only the beginning, though. Once again I'd brought my work home with me.

I wanted to scream out or break something. I was sure everything was okay when I'd gotten home. I'd felt fine all evening up until that point. But since I couldn't make a ruckus, I swallowed the Tylenol pills just in case and sauntered back into the bedroom. I lied to Lily and said I felt better. First thing tomorrow though, while Lily was out running errands and Avaya was at school, I was going to get the house cleansed once again. I had to keep them protected. Through it all, they were my top priorities. I needed them to be safe. The damn spirits could beat the hell out of me, but I would sooner die than let them ever lay an ugly finger on my family.