Summary: Jake comes home with the intent of doing a bit of homework with friends before hitting some waves, but a ghost is torturing Suze and it shakes up his world forever. Rated M for violence and a little bit for language.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Mediator or any of the characters in this story. (Except Sam)

AN: I'm sorry about the first version of this chapter. A lot of the content was lost somehow in the transference and for some reason I did not notice. (I also wanted to mention this is set after the sixth Mediator book, so Jesse is alive.)

I quickly lock the car and walk through the door with two of my friends in tow. We planned on studying for about an hour or two for a test we had later this week before hitting some waves –

A scream echoes through the house as I step through the door and into the house, coming from my stepsister, suze's, room upstairs. I turn around to see if Neil and Sam have heard it too, and, judging from their faces, they had.

Another scream seems to erupt, so full of pain, breaking and withering as it reaches an even higher note, almost rattling the glass windows.

I'm petrified, having never heard Suze (as it was surely her) express any emotion but arrogance, annoyance and general boredom. The girl just stands there and laughs when she's hurt for Christ's sake! Laughs at what would probably render others unconscious!

Doubt enters my mind...It can't be her... I mean; what the hell? What am I thinking? It doesn't matter who it is, but if it was Suze I had to do the big brother I'm supposed to be and protect her, no matter how tuff she pretends to be. And if it wasn't her then I still needed to stop it. Nobody should be in that kind of pain.

I unlock my body from the cage it seemed to be in, throwing my keys down and dashing up the stairs as fast as I can with the other two following along behind me, though I pay them no attention.

Once I get to the room I throw open the door – thankful there was no lock- to see Suze on her bed, her torn clothes hanging limply on her body and scattered around her with blood on the walls and ceiling – Jesus Christ! It was everywhere!

I rush over to her, not seeing anyone else in the room, and get a better look at the cuts and bruises that decorate her deathly white skin. Her hands appear to be stretched above her head and there are large welts scattered around her wrists, almost like rope burn.
I've almost reached her when I see the same marks around her ankles. Though I also can confirm she was still breathing.

"Get Out."

I look up at her face to see her looking at me with an emotion I'd never thought I'd see, least of all in Suze – absolute, consuming fear. Not only for her life, but for mine as well.

But why would Suze fear for me? Whoever did this to her was no longer here. At least, I couldn't see them.

"It's alright," I say trying to calm her while reaching forward to help her up. We needed to get her to a hospital – if she could get up or move at all. "They're gone, but we need to get you to the – "

"GET OUT!"

I jump back in shock at her voice just as the mirror across the room shatters. And, to my disbelief, the shards then picked themselves of the floor and seemed to fly into Suze's exposed side.

Suze, however, only whined, clearly holding back a scream. I could see it on her face, saw exactly how painful it was. Even in so much pain she still wanted to be seen as the strong one, the invincible one.

I wanted to tell her everything would be fine, like I would do for David or Brad when they were scared or upset, but then I thought of the mirror. How would everything be okay when inanimate (and sharp) objects started picking themselves off the floor?

"How?" I asked, leaning over her quivering form. "What's going on Suze? What's –"

"SHUT UP! AND GET OUT! Don't you see –" she pants, "– He'll kill you!"

I shake my head and reach for her, still seeing no one, only to have her body torn from my hands and thrown to the floor.

"What's –"

I turn around to see my brother standing with my two friends. However, unlike my friend's faces which we frozen in fear, his features turn from showing confusion, to fear, to realisation...wait? Realisation?

"David. Axe. Shed. Blood. Fridge. Candles." Suze stutters out as she begins to cough blood, letting it drip down her chin and carpet.

I turn back around to find David scurry into the room quickly and pick up the axe that I hadn't noticed sitting by the door before swinging it across the room to land in front of Suze. She swoops down, while wincing is what too assumed to be cracked or broken ribs, and lunges with it to something on her left.

She gives a terrifying smile, blood still dripping from her chin. "You learnt what you could do to me. Now you can learn of all the things I can do to you."

I didn't make sense to me but after a while of her seemingly hack at the air, pick an invisible object of the floor and through it across the room I still couldn't get my body to move.

It felt god, I decided, to dismember the bastard. I didn't even need to. I just need to cut deep enough in order for him to be out of commission for a few minutes, or snap his neck, for what I planned to do. I would just shift, but 1) I promised Jesse and Father D I wouldn't and 2) I was close enough to death I don't think I'd make it back, if I make it at all. So I had to do it the hard way.

David, I knew, wanted to ask questions at my actions but held back as I was clearly busy, and Jake and his friends? Well they were frozen stiff.

I chopped of his head and threw it to the other side of the room before limping over and taking the blood and candles out of David's hands without a second glance, trying to ignore the pain shooting through ever part of my body. Thank God I remembered to stock up on chicken blood once I realised to true nature of this ghost.

I drew the correct symbols on my carpet (it was ruined anyway) before dragging the bits of his body in to the circle, wincing as it pulled on my muscles. I was limping slightly as well. Something in my right leg must be broken.

Another reason it was good to cut him into pieces – less weight.

I said the words, over and over it seemed like, before the gate to the Shadowland opened up, the smoke taking him up piece by piece.

He turned his head, now back on his body, to glare at me one more time before he disappeared from my life forever.

I sighed and turned towards the spectators of the ordeal before collapsing and giving into the darkness...