A/N: Since you read the previous chapter, I really don't feel the need to rehash it.

WARNING: The following story has violence, emotional trauma, multiple ghosts with anger issues, strong language and sexual content.

So, timeline wise, instead of taking place in 2001, the story takes place in 2019 when Shilo is seventeen years old. As Dana died when she was fourteen, that would make the opening scene of this chapter take place in 2016. And her Uncle, Horace, was gunned down in January of 2017.

Another fandom is mentioned in this chapter. It's blatantly obvious.

Tally-ho mates.

Fourteen year old Shilo Benton picked the lock of her sister's apartment like a master criminal. Cassie was away on business again and Shilo hadn't heard from Dana in a few days. Concern was welling in the girl as the silence inside the apartment reverberated through her head.

Vibration in the air beside her signaled Royce's arrival before he appeared at her side. He gripped her hand as she went to turn the knob to enter the apartment.

"Don't."

The words, while slightly slurred due to the damage on the right side of his face, were completely clear and full of concern. His icy eyes were begging her not to enter the apartment. Shilo threw the door open, shaking her head.

"Dana!" she ran through the apartment, checking in every room, screaming, begging for her sister to answer her. "Dana! Where are you?!"

She came to the only closed door in the apartment.

The bathroom door.

She looked down when she heard a splashing sound, realizing that there was water coming out from underneath the door. She hesitantly reached for the crystal knob.

"Shilo," Royce's tone was desperate now. "Don't go in there."

It became apparent to her at that moment that Royce was trying to protect her from whatever lay beyond the door in front of her. He was always trying to protect her. But she had to see.

She turned the knob and the sight that greeted her made her wish that she had listened to Royce.

Tears welled in her eyes and her frame started to shake. She didn't even notice Royce trying to get her attention. Get her to leave. Her icy eyes were focused on the image that would forever be imprinted in her memory.

Dana lay beneath the red water of the overflowing bathtub, slashes littering her body. A kitchen knife lay abandoned and blood-stained on the white floor. There were random strands of Dana's auburn hair scattered throughout the water, like she'd pulled it out of her head.

After a moment, Shilo began to back-pedal, trying desperately to erase what she was seeing. In her haste to escape the horrific nightmare, she completely forgot about the water covering the floor. She slipped and fell, landing on her butt, pushing backward until she pressed against the door.

It wasn't until the door of Dana's apartment was busted down by two concerned neighbors that she realized that she had been screaming.

"Shilo!"

Shilo Benton, now seventeen, turned her head to look at her friend, Kathy Kriticos, who, based on her aggravated expression, had been trying to get her attention for several minutes.

"Yes, Katherine?"

She almost chuckled at the twitching of Kathy's eye due to the use of her full first name.

"We're here, goof."

That's when it came rushing back to her. Arthur's creepy, fortune squandering Uncle Cyrus had perished in some sort of accident and had apparently decided to leave them a house. She also remembered that she had let Kathy drive her car because she loved it.

It was a Black 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air Convertible.

Even though it was the very car that killed him, Royce had been so happy when she found it. The boy really loved his car. Even gave it a nickname. "Little Sweetheart." Shilo had refused to call it that and referred to it as, "Baby" instead, which Royce grudgingly accepted as it was technically hers.

He had never understood why she loved that show so much. Especially when she knew that ghosts couldn't be killed with salt and fire.

Her mind flickered to the aforementioned boy as it often did these days. He had disappeared without a trace two months ago and that wasn't like him.

She shook herself out of her thoughts as Kathy handed her the key to her car which she draped back around her neck, tucking it into her shirt. That was when she noticed the house.

"Oh wow."

It was a massive structure made entirely out of steel and glass. It stood alone against the night sky in the middle of the field, surrounded by pine trees. While the Kriticos family – and Maggie – were in awe, Shilo was anything but. Even from clear across the field by her car she could see and recognize the Latin etched into the walls of the house.

Containment spells.

Which only had one purpose.

To keep ghosts contained.

There were ghosts in that house. And she was shocked when one of the aura's she could sense was familiar. She'd been exposed to it every single day of her life. He could stand in a room with thousands of ghosts and she would be able to find him.

Royce was here.

That's why he disappeared.

He'd been captured.

"Shilo," she looked up as Arthur addressed her. "Are you coming?"

She smiled at the man who was like the father she had never known and walked to join the rest of the family. She was so distracted trying to figure out what the purpose of capturing ghosts was that she didn't notice the poor power guy until her shoulder knocked into his, making him shrink back, but not before she got a read on him. Just random images and names.

Guilt. Confusion. Cyrus. Money. Ghost hunting. Black Zodiac. First Born Son. Torso. Bound Woman. Withered Lover. Torn Prince. Angry Princess. Pilgrimess. Great Child. Dire Mother. Hammer. Jackal. Juggernaut. Dennis.

His name was Dennis. And based on the way he was braced, she was assuming he was a tactile psychic. Poor guy.

After a moment, the man she now knew as Dennis straightened, regarding her with shock.

She turned away from him when the lawyer approached, not caring about the conversation. Dennis was clearly lying about being a power guy. He was trying to get into the house to find the money that Cyrus had promised him. She'd managed to put that together from what she had seen during the brief moment of contact.

What was going on here?

And why in heaven's halo would Cyrus give his nephew a house full of ghosts? Why did he need them in the first place? All of this was very sketchy and the more Shilo thought about it, the more she wanted to take the family she had come to love so much and flee far away.

But she couldn't.

Royce was here.

And even if he wasn't, she couldn't in good conscience leave the ghosts behind.

She sent a quick text to her mother to let her know where she was in case she got home from her business trip earlier than expected and arrived to find her only remaining child gone.

With that done, she moved to Kathy's side and tried to mirror her friend's excitement as Arthur inserted the key into the locking mechanism of the house.

Shilo made the mistake of touching one of the etchings with her shoulder and muffled a curse when it shocked her through her jacket. The letters glowed for a moment, pulsing, almost as if they were reacting to the Spectral DNA that resided in her veins.

The only person that noticed this little spectacle was Dennis and to say he was confused would be an understatement. Why would the etchings hurt her? She was human. Well, a living human, anyway.

But the girl in question didn't notice this. She was too distracted by the images clouding her eyes. She could see what was happening deep inside the house.

In a dark space she could see a tiny pendulum within a delicate, antique set of gears come to life, making a rhythmic ticking noise. Runes of odd description came into view, etched on ivory plates, the plates attached to levers and meters.

The lights in the room flickered on, revealing a huge set of gears, made of brass and steel, reaching nearly fifteen feet high, dominating a room full of pulleys and steel cable.

A hand on her shoulder startled her out of the vision and she looked to see that it was Dennis that had touched her. And based on his glazed expression, had linked with her on accident. He shook his head after a moment and looked at her.

"What the hell was that?"

"I don't know," her tone was barely above a whisper. "A machine of some kind."

She focused on him.

"Why are the ghosts you helped capture here?"

His eyes widened at her statement, fear reflected back at her from deep within their depths.

"What are you talking about?"

She narrowed her eyes.

"Feigning ignorance?" she arched one of her eyebrows. "That's what you're going with? Like I didn't see it all in your head?"

Dennis was floored. Was he being interrogated by a teenager? Was that really what was happening right now? On top of that there was something vaguely familiar about her that he couldn't place. He'd seen her somewhere before. But where? He wracked his brain and suddenly, it came to him.

The ghost with the bat and a temper problem.

He had seen this girl in a vision when he was in the ballfield hunting the Torn Prince for Cyrus and two months later, recalling the vision still made him feel like a pervert. Before that unwelcome vision, he had been blissfully unaware that ghosts could partake in sex what with the lack of blood-flow which was needed for an erection.

But apparently, if a ghost had enough energy, it could still get it up.

He had also been unaware that ghosts of Royce Clayton's particular variety were capable of anything other than hatred and violence but as he'd found out through the vision, they were capable of love.

The ghost he had helped capture was in love with this girl.

"Does your mother know you're having sex with a dead man?"

He had blurted it out without thinking. Luckily, though, she was the only one that heard. The others were busy around what he supposed was the door. He vaguely heard the little boy say something along the lines of, "Dad, you broke it," before the girl, Shilo, spoke.

"I doubt it," she shrugged with a nonchalant expression. "But even if she did, I don't think she'd care, given that she, too, rode the ghost train and had me as a result."

Before Dennis could even fully process what it was she had just said, the lights came on in the house, drawing his attention.

A/N: And that's a wrap. I'm already working on the next chapter, but I'll probably take a break to work on Crescendo. As always, reviews and love are appreciated.