I'm sorry for the long wait for this chapter!

I hope everyone enjoys it :) Here's a little piece of my playlist: Fall Out Boy - Church

If you were church, I'd get on my knees

Confess my love, I'd know where to be

My sanctuary, you're holy to me

If you were church, I'd get on my knees

Chapter 5: Amicable

Jess woke up with a monster headache. She tried to recall if she'd gone bar hopping the previous night, because this was exactly how the aftermath of fun felt. With a groan, she looked around blearily. She was sprawled out on an old sofa chair, in a dimly lit room. Not her sofa chair, not her room, she quickly realized. Especially by the moldy smell.

"Fucking hell," she groaned, reaching up for her head, only to realize that something was holding her hands down. Her gaze went down, seeing a pair of handcuffs holding her in place.

"Jess," she looked up at the male voice, the lilt of the accent familiar. A face came into focus, a rather handsome one, too. Brown hair, soulful eyes, cleft chin, cheeky tilt of an eyebrow. It was the ghost that had been haunting her for months, giving her mild headaches. "They tied you down pretty good, darling. How's your head?"

"Banging like a bass drum in a club," she groaned. Then, she peered up at the ghost again, raising an eyebrow. "Well, what do you know… Mr. Annoying poltergeist in the making is hot as fuck and has a British accent. Bet you get all the ladies." He laughed and shook his head.

"Kind of a poor time for jokes, don't you think?"

"I'm a tiny package of bad humor and sass, jokes are all I've got," she shrugged, a motion which sent a pang through her head. "Okay, no fucking shrugging," she groaned.

"They tossed a sleeping spell at you," he told her, crouching in front of her and searching her eyes. "It was a rather crudely made one, but it seems like there's no lasting damage. What's the last thing you remember?" Jess squinted.

"Screaming my fucking head off," she said. "Oh, and punching a dude with my keys right into his eye." She shuddered, remembering the feeling of her keys sinking into a man's face. Kol nodded.

"Good, all seems intact," he said. "I did a onceover of the house. They took you out of the city, but not too far away. The place is old and has a large property around it. Last I checked, there were three people inside the house."

"Holy shit, you're like Sherlock," Jess giggled. "Much hotter than the original, though," she added, making Kol let out a chuckle through his nose. She couldn't stop her voice from shaking, nor her body from shuddering. This was bad. In all of her time with all the ghosts and the afterlife, this was the first time her situation was bad.

"Let's tone down the humor, alright, love?" he told her, reaching out and touching the handcuffs on her wrists. They were tight and had left red marks on her pale flesh already. "Can you get out of those cuffs in any way?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"I know I'm a medium, but God didn't give me super strength to go with it," Jess sassed at him. The handsome ghost rolled his eyes. "Right, I'll tone down the humor. Sorry, it's a default defense mechanism." He shook his head, looking around the place which she was in. Jess followed the notion. It was a basement of some sort, and there were makeshift metal bars separating her and the only staircase she could see. The bars seemed new, contrasting everything else. The rest of the space was moldy, damp and it was a little difficult to breathe. The only light source was a tiny window, probably for ventilation, in her makeshift cell. It didn't have bars on it. It seemed to be made out of sturdy glass. "I can pick a lock," Jess told the ghost. "If I had a bobby pin, I could pick the lock on the bars."

"What's a bobby pin?" the ghost frowned at her. Jess gaped at him.

"Where have you been for the past few decades?" she asked incredulously. At his annoyed look, she elaborated. "It's a small pin, kind of like two needles joined on one end that girls use to make their hairstyle prettier. You know, to get all the stray hair into the bun or ponytail."

"You haven't got any on you?" he asked.

"Do I look like I do my fucking hair?" Jess raised her eyebrows at him.

"Fair point," he sighed. "I'll go upstairs, see if I can find one or something similar." He stopped before the metal bars, seeming to concentrate for a second before phasing through. Then, he vanished up the stairs. Jess was left alone in the dim lighting of the basement, suddenly feeling ice cold. While she wasn't on the best terms with the ghost, she had taken comfort in his levelheaded presence.

"Alright, Jess," the young woman told herself. "Let's get you out of this mess." She looked around the makeshift cell one more time. The window seemed small, but she was rather petite. Perhaps, if she could get rid of the cuffs, she would be able to squeeze through the small gap. Though, the thick glass bothered her. She would need to get up in order to see the latch on the window better. If there was no latch, there was no use in exploring that option.

Suddenly, Jess wished that she'd learned something else from the numerous ghosts she'd exchanged favors with. She wished that she'd met some secret agent or CIA or FBI or something, someone who could've been able to teach her what to do in this situation. Was it better to sit still and wait for her captors to show their faces? To set her loose themselves? Or should she attempt to escape? What was the right course of action? And, of course, why in the living hell were they kidnapping her?

Fucking hell, it was early in the morning, by the feeling of her empty stomach. She needed to be at work before ten. If she didn't know in advance of her absence, Annie would have a meltdown. Her coworker, while she was an amazing woman, was a little paranoid. Perhaps a touch of OCD, but Jess wasn't sure. She would go nuts over every single little thing out of the ordinary. Jess could still remember that one time she'd gotten sick and forgotten to call in, ended up missing her shift completely because of the medicine putting her to sleep. She'd woken up to over fifty missed calls and numerous messages, not to mention that Annie had alerted the police. Bless her soul. She had meant well. Perhaps, if Annie did the same today, that could help her. If they would even listen to Annie again.

And this ghost, she couldn't recall his name, why did it have to be him with her? She'd rather take any other ghost over him right now. He seemed to have an ulterior motive to his actions, always. Jess wasn't stupid. While they'd had some pleasant times together, like him haunting the living hell out of her, she knew that he only saw her as a means to an end. She could feel his indifference at times, such painful ambivalence in his essence that it scared her. It was like he didn't value a living, breathing human any more than a cow in the field, waiting to be slaughtered for the meat. Vampires, Jess huffed. They all had the same feeling to them. They all had a similar sense of humans – a means to an end. But, he had been genuine in his warning to her before. She'd felt his panic before she'd heard him call her name.

Jess had met plenty of ghosts who weren't able to communicate properly. Some invaded her dreams and others invaded her waking hours, giving her flashes of memories, feelings about people or places and so on. They all had one thing in common, they had negative emotions surrounding their motives. So, when he'd warned her that she was being followed, she'd known that he'd been genuine in his worry for her, that much she was certain of. For now, Jess decided, she would bet on him.

"Bloody hell," Jess looked towards the staircase to see the ghost back, bent over something, struggling. "I can't get this thing through the door," he said.

"Try under it," she suggested and saw him switch his posture, kneeling to maneuver better.

"A-ha!" the man straightened and Jess could see sweat beading on his forehead when he re-entered her makeshift cell. He had a black bobby pin safely cradled in his hands, like some invaluable treasure. "Got one," he told her triumphantly, dropping the pin into her lap. Jess looked up at his face, damn he was hot as hell, only to see him frowning. She would bet that the little adventure with the bobby pin had taken a lot out of him. After all, interacting with the world of the living wasn't an easy task for any ghost, much less a novice. "How are you going to use that to get out of the cuffs, darling?" He asked and she almost melted at his accent. It was positively sinful. Jess didn't know what it was about accents and Americans, but she, like the majority of the population, couldn't resist a nice foreign accent. One merely had to inspect her short list of lovers to see that.

"I had a deal some time ago with a ghost," she told him, moving her knees and body in order to get to the pin. "Bobby Miller, he used to be a thief. Got shot during a robbery. He taught me how to pick locks in exchange for getting some money he'd stashed to his kid." Jess bent forward, sticking the pin into her mouth, removing the plastic at one end and bending it the way she needed it. She spit the plastic out to the side.

"A proper criminal in the making, aren't you just?" The ghost laughed. Jess huffed a laugh, struggling with the pin. But, the angle was all wrong. There was no way she would be able to unlock them.

"You're going to have to unlock one for me," she finally told the ghost. "If you get one of them unlocked, I can do the other." Jess looked up at him to find him frowning at her.

"Hate to disappoint, love, but my stamina isn't exactly what it used to be," then he stopped, frowning even deeper. "Never thought I'd say that." She giggled, shaking her head.

"I'm sure your stamina is perfect where it counts," she reassured him. "It's interacting with the world of the living that's giving you trouble. But, if you pull energy from me, you should be able to do it more easily," she said.

"Pull energy? Like siphon?" he asked.

"I don't know the witchy lingo," Jess said. "But, I worked with a witch before who did a spell using me as a tether to this world. I can't use magic, so she was using her own. She said she was pulling energy from me in order to interact with the living world. I've tried it before with other ghosts, just focus on me and pull me to yourself." When she saw the quirked eyebrow, she added. "Just give it a go, okay, not like we have many options here."

"Alright," the ghost knelt down in front of her, reaching for the bobby pin she'd managed to stick into the lock of the cuffs. His eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated, the pin wriggling.

"You want to insert it halfway into the upper cutout of the lock," Jess instructed, feeling a little faint. He was pulling her energy to him successfully. "Now, when you get it under the handcuff housing, add pressure towards the direction of travel," Jess told him, watching as he struggled with the mechanism. "It should unlock when you do it properly."

"And that's all?" he asked, shifting the pin left and right, shaking it. She could see the sweat on his forehead and the tremble in his hands. He flickered in and out of focus, like he was using too much of his own energy.

"Yep," Jess replied. "Just keep trying," she said. "It's a little tricky at first, but shouldn't be too much of an issue." She watched his brows furrow, then relax, then furrow again. His fingers twitched as he worked. He had messy hair, longish, she noted, which only added to his boyish charm. Jess would bet that he was quite the charmer when he was alive.

"I'll be damned," the ghost said in shock after a little click sounded and the cuff came loose. "It actually bloody worked," he told her, looking up in shock. Jess giggled, getting her hand out of the cuff and grabbing the pin. She quickly undid the other one, taking less than a second.

"Told you it would be fine," she said. "Now, tell me about the house? Can I get out through it?" She hopped up from the old sofa chair, taking the pin with her and then unlocking the padlock on the bars. Before opting to choose the path through the house, Jess went back to the chair, climbing on top of it and checking out the window. It didn't have a latch. There went her hopes of an easy escape.

"Witches," the ghost said. "There are four witches up there now, set up in the living room, last I saw. Three men and one woman. They all seem pretty powerful to me, so you'd have the best chances of getting out of here if you avoid them." Jess faced him as he was talking, giving him a nod.

"Alrighty then," she gathered her courage. "Can you give me directions as I go?" The ghost gave her a quick nod.

"Just be as quiet as you can," he said. Jess sighed, took a breath, and then slowly pushed the gate of the bars open.

The house smelled heavily of mold and smoke. Jess would bet that it had been used last sometime in the past decade, but hadn't been properly maintained since. As she crept out of the basement, careful which steps she put weight on, she listened to the ghost aiding her. He told her when it was clear to open the door and slip through. Then, he instructed her which way to go.

Jess wasn't all too eager to blindly trust him, but it was an emergency. At least, they both wanted her alive and free. The house was dark, telling her that it was still nighttime outside, which gave her hope. Under the cover of darkness, she could probably slip out and manage to reach a road or something, then flag down a car.

"Wait here," the ghost said, going ahead of her. Jess stopped, listening intently as he vanished behind the corner. There were voices coming from the direction he'd wandered off to, telling her that her captors were likely up ahead. Her heart was thundering so loudly in her chest, she was afraid, rather irrationally, that they would hear it. Then, the ghost reappeared. "They're occupied with your handiwork on that guy's face. Stick to the left side of the wall and go to the second hallway on the left, then straight and to the right. The exit is there," he explained.

Jess gripped the bobby pin tightly in her fist, her heart hammering in her chest. She followed his instructions to the letter, going slowly and quietly on the left side. The second hallway on the left had no more carpet, making her even more cautious of her steps. All the lights were off, but she could see well enough in the moonlight coming from the tall windows.

Taking the next right, Jess almost gasped when she came face to face with a man. Then, she let out a shaky breath, realizing that it was simply a portrait hanging on the wall. She snuck to the end of the hallway, to the main entrance into the house, according to the ghost. Slowly, she tried the door handle. Locked. Jess let out a mental scream and rolled her eyes. Nothing was ever easy, was it? She knelt down, getting her bobby pin into the lock. A second later, a click, all too loud to her ears, was heard. She tossed a look at the ghost standing next to her. His flickering presence was comforting, in an odd way.

"One second," he phased through the door, then entered again. "All clear, go." Jess slowly put pressure on the old door handle, wincing at the muted scraping of metal that her action caused. She paused, then pulled the door open a bit more.

"Did you hear that?" a male voice said somewhere behind her.

"Hear what?" another one asked.

"Nothing, probably this old dump of a house," the first one replied. "Pass me the sage. Maverick really needs to find better safe houses."

"Go. Go now," the ghost told her and Jess pulled the door open a bit more, just enough to slip through. She didn't bother risking another sound in order to close it. Instead, looking left and right just in case, she rushed down the steps of the porch and broke into a run across the front lawn. "Don't stop until you're safe, darling," the ghost told her, jogging beside her.

Jess didn't risk answering, but instead opened the front gate and slipped through. She spotted three cars parked in front of the house, but decided against breaking into one of them. If an alarm sounded, then all of her efforts would've been in vain. She'd be caught before she could hotwire it. Instead, Jess looked down the road, spotting lights in the distance. She tore down the road, her chest tight from the run.

"Holy shit, that actually worked," she huffed, running down the dirt road. "I can't believe that actually fucking worked," she exclaimed, looking to the side to see the ghost was keeping pace with her.

"You're as befuddled as I am," he said, laughing. Jessica joined him with her telltale cackle, hair wild. She slowed down as she reached the main road, stopping and breathing hard. Briefly, she leaned down, hands on her knees, catching her breath. Then, Jess looked down the road.

"Now, I just need a car to go past," Jess said, placing her hands on her hips. The ghost stood next to her, head tilted to the side.

"Those witches wanted you pretty bad," he said. "Want me to tell you what I saw back there? Give you my opinion?" Jess looked up at him, her mouth moving to the side in doubt.

"This isn't gonna be for free, is it?" She asked, her body starting to shake as adrenaline left her.

"Darling, nothing in this world is for free," the ghost laughed.

"Alright, I suppose we could work out a deal," Jess mused. "You'll have to let me gather my shit, though. I declare all deals made with me when I'm high as fuck on adrenaline after, what the heck, getting kidnapped, nil and void," she was rambling. "I mean, it's one thing to take advantage of a girl, but taking advantage of a girl you just saved from her kidnappers during her adrenaline high is just plain assholery, you know?" She paused in her tirade, squinting up at the ghost.

"Whatever suits your fancy," he smirked. "Though, you might want to get a cloaking spell from a witch, before they come for you again." He looked down the road, giving Jess a chance to inspect his handsome profile. Damn, she'd been missing out. "That's the only free advice I'll give." A moment of silence passed between them.

"Sooo," Jess began, her fingers twisting together. "You know a witch in Seattle or the surrounding area?" she asked conversationally, making him look back at her and laugh. "Oh, car!" Jessica grinned wide at the headlights coming quickly their way.

"Feeling really unwell, got to go to the doctor," Jess murmured, typing on her laptop on the messenger app. "Can you cover for me today?" She pressed send and leaned back in her comfortable sofa chair. After a ride from a very polite young couple with two kids back to town, Jess was feeling much safer as soon as she'd locked both locks on her apartment door behind her. She'd needed to knock on the building manager's door in order to get in, making Mr. Rivera rather disgruntled. Though, when she'd sold him the story of getting mugged, he'd been all too happy to help her.

"Let me remind you, love, that these doors are nothing to a witch," Mr. poltergeist in the making told her, lounging casually on her couch. "Not even a hindrance."

"Well, why don't you tell me how to find a fricking witch to do whatever it is you said I needed and I won't be a sitting duck here, how about fucking that?" Jess snapped back, making the ghost smirk and shrug.

"Let's talk a deal, then?" he asked, making Jess groan.

"Can't anything for free from you, can I?" she sat up, turning to the ghost. He had a teasing smirk playing on his lips which she disliked more and more by the second. "I helped you with your focus, c'mon you owe me."

"If we're keeping score, darling, I just saved your life, so you," he pointed at her, "owe me." He was all too smug about the fact that the scales were uneven and Jess hated that. She knew that he'd had no obligation to get her out of that house. Nothing but his own selfish reasons for needing her.

"Okay then," Jess nodded, her temper flaring up yet again. She jumped to her feet, changed her socks and got into another pair of combat boots, because the ones she'd been wearing during her kidnapping were dirty from the dampness of the house and the mud of the road.

"Now, now, where do you think you're going?" The ghost asked, his tone a little alarmed. Jess shot him a smile, pulling on a random jacket from her rack and tying her hair up.

"I'm," she paused as she held the hair tie in her mouth in order to twist her locks in a bun, "going to go fix my problems. And you, good sir, have a great one!" Then, the medium unlatched her door, peered out into the hallway and quickly ducked out, locking it with a spare key.

"You're going to find a witch on your own?" The ghost followed her down the stairs of the apartment building. "Don't tell me you'll just walk into every fortune telling shop and ask for spells?" He laughed, openly amused by the idea.

"If you won't help me, I'll help myself," she replied. "I've done it for the past five years, so I think I can manage." She could feel his frustration rolling off of him in waves. He'd thought that he'd had her between a rock and a hard place, but she'd wriggled out. Jess chose the most crowded street, taking the bus to make her journey shorter. Then, she ducked into an alley for the first time, opening the doors to a familiar bar.

"Blimey," she heard from the ghost, who followed her in. Jess' ears were met with chatter, the strumming of a guitar in the corner and the sounds of drinks being poured. All the patrons of the pub moved as she passed, some bowing their heads, others waving to her. She got to the bar and hopped onto a stool.

"Hey, Charlie," she greeted the bartender, making him nod at her. "I was looking for some information, could you help me out?"

"What do you need, Jess?" the Victorian ghost walked over to her, offering her a Cola.

"Thanks," Jess smiled. "I'm looking for a witch with some decent skills to get a spell to protect myself against other witches. Do you know any who are in town?"

"Oh, are you bloody joking?" Mr. poltergeist joined her at the bar, leaning onto it. "I know a good witch, darling, come on."

"One moment, please," the bartender said and walked away. Jess sat at the bar, feeling perfectly safe for the first time that day, sipping the Cola through a straw.

"Are you that much against making a deal with me?" The ghost next to her groaned. "Did I bother you that much in the past few months?" Jess turned to him, looking him up and down. She could feel him, still, even in a crowded ghost bar. Anger, loneliness, desperation, disappointment, self-loathing.

"I don't dislike you at all," she told him. "In fact, I like you quite a bit. However, when I make deals, I like to make them on even ground. Nobody owes anything to anyone and we make the deal for the sake of mutual benefit," Jess explained. "So, until we're even, I'm going to fix my own problems." That caused him to go silent. He looked at her, up and down, and then nodded.

"Fair enough," he said. "Do you want me to tell you how you can repay me for saving you?"

"Shoot," Jess said, taking another sip of her Cola. But, before the ghost could tell her anything else, Charlie appeared again.

"Jess, go talk to Robert," he pointed to the corner of the bar, where a young, dark haired man was sitting alone. "He can help you."

"Thanks, Charlie," Jess said, taking her Cola and dropping three red slips of paper on the counter. It wasn't money, but the currency which benefited ghosts. They were the papers which she used to mark the most urgent requests for her to get to. "You're a lifesaver, literally." And Jess walked over to the corner of the bar, to the ghost named Robert, her own British haunt following her.

That's all folks!

Review reply for our dear Guest (Lila):

Thanks so much for the feedback!
I'm glad that you're enjoying the story :) I really like writing both Jess and Kol, though they're both a challenge. Now that Kol and Jess can actually communicate, the real fun's about to begin :P I'm going to have fun seeing who drives who mad in the long run xD
Hope you enjoyed the update!