Bessie stiffened.

"That's a good girl," her assailant said, his warm breath puffing against her ear, bringing back yet another unwanted sensory memory.

That voice. It could only be one person.

And it only belonged in the past.

Bessie didn't realize she was spending precious seconds by wilting and not fighting back, but this moment could not be. She saw what happened, clear as day. This was someone else. Someone who only sounded like him. It wasn't him. She remembered his voice being sweeter and clearer than this, how could she ever forget it? This one was too gravelled, too weary.

The assailant lowered his hand off her mouth, but not his other arm's grip keeping her exactly where she was, backed against solid human wall.

"Jerome?" Bessie whispered, barely audible, not wanting to hear the real answer. She was deathly scared. Lie to me, whoever you are, she thought desperately. Lie. Lie, please...

"Hi, Bess," he said smoothly, the smile unseen but heard.

The arm released Bessie. At the slightest hint of loosening, she charged from the hold, swatting the arm away, not waiting. She whirled so hard that her hair fanned and she reeled, slapping her hand onto a cupboard to catch herself. Gentle, yellowish light from the window cast an ominous stripe against a young man in stark white clothing—just head-to-toe white, even down to his shoes. The face was still draped in darkness.

"D-Don't don't come any closer," panted Bessie, flashing her palm.

"Not even a hello, Bess?" said the young man, spreading his arms in presentation. "It's been a while, after all." He stepped closer to the light where it touched his pale neck.

Bessie reached blindly in the sink—a frying pan, a knife, a plate to throw like a discus, anything to intimidate him to stay away from her. But the sink was empty. "I-I said stay back," she warned. Her knees wobbled and she almost stumbled again.

The man in white placed a hand over his heart. "That stings, Bess. That really does." He took the final step out of the darkness, revealing himself, and Bessie yelped before holding her mouth shut in alarm.

He was something out of a nightmare. The face bore much smaller resemblance to how she remembered, yet he retained enough to be nothing else but Jerome.

But the stitches...

"C'mere," drawled Jerome, eyes sparkling, opening his arms wide. "Give us a hug."

Silvery stitches lined his face in a seamed circle, stopped inches before his hairline and ears, like it was an android face panel he could simply pop off. The skin on the inside of the ring was wrinkled and tender, with redness around the rim. Some spots even seemed overly stretched, especially his mouth. Raccoon-style red circles were also lined over his eye sockets. What sort of gruesome accident had happened?

Jerome took advantage of Bessie's moment of paralyzation. He embraced her before it even occurred to her that he approached. Bessie's senses were floaty and disoriented, trapped in his hold. She did not succumb to the automatic return of wrapping her arms around him, she couldn't. Her arms hung heavy at her sides. She was convinced fleetingly that this vision had to have been a ghost. But this ghost of the past was solid and warm...

Jerome, meanwhile, was quite enthusiastic, grunting from the effort he was making to encapsulate her. "Mmph. There we go," he said, extending his words sing-song like, patting her back. "I know, how terribly rude of me to barge in unannounced, I should have scheduled, but I just love your looks of surprise!"

Bessie still remembered how her skin crawled on that last day he touched her, when he trapped her inside the broken carousel, and the feeling was reawakening. Before it emerged enough to make her squirm, though, Jerome thankfully released her. As he stepped back, Bessie took in a breath. Her eyes were so busy tracking every single stitch lining his face when she should have been thinking on her feet. Unpredictability was Jerome's new predictability, yet, the horrible misalignment of the features she once knew almost brought her a sense of pity.

Almost.

The old feelings, when Jerome was one of her greatest friends, was excruciatingly difficult to banish. They would return just by sight, and her memories of his vicious deeds would always need to follow in order to bring her clarity to her new reality.

But that wasn't so much of a problem when he was dead.

Jerome looked Bessie up and down. "Hey, you do something with your hair?" he said conversationally.

Bessie made her first move. Hand shaking, she placed it on the counter. "How...? You—...you're alive?" she said in a soft exhale, but it was enough to wind her.

Jerome brushed her question off with a wave. "Long story, babe, I've told it like ten times today already. Tell you about it later. Right now, we have very important things to discuss, don't we? We left off on a bit of a cliffhanger, I think."

He looked her dead in the eye. Though his smile shined, it was not harmless. Bessie became intimidated by his stare. She unintentionally glanced at the crooked stitches again, unable to see anything else.

"What?" said Jerome with a chuckle. His smile then faded like a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Is there something on my face?" Then he burst into a cackle that wrinkled his face and startled Bessie.

She regripped the counter, her fingers paling. "I saw you die," she whispered through his ebbing laughter.

Jerome wagged his finger in admonishment. "Ah, ah. Didn't your mother ever tell you that you shouldn't believe everything you see on TV?"

Somehow, some way, Jerome had survived his stabbing. And by doing so, was enacting Bessie's biggest fear: coming back for her. To finish where they'd left off. Her knees almost gave up on her, jellifying.

Even his voice was surreal, it was a sound she long accepted to never hear again. Hearing it resurrected, much like the boy it belonged to, made her believe more and more that he could not truly be here. This figure was a terrifying manifestation of her guilt and imagination. Or had she dreamed for a whole year that Jerome had been killed, because of wishful thinking? Reality was shifting before her eyes, she was fighting to piece what was real and what wasn't in her head. She touched her forehead to ground her for just a moment's peace.

Jerome, man or manifestation, kept going anyway, true to his nature. He shrugged without a care. "Like I said, long story. Listen, these pleasantries have been wonderful, I'd love to sit down for tea and scones, but I'm afraid I'm here on business." He looked at his wrist at an imaginary watch, touching a hand to his cheek. "And I daresay, we are frightfully behind schedule!" He snapped to attention, clasping his hands behind his back, posture impeccable. "I've come for you, Bess. Your carriage awaits. If you'll just follow me out this door, please..."

Bessie shook her head so much that her blonde hair wiggled. "I'm not going with you," she said. Who cared as to the how's and the why's, leaving with him was a natural refusal.

Jerome gave a laboured sigh as if expecting that answer, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "All right," he grumbled. "I did the nice thing first, but just remember that it's your fault I had to go bad cop on this one."

With frightening dexterity, he rushed Bessie. Twisting her arm behind her back, her forced her flat onto the dining table with a resounding crash. Bessie's body burned with an insatiable need to be freed. Cold that had absorbed into the table bled into her warm body. She'd never been handled by anybody this way, which made her ignite from the unfairness and intrusiveness. She thrashed, but Jerome was frighteningly strong, laying his weight on top of her to hold her still.

He was no figment of the imagination. He was very, very real.

"See?" said Jerome brightly, leaning down to her ear. "You don't like what happens when you don't do what I say, do you?"

Bessie panted. His weight was crushing her into the table, her cheek pressed to the hard surface. A revisit to the carousel could not happen. She barely got through her ordeal the first time, and it scarred deep. Whatever happened tonight, she could not go with him, for it was a guarantee that she would not return to Haly's this time. Jerome was barely merciful, and he made it clear that day that he only saw her as a replaceable pawn—which still brought her a lingering flicker of sadness.

She stopped struggling, fighting to use the energy to think instead.

"That'a girl," congratulated Jerome, patting her head. "I may still be fuzzy on a lot of things, Bess, but I definitely remember you. And I definitely remember that it doesn't take much to overpower you. Now, let's try this again." He squeezed her wrist enough to sear the bone and she grunted, shutting her eyes tight. "Are you going to come with me, or will I have to make you?"

Bessie shuddered from the threat, which Jerome was sure to feel. Her voice was corked. Saying yes spelled her doom, and saying no did the same. What could she do? How could she escape? Her gaze wandered all over her dark caravan to spark an idea. The seconds ticked.

The weight lifted. In a bout of impatience, Jerome got off of her. Bessie had no time for relief, though, for Jerome then grabbed her upper arms and hurled her aside like she was as inanimate as a coat rack. Bessie's feet almost left the floor, she flew backward until the couch caught her, bouncing her twice for how hard she landed.

Jerome advanced, slapping his hands on the armrest and the back-cushion beside her head, trapping her. Her back jolted straight.

"REACT!" he bellowed in her face.

Bessie flinched, shutting her eyes with a whimper, but she remained impassive. This all sounded so familiar. Her mind flashed back to the carousel incident, when Jerome admitted that it drove him crazy that she was trying to stay cool, because he wanted a breakage, an unhinged reaction from her.

"I said I'm not like you," she reminded him, her voice delicate for fear of feeding his anger, but it was the same unshakable answer to then and now. When he got really close, she remarked inwardly of how a faint scent of formaldehyde seemed to be sticking to him.

"You're EXACTLY like me!" Jerome's temper spike, however, was short-lived, and he seemed to adopt a more analytical approach. "We just keep hitting this one little snag..."

He stood up. The cushion beside Bessie's head re-inflated and she breathed out to release the tension. Jerome walked two steps forward before turning for two steps back—the cramped caravan wasn't generous for pacing.

"Like it or not, we were each other's greatest friends," he said. "I know, gag me with a spoon, right? The sap was through the roof. But we had fun, didn't we?"

"You can't use that against me. You were the one who left. After what you did, you can't expect me to blindly follow—"

"Yeah, yeah, takes more bravery to stand up to your friends than your enemies, blah, blah, blah," mocked Jerome with a dismissive wave. "I even said to myself before this, 'nah, she's never gonna go for it'. But that's okay."

"I...it is?"

Jerome flashed all of his teeth in a happy grin. "Uh-huh! Because, lucky me, I got the inside knowledge," he said, tapping his temple. "I know exactly how to get you to do what I want."

Prancing lightly on his feet to the kitchen sink to a jaunty tune only he could hear in his head, he clutched the chrome edge and leaned far over, looking out of the window in yearning. "So many people still here at Haly's Circus, isn't there? Why, I'm pretty sure I saw Mr. Humboldt on his way home when I got here! Oh, and Mr. Haly. So predictable, isn't he? Still had the lights on and everything, working away at his desk..."

Bessie froze. No, she thought. Don't threaten them, don't do this...

"Goodness, nothing has really changed here, has it? It's nice when things can stay the same, isn't it, Bessie?" He looked over his shoulder. The eyes were mirthful, cheeks pushed up against the lower lids, but oh so dark. Maybe his voice and mannerisms were putting on a facade, but the eyes never moved, never blinked, telegraphing the truth of his intentions.

Bessie jostled from her seat to stand, holding her hands out as if they could stop him. "Jerome, you can't—"

"And look! A new addition to the family! The Camposes, were they?"

"They've done nothing to you, please, don't..."

"Bessie, you already know what you have to do. Things don't have to change, you know." He walked away from the window and came to her, which took but two steps. Looming like a great shadow, he blocked out the light behind him. Height was always an advantage he had over her, and he used it to great effect by looking down on her, the smile now matching his eyes, wicked and anticipative. "Come on, now, I don't have all night..."

The memory of his threat at the old, rusted carousel two years ago echoed in Bessie's ears. "I'm not some animal. You may not believe me, but I can be quite reasonable. But if some people get in my way...like say, anyone at Haly's Circus..."

"Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock..."

"Okay, okay, okay," Bessie said breathlessly, holding her hands in surrender. "I'm cooperating." An adrenaline spike caused tremors in her body, squeezing her lungs until they shriveled. The past year had been torture. It always felt like Jerome was leering over her shoulder. Did this visit mean he really was?

Jerome smacked his hands together in a single clap. "Wonderful! Oh, and I hope you don't mind, but I brought some insurance, too. You know, just in case I had to really convince you." He reached over to the caravan door behind him, which wasn't far of a stretch, and knocked. "Come on in, boys!" he sang.

The door clicked and in walked two burly men in glaringly punk-like apparel. Clumsily applied, skull-like make-up acted as their masks. The one sporting the neon purple mohawk was clad all in black leather, while the long-haired associate favored ripped denim and patches over his jacket.

"We'll come back for the others in a couple days," Jerome instructed his goons. He grinned at Bessie. "I need to catch up with an old friend first."

There was nowhere Bessie could run.

Just as she was about to take a reluctant step forward, Jerome's strong, unwanted fingers clamped her shoulder and held her still. "Ah, ah, ah, wait a moment. Can't steal you in broad bulblight, can I? Watch..." He looked out the window, waiting for something.

Bessie's breaths were shallow and even then they felt too loud. She willed herself to make her presence as small and quiet as possible, because in her panic mode it was entirely reasonable to her that they'd forget about her if she did not alert them to her presence. Never had her will to just magically disappear been so blazing within her.

The lights outside extinguished, casting them all into full night. Jerome had been waiting for someone to cut the lights to give them long enough to slip away. He planned this.

"After you," Jerome said to Bessie, bowing and sweeping out his arm.

Suddenly, the idea Bessie had been waiting for came. The hour was Jerome's double-edged sword; it worked to her advantage, too. She could flee into the darkness. All she needed to do was just get outside.

Remaining tight-lipped and hiding her moment of eureka behind a troubled face, Bessie descended the stairs slowly to buy the smallest scraps of time she could get away with. The fresh air greeted her, cooling the sweat on her forehead, but it could not soothe her. She itched to break out into a sprint then and there when her shoes touched trampled grass, but she stayed her legs. Soon. Soon, just wait...she thought. The caravan maze was mapped in her mind, she knew the multitudes of hiding places and turns that would conceal her and disorient anyone else who did not know it. As soon as they began walking she could calculate the perfect time to break free.

The goons were ahead of her and Jerome just behind her. There would only be one shot at this.

"Oh, and I know I'm rehashing an old trick," said Jerome behind her, "but when it works, it works."

Bessie was too slow. Jerome reached around and muzzled her with a cloth. Her sharp intake of breath was instinctive and she got a lungful of something that smelled of rotten bananas. Spots danced in front of her eyes. Her thoughts clouded. Almost just as soon, she ragdolled and her sight turned black. Whether Jerome caught her or not, she didn't feel a thing after.

A/N: You would think I would have more time to write during quarantine, but I work at an establishment that is considered an essential service, so I cannot quarantine out of necessity. My hours have increased quite a bit, leaving me even less time than I ever had before. I somehow managed to pump this chapter out on my weekend, I was totally in the zone!
Stay safe, stay healthy everyone!