"Ash, what's wrong?" Chris didn't even take his shoes off when he walked in – his immediate destination was Ashley. He spread his arms as if inviting her into them, but she stopped just out of his reach.

"In the kitchen," was all she said before turning around and joining Emily in the small room.

Chris followed her wordlessly. Upon seeing Emily seated at the table, he paused. "Emily? What – wait, what's going on–"

"Chris." Ashley directed his attention back to her. She was standing in front of the notebook on the counter, blocking it from his view. "What's going on with you?"

"With me?" Chris pointed to himself incredulously, glancing between the two women. "Why do you think something's going on with me?"

Emily remained silent, letting Ashley handle the confrontation. She and Chris were both emotional wrecks. If this blew up it was going to be like watching a nuclear meltdown, and Emily preferred to keep as much distance between herself and nuclear disasters as possible.

"Chris, I know you're up to something. I'm your wife. You know you can talk to me about anything." Ashley's tone softened just the slightest bit toward the end of her plea. Emily fought the urge to roll her eyes. She would've been throwing his ass out by that point. This girl has no self-respect.

Of course Em wasn't exactly one to talk about self-respect, having just screwed a guy who'd at one point considered killing her. But that was a shame for another time.

Chris' look of confusion remained. Ashley slid the notebook out from behind her. "I found the boys with this."

His eyes widened a little, but he didn't seem nearly as shocked as Emily would've expected him to. He should have been diving onto his hands and knees and pleading with Ashley to forgive him for his idiocy. "Ash, I can explain. I will explain."

He glanced over at Emily.

"She's staying," Ashley said.

"…Okay." Chris tugged at the collar of his work shirt. "Um, I guess I can explain it to both of you, then." He pulled out a chair at Emily's right side. Ashley sat back down in the chair opposite her, still clutching the notebook.

"Sam lent that to me the other night," he confessed. "While everyone was kind of mingling we struck up a conversation. Somehow it turned to…that. She mentioned Josh, and Hannah, and we got talking about how they cut the second investigation short after those two officers disappeared. Sam thinks Josh might still be up there. Maybe not as a human, but…"

"Oh my God, Chris, who cares about that?" Ashley cut him off. "We were lucky enough to survive it once! It's over. If Josh is a – a wendigo, then that's what he is. I'm not gonna lose you over this."

"I didn't say I was gonna go back there."

"It's obvious! That's why you have this!" Her voice cracked with emotion as she waved the notebook at him.

Chris hesitated. "Ash, I just…"

Ashley stared him down, her eyes brimming with tears. Chris swallowed audibly.

"Fuck, he was my closest friend in the whole god damn world. All these years I've thought he might be trapped up there…possessed by those…spirits, or whatever…when Sam suggested we could maybe go back as a group, fully armed and–"

"I knew it. I knew she put some idea in your head like that." A tear spilled over, running down Ashley's cheek. "Why? What's wrong with her? The Sam I used to know would never suggest something like that. She looked out for us!"

"And you would consider going with this bat-shit plan?" Unable to stay quiet any longer, Emily cut in. "You claim this is all Sam's idea, but you don't have to go along with it. So why are you?"

"Well, i-it's been eating at me for years. And I mean, we fought them off before–"

"We fought a bunch of decrepit old miners and Hannah Washington. Hannah, probably the most docile teenage girl ever, was both ready and willing to rip our throats out in that form." She leveled Chris with a glare. "Now picture instead of her it's her larger, angrier, and mentally unstable big brother. And he's had ten years of practice with that body. Does that really sound like something you want to go pick a fight with, idiot?"

"We can't just let him run wild on the mountain forever!" Chris practically yelled. Upon Emily searing him with a don't-you-ever-talk-to-me-like-that glare, he meekly toned his voice down. "Just, that old guy who was hunting them, he died. Protecting us. No one else in the world would ever believe what's up there. And someday someone might buy that land again, and they won't stand a chance. Those things will make Josh kill innocent people. What if he's still conscious and aware of what he's doing but just can't control his body? He'd have to experience it all. What kind of horrible fate is that?"

"Not as horrible as the one you'll face if you go back up there," Emily muttered.

"Chris, you're – you're really serious about this, aren't you?" Another tear ran down Ashley's face. "You're actually considering this 'plan'?"

"We can all go, Ash." His eyes lit up with something not-quite-right. Almost a look of excitement. "It's our duty to go back there. To finish what we started. We can be part of something bigger than ourselves. We can all–"

"Okay, I'm sorry, but if you are actually thinking about going back to Blackwood then you are a fucking moron," Emily snarled at him. "You survived it once, got a girlfriend out of the deal, married her, had two fucking kids with her, and you'd throw that all away just to die a frozen mountaintop?"

Chris opened his mouth to respond, but Emily cut him off.

"You know what's gonna happen after you go and get yourself killed up there? First off, I don't suppose you have an active life insurance policy, do you?"

"Um, no..."

"Okay. So first thing, when you die Ashley's gonna lose this house. Your wife and the kids you supposedly love so much are gonna be out on the street. Best case Ashley manages to pull through her grief and get a full-time job somewhere that'll hire someone who dropped out of college and has two young kids and has been out of the workforce for years, and she's able to afford an apartment in one of the shitty parts of L.A.. Your sons will grow up surrounded by criminals and lowlifes and Ashley will be in constant danger."

"I would never let–"

"That's best case." Emily refused to let him get a word in. "Worst case, either Ash and your sons end up in an overcrowded homeless shelter living on rations and sleeping ten to a room, or they end up nowhere, literally living on the street. Sleeping on park benches and eating out of trash cans." She narrowed her eyes. "All because you couldn't give up your stupid dream of 'avenging' your dead friend."

Chris bit his lip. He glanced over at Ashley, who was heartily crying then. Emily continued to stare him down.

What she'd said was dramatic. Probably overly so, but he needed to get the point. And if there was one thing Emily was good at, it was badgering people into accepting her points. She hadn't risen to the top of her company by chance.

"God, Ash, I…" Chris shook his head, his eyes moistening. "I don't know what came over me. I'd never do that to you. I don't know why I even considered it!" He stood up and approached Ashley cautiously. She at first rejected him, but it didn't take long for her to collapse into his arms. It also didn't take long for Chris to start crying just as hard as Ashley.

Emily sat with her chin on her palm, trying to minimize her presence in their emotional moment. Jeez, they're a perfect match for each other.

"I'm sorry," Chris whispered, "I'm so sorry…"

Ashley looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. "So you won't go back there?"

Chris reached a shaking hand out and wiped one of her tears away with his thumb. "I won't. I promise."

They hugged and sobbed for what felt like forever. Eventually Ashley turned to Emily and mouthed, Thank you. Emily simply nodded.

Maybe this would be a rare exception where her presence in someone else's life didn't just make everything worse.

Finally, Chris released Ashley from his chubby arms and took a deep breath. "It's crazy. When I was talking to Sam about it, it just seemed like it made so much sense. Like, yeah, of course we should do this thing that's almost definitely gonna get us killed. Sam sounded so convinced it was the right thing to do."

"Why would she be so into us going back there?" Ashley asked. "It makes no sense. It's not like Sam at all."

"I agree." Emily sat up straight and tall, fixing Chris with her most intimidating stare. "It seems so out of Sam's character. I could just never imagine her saying something like that."

"Yeah, it's messed up," Chris said, Emily's insinuation that he was lying apparently flying right over his head. "But she didn't seem like she'd gone crazy or anything. She seemed totally with it. Just…different."

"Hmm. A real mystery." Emily crossed her arms, her usual defensive posture. To her it was pretty damn obvious what was going on. But that was between Chris and Ashley, not Chris, Ashley, and their kind-of friend from childhood who didn't even want to be there at the moment.

Chris and Ashley seemed to have things to say as well, but no one said them. The silence quickly became unbearable.

Emily eventually excused herself, telling them she had to go home and get something finished before work tomorrow. She didn't really, and there was no need for her to be home for at least a couple more hours. But she couldn't take any more of playing marriage counselor. She needed to retreat to her hovel and be alone for a while.

"Don't you want to stay for dinner?" Ashley spoke up. "I said I would make you something."

"No." Emily was already making her way to the front door. "Thank you, though."

"…Okay. Well, thank you for stopping by, Em." Ashley followed her to the door. "We'll get this figured out."

"Maybe you will. I won't." Emily stepped outside. "Bye."

As soon as she got in her car she turned on whatever music she'd left the radio on previously, cranked it up loud, and tried to drown out the weirdness before it could permeate her brain any further.


Being home alone didn't prove as therapeutic as Em had hoped. She spent about an hour simply pacing, thinking, and occasionally petting Rin. The night was still so young – it wasn't even eight o'clock.

Too much craziness in one week. She knew the shit about Sam wasn't true. Or at least it was greatly exaggerated. Hell, the whole "going back to the mountain" thing was probably bullshit in general. Her guess was that Chris was covering up some other stupid thing he was doing, and Ashley, desperate fool that she was, was willingly buying right into it.

Another reminder as to why Emily never wanted to get married.

She made a point of avoiding her bedroom. She hardly wanted to think about the shame that had been lived out in there just the night before. Instead she opted to shut herself away in her study (what was the point of her having a study, anyway? It wasn't like there was anyone in the rest of the house to distract her), and work on the list she'd promised for Jessica.

Okay, baby steps. What should be Jess' first goal?

She decided to divide the paper into two columns, short-term goals and long-term goals. Maybe I'll start with long-term and work down from there. For that column a few goals came to her straightaway. She wrote down better living situation, able to go outside freely, and get clean.

She chewed on the tip of her pen as it hovered over "short-term goals". Far-off goals were easy to establish. Shorter-term goals were the ones that required immediate, tangible action to get done. You couldn't just say "I'll accomplish that eventually". You needed an actual plan for them.

She wrote down take a step (or more) outside. God, that sounded so pathetic. But Jess didn't need her pity. A goal was a goal, no matter how minor it might have seemed to someone else.

The second thing she wrote simply said, rehab?. She wondered if there was any sort of rehabilitation program that could help Jess from the emotional safety of her apartment.

The third goal was therapy. Matt had mentioned a woman who'd apparently been willing to make house calls for Jess. The counselor had believed Jessica to have some sort of psychotic disorder, hence her hallucinations. If that was true then Jess could definitely benefit from at least talking to a professional. Best case, maybe she could be convinced that the monsters she was seeing truly weren't real and move past her fear of them. Emily had very little idea how hallucinations worked or felt to the person experiencing them, but surely rationality and logic could eventually trump them. Right?

As she tried to conjure more potential goals for the list, her phone began to vibrate. Ugh, again? Better not be Ashley with more bullshit…

She checked it. Incoming video call – Jessica

A video call? Seriously? Emily closed her notebook and pushed it away. With great hesitation, she accepted the call.

She was immediately greeted by the sight of Jessica lying on her stomach in nothing but a pair of lacy pink underwear. Thankfully she had her forearms folded under her chin, shielding Emily from a full-on view of The Ladies.

"Hiiii Emily!" Jess smiled at the screen, revealing all those yellowed teeth of hers. "I'm glad you answered. I love video calls. I get to see everyone."

"…Hi Jess," Emily replied with about an iota of enthusiasm. "Why aren't you wearing a bra?"

"Oh, I just got finished with a client." She laughed a little. "I can put one on if you're not comfortable with it."

Emily tried to avoid settling her eyes anywhere near Jess' chest. "Um, yeah, I would prefer that."

"Okay. Gimme a sec."

Emily looked away as Jess hopped off her bed and rummaged around off-screen.

"'Kay, I'm done."

Emily returned her gaze to the screen. She'd expected Jessica to be dressed, or at least robed. But no – when she said 'put a bra on' that was exactly what she meant. Nothing more. Emily hated looking at how scrawny she was. Jess had always had just a little meat on her bones (in all the right places, unlike Emily and her thunder thighs). Now she was just…skeletal.

"So I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Jess continued, seeming not to notice Emily's awkward loss for words. "I'm not, right?"

"No."

"Oh, good." Jess looked around where Emily was sitting. "Is that your house? It looks nice."

"Yeah, it is nice. There's never anybody here to mess anything up."

"That's good."

"Mm."

"…Or is it not good?"

Emily shrugged.

"Well, you know I'd visit ya if I could." Jess attempted another smile. It fell a little flatter than her previous one. "Why don't you mess some stuff up in my honor?"

I just might take you up on that offer, she thought. Wrecking some shit in her otherwise perfect, sterile household might be a nice little stress reliever for her. Especially if she had someone else's blessing to do it.

"God, Jess, we need to have one of our marathon chats again, like in the old days." Emily rested her chin on her palm. "There's so much I want to tell you."

Jessica kicked her legs idly. "Well, I've got nowhere to be, if you wanted to talk for a while tonight. I mean, that's kinda why I called."

Emily typically liked to be in bed shortly after eleven o'clock, to ensure she was fully rested and at her functional best the next day. But this was an opportunity that so rarely came along in her modern life. Maybe she could talk for just a little while…

"Okay. Let's talk until I have to go to bed."

"Yes!" Jess pumped her fist. "Girls' night."

"Really?" Emily stifled a laugh. "Like we're teenagers?"

"Yeah! We can swap stories and talk shit until you go to bed. …As long as I don't fall asleep before then."

Emily glanced over at her computer desk. Then she looked back to Jessica's tiny likeness on her phone screen. "All right. Let me switch to my computer. Then I guess 'girl's night' will commence."