I know I usually update faster than this, but this chapter is extra long and I hope the wait was worth it!

Those of you guys who do go to school - ready for it? I know I'm not. School is yuck. School is the reason this chapter is so late. I hate school.

I do not own Ghost Hunt. Sigh. I wish I did.

Gene wasn't there, but Mai knew it was a dream.

She was sitting at a desk, writing furiously in a leather bound book, her quill flying across cream-colored paper.

Faster, faster.

She was humming a quick, bouncy tune as she wrote, but her breath was so constricted it came out weak and choppy.

Faster, faster.

As she stopped to dip her quill in the ink bottle, a crash from outside made her heart stop.

The candle flickered but stayed on.

She shook herself from her stupor and began to write again.

Faster.

This time, the crash shook the room. The desk trembled and the ink pot spilled, staining the desk and a part of the notebook. She shook from head to toe, fighting tears and struggling to breathe. She looked up at the door, where the charm-filled papers with beginning to blacken and shrivel.

There was not long now. Terror filled her. She swallowed hard and swiped at a tear, feeling the slick ink that left a mark on her cheek. She couldn't remember when she had dirtied her hand, but when she began writing again, she noticed that there was ink all over it.

The candle flickered again and went out, plunging the room into darkness.

A low growl came from outside the door. The door began shaking as a violent banging began on it.

Where was the moon?

She threw down the quill and felt her way to the window. She pulled up the window seat cushion, shoved the diary underneath, and then stood up straight. She wiped the last tears from her cheek and took a deep, shuddering breath.

She had known from the beginning that it was over.

The hand on her shoulder made her jump.

Heart hammering in her chest, Mai sucked in a deep breath to calm her nerves when she saw that it was only Masako.

"Are you alright?" the medium asked.

Mai blinked and tried to get her bearings. "Yes?"

Masako stared. "You are crying."

Mai frowned and touched her cheek. Her fingers came away wet, and she hastily wiped her face. Why was she always crying?

Masako looked at her expectantly.

"It was just a dream," Mai grumbled. "I'm not really crying."

"A dream?"

Naru's voice made Mai's heart leap to her head and insides turn to mush all of a sudden.

Why? Mai fumed. Why can't I have this effect on him? Why does it have to be me? Why does the slightest noise still make me so…

Mai didn't finish her thought because Naru made her feel lovesick.

"Mai."

He sounded irritated.

No, it wasn't real irritation. It was anxiety and irritation. Right. She was taking up precious time that he could be using trying to fix the problem before midnight.

Mai turned to face him. "Yeah?"

"The dream," Naru repeated. Now he was only irritated.

"Oh, yeah. The dream." Mai struggled to block out Naru's face and concentrate. Not handsome. Not gorgeous. Not staring at me.

Mai cleared her throat as that last thought invaded her mind and pulled at her collar. "Um, I think I was an owner of this house. I was in the library and...something was trying to get in. I think - I think it did get in and…" She trailed off.

Naru didn't prod her any further and Mai was glad. Her throat felt a little dry.\

"We have to find the base of the house," Naru addressed everyone. He had turned his back on the group and was now shuffling papers on his desk. He took out a floor plan and examined it. "There should be something in the original part that might help us end this. That part of the house also should not move or change in any way, as it probably belongs to the demon that Hayate Sato dealt with. While the man controls the rest of the house, the demon must have ultimate control over the sacrificial altar.

Masako went white. "Sacrificial?"

"For the people that are killed for the demon," Naru said, as if people were killed every day by demons where he came from. His voice betrayed no emotion, no fear, no anger, no worry. Mai wondered how he managed to keep that icy calm all the time. How did he dispel all that pent-up emotion?

"Father Brown, will you be okay alone here?"

"Yes, of course," John said immediately, ever the acquiescent friend.

"Lin, Ayako, take Mai. Miss Hara, Takigawa, come with me. Father Brown, if we aren't back within the hour, don't try to find us. If we're not back by noon, leave. Evacuate the town and leave."

John went a little pale. "O-okay," he whispered, and Mai knew he would follow Naru's orders, not because he was a faithful friend, but because there was nothing else he could do.

"Come on, Mai," Ayako called from the door, where she and Lin were already standing.

"Coming!" Mai pushed the image of John evacuating the people from the town to the back of her mind and ran after them.

"Mai."

She stopped at the door, almost turning involuntarily at the sound of his voice, mentally berating herself for allowing him to have such a profound effect on her.

"Yeah?" She hoped against hope that her voice hadn't turned out a squeak.

He looked so beautiful, his face turned towards her and his eyes staring into hers. And he spoke with that beautiful voice.

"Don't get lost," he said flatly.

"UGH, JERK!" Mai yelled and leapt at him. Ayako caught her around the waist and dragged her out of the room, but Mai was sure she had seen a smirk.

They walked in silence for a while, wordlessly following Mai wherever she turned. Lin had thought to bring two flashlights, and Mai was glad for their small glow.

Base of the house, base of the house, base of the house, she thought, over and over again, but she only felt a small pulling. There was no immediate, clear voice in her head, no warm tugging through the endless hallways. Before, she had welcomed Gene's presence in her head, but now, there was nothing.

Maybe it was because she wasn't concentrating hard enough. She kept finding herself dreaming about Naru's half-smirk, the way one of his eyes became narrower when he gave her on. Gosh, how desperately she hoped he would give her another one.

No! He was so mean!

He was so nice last night. So kind and caring and -

Mai shook her head regretfully and tried concentrating on the Ayako's heels clicking against the floor beside her. She didn't want a redo of her mishap with John.

"Lin, will you speak to Naru about using his PK?" Ayako asked. Her voice was snappish and tired and worried.

Lin was as stoic as ever. "As I see fit."

"Well, I do hope you see his killing himself as unfit," Ayako grumbled. When Lin didn't answer, she went on heedlessly. "I don't know what the heck is wrong with him, but he needs to tone it down. I understand that teenagers are impulsive and heedless and think they're invincible, but this is getting ridiculous."

Mai was only half listening to Ayako's rant. She was mostly finding it extremely amusing that Ayako was merely just looking for someone to take her emotions out on. Lin was not very vocal, and the perfect candidate to yell at.

Her mind strayed once more to her boss and she remembered something she had been thinking about. "Lin," she said as Ayako paused to take a breath. "What does Naru do when he's angry or sad or something?"

"N-nothing? He doesn't shout or snap or - or hit things?"

"No."

Mai couldn't believe it. He had to do something. Maybe he...read books? Wrote theses? What did child prodigies do?

Lin spoke, and Mai cried out a little. When both adults gave her a look, she murmured a sheepish apology and rubbed away the gooseflesh on her arm. The incessant darkness was making her jumpy.

"He used to," Lin repeated in a quieter voice. "He used to use his PK when he thought no one was watching him. Gene would always know, of course, but Naru only did it maybe four times anyways. He was the less emotional of the two. Then Gene died and Naru became completely unemotional."

Mai was stunned into speechlessness. She couldn't quiet figure out which was the bigger shock: Lin speaking five whole sentences of his own free will, or Nary becoming a heartless zombie after the death of his twin brother.

Ayako, however, was completely capable of snapping. "You call using his PK twice already 'unemotional?'"

"He spoke to me about it this morning. He said it must be the house."

"Oh, yeah, blame his attitude on the evil spirit."

"He realized it after you almost hit him, and how he practically teased you into fighting him. The house is poisoning everyone's 's skin crawled at Lin's words. She felt like spiders were crawling up her neck and arms and down her back. And had the flashlight's glow always been this dim?

Something skittered across the floor behind them. Mai screamed and whipped around.

Lin and Ayako were slower. The priestess's hand clamped down hard on Mai's shoulder. "What? Where is it?"

"It was -" Mai took a shaky breath. "It was crawling."

Ayako frowned. "What was?"

"You-you didn't hear it?"

"No…"

"Lin, you must have heard it!" Mai cried, thoroughly confused.

"My shiki have informed me that there is nothing here."

"I'm not imagining things!" Mai protested. Her heart thudded against her ribs. What if she was? What if she really was going crazy?

Ayako turned Mai back around by the shoulders. "It's okay, Mai, it was probably just a mouse." She shone her flashlight across the hall. "See? There's nothing there now."

Mai reluctantly began walking again with the two adults. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and tried to ignore the prickly feeling at the back of her neck.

Within a minute, Lin's flashlight sputtered and died. Mai eyed the one remaining in Ayako's hand apprehensively.

"Mai? Are you okay? You're shaking." Ayako drew an arm around her shoulders and held her against herself.

She was shaking? When had that started?

The flashlight blinked a few times. Bile rose up in Mai's throat.

"Mai?"

If the flashlight went out, she would lose her mind. She would go insane. She would -\

"Mai, snap out of it!"

Yes, that was right. She would snap. In half. In a million pieces. Her brains would scatter all over the house.

A multitude of whispers suddenly burst into her right ear, low and coarse and snake-like.

Something was holding her tight, too tight. It was shaking her, scaring her, it wouldn't let her run, run from the harsh whispers. They came again, more intensely this time. She couldn't take it, couldn't handle this cursed darkness anymore. Mai screamed and yanked away from her restraints and ran.

She tore down the dark hallway as fast as she could, desperate to get away from the horrible, grating noise in her ears that was the demon. However, no matter where she turned, it was there again, continuously driving out all coherent thought from her mind. She felt drowned in pain, misery, fear.

Happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts. I need a room. A safe place. Anywhere but this damn dark hallway. Base. Naru's there.

She turned a corner, and there was a door at the end of the narrow corridor. Something in Mai pushed her forward, put her hand on the knob, and wrenched the door open. She stumbled inside and slammed the door shut. Gasping for breath, she collapsed against it and let out a strangled sob.

Her hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, and her heart beat uncomfortably. She pressed a hand against her chest and tried to recollect her thoughts now that the whisperings were gone and not dulling her sense anymore.

She was in a familiar room. There was a desk in the middle, bookshelves lined the walls, and there was a window seat in the corner. Mai was sitting in a carpet of blackened parchment that she hadn't noticed the first time she was in there.

The library…

No, it couldn't be. She had come in here with Monk the other day and made a giant, splintering hole in the floor.

Then again, last time the library door hadn't been at the end of a deserted hallway, either.

The window seat. The journal. The sobbing girl. The dream flashed through Mai's mind.

Mai inched towards the seat, humming quietly, wary of making another hole in the floor. Monk wasn't here to save her. No one was here to save her this time.

She reached the desk and leaned on it heavily, tired all of a sudden.

No, it's the house. You're not tired.

She eyed the distance between the desk and the window seat. It didn't seem like too much. She could make it before the house stopped her. If she was quick, maybe she could even avoid another splintering hole.

Only when she realized it was too late did she realize could, should, and would were three very different things.

An icy cold hand grabbed her ankle just as Monk had grabbed it not so long ago when she took her first step towards the window seat. She threw out her hands to stop her fall, but her already-bruised chin slammed into the floor with such force that stars swam before her eyes and she thought she saw Naru.

Naru, she thought giddily.

Then the hand on her ankle yanked her back, jolting her to consciousness.

Mai screamed and flailed before she realized that would be of no use. She flipped over on her back and began reciting the nine cuts. As she did, her hand got heavier and heavier, as if she were moving it through molasses. It was getting so hard to concentrate she thought she must be swimming in it too.

Naru, she thought hopelessly.

His cold face swam once again before her, emotionless and icy. But then she saw his eyes, and it was as if she was suddenly pulling the curtain away from his face. The first time she had seen him, when he had scared her silly in a dark classroom, his face had been smiling but his eyes had not. Mai realized that, now, he never smiled anymore, but his eyes had changed. The transition had been so subtle and over the course of so many months that Mai hadn't noticed it, only taken it for granted. However, when she compared his face to the mask he had worn so long ago, it was suddenly clear, as if someone were purposely showing her the obvious difference.

Suddenly, nothing was hopeless anymore. She was full of hope and happiness and love because she knew she was never alone. She stopped struggling against the icy hand on her ankle and lay there quietly.

I am the Master of Manipulation, she thought.

She thought hard about the wooden floor she was on. It was under her, soft and pliant. She imagined the distance between her and the window seat shortening, the floor squeezing together until she was almost backed up against it.

Blindly, she thrust her hand out behind her just as the icy hand jerked her once more, but she gripped the mattress and her fingernails burned and protested, but she pulled hard and imagined the floor shortening once again, and she yanked and herself up against the hand and dragged herself onto the cushion and the hand suddenly vanished.

It was replaced by an icy draft that blew so hard and suddenly across her face that it forced tears into her eyes.

And then there was a deafening roar, and the entire floor began to collapse inwards into a giant, splintering black hole.

The desk and the bookshelves fell in. The room shook. Mai pressed herself against the window, paralyzed with fear. What if she fell in now, even after she had managed to get up here? Her chin and throat burned.

But the last of the floor fell away, and the window seat remained intact.

Now that the immediate danger was gone, Mai stretched her limb out from their cramped position. She ached all over, and her chin burned. What was she supposed to do now? How was she supposed to get out of this mess? Even if someone did find he and open the door, how was she supposed to get across the giant, gaping void before her. She wished she had some sort of light. Straining her eyes in the darkness just made everything worse.

She sat against the window in defeat and contemplated whether or not she should try and fall asleep and get Gene to help her. Then she remembered how scared he had been in her dream, trying to warn her about the house, and realized it might not be the best option for him. It might hurt him. Otherwise, he would have appeared in another dream of hers by now.

A dream.

Her dream.

The journal. The girl's journal. Maybe there was something helpful in there.

Mai scooted to one side of the seat cushion, reached over, and lifted it from the opposite side.

"Crap." There was nothing there. It had to be on the other side. Why did nothing ever go the way she wanted it to? It was as if her own bad luck was mocking her. She grumbled and tried the other side.

She found a dark, leather bound black book, a little like the notebook Naru sometimes carried, except this was old and worn and dusty. Mai flipped it open to find it filled with black messy scrawl on yellowing pages marred by splashes of ink. She glanced at the dates. It was from the year 1862.

A loud banging on the door made her slam the book shut and hastily rise to her feet, unsteady on the seat. The doorknob twisted this way and that forcefully, and then the horrible banging resumed.

"Go away, Hayate Sato!" Mai yelled. She was tired and aching and done with this house. She was ready to wrap up this case and go home. "I'm sick of you!"

She could hear voices on the other side. The door suddenly rattled, hard, and the doorknob rattled along with the force of the blow once, twice, three times.

Mai looked around wildly. The only thing she could do was throw the journal at the attacker, but she didn't want to lose the only clue she might have. She window was her only way out.

It was pitch black outside, as if someone had painted the outside of the window black. That couldn't be right…they hadn't even had lunch yet. Maybe if she broke it-

The banging began again, coupled with shouting this time. Mai clenched her jaw and faced the window. No demon was going to be taking her anytime soon. She gave the window a vicious kick.

"Ow!" she cried, drawing her foot back. Not an option.

The lock was shaking again, harder this time.

She would have to manipulate the house again. She was tired of this. She knew it was draining her energy.

Mai faced the door and the gaping black hole in the floor. She closed her eyes and tried to remember Naru the way she had in the boys' bedroom, when she had accidentally transported John and herself there instead of base without even opening a door.

Cold, beautiful Naru. The ice prince with a heart. The one who would smirk at her and watch over while she slept and talked to her after her nightmares. The one who had rejected her but wouldn't quite leave her heart.

Jump, Gene whispered.

What the hell, Mai thought. She was already crazy. Might as well.

The door cracked and gave way to whatever was behind it.

Gene, help me.

She jumped.

Soo...How was it? Worth the wait?

I don't know, I can't exactly get the insanity part exactly like I want it to. The first time I wrote it, it made total sense, but now each time I re-read it, it sounds even more far-fetched. What do you think?

For next time: What the heck is Mai doing? Is she going to make it? Is she going to be lost in the house forever? (Of course not, but you get the point :P)