WARPED

Chapter 28

Hazelle raced down the stairs with Jocelyn in tow, ignoring her shrieks of "HAZELLE! What the FUCK is going on?!"

Hazelle's mind was racing along faster than her sprint through the Mystery Shack. That wasn't Lucy.

Hazelle had known that something about Lucy had been off for days, but she had no idea that it was this bad.

Her mind was spinning, her head was pounding, and Jocelyn's screeching wasn't helping.

"JOCELYN!" Hazelle turned around a faced Jocelyn, who almost smacked into her. Jocelyn stopped, surprise mingling with confusion on her face. Hazelle wasn't usually one to yell.

"Will you please be quiet for once and just trust me? I'll explain, but I only want to do it once." Hazelle paced in front of Jocelyn, her mind reeling. "Okay so we gotta find the Pines, and maybe Soos," she mumbled to herself. "Stan probably has tourists, and Mabel's in the den… Oh, shit, where's Dipper?"

Hazelle met Jocelyn's eyes, and she knew that Jocelyn was alarmed by Hazelle's panic.

"Haze…?" Jocelyn asked cautiously, "what's going on?"

Hazelle took a deep breath and pushed her glasses up her nose. How to phrase this… "That wasn't Lucy! Well, I mean, obviously it was, but it wasn't!"

Jocelyn crossed her arms. "You lost me at 'that.'"

Massaging the space in between her eyebrows, Hazelle sighed, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. "Joss, that was Lucy's body, but it wasn't her. I think-oh, jeez-I think she's being possessed!"

"WHAT? Possessed?" Jocelyn demanded. "By what?"

"Not what," Hazelle said grimly. "Who."

"Girl, you're gonna have to spell this one out for me. I just woke up, like, an hour ago."

"BILL, okay? I think it's Bill!"

Jocelyn's mouth dropped open. "What the fuck? He's a dream demon, not a real life demon! He can't possess people unless they're in the mindscape."

"We don't know that for sure," Hazelle retorted. "We've only seen Bill in one episode, so we don't know what he's entirely capable of. For all we know, he could do anything. Don't you get it though? It all makes sense: why Lucy's been so distant, leaving suddenly, sleepwalking, being an overall..."

"Bitch?" Jocelyn supplied. "And wait one diddily darn second: SLEEPWALKING?"

"Oh, yeah." Hazelle grinned sheepishly. "Dipper and I went on a mini-adventure."

"What?" Jocelyn looked appalled. "And you didn't invite me?"

"You were asleep."

"Oh. Yeeeaahhh, that makes sense."

"Anyway, I'll explain more when we find the Pines."

"YOU RANG?" squawked Mabel, poking her head in from the den.

"Mabel!" Hazelle ran to her. "Where are Stan, Dipper, and Soos?"

"Bro-Bro and the Soosmeister went to some video game thing and Crankipants is in the Shack. Why?"

"We need to have a meeting," Hazelle urged. "It's really important!"

"Okay!" Mabel scurried out of the den, shouting, "GRUNKLE STAAAAN! HAZELLE SAYS WE HAVE TO HAVE A FAMILY MEETING!"

"You get them to stay in the den," Hazelle said, rushing toward the kitchen. "I'm gonna ambush Dipper and Soos when they get back."

Hazelle, reaching the kitchen, peeked out of the glass window to the back door. Her heart was pumping wildly, eyes scanning every inch of the outside world for Soos's truck. Where are they?! she thought, chewing on a thumbnail.

She heard Grunkle Stan grouching on the other side of the Shack, meaning Mabel had collected him. Jocelyn was updating him in a voice that way much too chipper for the current situation, and then Grunkle Stan gave a shout of disbelief.

Hazelle felt relief flush into her skin as Soos's truck finally came into view, parking a couple feet from the Shack. She whipped open the door, waving crazily at them. "GUYS! GET IN HERE, QUICK!"

"Hazelle?" Dipper frowned, approaching the door, a plastic bag in hand.

"Dude, where's the fire?" Soos asked, scratching his head.

"It doesn't matter, just come on!" Hazelle let the screen door slam and sprinted back to the den, hoping Dipper and Soos would follow.

In the den, Grunkle Stan's eyes flashed to her instantly, serious and a little scared. "Kid, what's goin' on here? Is what the loud one sayin' true?"

"I have a name," Jocelyn hissed.

"If I'm right, yes!" Hazelle said, wringing her hands. Dipper and Soos entered a minute later, and Hazelle told everyone to take a seat. "Guys, we have an issue. A big issue. I think-"

"BILL IS POSSESSING LUCY!" Jocelyn interrupted, bursting from her chair. Hazelle was only slightly annoyed. Leave it to Jocelyn to steal her thunder.

Dipper dropped his video game and looked at Hazelle with wide, panicked eyes. "What?!"

Hazelle went through her theory, bringing up Lucy's strange behavior and the incident that had just occurred upstairs. "He's been interacting with her this whole time! I don't know when or even how it started, but it looks like its true."

"But why Lucy?" Mabel asked. "And not you guys too?"

"I…" Hazelle faltered, thinking. "Well, I mean, um...I haven't been without my own brush with him. I've been seeing him in my dreams the past couple of nights." She furrowed her brow and shook her head. "I'm sure it has to do with our portal jumping. Why else would he be after just us three?"

"Do you think he went after Lucy because she hasn't shown her powers yet?" Dipper suggested. "Maybe he went after her because she was the easiest to overpower. Jocelyn's powers are insane, and you at least have shown that you have them."

"Woah, woah, woah," Jocelyn interjected, a frown on her face. "While I agree that my powers are quite insane, we don't even know if Lucy has any powers."

"But why would whoever brought us here have bothered to bring Lucy too if she wasn't at least involved in this in some way?" Hazelle countered. "Bill has addressed her by a symbol name before. Like how he calls Mabel Shooting Star and stuff. She's connected to this whole thing, in some way."

Jocelyn shrugged, suddenly cold at the discussion of Lucy. "Maybe she's a pawn. You've heard the many theories on what or who the wheel symbols mean, and some of the assumptions aren't exactly important characters."

"But they're still worth mentioning," Hazelle said. "And whoever brought us here thought Lucy was the same way."

Jocelyn opened her mouth to retort when Dipper interjected, "It doesn't matter why she's here. She's in trouble, and we need to figure out how to save her."

Stan spoke up for the first time. "The kid's right."

Dipper blinked, slightly surprised that Stan had agreed with him.

"Well, okay, let's brainstorm about this," Hazelle suggested. "Why would Bill want to possess someone in the first place? I'll bet he can't use his crazy powers when bound to a human body. What could he gain from possessing someone without powers? Lucy's gotta have something special about her that he wanted."

"Yeah," Jocelyn quipped, "she was the easiest to manipulate."

Hazelle grimaced. "Joss-"

"And I'm not saying it in a bitchy way," Jocelyn continued, brown eyes bright. "I mean it. Haze, you know what I'm talking about. Luce is...she's not headstrong like me or super smart like you. That attitude of hers was something that was carried over from the real world to here. Bill recognized that and knew he could turn her against us. Or, who knows?" she went on, a bitter tone overtaking her tirade. "Maybe he didn't have to do any convincing at all. Maybe she jumped at the chance to try and hurt us. We don't know how long he's been talking to her, but the way she was acting at first was aaalll Lucy."

Hazelle bit her lip, suddenly very interested in the floor. She hated to admit it, but Jocelyn had a major point. What if Lucy had sided with Bill at the first chance she'd gotten? Would she seriously work with him against her two best friends?

A lump formed in her throat. Were they even friends anymore? Her and Jocelyn's relationship certainly had remained intact, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd shared a laugh with Lucy, or told her a joke, or even smiled around her in a way that wasn't nervous or pitying. Had it truly been Bill who had turned her against them, or had she decided to on her own?

Hazelle held her head. It had started to thump painfully around her temples. "I know this doesn't look good," she started. "But even if she did turn on us...we can't leave her to wither away with Bill. It's wrong."

"Not if she doesn't want to come home. I know this sounds harsh, Haze, but we don't know if she's even Lucy anymore."

"We don't know that for sure though!" Hazelle argued. "A tiny piece of her could still be there. I...Joss, I can't take that kind of risk. What if she needs us?"

"And what if she doesn't?" Jocelyn retorted.

They engaged in a staredown, the Pines family and Soos glancing at each other uneasily.

Dipper broke the silence. "I agree with Hazelle. We got Bill out of Stan's mind, and he's fine."

Jocelyn crossed her arms. "Yeah, and you all almost died. We could get hurt."

Hazelle scoffed. "Since when have you cared about others getting hurt?"

"I would care if you guys got hurt," Jocelyn snapped.

"I don't care about how dangerous Bill is," Hazelle proclaimed. "I can't stand the idea of him possessing Lucy's body forever. And if you can, then maybe you just shouldn't come."

Jocelyn narrowed her eyes, staring at Hazelle like she'd just been slapped.

"No way. If you're going, I'm coming. I won't sit here like a child."

"But you're acting like one!" Hazelle cried. "How can you turn a blind eye to Lucy? Yes, she's stubborn, and has a horrible attitude, and, yeah, can be a huge bitch sometimes, but…" She swallowed, picking so hard at a fingernail it started to bleed. "She's our friend. Deep down. I know she's still there. I won't leave her behind."

"Alright then, that's settled," Mabel said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Now what do we do?"

Everyone was quiet, thinking. Hazelle, for one, had no idea.

"First we gotta find her." Stan stood up from the armchair, and into the light. Hazelle's heart sped up, anticipating Stan's knowledge of how to deal with the supernatural.

Just then, there was a noise behind everyone as Lucy stumbled into the den. Her eyes were unfocused, and it looked like she was barely in control of her body. Her hands and knees trembled, and Hazelle was wondering how she was still standing. She wanted to help her friend, but she was glued to her spot, waiting to see what Lucy would do.

Lucy's mouth opened, her lips twitching. Her eyes came into direct focus. "Jocelyn…" she breathed.

Then, Lucy's eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled to the floor.