Chapter 26

She and Jeremy had just received their gear from one of the producers when Jace came out of the house to get them. “Bella! Wonderful to see you! Are you ready?”

Jeremy grinned as he pulled Bella closer to attach her to the dog leash. “Yes she is!”

“Woah, let’s not get kinky here, shall we?” Jace replied playfully as he threw his hands up in the air. “Save that for your bedroom!”

Despite the fact that they were practically ‘off camera’, you never knew when you were ‘on’. Bella hated TV, live TV events as big as these, for that reason. She couldn’t be herself. Jace’s energy only seemed positive and happy, but he had already experienced some of the darkness inside of the house, she could sense it. “Yep, what do you have for us?”

“I sent Drew to the ballroom by himself, why don’t you two go and find him, see how he’s doing? Then proceed from there?” Jace suggested as he pointed to base camp. “I’ll be watching the screens from there.”

“Have something to drink,” Bella said as she nodded. “We know the way.”

“We have various rooms where people are doing some experiments and rooms where there’s simply equipement, just don’t go alone.”

Bella blinked at him. “You’re telling me not to go alone, which is obvious that I’m not going to do and yet you have Drew sitting by himself in the ballroom? Isn’t that a little bit the opposite of ‘safety’?”

“Drew knows what he’s doing,” Jace said as he started to run towards base camp.

Bella let out a frustrated cry. She wanted to punch something, hard. Drew knows what he’s doing?! Knowing it was likely the house’s energy combined with the shallow emotional tabs she kept on both Jeremy and Kol, she took a deep breath instead to calm herself down and looked at Jeremy. “Let’s go and save Drew. Are you on?”

“Oh yeah, totally and I don’t like it,” Jeremy nodded as he followed Bella and fiddled with his camera. No, he hated it. Jeremy usually didn’t have to focus hard to see some spirits around Bella, especially with Kol around too, as an antenna. He saw the danger coming, usually, or could check out a room to make Kol feel more at ease, but to be fully on, to truly see what Bella was seeing? No. He hated it.

He hated to see the disembodied spirits of those stuck in their death state. Those with holes in their head or arms cut off… and he had seen the children. “Free the children first, huh?” He casually asked as he turned on his camera.

“Of course,” Bella replied as a matter of factly, turning on her camera as well after switching on her voice recorder. Her voice recorder was going to be useless now, but there was no doubt that the Spooky Investigations crew was going to go over every tape, every inch, of the things they’d record after this was over for an ‘after show’. She was nice and professional like that. Grabbing the walkie talkie, she pressed the button and spoke to base camp. “Just for the record, I have my voice recorder on and it’s sticking out of my pocket. I’m going to record continuously… unless I’m not in the house.”

“Have fun storming the castle!” Jace called back over the walkie.

It was easier to walk to the house with less of the Native warriors around, but after she set a foot inside, she needed to take a breather again. The reception area was filled with spirits. They were plastered against the walls, walking around aimlessly, lost, like zombies and the atmosphere felt thick, almost as if you’d have to wade through mud. “I’ve created a hole outside, you can leave if you want to,” she said kindly as she tried to keep breathing.

‘We can’t leave,’ an older man said before he walked away again, in the mesh of the spirits.

“What do you mean, you can’t leave?” Bella asked out loud, confused as she took another step inside. “The door is wide open!” When no one spoke out anymore, Bella silently cursed as she waded through the mass of spirits. So far, she didn’t feel the presence of any Cullen, but she had no doubt that they were hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike. “The air is thick in here, it’s hard to focus, to breathe. The amount of energy is insane and if this is through the entire house, we’re going to have a problem,” Bella said to Jeremy, who only hummed for an answer.

When they eventually made it to the ballroom, Drew was lying on his back, staring to the ceiling. No wonder, the ballroom was packed as well and he was lying somewhere close to a bright looking thing. “You see that?”

“What?”

“That bright thing?”

“Nope,” Jeremy replied as they hurried over to Drew to check him over. He pulled Drew up and snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Drew, you okay, buddy?” There was a camera set up for a wide shot, and Jeremy wondered why nobody came once Drew went down.

“I hate this place,” Drew muttered as he looked still out of it. Bella sat down on the floor behind him and gently touched his lower back, sending a little jolt of energy through Drew to free him from whatever was harming him before paying some attention to the bright light. “I feel fine,” he sounded more like himself, albeit slightly confused. “The energy in this place… it’s… I don’t know.”

“Everything,” Bella replied as she touched the edges of the light with her fingertips, feeling an energy surge coming out of it, dark energy, sticky, depressing. It made her want to lay down and stare at the ceiling aimlessly, at the mercy of the energy of the ballroom. It was growing ever so slightly on her touch and she quickly withdrew her hand, still observing the portal as a dark hand came out of it. She knocked on the floor. “Don’t you dare come out of there,” she warned the figure as the hand sunk back into the portal.

“What are you doing?” Drew laughed as he watched her after pointing his camera on her.

The hand came back out of there again and Bella hit the floor with the palm of her hand. “I’m still here, don’t you dare to come out of there,” she said with a hint of danger in her voice before turning to Drew. “Do you have an SB7 on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Put it right there,” she said as she pointed at the area. “There’s a portal there.”

“Really? But there’s no markings, nothing,” Drew said as he took the device out of his pocket and turned it on before placing it where Bella pointed at. Not soon after he had placed it down, sounds could be heard coming from the spot. Dark, chanting voices. The SB7 wasn’t entirely clear, but Bella recognized it as Latin. “Holy shit,” Drew said shocked.

^Indeed^

^Drew^

“Who are you? Tell me what you want!”

‘I’m your worst nightmare little man! If only this bitch would let me out!’

^nightmare^

‘I want to come out of here and tear off your skin, slowly and painfully while you bleed out in front of me.’

Bella could feel how the dark figure wanted to come out again and hit the floor again. “You were never human, were you?”

‘Of course not.’

More chanting came out of the portal and the SB7 box and Bella had enough. “Listen up, I can feel that this portal is connected to many portals inside the house and they’re not the only kind of portals, either. I am going to close this one and all connected. Now. You are not welcome here.” She placed another hand on the floor and send some energy through the portal to close it and the other portals it was connected to. Briefly, she felt the presence of more portals, more powerful than this one had been. The SB7 was screaming until the portal was properly closed and Bella fell back on her ass.

“Please tell me you didn’t just close a portal,” Jeremy pinched the bridge of his nose. “I thought we made some rules!”

“I did not just close A portal. I closed at least 10 of them who were all connected in this house.”

“How do you do that, Bella?” Drew asked curiously. “No herbs, no spells, just your touch!”

Shit. Right. Of course. This was why. “It’s all energy, you need to know how to manipulate it to your own advantage. Yoga and meditation helps a lot,” she quickly replied with a shrug. “Sorry, I will not do that again.”

“Or warn me next time, we could do some tests,” Drew winked at her. “I mean, it’s not every day we get to see you work!”

“Not a science project,” Bella reminded him as she got to her feet. “Besides, there’s enough to study in this house than you’d think,” she said as she brushed herself off. “But mainly this house is filled with useless spirits, displaced spirits, brought here by rituals or people who are capable of taking spirits from one place to another. There are children here, too. And they’re mostly harmless, they’re confused and can’t leave. Even this ballroom… it has its residual energy, but also the energy of those who are lost. They are being influenced by the negativity in this house so it’s entirely possible that those who are meek and lost, have also turned into violent spirits.”

“Can you connect with them, at all?” Drew asked.

“I can, but they’re not talking,” Bella responded as she started to walk alongside the walls of the ballroom, using her energy to ‘scrape’ the spirits off the wall so that if she found the reason why they couldn’t leave and fixed it, that they could leave. Jeremy had no other choice but to follow Bella around. “Some look like they want to be seen, but aren’t truly looking the way that they do, such as this young woman. She’s dressed like royalty, a beautiful tiara, her hair well done, polished nails, expensive jewelry… beautiful shoes… I mean… seriously, gorgeous shoes. Perfect makeup. But she died an old woman, and far from being royalty. She’s now letting me know that her father and husbands always treated her like royalty and when she discovered that she could appear differently in death, she decided to dress the part.”

“I thought they weren’t talking?” Drew laughed.

“She’s not, she’s showing me images, a story. She comes from Mexico originally. Her spirit was attached to some object… ah… uhm… a spatula of all things and she was recently freed from her torment. Only to be put here, in the house where she can be herself, but can’t leave. Come to think of it, you know that song by the Eagles? Hotel California? She describes the house as that song. You can check out any time you like but you can’t ever leave.”

‘Miss Bella,’ Jasper’s voice sounded before he manifested in front of her. ‘The closure of that portal has caused some ruckus on the top floor. Your friends might be interested in documenting that.’

Bella smiled at that and turned to Drew. “Who’s on the top floor?”

“I don’t know, let me ask,” he said as he took his walkie. “Who’s on the top floor?”

“No one,” Jace replied. “Everyone is one level above you, why?”

“I suppose we’re going to the top floor,” Drew snickered as he looked at Bella. “Can I get the full spectrum camera?”

“Sure, knock yourself out.” Bella shrugged as she looked at Jasper. “Why are you telling me this?”

‘To keep you safe and out of trouble,’ Jasper winked at her. ‘I believe that the whispers that you’re back will reach Carlisle and Emmett soon.’

“When they do, tell me. And tell them I want a civil talk with them.”

‘Good luck with that,’ Jasper replied before leaving again, no doubt to find Carlisle and Emmett.

“Who were you talking to?” Drew asked as he returned with the cameras.

“Jasper,” Bella had finished walking the walls of the ballroom and had successfully detached the spirits from them, causing them now to be all excited and jubilant. The atmosphere in the room had changed dramatically. “He’s still the same, I think.”

Jeremy agreed, although he wasn’t sure if they could trust Jasper. Not after everything that Bella had told them about the state of the house so far, and especially not after her saying that this house even corrupts the good souls. Jasper may have been fun the last time, it didn’t mean that he was fun this time around.

As they made their way to the top floor, the air grew thicker again before it dissipated. There weren’t many spirits on the stairs, which was a good thing, but when Bella nearly got pushed into him before they reached the top floor, he was glad he had his Hunter abilities still in tact and didn’t fall backwards into Drew. It had been ‘a gust of wind’ or a black mass coming at her in full force, but it was definitely not a normal spirit. “You okay?” Jeremy asked as he kept her to her feet and helped her to get to the top.

“Yeah, thanks,” Bella muttered as she made room at the top for the rest of them to stand with her. The top floor was one they hadn’t gone to the first time they were here because Drew had already been here and didn’t think it was that interesting to look at. However, the top floor looked different, felt different and there were strange little corners, almost as if it was a maze. A bigger maze than the one in the basement, it seemed to be as big as half of the house. “What is this place?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Jeremy muttered.

“Well, we’ve walked that maze when we were here before,” Drew explained. “Nothing happened, was quite boring when we got to the middle and there wasn’t anything there. No activity, nothing.”

Right at that moment, loud banging could be heard from within the maze, but also in the part where there were multiple rooms. While the floor below them was basically built like an impossible circle – no doubt with hidden rooms due to the fact that the house was quite square, this floor looked like it had utilized all of the space. Jeremy had a bad feeling about the maze. “Maybe the maze is something Myriam could dig her teeth into. Perhaps with that witch Linda.”

“Oh,” Bella cooed and nodded. “Yes. Definitely. Let’s check out those rooms.”

Drew laughed and radioed base camp with the idea that Jeremy had had for Myriam and Linda as he followed Jeremy and Bella towards the rooms. “Do you see anything here?”

“Nope,” Bella replied, shaking her head. “No dead people, so whatever is here, is man made or made by nature. Likely poltergeists or demons or… other dark stuff.”

“Oh, exciting,” Drew grinned as he decided to run the special camera continuously. “Just so you know, I’ve switched on the full spectrum camera.”

Bella nodded and knew she had to be careful now. She didn’t know if her energy or her ‘gift’ would show up on those cameras. It was unlikely because she wasn’t in her energy form, but what if it did? Linda sensed it right away, and she too, operated on a different level. She took a deep breath and went inside the first room. It was extremely dark in there. No windows. Her hand felt sticky after she touched the wall and when she shone her flashlight on her hand, she nearly gagged. “Blood?”

“No,” Jeremy said as he shone around his flashlight. “Fresh paint… well, semi-fresh paint. Seems like someone’s been painting…”

“It’s Father Christian,” Drew said with disdain in his voice as he looked around in the room. “Told him we didn’t want him to alter anything, and he did.” He really didn’t like him.

“The vampire?”

“Vampires don’t exist, Bella, he’s basically someone who loves the idea of vampires, the romanticism, the mysticality of it all… the psychology… of course, it’s all fiction so he basically believes in fake things,” Drew sighed as he got out of the room and after Bella and Jeremy left too, he closed it. “He’s Jace’s special project.”

“Not a believer then?” Jeremy grinned as he offered his own shirt so Bella could wipe off her hand.

“I believe in many things, the paranormal is a crazy world to be in, to believe in, but vampires? Nah. It’s just a bedtime story someone created, the world loved it and started to make things to make it appear in the real world and then legends came… I mean, demons… usually vampires are being seen as demons, right? I do believe in those.” Drew replied with half a shrug. “What? Why? Do you believe in vampires?”

“Well… yeah. Perhaps not in a way that Father Christian does, but I do believe there’s more out there than the paranormal,” Jeremy replied as they entered the next room. It was bigger than the previous one and the walls felt clean. On top of that, it had a window where Bella was fixated with. “Spirits?”

Bella hummed an answer as she walked by the window, freeing the trapped, darker spirits from their entrapment, causing them to start wandering around. She couldn’t really see in the dark and bumped against a chair. A moment later, it flew through the room. “That wasn’t me!”

“No, I saw that, filmed that,” Drew said excitedly as he kept his camera pointed at the chair. “Wow, that was amazing, thank you! Can that happen again?”

Oh, Bella didn’t like that question, in fact, she felt so much rage right now that it was maddening. These weren’t nice spirits or nice energies in this place, and Drew was being all excited? That chair could really have hurt someone. She felt a push against her, making her stumble back as the chair flew back at her, missing her by inches as she stumbled into Jeremy.

“I think I caught something else on camera,” Drew said all giddy when he reviewed the footage on the full spectral camera. “Yep! Look!” He pointed his camera at it, but left enough room for Jeremy and Bella to see, but Bella wasn’t all that interested. She just wanted out of this room and blow off some steam. “It’s a dark mist that first pushes you and then goes over to the chair to throw it back! Bella, this is awesome!”

“You want to stay here and play with that chair?” Bella said as she was holding on to Jeremy, no doubt she was digging her nails into his arm and he wasn’t even flinching. It was so hard not to do anything with her energy right now, because with Drew’s full spectrum camera, it could be caught on camera and she could be treated even more like a science project.

“Do you need a break?” Jeremy asked her as he nudged her towards the door. “We can’t exactly leave Drew alone here.”

“You stay with Drew, I’m … I just need to leave. I’ll be fine,” Bella struggled with her words as she started to tug on her leash.

“That’s not going to happen and you know that,” Jeremy said, shaking his head. “Kol will have my hide if I release you.”

“Jer.”

“No.”

“Myriam!” Bella called out to her friend, knowing that by now she had made her way upstairs with Linda.

“Oh, that’s so not fair,” Jeremy hissed as he could hear Myriam’s and Linda’s footsteps approaching them. “Not part of the rules! Kol will kill me!”

“I’d like to see him try,” Bella replied as she waited for Myriam’s pineapple self to appear. “Jer isn’t letting go of me.”

“Well, Linda and I could stay with Drew while Jeremy takes you outside?” Myriam suggested as she quickly checked Bella over. She seemed pissed about many things, although it could be just the energy on this floor that she wasn’t prepared for. Linda had been explaining to Myriam about the dark, suffocating blanket that was present here, and Bella could have been affected by it. Bella was also drawing blood from Jeremy now with her nails digging into his skin, Myriam could smell it and no doubt it was an unpleasant experience for the Hunter. “Or…” Myriam walked around her friend and dug into the bag that Jeremy was wearing, searching for something to help her. “Does this work?” she asked as she handed Bella a small satchel, only causing Bella to throw it into the room where Drew was, still playing with the haunted chair. Whatever was in that room, it had fun with Drew. “Hey now.”

“I need to get outside, or leave. Please.”

“She’s not possessed,” Linda declared after an intense standoff between Bella and her friends. “She is affected in a way that I can’t even begin to describe, I believe that if she stays on this floor, it’ll only get worse for her. She needs a break… her anger… her rage… it’s intense.”

Jeremy lifted Bella into his arms and started to walk towards the stairs with her. “Okay, a break it is.” It was strange to see Bella like this, and even have this witch tell them what was going on, it was stranger, but most welcome as Bella didn’t communicate it very well. When they arrived on the first floor, he set her down to her feet and she let out a breath of relief. “Feel better?”

“That felt like a trap,” she pointed up the stairs. “There is no way in hell that I’m going back up there, at least not with you.”

“Ouch?”

More ruckus could be heard coming from the top floor, and Bella blinked when she saw Jace, Hugo and that vampire run past them to go and check it out. She saw Jeremy longingly look after them and sighed. “Jer, go and have some fun with that, I’ll be fine now.”

“Nope.”

“I have a walkie and a camera, if there’s something wrong, I can call you. Not to mention, Kol’s keeping an eye on our camera’s anyway, I can feel it. I’m not completely alone. I promise I won’t wander off. I’m not a kid.”

“No, you’re Bella and you do wander off at times. This is your nightmare, this house. There’s no way I’m leaving you all by yourself. Especially now that we know that they are still after you.”

“But what if I want to go poof?”

“Why would you want to do that!” Jeremy hissed. “Are you insane?”

She sighed as she slid down the wall and played with her camera. “Fine, give me a moment then, we’ll have some fun here.”

“I’m wondering where Jasper is,” Jeremy said as he sat down next to her. “He sent you to the top floor, after all. I would love to give him a piece of my mind and then some.”

Bella let out a chuckle. “He’s a ghost, Jer. You can’t hurt ghosts.”

“But you can. And Myriam can too. No doubt Drew and his buddies have their own technological way to hurt him,” he summed up, thoughtfully. “Your elemental friends outside can hurt him… the dark energies in here can hurt him…”

‘Are you sure you wish to be around this young man, ma’am?’

“You jerk,” Jeremy replied, rolling his eyes. “You sent her up there!”

‘I said her friends should go and check it out,’ Jasper countered. ‘I said I wanted to make sure she was safe, and the top floor definitely isn’t. How was I supposed to know she was going to go there?’

“Keeping her safe and out of trouble doesn’t mean sending her to the top floor.”

‘And I never said she should. She should not even be in this house,’ Jasper countered. ‘Are we going to have a fight? I’m dead, you can’t win,’ he told Jeremy before addressing himself to Bella. ‘Carlisle and Emmett are willing to talk, but you need to come alone.’

“Not going to happen,” Jeremy shook his head. “She’s not going anywhere alone.”

‘Then there will be no talks,’ Jasper shrugged. ‘Carlisle and Emmett are aware that you want to protect what’s hidden in this house just as much as they do. They won’t hurt you.’

“They’ve already hurt me,” Bella replied as she rubbed her arms in agitation and sighed. “Oh well, back to work it is,” she said before she got to her feet and checked her camera. “Ready Jer? We’ll just walk around here while everyone’s playing upstairs. How’s Rosalie doing, Jasper?”

‘They’ve turned her room into something hideous. I’m afraid that she’s taken a turn for the worst. Even I can’t get through to her anymore,’ he said solemnly. ‘Would it be possible for you to move us on?’

“Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do, to clean this entire house, but with cameras pointed at me like that special one upstairs, I’m limited.”

“She is limited, period.”

Jasper bowed. ‘I shall see what I can do about some equipment malfunctions. It’ll take a lot of effort and energy. There are some aware and friendly spirits in this house.’

Bella decided to go to the left, where she had gone with Kol the last time and it was entirely different in atmosphere. She stayed close to the windows, at first, to make sure that the spirits were being ‘scraped off’, before paying attention to some of the rooms. The first room had been used for dark magic, rituals. She could smell the sulfur coming out of the room before even entering it and she wasn’t surprised when Jeremy said he could see the sigils too. “Powerful stuff here,” she muttered as she shone her flashlight around in the room. “Do we know of any friendly witch in the area to remove the magic in this room?”

“Uh…” Jeremy scratched his head. “What about Linda, she’s upstairs and friendly?”

“You’d think she’d be up for it? Or has the tools necessary to perform such a ritual?”

“Did you come alone without some of your helpful things?” Jeremy countered playfully as he looked around, recognizing some of the symbols. “Whoever was in here used some old magic, it reminds me a little bit about the spell for the creation of the Hunters. It’s likely it’s not the same spell, but just as old.”

Bella nodded. She could feel that it was old magic, but not really that interesting when it came to the vortex a couple rooms over. And the other portals. And the other dark beings in this corridor. “Yeah, we could ask Linda to cleanse this room… or hope the room destroys itself,” she moved herself out of the room and went into the next one where she found the children. All of them. “Hello!” She greeted them with a smile. The children were all huddled together, afraid. “Don’t be afraid,” Bella said as she squatted down to get to eye level with them. “My name is Bella, and that’s Jeremy.”

The children looked to be from several different eras, and none of them looked like they had died of a trauma, which was a relief. Ghost children were one thing, hurt ghost children were an entirely different beast. Bella got a handful of marbles out of her pocket and smiled. “I told Jeremy I wasn’t going to bring any toys with me, but look!” She rolled them out on the floor. “They’re yours to play with!”

‘Don’t hurt us,’ a young boy said as he looked at Bella, warily. ‘Everyone wants to hurt us. The bad dead… the living…’

“Well, I promise you, I’m not going to hurt you,” Bella said as she sat down on the floor and made herself comfortable. “And Jeremy is here to protect us all,” she continued as she thumbed over her shoulder before placing the camera down, facing the children. Not that they would be picked up, but who cared? “Shall we play with the marbles? Roll them to me and I will roll them back. I want to play, this house is making me sad.”

‘Us too!’ The kids chorused as they scrambled to their feet to try and move the marbles. There was an older child who was standing behind the kids with his arms crossed over each other and Bella believed him to be their leader. It was good that these kids had someone at least that looked out for them. She sensed he had been a more recent death, and likely in this house, and that was wrong.

“What’s your name?” Bella asked him as she kept an eye on the other kids, still trying to push the marbles around. “Did you die here?”

The boy didn’t talk, but instead sent Bella images and it made her feel sad and appalled. “His name is Jeremiah and he and his family were in this… commune where ritual sacrifices were a thing. Mostly animals. Then one day, a man came to their area claiming that the end was near and that the only way to avoid this crisis was to come to this house and let the house claim one of their own.”

“What?” Jeremy blinked at her. “People still do that? Seriously?”

Bella slowly nodded. “He was chosen and a great honor was bestowed upon his family. He was killed in this house, his blood spread all around, seeping into the floorboards, his bones buried on the property.” She then turned to Jeremy. “Would our gracious host Mr. Cullen be aware of this, I wonder?”

Jeremy shrugged. “How recent was his death?”

“Oh, I think… 1950’s…” Bella cocked her head as she looked at the boy. “Yeah, around that time. So… basically not that recent but recent enough. He didn’t show himself the last time we were here because he felt ashamed and was afraid I was going to hurt him. Now that these other kids were brought here, he felt he had to step up and be a good big brother.”

When one of the marbles moved, Bella cheered. “Yes! Who did that?”

‘I did, my name is Marie.’

“Well done, Marie! Go teach the other ones,” she smiled at her. “That was amazing!”

“What’s her story, then?” Jeremy asked as he finally sat down next to Bella, his camera trained on his friend.

“Marie isn’t even from the States. I think she’s from England, Victorian Era. I feel she died of an illness, likely tuberculosis,” Bella said as she focused on the girl. “Marie, how did you get here?”

‘I was in a cupboard,’ Marie replied as she moved another marble. ‘And then I was not.’

‘I was in my house, and then I was not. I was here,’ another girl replied, she looked even older than Marie. ‘That’s the story for most of us.’

Bella nodded as that girl moved a marble. “Look at you! That is amazing! And you know what? I promise you, I’ll get you out of here, I just need a little time, okay?”

‘You are?’ the kids chorused, their eyes getting big.

“Every single one of you. I promise.”

“Bella, you can’t make promises you can’t keep,” Jeremy whispered in her ear.

“Shut up, I can keep this promise.” All the marbles started to roll through the room then. “Wow, you guys are awesome, that is great! Thank you! Have fun with these, Jeremy and I are going to continue and we’ll find a way to get you out of here, okay? Don’t leave this room.”

‘Okay!’

The next room they went in was what had been marked as Rosalie’s room last time she was there, and it broke her heart to see what had happened to it. There were mirrors all over the walls, ceilings and floors, all looking into each other and Bella could see what was in the mirrors. Darkness. Red eyes. Peering into her soul, at each other, fuelling the energy that was severely out of whack in that room.

She wanted Kol. She wanted his arms around her and him telling her that it was going to be alright. Right now, she wanted to cry. The room made her cry. Scared. Sad. Jeremy wasn’t entirely unaffected either, but Bella felt rage in him. “If you’re going to hurt me, you have a problem,” she muttered as she sat down in the middle of the room, switched off her mic and camera and waited for Jeremy to do the same. “After this I want to really take a break. Outside.”

“You got it,” Jeremy said as he made sure everything was turned off and stood in the doorway to make sure there wasn’t going to be someone who’d pass them by and see what Bella was doing. Hell, even he had no idea what she was doing other than staring into all those mirrors, but this was a room she had talked about the moment she learned of it. She needed to destroy it. If the destruction would come with a loud crashing sound, he could say that the mirrors merely shattered around her or something. Yeah, that would work. The house was crazy enough.

Soon enough, one of the observers from nerve center came on the walkie. “Guys? Your cameras and mics are off.”

“Yeah, we’re taking a small break,” Jeremy replied. “We’re fine, don’t worry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. We’ll come out in a bit.”

Bella flashed Jeremy a grin as he turned off the walkie talkie and then focused back on what she wanted to do. She could feel energy coming from behind the mirrors as well. She wouldn’t put it past the person who hung these to have put some sort of graffiti on the back of the mirrors to create portals. To make the mirrors extra dangerous.

‘You can’t fight us, little girl!’

Bella huffed as she tried to figure out how to proceed first.

‘What’s stopping me from coming outside, huh? If I do, I’ll tear your skin from your limbs while I fuck you mercilessly-‘

“Gross,” Bella muttered as she slammed the floor, sending healing energy through the mirrors and negating the effects of the signs on the back of the mirrors. “Fuck off, all of you. You’re not welcome here. You’re not ever going to be welcome here again. You’re not going to attach yourself to myself or my friends. We do not want your presence,” she said as she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and focused hard enough to shatter all the mirrors at once, creating just as what Jeremy expected.

A lot of noise and parts of the mirrors flying around, surprisingly all missing Bella as she had turned translucent. No, not translucent, she had poofed out to escape the falling pieces. He only realized that when her leash snapped back into him, nearly hitting him in the face.

“So uh, how many years of bad luck does this mean?” Jeremy asked as he scratched his head and kept his eyes on Bella. When he heard footsteps running towards them, he cursed and ran towards Bella, nearly slipping on the glass. “Turn back,” he hissed as he covered her body with his, quickly throwing up a few slivers of glass to make it appear as if they had landed ontop of him.

“Are you guys alright?” Drew asked shocked upon seeing the damage. “What were you doing?”

“Taking a break,” Jeremy replied and stared at Bella, who was still translucent.

‘We have a problem,’ she replied angrily.

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