“You’ve learned the technique?” Sam asked.

“That I did.”

“Show me.”

Show you? Alright I’ll show you. Grabbing the door handle and the sphere of light enveloping my hand. I did a quick turn and swung the door open. Then I puffed my chest out.

“Too easy,” I huffed, “you said this would take diligence, but it wasn’t hard to learn at all.”

“Now Gray,” Sam paused, “how long do you think you were in there?”

Raising my hand and leaving my index finger up, I said, “One day at the most.”

“One day,” Sam repeated and cackled after saying so. “You were in that room for more than a week.”

“No way, it didn’t feel like any time had passed though-h,” I replied, my voice cracking in the end gave away my surprise.

“It did, although it was still amazing how fast you were.”

“Sure as hell was!” I stomped my foot, “now bow before my great self.”

“…No,” Sam replied full of candor that made it clear that my joke wasn’t amusing.

“You can be so straight-laced Sam.”

“What of it? Better than being unprepared.”

Hmm, it makes a good point. Hearing a noise outside we turned our heads to the window. As proud as I was to have learned to physically touch things. I closed the door, when I really didn’t need to. It was the bathroom after all. The next person to go wouldn’t be worried if it was or wasn’t closed.

I felt the need to show off to Sam, I could tell the eyeball had assumed I would fail from the start. It’s not like Sam has put effort into teaching me so far. Its been half measured each time. I’m not happy about it either. Sam is the only per-, well, thing I can rely on right now though.

From the window on the second floor, me and Sam watched Jason leave his car and start to make his way towards the front door with a raincoat and his shoes covered in mud.

“When did Jason leave?” I asked Sam.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean ‘you don’t know’?”

“I mean, I never heard him leave, I had my attention elsewhere at the time.”

“Why would Jason leave the house? I’ve never seen him leave before.”

“I have no clue, but it’s undeniable that it’s odd. He hasn’t left the house since his wife and daughter died. He even took leave from work. Ellie and Sophie have been doing all the shopping too.”

“So, Jason hasn’t left the house once in the last month?”

“That’s right.”

Placing my hand on my chin I rubbed it, something is up. He wouldn’t leave without a reason.

“Why don’t we go check on him?” I asked Sam.

“Sure, I don’t see an issue with that.”

And so we made for downstairs. Jason had already come inside and was in the middle of taking his dirty shoes off. After taking them off he worked to get his raincoat off and his hair that stayed combed back had been all ruffled apart. He thought he was alone, so he didn’t fix it and I giggled at his messy demeanor.

He groaned and stretched his arms out and after putting them down he sighed and said, “…Thought I was close with this one and yet it was another dead end.”

Then he pulled himself up from the bottom step and headed for the study. We followed and he walked at a turtle’s pace. It was slow for Jason, he would usually have no problems getting around the house. But now he looked like he had risen from the grave to chase after virgins. His black eyes offset him from being mistaken as a vampire.

“Why does he look so exhausted?”

“If I had to guess, he must have gone to work today,” Sam replied.

To work, huh. Jason made it into the study and sat down in his chair.

“What does Jason do?”

“Well,” Sam looked at Jason’s hand that pulled out a badge, “he’s a detective.”

Then Jason put his badge in the top left drawer, closing it and acted as though the badge had little meaning to him.

“I see, so that’s why he had that list with so many names.” I said pointing at the paper on his desk.

“That list? No, it has nothing to do with his work, you see that’s for something more personal to him.”

“Personal?”

“Yep, involving his wife and daughter.”

“You kn-”

Sam spoke up above me, “Ahh, I can tell you’re about to ask, so I’ll tell you now. They were murdered.”

“I see.”

“What’s wrong, didn’t you want to know?” Sam asked with a concerned voice.

“Yeah! Of course, I did, you know me. Always asking questions,” I said and laughed, but there was this, this lingering feeling inside of me. Telling me that I shouldn’t question it.

Jason leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. At first, I thought he was resting his eyes, but the guy fell asleep in the chair and so I took that chance to fix his hair. The hair that’s always combed back. With a comb that I grabbed from the bathroom, I straightened it out.

“You don’t have to do that, he would have done it himself.”

“I wanted to,” holding his hair back with my hand, I looked at the frail pale man. “He’s had it rough.”

“He’s been worse,” Sam said, then left. Likely it went to mess with Phraze.

Sam may not see the same as I, but I can feel it. Jason and I are similar, he’s looking to redeem himself and I’m looking to regain who I once was. Hmm, if I use him, I would have an easier time finding out about myself. So I thought and then I slapped his forehead. He jumped up, surprised and scanned the room with a fierce glare and found nobody around. Calming down, Jason said, “Must have been my imagination,” and looked at his list.

That’s the way, through him and his list.