She doesn't comprehend it, not right away. Her fingers tug through her own hair and then finally it comes, "Shit, fuck, oh fuck, shit." A flurry of things pass through her and she doesn't move, doesn't want to, can't. Then she looks down. The bowl of blood and salt still sits at her feet. Stella's salt, Stella's words, Stella's kiss. Lacey bends down, collects the bowl, and runs out after them, a hand cupped over the top.

Fuck. This. Ghost.

She marches into the purgatory hallway. The agonized lamenting shakes through the glass, deafening as they beg her to take them out of the rain because it burns! It burns! Water streams down in sheets and when lightning strikes, the whole corridor lights up.

"Gideon!" she calls, crossing her fingers for a response.

Nothing. The corridor ends, she enters the small room they'd invaded at the start, and the pained moans die away to faint cries.

There's another flash. A silhouette forms at the window, Gideon's cheeks illuminated darkly as he stares through the busted window. Rain speckles his face and eyes but he doesn't move, doesn't even blink. She glances around the room and searches for Darcy's aura, but it, and she, is nowhere to be seen. Once this is decided, she lets herself breath a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God. Are you okay? Where'd she go?"

He doesn't answer. On wary toes, she nears. "Hey? Gideon?"

Now, she's not a touchy-feely individual by any means, but still, she's compelled to reach out and touch his elbow to grab his attention, to pull him from his reverie. Her fingertips brush the sleeve. That's all it is, all she's allowed.

In a swift movement too fast for her to react, his arm swings out and his body spins. There's pressure shoving her away and an ache as her back strikes the wall beside the window. His cheekbones flash stark white, then disappear. Once that happens, she finds herself unable to breathe. Fingers dig into her throat. Her lungs struggle against the pressure of the pads of his fingers, trying to force air up, air in, with little success. She can barely hear her own shallow breaths beyond the storm, the thundering sky, the ringing in her ears.

"St-" Stop. "Sss..." Stop. It won't come up. Her tongue struggles with get off, but that's even worse. Nothing else processes, nothing. This doesn't make sense. And when the light returns, and his face glows from the light of the broken window, she catches sight of the deep smile etched onto his lips. That's when it hits. Something's wrong. Something's wrong.

When she flings the entirety of the contents of the bowl in her hand at Gideon's face - salt and blood, fresh and dry alike - it's on instinct. They haven't failed her yet. His cheek splatters and sizzles, red from fluid and inflammation, and he stumbles away in a thrashing motion. Occupied with pain, she chucks the bowl at him and takes this opportunity to launch herself through the window. The towel is gone and there's still glass in the frame so her fingers blossom vermilion, but she can't stop.

The skinny lamp-post from her first few days here, where she'd seen the first hint of Malevolence in Carrick, shines bright, blinding in comparison to the darkness in the warehouse, and its bulb casts blue undertones to this world. The grey pebbles making up the ground outside seep with mud, and puddles shine like liquid silver. Her boots break the calm as she runs across the lot. She got away from Malevolence here once, yes. She can do it again.

But not in rain this harsh. Not with the wind pushing against her chest. Not with a demon trapped in a lanky anxious gay man right on her tail. All things considered, she doesn't get very far before his entire body collides with hers from behind and they both crash to the ground in a tackle. Water splashes into her mouth and pebbles dig into her cheek. She twists around and launches her elbow into his jaw. He roars in her face and then he's directly on top of her and unfortunately for him, she has knees. One goes straight into his groin as hard as she can muster. He pauses long enough to deal with his mortal pain for her to scramble away.

She's only risen to her knees by the time he recovers. His footsteps are lost to the rain and thunder, but the sharp stabbing sting of her hair being yanked from the scalp makes his recovery abundantly clear. She cries out and her hands go to her head to try and dull the pain but then he pulls, hard, and she goes tumbling forward, landing on her hip. He keeps pulling and her legs scurry over the gravel, unable to resist.

"If you won't figure out what happened to Darcy," he hisses at her, venom seeping between his teeth, "you can share her fate."

Her breaths come rough and fast after that. She tries wrenching out even harder, and the unbearable fire in her scalp is bearable just long enough for her to get loose. Once. Her hair slips from his fingers and she flattens out on the ground. The sky falls around her, and the night is clear between some of the raindrops down here. Then Gideon leans over her and blocks it all. His features are set hard: a sculpted frown, hollow cheeks, dark eyes. Water curls down the tips of his hair and lands on her forehead, icy. His face streams with rainwater. "You're being difficult."

Before she can respond, he grabs her from under the arms and keeps dragging, his own feet shuffling this time with the exertion of pulling her weight. This is enough for her, though. Now that her skin isn't being torn at the seams, she can think. She still has Gideon's pocketknife. With some stretching, she's able to whip it from her pocket. The button sinks and the blade whisks and with a strong flick of the wrist, it drives into his leg.

He's tugging too hard when he lets go. He stumbles and falls over himself, gripping his calf and seething between his teeth. "You bitch! Stupid bitch!"

She shouldn't look back. She should leave him here to suffer, but it's not him. She turns back to see if he's okay, but then a wave of vertigo hits when she realizes that just a few feet away, there's no ground anymore. On her hands and knees, she stares out slack-jawed at where the cliff ends and the sky begins. They're way too close, and the malevolent spirit's words still ring in her ears. You can share her fate.

"Fuck," she strains, pushing herself to a stand. He gets up too. He's faster. One arm wraps around her shoulders, one around her hands, and he squeezes hard enough to cut off the blood and she drops the knife. It clatters, metal on stone. He slowly moves them closer to the edge, and she's too scared to make any sudden movements to fight against him. The wet noise of his smile sits next to her ear.

"Oh, this is just rich," he says in her ear, breath hot and odorous with Malevolence. Like a dead rat is stuck in his throat, rotting away. Chuckles like it, too. "Y'know, I really do hate having to give up this mortal vessel. But since you're such a fighter, you're not really giving me much of a choice. I guess it'll have to be you and your friend here taking the plunge, yeah? Sure, it'll hurt me, too, but only for a moment. I can find another. Same with Darcy. She can find another clairvoyant. Maybe one that isn't such a bitch."

Her chest pounds and ribs hurt. Breaths are sour and painful to take. Lacey mumbles and mutters, sputtering.

"What was that? Are you saying something?"

She hates the words when she hears them because they make everything in her body stand on end, but still, she says them.

"Me. Just throw me. Don't hurt him." The world spins below.

"Oh, now isn't this a twist ending!" He stops at the edge of the cliff, and when Lacey glances down, she sees the toes on one foot hanging off. She swallows thickly and an involuntary noise comes up. She tries to turn her head away, too, but he turns her head back, makes her look. Makes her see all of Carrick, the endless expanse of forest and the river over there and the buildings down by the lake, all of it. Far-off street-lights twinkle.

"I almost feel bad about this now. Sigh. But just look. Isn't it beautiful? Spring is coming, Miss Waits. But so is the water, see? Down there, the flooding is worse. It's finally coming up the Epling bridge, and soon it'll be downtown, and soon, hm, that boy you've been trying so hard to save, he'll be underwater too. I give him a day more, at most. Won't be too long after you die. Won't it be so nice to be reunited?"

"Go to Hell." Lacey spits, and a twisted lump of saliva and blood goes flying off the cliff.

"Will do," he says, simple. And with that, he applies a small amount of pressure to her back. She trembles and her breath hitches and oh, God, this is where she dies. She'll wash up just like Stella in the river but dry and broken and it will be over and what will happen to her dad when he finds out? She closes her eyes and thinks of a good thing.

Stella's eyes and Gideon's laughter.

Suddenly, she's teetering, and her eyes and throat open at the same time. The sky in front of her brightens. Something heavy crunches behind them, fast. Shadowed patterns cross underfoot. Headlights. A car. She gasps, and he curses. "Fuck."

Fingers tighten around her arms and then the wind is knocked out of her because she's laying on the ground, panting. All she knows for a good long while is that she's not falling a hundred feet towards death. Then, blindness. She sits up and blinks profusely as she tries to crane and see who it is, but she has to shield her eyes from the blinding headlights shining their way.

The side door pops open. They can't see who gets out, just a silhouette. No sooner is their head sticking out do they collapse to the ground. The driver's side is thrown open and they run out in front of the headlights, in a true panic, to help them up. "Jesus Christ, are you mad?" A woman.

"No! I have to confess. I have to confess!"

Lacey squints. She might just be mishearing - her head is spinning, after all - but still, she asks, "Nefyn? Dolly? What the hell are you doing here?" She wants to get up and join them, to get as far away from Gideon as possible, but he's still perched dangerously close to the end of the world, and his jaw is set hard, teeth clenched. At any moment, the thing inhabiting his body can still decide to jump, and she wants to be near enough to grab him if it does.

The two of them watch, waiting. Dolly moves to the trunk to remove his wheelchair, but Nefyn buries his face in the ground, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. "I lied to you today, Lacey. I lied right to your face. I hate lying, I can't stand it. I'm sorry. I need to tell you the truth. To make it better, I must tell you the truth."

Dolly kneels at his side and helps him into the chair. Once they're situated, she pushes him forward, huffing. "This is fucking insane, Nef. It's pouring and late and none of us should be out here."

"It can't wait." Nefyn shakes his head. He can't stop. "It has to be now. And after Gideon there told me where you two were headed, I knew it had to be here."

Lacey clenches her fists. This is all disorienting. "What are you talking about?"

Nefyn is firm. "We talked about guilt today. But I have to admit, it's still eating me alive. So I have to stop it, cast it out, leave it behind here tonight." He lowers his head and sputters and runs his hands through his black hair until he brushes the scar at the side. His eyes lift, then, and find Lacey's. "It was a hot summer day here, and we were roughhousing. The other boys got called to lunch, but we stayed here, roughhousing. Tag, it was. And it was a thrilling game, being so close to the edge. We didn't know any better."

His face contorts and he turns his head around on his neck, like he's trying to stretch out a kink, and shaking it, looking this way and that, looking with his eyes closed. "And then she stopped right at the edge because she couldn't run anymore, but I was stupid. A stupid, stupid little boy, with no common sense. I was stupid and so I tagged her still, but I tagged too hard. And she fell back. And then she just...fell." He nods and a sob breaks free, blending with the storm.

And then, the words come that stop Lacey dead in her tracks, the words that fling all thoughts from her brain, right down that cliff where she could be. Words she's been trying to find for two weeks.

"I killed Darcy Wepler on accident and it's been eating me my whole life."

She can't speak. There's no formulation of a response within her at all. All this time, it's been him. All this time, the solution to all these problems caused by Darcy has been under her nose. All this time. So, to make sure she heard him correctly, she repeats, "You killed Darcy." Then, under her breath, "If you're not out here listening to this right now, I'll kill you in the afterlife too once your little bitch demon gets ahold of me again, little girl."

Just to make sure she's heard, she glances back at the warehouse, and sure enough, a little young face peers out from behind the wall. When Nefyn parts his lips to speak again, she takes a step closer.

"And it wasn't all a lie today. I did tell those friends of mine about what I did and they did beat me to hell and back but that's not how I got this way." He swallows. His mouth must be coated in shame, because his voice is full of it. "That came later. I couldn't deal with it anymore. I thought I deserved to go down like I made her go. So one night, I came out here, and I, and I, I, and I just-"

Dolly lays her hand on his shoulder, but he pushes it off, angry, almost. "I just came up to this edge and then I just- I jumped." His voice cracks on the last words, which he says like they're so simple, like the demon's, "Will do."

"I never made it the entire way down," he explains, fiddling with his fingers. "A protruding tree, the trunk, it'd been sticking out of the rocks and I fell right down. My spine was the first to hit it. I...I slipped off and landed on a ledge. Couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't hardly breathe. I was helpless. When they finally found me, they had to lift me up by helicopter."

There's a long pause, uncomfortable. Nefyn's weeping periodically rises above the pelting rainfall. Thunder rolls, and Lacey looks to Gideon. He's still twitching with tension, but he looks more tired in the face, like the thing taking hold of him is getting weaker and Gideon is fighting his way back to the surface. This whole situation must be why.

She turns to Nefyn and lifts her voice high, making sure Darcy can hear. "You didn't mean to kill her," she says firmly. "It was an accident, and accidents happen. It wasn't fair to her, no. But life isn't fair."

These words seem to break his face down further. He halts his crying to ask, "So what can I do? What can I do to make it even an iota better? I can't bring her back, so it doesn't seem like I can do anything. I have to carry this until it finally kills me."

Lacey turns back to Darcy. Her pale face has finally taken on a tinge of color, the blotchy redness of crying. She nods at the little girl. "The most you can do is tell her you didn't mean to hurt her, and that you're sorry. That's all you can offer her, and all she can accept."

He sputters like he finds the idea ludicrous. "Kid, she's-"

Lacey whirls on him and her own wet hair smacks her in the face. "Just say it. I promise it'll make things better."

Although there's skepticism on his dark, puffed features, he nods, and looks out over Carrick as Lacey had done just a few moments before. His eyes dart around, from trees to the buildings down by the lake to the twinkling lights down there and the sparkling water rushing through Carrick as the water takes up residence. Something shifts in him, then, and another half-sob breaks out of his throat. There's no way to know what he's thinking, but after taking a deep breath, he says the things that he must.

"I'm sorry, Darcy. I'm sorry I tagged you when I shouldn't have. I wasn't thinking and...and I got you killed. And I can't take that back, but I need you to know that it was an accident, and I am truly, deeply sorry. I'd do anything to make it right but I can't. It's too late. It's too late and I'm... I'm sorry."

He takes another sharp breath, a few of them, like he's not getting enough air. They all share a long stretch of silence as he collects himself. Dolly holds a magazine from the car over her head to protect her hair, but the rain soaks through the fluttering pages. Gideon still stands stock still at the edge of the cliff, one shoulder lifted higher with tension than the other. Lacey sits on the ground, waiting.

Then, beside her, release. A big breath puffs out of Gideon's lips and he takes two clumsy steps forward before falling to his knees beside Lacey. His hands fumble and smack at the puddled ground, but eventually they find her hand, and he wraps both around her knuckles. He holds on tight. For a moment, her chest tightens with fear and she's just about ready to punch him in the face before she sees the bloodshot redness of his eyes, the hurt downturn to his lips. He's crying. Nobody else can tell with all the rain, but sure as Carrick is submerging right now, he's crying.

Lacey rests her free hand over his, and squeezes. It'll be okay, she mouths.

Dolly clears her throat and finally tosses the soggy magazine to the ground. "We need to get out of this rain before we all catch pneumonia. Nefyn, I'm putting you in first, so don't fight me."

She jostles the wheelchair from where the wheels have sunken into the ground but Nefyn says, "Wait." She instantly releases the handles and gives him his space. He rubs his face with the same blue scarf from earlier, clearing away salt and rain. "You kids, you've done so much to help me. You've helped me see what the right way is. Please, come with us. Dolores made cookies earlier and they're still fresh. I've got a craving for tea and you two look exhausted. Dolores, what time is it?"

The woman furrows her brows and pops her head into the still-running car to check the time. "Three in the morning. Christ, you two. This is ridiculous. I thought he was mad for wantin' to come all the way on out here, but cuh-lear-ly he's not the only one."

Nefyn's gaze lingers on Dolly for a moment before returning to Lacey and Gideon. His features are softer than she's ever seen them - almost like he's at peace, or something. "Get out of the rain, you two. I want to give you proper thanks. You should let me. Come, come." He finally nods at Dolly, and she proceeds to nudge him from his stuck place.

Lacey turns to Gideon, and he nods, blinking the tiredness from his eyes. "I can't go back to my mom like this. I can't." He doesn't say more. He doesn't have to.

"And I can't go back home with my dad on the warpath," Lacey offers. "Not yet, anyways. Go on and get buckled. I'll catch up."

He smiles, solemn, then grunts as he stands. He walks like he's sore, but still, he stops to help get Nef and the wheelchair folded back up into the car. Lacey stands, too, but even over the storm she can hear all of her joints crack at once. "Ow."

There's a shock of ice through the fabric over her elbow. She jumps, but when she glances down, the only things to fear are the baby-faced cheeks of a young girl and the red rimming her eyes. Darcy's lip quivers.

And for now, Lacey is not afraid. "Dry those eyes."