Upon opening the door, Sam's face split into a huge grin as he saw Lucy. Then, however, his eyes settled on Lockwood right next to her, and his smile turned into a scowl.

"Good," Lockwood thought, very privately, to himself.

He wouldn't describe himself as a possessive person, of course, or even a jealous one. But for reasons beyond his understanding, he just did not like Sam. Did not like him, for the life of him. He could die, really, for all Lockwood cared.

"How nice to meet you again!" Lockwood greeted him with a bright smile on his face. "How are you on this fine evening?"

Sam looked at him dumbfounded, slightly out of breath. He wore pyjamas - a top with a sleeping sheep on it and matching pants - but he didn't seem to notice. "Fine, thanks, I guess? What are you guys doing here? It's almost night."

"Exactly," Lockwood smiled. "Would you mind if we came in for a cup of tea? I'm terribly thirsty. And we have an offer you won't be able to refuse."

Sam opened the door wider for them, still a bit bewildered and eyeing Lockwood cautiously, who didn't miss the way a flush crept up Colby's neck as Lucy squeezed past him with a friendly nod of her head.

Lockwood quickly followed her. "Nice clothing," he uttered as he and Sam were closest. "That sheep looks very cosy on there." He gave him another bright smile before he fully moved past, feeling very gleeful and proud when he noticed Sam's blush deepening and him looking down at himself, horrified.

Lockwood's smile stopped, however, when George threw him a look. "What?"

George shook his head. "You two owe me compensational money for personal suffering."

They sat down on the small couch whilst Sam was busy making them tea. He did, intermittently, go into his bedroom to change outfits.

"Alright," he said as he gave everyone their respective cup. "What has brought you here?"

"We want to help you get rid of the visitor that's plaguing your home," Lockwood said nonchalantly.

"What?"

"Assuming it hasn't already been dealt with? I apologize, but this morning it sounded like that was still a pressing issue-"

"It is!" Sam quickly got out. "The ghost must still be there, no one's been able to locate the source."

"Well, then let us be the ones to do it."

Sam looked taken aback. "But... are you sure? I could go back home? You would do that for me?" Then, he made a grimace. "How much would that cost me?"

Lockwood waved his words away. "Oh, we're such good friends, it'll be free of charge." He watched Sam's face break out into a grin before he spoke again. "However, there is a favour you could grant us."

"Anything."

"Well, we stumbled upon these papers during our investigation," Lockwood explained, taking them out of George's grasp and holding them up for Sam to see. "Sadly, they were written in German, which none of us speaks. They are not all that important, frankly, but it would still be nice to have the whole picture," he downplayed. "You said your uncle lived in Germany for a while, correct?"

Sam's eyes widened excitedly. "Yes! And he does have a few German books on his shelf at home - he didn't teach me enough of it to translate it freely, but with those books, I could get that sorted out in a few hours, tops."

Lockwood's smile grew brighter still. "Excellent. Then we have a deal: We clear your house of the ghost, and you translate these pages for us."

He felt Lucy's and George's incredulous looks on him then. He still hadn't told them the plan, but frankly, he liked it that way - surprising them just felt that much nicer.

"Can I ask where you found those?" Sam asked curiously, inspecting the paper more closely now.

"No, you may not," Lockwood answered, still smiling. "Company secret. I'm sure you understand."

Sam looked uneasily back and forth between Lucy and Lockwood, apparently finally catching on to the very sarcastic undertone in Lockwood's politeness.

"Well, that'll be alright with me. As long as it helps to get that thing out of the streets - and out of the houses, too. Do you guys want me to drive you there?"

"That would be lovely."

"Alright, let me just grab my keys."

Both had done pretty well until now to not openly question Lockwood, but as soon as Sam vanished from sight, Lucy and George turned to him.

"What the fuck are we doing here, Lockwood?" George asked.

"You didn't have to offer to contain Colby's ghost," Lucy argued, and Lockwood felt a good bit of relief at her referring to him by his last name instead of his first. "He would've done the translation just to help us! We have to get back to the mill, Mary can't stall forever!"

That was true, as Lockwood very well knew. He also hadn't explained the plan to her, of course, but she had agreed to stall her company's efforts to go into Wythburn Mill until Lockwood & Co. would be back.

"I know. But if we don't get the source from Colby's house, there will be nothing to stall for. Unless you've hidden anything underneath your shirt again, this is the only one we've got." He was trying to make a play on when she'd carried Annabell's ring with her into Combe Carey Hall but quickly blushed when he noticed how that last sentence actually had sounded.

George's raised eyebrows didn't help.

Luckily, Lucy seemed to be too preoccupied with her annoyance. " Please tell us your plan," she whined. "My sister might well be dying tonight, and it would relief me greatly if I knew just how you plan on preventing that."

Lockwood groaned. "But that would ruin the whole reveal!"

"Tell us, Lockwood," George said sternly.

With another moan, Lockwood gave in and told them.

" That is your plan?" Lucy shrieked upon hearing it, clearly horrified. "Take the source from Colby's house, which we are just going to hope is connected to a Type One, place it in the mill before Mary's team goes in, have them act that this is the very real changer haunting it, and then go back later to secure the real source?"

"To be fair," Lockwood complained, "it sounded a lot better when I said it."

"That whole plan is completely ridiculous," George stated. " But it is so ridiculous it might work."

Lucy turned towards him with an incredulous look, but he just shrugged his shoulders. "Jacobs can't sense anything, after all. He won't know whether it's a changer or a lurker. As long as it has some ghost connected to it, DEPRAC will approve of the burning."

"But we're not even equipped for an investigation!" Lucy commented. "I only have some salt bombs and iron filings on me."

"I, also, only have salt bombs."

"I don't have any chains either," Lockwood admitted, "but we won't need them for a ghost this weak."

"So you hope," George stated.

"Remember the last time we went and tried doing a job without chains?" Lucy asked, and yes, of course he did.

Lockwood rolled his eyes. "We do not have any time to go back to the hotel and stock up. I'm sorry not all of your needs are met, but this is the best I could come up with on such short notice!"

Lucy went quiet, looked down. "You're right. Sorry. Just one question: When we see Mary next time she'll be with her company, right?"

"Yes, I assume so."

"So did you tell her about the plan? You know, that she needs to act as if that weak source is the real thing?"

Lockwood nodded then, not in affirmation, but in realisation of the one flaw his plan had. "Ah. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"I can't fucking believe-" whatever George wanted to say, it was cut short as Colby entered the room again, dressed in something warmer, keys in hand, smile on his face.

"Alright, you guys ready to go?"

-------------------------------------------------------

With a cheeky grin, Sam held the door to the passenger side open for Lucy, but before she could accept his offer and climb in, Lockwood beat her to the punch.

"Why, thank you!" He said whilst getting in, making Sam's grin fall off his face and leaving Lucy to irritatedly join George in the back of the car.

"What are you laughing for?" Lucy asked him quietly, but he just raised his hands in defence and made the gesture of zipping his mouth shut.

"Sorry, can't tell you if you don't know already. But it's very entertaining," he whispered back, and despite him being quiet, Lockwood still shot him a threatening look that Lucy noticed.

Was there something going on she didn't know about?

Whatever it was, the car ride in Sam's company truck was far too short to figure it out. Much sooner than Lucy would've liked, they were standing in front of an unassuming row house. Nothing stood out about it, nothing drew attention to the ghost residing inside. But then again, it almost never did.

"This is it?" George asked after they had gotten out, and Sam nodded solemnly.

"Let me just go and unlock the back door for you, in case you need to run or something like that."

It was nice that, for once, their client actually cared whether they lived or died, and Lucy shot him a grateful smile before he went around the house. He grinned back. She noticed then that he was trying to cover up his crooked teeth, seemingly embarrassed by them. Lucy felt bad, trying to put a bit more sympathy into her gaze. No one should feel bad about not having had access to dental orthodontics, after all. Hell, her mother probably wouldn't have even gotten her braces had she not cared so much about what other people thought of them.

Lockwood's gaze rested on her as she turned back around, but he looked away before she could question him on it.

"Alright, everyone empty their pockets. Let's see what we've got."

They sorted through their meagre inventory up until Sam came back, splitting their resources fairly between them. They all ended up with a few salt bombs and iron filings, and Lockwood and George both carried a silver net. They all knew that without flares or chains, they had to ration wisely and simply hope for the best.

"Both doors are unlocked," Sam told them, "and don't worry if you need to break any windows or furniture - it's more important to me you get back safely than that my decor stays unharmed," he said with a warm smile towards Lucy.

"Oh, don't worry, we're known for our more fiery attitude," George quipped.

An awkward silence erupted.

"I'll just go and wait in the car," Sam finally said with a nervous laugh. "See if I can figure out anything about these pages without the book. Scream if you need me to drive into the house and save you or something."

"We'll be perfectly fine, but thank you." His tone was ice-cold, and Lockwood was already well on his way towards the door. "We need to hurry now. Time is of the essence, after all."

Lucy shot Sam an apologetic look before rushing after Lockwood. "Why are you being so unkind? He's been nothing but nice to us!" she whisper-shouted at him.

"He just assumed we would need to be saved!"

"We are drastically understocked and have no idea what's awaiting us inside," George commented.

"And the way he flirts with you! That's completely unprofessional!"

"He did not flirt with me!"

George coughed. "He kind of did, just to be fair."

"So what if he did? It's not as if we're about to elope right here and now, is it? You don't seem to mind when people flirt with you on a case!" Lucy exclaimed, but Lockwood just shook his head.

"That's different."

"How?!"

He seemed to struggle for words for a few moments. "I don't know. But there is just some... glint in his eyes when he looks at you that doesn't feel right."

This made Lucy still instantly. Slowly, dangerously silent, she turned to Lockwood. "Oh, so this is what this all is about. You don't think anyone could be interested in me without some kind of... ulterior motive?"

She had known, of course, that he didn't want her. He had made that much clear. But that he thought no one could? It was an entirely new low, an entirely new depth of pain within her. It felt like her skin was plucked from her body all over again, leaving her heart to bleed out on the ground below.

"Guys, no negative feelings this close to a haunted house," George intervened nervously, and even though so many mixed feelings still burned in her veins, she knew that he was right.

"That's not what I meant-" Lockwood started, but Lucy interrupted him with her raised hand.

"It's fine, Lockwood," she said, her voice sounding more exhausted than she had wanted it to. "Let's just hurry up and get this source contained. Mary's waiting on us."

She turned away and went inside before he could say anything that might worsen the stinging in her eyes.

----------------------------------------------

The house wasn't too big, which was important for their situation: With limited materials, they managed to establish a base by separating the kitchen with a line of iron filings. They had barely finished when George was already raiding the pantry for leftover biscuits.

At Lucy's hissed scolding, he shrugged his shoulders. "We can just say the ghost destroyed them."

The sun had just set when they started actually setting out into the house. Strategically, they had placed both a small circle of iron filings on the ground and on the first floor of the house, but since they still needed some for possibly needed impromptu efforts, they couldn't do much more than that.

Lucy just hoped the ghost wasn't strong enough to get through iron filings.

They started their actual tour of the house on the first floor.

"Two death glows," Lockwood reported as they passed the bedroom where Sam's aunt and uncle must've slept - and where they had been killed. "So bright they're blinding."

"How's the temperature doing?"

"Pretty much normal. Not dropping in this room."

Lucy focused for a second to see if she could hear anything, but nothing sprung out at her.

"Skull, can you feel anything?"

"You still haven't let me scare a dog after I helped you out last time."

"The dog was for you keeping quiet . But yes, I'll up the count to two dogs if you help us now."

The skull laughed gratingly. "Oh, Lucy, where only would you be without me?"

"In much less misery, probably."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. But, yes, I do feel... something. A small presence. Not strong as of right now."

Lucy passed the skull's words on to her friends, who visibly relaxed a bit.

"Then it might actually be a Type One," George said. "We might get lucky."

"Don't jinx it," Lucy immediately followed up. "What did Sam say again? The shade killed them in here and then vanished through the wall into the corridor? If it's weak, the source might be close."

"There aren't any other death glows in this house," Lockwood said, "nothing that indicates someone else might have died here. So your guess is as good as mine as to where or what the source is."

"Could be something they got from an antique store," George mused. "Those lamps look suspiciously old."

"Everything here looks suspiciously old. They were old people," Lucy corrected.

Slowly, they went to inspect different corners of the room, and after that, the house, but came up empty. No cold touches, no sounds, no suspicious glows or herds of spiders.

"It might still be some time until the visitor materialises," Lockwood said after a while. "Let's go to the kitchen and have some tea while we wait."

It was whilst walking back to the kitchen through the living room that Lucy heard it first: An incredibly soft humming, reciting a melody unfamiliar to her.

Lockwood, of course, noticed her sudden shift of attention. "Hear anything?"

"Humming," she answered. "It's still quiet."

She could feel the visitor's presence at the edge of her mind. Lucy supposed that, if she opened up her mind like she had done with the doll again, she might be able to hear more, might be able to hear what the ghost was humming. But she was more careful now. She wanted the feeling of muscle and skin dripping down her body to stay a 'once in a lifetime' experience.

Lockwood, on the other hand, had no such qualms.

"Oh, come on!" He shouted. "Is that all you've got? I could haunt this house better than you."

"Don't taunt it!" Lucy scolded him.

"I think you'd be a pretty scary ghost, actually," George commented, already getting his rapier out in anticipation.

"Thank you, George."

"Very lanky, very skinny. Gaunt, one could even say. With drastically oversized limbs."

"I'm not commenting on that."

Lucy tuned in and out of their conversation, trying as much as possible to focus on the ghost's humming. It had grown louder now, bit by bit.

"It's coming closer."

All three of them were standing back to back now, rapiers in one hand, salt bombs in the other.

"Watch where it goes when it materializes. It might tell us where the source is."

"It's getting louder," Lucy said, "I can hear... footsteps now, too. And what sounds like a door creaking open... there's a scratching noise now."

"Death loop, most likely," George commented, but Lucy's face turned into a grimace.

"I thought they were both fast asleep when they died. How could there have been humming?"

Miasma had taken hold of her now, she felt the room grow colder and colder every second.

"I don't think this is a Type One," she said, holding her rapier tighter.

It was strange, really. They were standing with far too little equipment in a haunted house they had done no research on, possibly facing a Type Two. There were gut-wrenching sounds in her ears. Lucy should be scared. She should be terrified out of her mind, actually.

And still, she wasn't. Because there they were, standing with their backs pressed against each other, prepared to face danger coming from any direction.

It felt so right , fighting in a haunted house with George and Lockwood by her side. This is where she felt most alive, as much as she hated to admit it. Here she belonged .

The death loop started over again, the humming now invading her ears once more, much louder than the first time.

"I hear it now, too," George said.

"Why don't you show yourself?" Lockwood shouted again. "Too scared? Too scared to get nicked in the butt?"

"She didn't like that," Lucy murmured.

And then, suddenly, the rising sounds stopped. Complete silence fell over them. Only the temperature dropped further.

"Look," Lockwood said, letting his rapier drop a bit. "It's just a shade, after all. There, standing next to the couch. Can you see it?"

He was right, there was something lurking right behind the cushions. Lucy could only see a bare human outline, hardly distinguishable from the shadows beyond. It started walking now, slowly, into the separated dining area.

Lockwood motioned George and Lucy to follow him, and they did, still mindful.

"It's gone completely silent," Lucy mentioned. "I don't trust it."

"Seems it can't make up its mind," Lockwood said, walking through the door now. "But I knew we'd-"

Whatever he'd wanted to say was, at least to Lucy's ears, interrupted by an ear-bursting scream. Before any of them could react, the door to the dining area slammed shut, knocking Lockwood out cold in the process.

"Lockwood!" Lucy shrieked and wanted to run to him immediately, but there was still the scream coming from above her, and it hurt it hurt it hurt-

And then she looked up and saw it. It was hanging from the ceiling, had stalked them from up above without them even noticing it. A hideous wraith with twisted extremities, the head having been turned until it was nearly backwards.

She sensed George going stiff beside her.

Lucy could feel the draw of the ghost, too, she could feel the ghost-lock settling into her bones as their eyes met, and she might have even been able to fight it, if, at that moment, the humming and the footsteps and the creaking and the scraping hadn't come back tenfold, hadn't brought her head to explode.

This time she had no choice, no opportunity to narrow her mind. The sounds didn't ask shyly for entrance. They forced their way in with violence, and Lucy's eyes turned white.

---------------------------------------------

She opened her eyes, still half-asleep. It had been a rainy day here in rainy England, and honestly, Lucy didn't know how much more of this she would be able to take before she gave up on this dream and returned home.

But where was 'home', even? What did she have to return to?

Nothing, it shot through her mind, even in the safety of her bed.

So, gloomy, she rose. She had been asleep for far longer than she had wanted to judging by the fact that night had already fallen.

The rain painted soft patterns against her window, and they came to live as Lucy lighted her mother's candelabra. She had given it to her shortly before she'd died, and now it was the only thing she still had left of home. Warm light filled her room now, and she already felt that much better.

Her room? For a second, she looked around rather confused.

Yes, it was a simple room. A room in her old boarding house. She had lived here for weeks now. Why, for a second, had she thought it should be a house instead?

Her room was once more enlightened as lightning struck outside, thunder following shortly after. Lucy watched it with awe. She'd always loved storms, loved the way they transformed the landscape, in equal parts fascinated and scared of it.

It made her think of listening to the storms raging outside in her childhood bedroom. Of her mother's comforting singing. She was long dead now, of course, but much like the candelabra, the melody stayed with Lucy like a guiding light, a bright flame leading her through life.

So she started humming it now, in that weird, nostalgic way of hers.

She was nearly contented with going to bed again until she noticed how her stomach rumbled. Lucy was hungry. She couldn't tell how late it was, but probably not so late that she couldn't still sneak something out of the kitchen.

She paused when she reached for the doorknob, looking down at herself. Yes, she should probably change into something a bit more modest first. She was a lady, after all.

With a sigh, she steered towards her big closet, nearly taking up a third of her room. The doors creaked loudly as she opened them.

Lucy didn't notice it at first. Her eyes were still tired. Maybe that was the tragedy of it all: She might've been able to run, had she been more aware.

It was only when she looked up to sort through her gowns that she saw the man standing inside her closet staring back at her.

His hands were on her, gripping her mouth shut before she could let out a scream. She tried to struggle against him, to bite into his hand, but he was too strong for her-

He held her tightly, dragged her towards the door-

But then she saw her chance: She still held her candelabra. It was still burning. Not able to move her hands in his grip, she simply let it fall down onto his feet, the flame clearly hurting him. In pain, his grip loosened, and she thought she might be able to get away-

The man gripped her ankle, and it made her fall down. He was standing over her now, candelabra in hand, and she still couldn't see his face-

But she could see what he was about to do.

"No," she pleaded with him. "Please, no. Please!"

But it was of no use. The man beat down on her head with her mother's candelabra, once, twice, until she was feeling dizzy, barely connected to this world anymore.

He let it fall to the ground, and Lucy could see the blood clinging to it. Her blood. Roughly, he grabbed her by the ankles again, dragging her out of her room.

But she didn't want to go. She didn't want to die . Not yet.

She tried to claw her nails into the ground below her with every ounce of strength she had left, tried to hold on to this room, to her life, but even though her nails left deep trenches in the wood, he was too strong.

He dragged her further and further away from the raging storm out the window.

Hot tears shot into Lucy's eyes then, and hopelessness into her heart as she felt herself losing consciousness. In a familiar motion, she reached for the silver necklace hanging around her throat. If she was to die, she wanted to do it with the memory of the one she held closest, wanted to find some sort of solace in thoughts of him.

And then she saw him: Gifting her the necklace as she was clad in a blue party dress. What did he always call her again, that nickname she loved?

Luce, it rushed into her head all at once.

Lucy Carlyle.

She wasn't this woman being murdered. This wasn't her memory.

No, she was Lucy Carlyle, junior operative at Lockwood & Company. And she was having a vision. She needed to get back to Lockwood and George because they were on a case right now, and Lockwood was knocked out, and George was ghost-locked.

As it had happened in Hedwig's memory, she was standing beside the woman now, no longer trapped within her body. She was herself again.

And this time, she wouldn't let herself be trapped.

This was her mind, after all. And she wasn't about to let some pesty ghosts run it.

Necklace tightly in her hand, panic banned from her heart, she concentrated on the room around her, concentrated on the gaps of this reality that didn't make sense. Listened for sounds outside the vision.

And there it was - The screech of the wraith hanging from the ceiling, her own blood pulsing in her ears.

The room started to fall apart around her, slowly dispersing not in blood and muscle, but receding back from Lucy's mind like a fog clearing.

But there was one thing she had to do before she left.

With the ground slowly vanishing below her, she walked towards the hooded man dragging the woman along. In one quick movement, she pulled his hood down, wanting to confirm it really was Wythburn.

She stumbled back, however, as she recognized the face a little too well.

It was her own.

Her own eyes stared back at her, fringe clinging to her forehead with sweat. She looked wild and gruesome here, blood all over her face.

This may have been the final straw the vision needed to collapse in on itself: In a second, Lucy was freed and lying in that awful living room again, clearly having collapsed at some point during her vision.

Lucy nearly stumbled over herself in her haste of getting up again, her limbs still feeling stiff and her head hurting from where she'd hit the ground. And not a second too soon did she rise: Her heart skipped a few beats as she took in the room before her.

Lockwood, bless his soul, was still passed out on the ground, but the shade was floating towards him slowly now. And George- God, just like her, he'd been ghost-locked by the wraith, only that he had not escaped from its clutches. He was still just standing there, staring at the figure in front of him in awe as it crawled closer and closer to him along the ceiling.

"George!" she shouted loudly, but to no avail.

Cursing, she grabbed her salt bombs, throwing one at the shade and one at the wraith. But whereas the shade dematerialized completely, the wraith only seemed to get angrier from it.

Which was when an idea hit her.

She couldn't protect both Lockwood and George here in this room with them lying so far apart from each other and Lucy's rapier nowhere in sight. She only had limited salt bombs left, after all. But she could draw the wraith away, hoping George would come to in its absence.

At least it would test his theory on the ghosts having it out for her.

She threw another salt bomb to gain the wraith's attention. "Hey, you rotten old thing!" she shouted at it, and her words were quite true: The wraith had no eyes, no teeth, and no nose, and was quite disgusting to look at. "You can do better than him, can't you?"

The wraith was looking between her and George now, seemingly doubting its decision.

"Oh come on! Why waste your time with him when you can have the most talented Listener in England?" she shouted further. "Can't you sense me?"

That seemed to get the wraith to look at her and only at her.

In anticipation, Lucy let her backpack fall from her shoulders, ignoring the skull's protests. She couldn't afford the added weight. "Then come and get me!"

Lucy ran even before she heard the wraith's shriek in her ears, now giving chase. She looked back and saw just how fast this thing was crawling along the walls on all fours, which made her double her efforts.

At least she knew what the source must be: The golden candelabra she had seen in her vision. She just needed to find it in this clustered space. With a wraith hot on her heels.

And then she was out of the living room and off into the house. It was a small building with only so many rooms and way too many dead ends, and Lucy cursed herself for not memorizing its outline better.

Where would she put an old candelabra?

Quickly, she ran into the small office where she'd seen some antiquities standing earlier. But, alas, no candelabra, and Lucy had to play ring-around-a-Rosie around the table with the wraith a few times before she managed to run out the door again.

Lucy threw a salt bomb behind her blindly, but she was aware that it would only hold the wraith back very temporarily.

She knew that it couldn't be in the kitchen, since they had separated that with iron filings. Not that she thought the wraith couldn't get through them, which is why both circles weren't an option for her.

Taking almost three steps at once, she rushed up the stairs - which turned out to be a mistake. The wraith, being able to take a shortcut by simply crawling up the wall, managed to overtake her and was now hanging right in front of her.

Lucy threw another salt bomb to get past her - now she only had one more left.

The wraith's enraged scream nearly made her knees buckle.

"I'm trying to help you, you know!" Lucy yelled at her, possibly equally enraged by this whole situation as the wraith was, but the ghost, of course, didn't listen and just started crawling faster. "Where did they put that damn thing!"

Hastily, Lucy first rushed into what must've been Sam's bedroom - empty except for a few posters on the wall and some jars - then swung herself back out and further forward using the momentum of the doorframe.

There was only one door left up here before this hallway ended, and Lucy was ready to take her chances. Running faster than she ever had in her life, she barreled into the Colbys' bedroom, seeing their dim death glows still prominent in their beds.

There were so many boxes in here-

With adrenaline pumping through her veins, she threw open the drawers, turned over those boxes- and there! She could see it, just on the ground of one of them!

The same golden candelabra she had seen in her vision. The same one the wraith's mother had given her and which the intruder had used to beat her with.

The relief flooding through her only held up for a second, though. Just until she realized that yes, she may have found the source, but she simply had no way of securing it. George and Lockwood had the only two silver nets. All Lucy had was one last salt bomb - not powerful enough to cage the ghost back into its source - and the silver necklace, which was far too small to do anything meaningful.

The wraith, seemingly knowing it had Lucy trapped now, hung above the door frame, looking at her like a delectable midnight snack. It would surge forward to get her in the next few moments, she was sure of it, so she made a split-second decision: She grabbed the candelabra tightly, threw her last salt bomb at the wraith, threw herself to the ground and slid beneath her out of the doorframe whilst it was still distracted.

The wraith, however, seemed to grow more and more unfaced by the salt, and more and more enraged at Lucy. Quicker than it should've been able to, it swung out of the room again and started chasing her along the narrow hallway, moving its limbs faster and faster now, gaining ground on Lucy with every passing second.

"Lucy!" she heard Lockwood's voice ringing out from down below, and she could feel sweet relief in her veins. He was conscious again.

"Up here! Have the source!" she shouted back, and then there he was, barreling up the stairs and running towards her with his rapier by his side. His eyes widened with panic at the sight of the ghost right behind her, his steps speeding up even further.

But Lucy was still too far away, and the wraith was too close. She could feel its ice-cold breath ghosting over her hair already. Lockwood wouldn't get to her in time, she knew that.

So, with prayers in her heart that, as out of the loop as he was, he would understand what she was trying to do, she raised the candelabra up over her head and threw it towards him.

And in one grand success of mutual understanding, he pulled the silver net out of his bag in record time and caught the source with it. Lucy felt the pressure in her head vanish right as the wraith's claws had only been centimetres from her back.

However, unfortunately, the bit of hallway left between them was much too short, and Lucy and Lockwood had been running far too hard for either of them to stop in time: With the full momentum of both of their runs, they barrelled head first into each other, Lucy's weight effectively knocking Lockwood to the ground with her falling on top of him.

" Shit," she cursed heartily, and Lockwood groaned upon impact.

"Shit," Lucy said again after realising that he had now suffered two separate head injuries in the last ten minutes. "Are you alright?"

She turned her head to look at him, still basically lying on his chest, and to her relief, he slowly, albeit seemingly with pain, opened his eyes to look back at her.

"Just peachy," he answered with an underlying moan. "George is fine too, just still a bit rattled. Was he ghost-locked?"

"Yeah," Lucy groaned and rolled herself off of Lockwood to let him get some air. She didn't yet have the energy to get up again, though, with every one of her muscles burning, so she stayed lying closely next to him. "You were both gone."

His eyes seemed to become more aware at the memory. "Are you okay? Did it touch you?"

"No, you were just in time."

His head sank back down again, and for a few moments, they were both just laying there in silence, hands interlocked, letting the events of the last few minutes sink in.

Somewhere along the line, right between relief and horror, what had happened became incredibly funny to them.

" Why was she so fast?" Lockwood sputtered out with an incredulous laugh, and at that, Lucy started laughing loudly, too.

"I don't know," she answered, hysterically. "Why was she crawling on all fours? "

For some absurd reason, that made both of them laugh even harder, their nerves releasing themselves into the air with every gasping breath they took.

Still mid-laugh, Lockwood turned his head now fully towards her, their faces only centimetres apart now. She let her eyes rake over his face, then. It wasn't often that she got to see him laugh so unguardedly, and it might have been the multiple head injuries, but she thought he looked absolutely beautiful right now.

"Lucy?"

"Hmmh?"

"Can I tell you something?" He was still laughing, still grinning wildly, and her heart faltered.

"Always."

"I think I might have a concussion."