GHOST PORTAL (#1 GHOST PORTAL series)

FIVE

She needed air. The room was suffocating, its confined coffee aroma straining through Jessamine's lungs and worsening her earlier jitters.

When assured the crazy line of patrons had lessened, and one of her co-workers could take over her coffee-making duties, Jessamine threw off her apron and dashed past the EMPLOYEES ONLY area and down the corridor to the side-alley door. She thrust it open, her eyes squinting against the sudden light—the employee hall was dark, with everyone out front working, and her boss locked in his office.

Her lungs scooped up the fresh air like handfuls of water found in a dry desert, and she let the breeze splash over her face, infuse into her skin. Yeah, the fried fish stench from the next-door restaurant disturbed her process, but she preferred that over the stuffy seriousness from inside the shop.

What the fuck was that? That electro-shock, that jarring vibration that had shot up her arm at the simple contact with Avery? It was like they were robots who'd short-circuited when touching, or like touching fire and letting it roll up your arm and consume you, flesh and bone and all. She'd done some stupid things in her life—including drugs with similar effects—but never had she experienced such a sensation when touching another human being, especially for the few seconds she'd touched Avery.

Weirder still—he'd felt it, too. What Jamie interpreted as bad flirting had in fact been, from what Jessamine understood, Avery trying to figure out what the heck had happened. He'd been dazed, still, when she shimmied off to get outside, but was drinking his coffee, sitting stiffly in his seat while Jamie babbled on about who knew what. Jessamine had tuned him out, desperate to concentrate on her work before someone noticed that she'd been botching all the orders.

That electric jerk was a more intense version of what she'd felt when watching that video of Amy a few days ago, she remembered. More so when the house had appeared on screen and given her the creeps. It was the same startling clash, followed by a weird pulse of déjà vu; so did she know this guy?

"One million viewers on YouTube?" She rubbed at her throat as it ached when she spoke. Her next step would be to guzzle down her entire water bottle when she got back inside. "So he is famous, then? And for some reason, it stunned me?" She scoffed. "I've met celebrities before and this has never happened."

It had to be something else; some other detail about him, about his energy—ugh, she hated that word—that fucked with hers and put her off balance.

She sat on the stoop leading up to the door and put her head between her knees, breathing in and out deeply. Her legs were hot, her leggings gluing to her thighs. It had gotten steamy and warm behind those machines, and not the kind of steamy and warm that Jessamine preferred.

As much as she loathed to admit it, it was Avery's energy that had done this to her. And her energy had done this to him. She didn't believe in that crap—souls and supernatural links and anything supernatural, in fact—yet she'd witnessed it first-hand a few moments ago and couldn't seem to shake it.

Supernatural—she sat up straight, cracking her back, but the motion actually helped her ease her tension. She stretched out her arms and lifted a little to fetch her phone from her rear pocket—where she'd stored it before rushing out.

Her fingers hovered above the locked screen for a few minutes before she decided. "Fuck it," she said, putting in her code and going straight to the YouTube button on the second part of her homepage. "I need to see it."

The red glows—Avery had mentioned those, and she didn't recall seeing them. The best way to test all this, to comprehend what had happened, was first to determine if he was full of shit or not. She didn't fall into those ghost-catching videos people like Amy and he—likely—posted, but if she did view red glows on screen as he'd said... well, maybe it'd mean their encounter had been something a bit more occult than she'd thought.