FINAL GATE (#3 GHOST PORTAL series)

SEVEN

It was like being trapped in an old-timey movie. One depicting a western setting, but minus actors. Minus any form of life. Not even any stray cactuses or tumbleweeds to blow through and give a dramatic illusion.

There was no drama. There was nothing; nothing but pebbles, some rocks, and a few skeletons sticking out of the sepia-colored dirt.

And the further they walked, Jessamine wrinkled her nostrils, trying to glance away from those skeletons, but they were everywhere.

"Is there no other way to this door?" She focused ahead on the horizon, devoid of trees or any kind of landscape to look at. This place truly was a wasteland with nothing but a forest here or there, and bones on the ground. "This is... disturbing."

"If it helps," Landon snuck his hand in Jessamine's, making her shiver at his sudden contact, "I don't think they're real. There haven't been any living humans down here to justify any rotting corpses, and the demons can't do anything without a host, remember? They don't have bodies, so these can't be their bones." He chuckled. "I'm pretty sure they're just... ambiance. Decoration. To really drive that point home—that you're not getting out of here. You know?"

Jessamine side-glanced at him, sucking in a smile. He hadn't changed a bit, though he'd softened from his years in this desert-like captivity. He'd always had a dark sense of humor, an obscurity to his soul. A deep imagination and a skill for seeing things others didn't. It was what had drawn Jessamine to him—a drop-dead gorgeous man who was so snarky it was sexy, and so sexy it hurt.

Thankfully, the skeletons disappeared, replaced by thorny bushes that lined the sort of pathway they'd made for themselves. It was straight ahead into nothingness.

Dirt caked over her shoes, leaving a sepia film of dust over the edges. "You remember everything, then?" Jessamine removed her hand from Landon's and stuffed it into her rear pocket. "Everything from that night? From the house?"

Landon let out a slow sigh. "I wish I could forget, but I guess it's part of my curse to remember. But," he rubbed her back, "I don't know your side of things. What happened to you was different from what happened to us, wasn't it?"

Gulping, Jessamine looked down at her feet, fixating on the dirt. "I was the prophesied one, so yeah, totally different." Tension strung through her and despite Landon's gentle rubbing of her back, she gritted her teeth. "That Guide, Ada... she should have killed me, too. But the prophecy wouldn't allow it, and she's a stickler for rules, from what I understand. So she threw me out, and another Guide possessed me to block my memories and attempt to stop or postpone the prophecy. I forgot all of it. Maybe it was a blessing, I don't know. But then..."

She lifted her chin, peering up at the dimmed sky, at the colorless clouds shifting across it, temporarily blinding her. The sun—if it was a sun—was masked for a moment, allowing her to actually visualize the sky's true color; an off-beige, like an old wallpaper peeling off from an ancient mansion's facade.

"Then what, Jess?" Landon slowed his pace and quit rubbing her back. "What happened next? What brought all your memories back? Something had to have triggered them."

Avery.

She hadn't wanted to tell Landon, to talk about Avery with him. Mentioning him was a risk, with Landon's jealousy, with his eerie sense of possessiveness over Jessamine. It had been three years, sure; but so far he'd proven he was more or less the same guy. For all Jessamine knew, those three years had felt like three days to Landon.

But the discussion was inevitable. Avery was at the root of all she'd done, all she'd been through. He was undeniably tethered to her, even while she was stuck down in the demonic realm. Landon had to know, if he was to be Jessamine's guide during all this. If they were to be here together, potentially forever.