Jason was driving home from work with a trunk full of groceries when he first felt the sensation, when the first strands of fear started moving through him. He could sense something cold, felt his hairs rising on end. In a flash, his hand reached out to make sure the car's air conditioning was off.
It was off, just like the day he had bought the car. It never got that warm anymore.
His phone rang from his pocket, the soft tune filling the car with a normal sense of relief. The air of oddity died away, even the coldness seemed to shrink out the cracked window. When it rang, the phone brought him back to real life and the familiarity of it.
No ghosts. No demons. No fear.
Expecting it to be Piper, he let the phone ring until it eventually died down. He had a lot to deal with right now, a lot at work and a lot in his family. He didn't need her fears about ghosts that were long dead and gone.
"I don't know what she's thinking..." Jason reached out to turn the radio on, his voice having started to fill the silent car. "They're gone. Long gone. It's just us and our kids in that house."
His phone rang again, louder than the country music that fought its way through the static of the old radio. As he finally brought his hand to his pocket, he pulled the phone out and prepared to decline the call. His finger stopped when he saw it was his mother, however, his eyes leaving the road almost too long.
As he put the phone to his ear, he narrowly missed swerving into the ditch. "Hello?"
"Jason." his mother's voice had grown old and fragile. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm driving home." Jason frowned. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Reyna said to check you," Beryl explained. "She sounded worried."
Jason sighed. "Reyna doesn't know everything about me."
"She's worried. She said to be worried," she replied. "Please, Jason. Just be careful. It must be something supernatural if she knows."
"Reyna doesn't know every ghost and demon," Jason argued. "You probably misheard her."
"Misheard her? She woke me up five times last night!" Beryl argued. "She said a boy named Nico was trouble!"
Jason actually did swerve into the ditch.
