Jake Garcia’s first actual mission ends—completely without surprise—in disaster.

He’s still not sure how the hell he’d even made it into an active duty team, and Emily’s team no less. Jake he has the strong suspicion it’s either thanks to his extraordinarily good looks or because Mickey had put in a good word for him. Maybe both.

It’s supposed to be an easy first job, a haunting in an old house in the outskirts of Chicago. It’s just getting dark when they arrive, the sun slowly disappearing behind the Chicago skyline, and the small house looks just like any other house in the area. Nothing special, not even particularly creepy.

Jake’s vaguely annoyed that they all have to wear black. It’s stupid, really; he’s pretty sure ghosts and demons wouldn’t notice him any quicker even if he was wearing his favorite orange hoodie. But there’s protocol and uniforms, and he’d been told he would get kicked out of the team if he didn’t play by the rules.

“EMMY,” he whispers loudly. “EMMY, ARE WE GOING IN?”

It’s actually Captain Emily Bennett, but Jake had refused to acknowledge ranks from day one. First of all, it’s not exactly fair that he’d gotten the lowest rank out of all of his friends and secondly there’s absolutely no way anyone could ever get him to call Mickey Major McCormick.

“No, we’re not,” Emily says. Jake can’t really see her in the dim light, but he’s pretty sure Emmy is rolling her eyes. “I am going in with McCormick and Broussard, and you are staying out here with Dr. Jefferson.”

It’s Jake’s turn to roll his eyes. “I am not staying out here with Zac!” he complains, loudly. Dr Zachariah Jefferson’s title was also something Jake had deemed unnecessary from the day they’d met. “He’ll faint the minute that ghost comes out of the house.”

“As opposed to you running away like a terrified little princess?” Noah Broussard asks.

“WHAT,” Jake protests, outraged. “I WOULD NEVER—”

“Shut up, both of you!” Mickey says and punches Jake in the side. “You’ve probably already alerted every supernatural being in a five-mile radius by now!”

“Also,” Zac adds primly, shooting Jake an exasperated look. “If you’d taken part in any of our research, you’d know that we suspect we’re dealing with the ghost of a woman called Yasuda Sachiko, who was stabbed to death by her husband. As a vengeful spirit, she should be bound to the place where she was killed. She won’t be coming out.”

“Awesome,” Jake says and pulls a bento box out of his gear bag. “Then I’ll just stay out here and eat my sandwich.”

The thing is, Jake doesn’t stay outside eating his sandwich.

It doesn’t even take three bites until he’s bored and the mere presence of Zac is unnerving him. It’s unfair that he has to stay outside with the civilian. This is not what he’d cheated his way through Hunter School for — he’d trained to be warrior, no, a neffing hero!

No, it’s definitely not fair for the others to take all the glory. And Jake decides it’s time to finally take what he deserves.

“What are you doing,” Zac hisses when Jake gets up and shoves his bento box into Zac’s hands. “You’re not supposed to go in! You heard what Captain Bennett said.”

“Captain Bennett,” Jake repeats in a mocking tone. “I’ll show Captain Bennett just how absolutely awesome I can be.”

But Jake’s enthusiasm is gone the minute he’s tiptoeing through a dark, empty hallway, and the rest of the team is nowhere in sight. This probably hadn’t been the greatest idea. Maybe a better way to prove his worth would have been buying Emmy a bottle of wine or something. A signature of Emmy’s favorite baseball player. Anything that didn’t involve creepy hallways and flickering lights. Jake shudders.

Just as he’s peering around a corner anxiously, a voice suddenly whispers into his ear, “Help me, Jake.”

He jumps about a mile, but when he turns around it’s not one of the freaky monsters from his textbooks, it’s a pretty blonde girl in a skimpy dress. Jake wonders briefly what she is doing here — according to Zac some old Chinese guy is supposed to live in the house — but he’s quickly distracted by her wide, blue eyes and the way she’s clinging to his arm, terrified. Jake puts a protective arm around her.

“Help me, Jake,” she gasps. “I’m so scared. Please, rescue me!”

It doesn’t bother him very much that the whole situation is a little bit weird — the girl does not only know his name but she also looks exactly like the fantasy girl he’d dreamed about just the night before (she’d done amazing things with her tongue, Jake remembers happily, but that’s a little beside the point) — everything about their lives is weird, after all, and most of the time things don’t make much sense to Jake. All that matters is that he has finally been served the chance to be the hero. Finally, he wouldn’t come in as second best. (Or third, or fifth...) Finally, he’d get to prove his capabilities to everyone, most of all to—

The girl suddenly bends forever and presses her lips against his; Jake’s eyes flutter shut and he wraps his other arm around her too. She really can do amazing things with her tongue, Jake realizes. Plus, she smells amazing, like rose petals and cinnamon and strawberries, and her lips are soft and perfect and—

When she finally breaks away, Jake’s eyes are wide.

“Emmy,” he breathes, out loud.

“Yes,” the girl says, digging her fingers into his arm. “Rescue me! Don’t let anything or anyone get in the way. Rescue me and we’ll be together forever.”

Jake’s head starts spinning and he releases the girl and nods solemnly. He feels a bit like standing in a room filled with soft cotton. It’s hard to think clearly. “I’ll save you,” he says, with conviction that sounds odd even to his own ears. He thinks of Emmy again. He wonders where Emmy is. Probably upstairs battling with the ghost. Probably taking all the glory. No, Jake thinks. Not this time. This time he’d be their savior. And he’d even get the girl.

He doesn’t even register that the pretty girl places a knife in his hand. He doesn’t notice that she disappears right after.

Wide-eyed he stumbles down the dark hallway.

“Emmy,” he says again.

The last thing Jake remembers after that is stumbling into a dark room upstairs, his right hand—the one holding the knife—outstretched in front of him and Emily’s wide eyes. He remembers feeling a bit like what Zac had described as an out-of-body experience once. Like he’s watching a scene in a movie instead of living his own life.

Then he hears Emily scream his name, and the movie stops.

Jake wakes up in the infirmary of the Institute, his head pounding and his team mates hovering over him with worried looks on their faces.

“He’s awake!” Mickey says, happily.

“Welcome back, dude,” Noah adds, lightly punching Jake’s shoulder.

“What happened?” Jake croaks. “Did I do it? Did I save you?”

“You almost killed me, is what happened!” Emmy says. “You didn’t follow my orders to stay outside and you walked into the house unarmed, with no means of communicating with the rest of the team, and without any knowledge of what we were dealing with!”

Jake blinks. “Dr. Smartass said we’re hunting a ghost.”

“I said we suspect it’s a vengeful spirit,” Zac corrects, pushing his glasses up his nose angrily.

Jake tries to recall the events in his head, but all he can remember is the terrified pretty lady he was going to save from the evil ghost, having the sudden urge to find Emmy, and the screams. “I was just protecting that hot chick from the—the spirit thing, okay?” Jake whines. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? I was just being a proper hunter!”

“THERE WAS NO GHOST,” Emmy explodes. “Your ‘hot chick’ was a siren, okay?”

“A what?” Jake’s head is killing him. Why can’t they all just shut up?!

“A siren,” Zac says. “From the Greek, ‘seirenes’. They’re shapeshifting creatures known through mythology who lured sailors—-”

“You made out with a slimy, disgusting monster,” Noah cackles. “She fed you her maggoty saliva and compelled you to kill Emily.”

Jake sticks his head out of the bed and throws up on Zac’s shoes.