“Shit…” a voice in the darkness said, “get me two more units.” They had been pumping blood into her to no avail, and it was clear to all of them now, they were not going to win this one. There was no way they could save her. Her blood pressure was almost gone, and when her heart began fibrillating, they knew they had lost her.
For a long time, the voices stopped, and Gabriella lay quietly, at peace finally. They had left her alone at last, and the demon within her was silent. Joe came back to her then, walking slowly back from the shadows, but this time he did not look happy. He said something to her, and she heard him clearly this time. Her arms were free again, and she held a hand out to him, but he wouldn't take it.
“I don't want you to come with me,” he said clearly, and he no longer seemed angry, or even sad. He looked very peaceful.
“I have to, Joe. I need you.” She began walking next to him, but he stopped and would go no farther.
“You're strong, Gabriella,” he said, and she struggled to tell him that she wasn't.
“I'm not… I can't… I won't go back without you.” But he only shook his head and drifted away, as she felt a crushing weight drop down on her again, and a final searing pain that tore her away from him like a riptide. And suddenly, she knew she was drowning, just like Jimmy. She was fighting for air, and being pulled into the whirlpool with him, but when she tried to find him, she saw that she couldn't. He had abandoned her, just as Joe had, and she was alone in the roaring waters, and a force greater than any she had ever known pushed her suddenly toward the surface. She came up, gasping for air, spluttering and crying and screaming.
“Okay, we've got her…” She could hear the voices again, and hands seemed to pull at her from everywhere. She could feel each one of her broken ribs when she breathed, her eyes were filled with pain, they had tied her arms down again, and the place where the demons had been, burned with a white heat now.
“No! No! Stop!” She was trying to scream at them, but she couldn't, and all she knew was that they were tearing something from her. It was the place where her heart had been, and she knew they were trying to take Joe from her, but they couldn't. She had never before known such agony, and all she could think of now was her mother, wondering if she had done this to her.
“Gabriella!… Gabriella!” They were talking to her, more gently now, but all she could do was cry. There was no way to escape the pain they had caused her. They kept calling her name, and she felt someone stroking her hair. It was a gentle hand, but she couldn't see the face that went with it. Her eyes were still blurred, and the lights shining on her blinded her, but someone had begun to pull the demon from her.
“Christ, that was a close one,” a man's voice somewhere in the room said softly. “I thought we'd lost her.” They had for a while, more than once. But she was still alive, in spite of all her efforts to leave them. She had stayed because of Joe. It was Joe who had refused to take her with him. She knew, as she opened her eyes again, that he was not coming back again. They never did. They all went away and left her.
“Gabriella, how do you feel now?” She could see a woman's eyes as the voice talked to her, but they still had no faces. They all wore masks, but their voices were gentler. And when Gabriella tried to answer her, she found that she still couldn't. No sound came from where the screams had been. Every part of her body and her soul seemed empty.
“She's not hearing me,” the voice complained, as though, once again, she had failed them, and she wondered if now they would beat her. It didn't matter to her, they could do anything they wanted, as long as the demons did not come back again with their knife-sharp tails that cut through her soul like rapiers.
They left her alone then for a while, and she drifted off, but to a different place than she