I had nowhere to run, but if I couldn’t run, then I would fight. My fingers twitched, ready to reach down for the dagger in my boot, until I realized I couldn’t move.
Jeremiah’s eyes were locked onto mine, and they were pale as fog. It was as if I was staring at him from the end of a long tunnel, nothing but darkness around me, and his form was wavering, morphing, mutating. He was shaking his head, and holding out his hand still, but it wasn’t a hand anymore. It was a tentacle, gray and thick, slithering through the leaves as his entire form seemed to grow, so huge and so unnatural that it was impossible to look at him without falling to my knees in abject horror.
The vision shattered as Leon attacked him. Jeremiah caught Leon by the throat and wrenched him down, the injured demon’s strength sapped away. As Jeremiah shoved Leon to the ground with a single hand, he snapped his fingers and said calmly. “Take her.”
Hands seized me from behind, my arms pinned to my sides. I struggled, kicking and screaming as hard plastic bit into my wrists, zip ties tightening to keep me restrained. I threw my head back, trying to bite the arms tightening around me. Cloth was suddenly pressed over my mouth and nose, a smell like sweet acetone flooding into my head.
I stumbled, my muscles going limp and my limbs refusing to obey. My head swam, my vision faded — the last thing I saw was Jeremiah smiling as he approached, Leon limp on the ground behind him.
God was calling my name.
The voice sounding in the dark, in the cold, stroking its subtle influence around my skull was not just calling me but summoning me, demanding I answer. It was the voice I’d heard for months, the one that haunted my dreams, my nightmares. It was louder now. It was close.
I couldn’t wake up, but I couldn’t truly sleep. I was trapped in my own body, screaming wordlessly when I heard movement around me, when I felt the pinch of a needle in my arm. They were keeping me unconscious, keeping me helpless. It felt like an eternity had passed...or maybe it was only hours.
All I knew, with a certainty that made every inch of me feel cold, was that I was going to die.
Whatever drug they’d given me kept me calm, but the panic was there. I knew I had to fight, somehow. I had to get back to Leon.
I had to hope Leon had survived.
Slowly, I began to realize I could move my toes again, then my fingers, then at last, my eyes. I was lying on something hard and smooth; metal, perhaps a metal table. My body was strapped down and something was pulled over my head, so even as I opened my eyes, all I could see was darkness.
The panic, held back by the now-faded sedative, slammed into me and I began to scream. I struggled against the straps holding me down, but it only exhausted me to strain against something so immoveable. The immediate shakiness in my limbs told me that it had been at least a day — probably longer — since I’d eaten. Screaming made me breathless, so I fell silent, but adrenaline was rushing through me in painful bursts, my body tingling, my heart racing, my fight-or-flight activated without the ability to do either.
I wriggled around, and realized that I was still wearing all my clothes, including my boots — which my dagger was still tucked into, pressing against my ankle. My phone was no longer in my back pocket, but my lighter was still there, and, if I wasn’t mistaken, the page torn from the grimoire was still there too.
There was still hope. I couldn’t give up yet. I was still armed. I just had to be patient…
But hope and patience were becoming more difficult by the second.
There was a creak, and somewhere in the distance a door slammed shut, followed by heavy footsteps. The steps came closer...closer...there was the soft beep of digits being pressed into a keypad...and the door that opened next sounded as if it was right beside me.
“It’s time, Raelynn. Are you awake?”
The voice wasn’t familiar; it wasn’t Jeremiah. I immediately began to struggle again, wrenching against the straps that held me down. “Help me! Help me, please, please, he’s going to kill me, please —”
The voice laughed softly, chidingly, as if what I’d said was silly. “You don’t