The boy rushed forward to reach for the knife on the ground. But the priest grabbed his throat, and the boy’s weakened, starved state made him no match for the larger man. The priest lifted the boy off the floor, and Diel felt his head ticking from side to side, his hands balling into fists. Still the boy struck, fighting to protect his sister, who cried harder as she watched her brother in pain.
The priest dropped the boy to the ground; his body slipped on the blood. Then the door opened again, and Diel turned to see two more priests walking in.
“Police?” one of the priests asked, not even flinching at the dead bodies or blood-coated walls.
Father Burke shook his head, a grin on his face. “Not out here in the middle of nowhere. An easy capture for once.” One of the priests headed toward the girl. She froze, a deer in headlights.
“No.” The boy tried to get to his feet, slipping on the blood as if his soles were flooded with oil. The priest picked up the girl.
Diel’s heart beat faster and faster as the boy’s voice rose in volume and he scrambled to stand. The boy charged after the priest, but Father Burke held his arms behind his back. The boy fought and fought, tears making tracks through the drying blood on his face. The girl began to thrash as the priest led her toward the door.
“Finn!” she cried, reaching out for him. “Finn! FINN!” The boy fought, but Father Burke’s hold was too strong. The girl gasped for breath as she passed Diel. She looked him dead in the eyes. “Finn … please … help me … remember me …”
Every muscle in Diel’s body locked tight. He watched the girl being taken away. As she disappeared though the door, he looked at the boy … and Diel found himself looking straight into his eyes. Father Burke dragged the boy forward, but the boy never moved his stare from Diel.
Diel knew that stare. Those sapphire eyes. That black hair. He recognized the monster underneath the boy’s skin, revealing his claws. Diel began to feel hot. The pain in his head clawed its way back toward the surface. But this time it was lightning war in his mind. He clutched his head, trying to stop the thunder crashes, the clashing of dark clouds in his brain. But they were too strong.
The pain was all-consuming; he couldn’t breathe. But then he heard a whispered, “Help me … remember me …” He shook his head, trying to find relief.
“Come back to the hallway,” a voice said. But Diel couldn’t listen to it. All he could hear was the girl. The one who had been taken away. “Finn … help me … remember me …” He groaned, searching for air, for something to stop the burning in his lungs, the fire in his veins and the crushing of his skull.
“On the count of three, you will return. You will come back into the room where it is safe.” The voice was a whisper in a distant part of whatever hell he was trapped in.
“One.” The voice began the countdown, but the pain was drowning him. He clutched at his hair as the pain became a million needles pushing into his skin. Remember … the girl said … remember me …
“Remember … ?” Diel groaned, pleading for answers. He thought of the boy screaming for his sister, fighting, clawing to get to her, to save her.
Remember me … she said, looking Diel straight in the eyes.
A black hole erupted inside Diel, a blazing black hole that spread like a tumor. It was erasing every mental block that was in his way, smashing down the wall that had been built within him for so long.
“Two,” the voice said, but Diel was floating, pain seeping from his pores … from the scar around his neck. It pulsed, it burned, it stung and throbbed, and Diel opened his mouth to scream. But no sound left his mouth as the final parts of him were exorcised of whatever had possessed him. He bellowed and screamed. Then the pain began to subside; the bricks of his internal wall reduced to rubble, too-long separated sides colliding into one.
Finn … help me … remember me … The girl’s voice was stronger now. She no longer sounded as though she were in a vacuum. The high timbre hit his ears and moved right to