The moment I desired to return to control of my body, my muscles began to spasm. I felt as if I were being squeezed into a tube far too small for my body, and my bones were forced to bend, my organs crushed, my flesh tightening. My vision flashed and Damian's face swam before me.

Not this time. You got what you wanted, girl. You asked for this.

I tried to cry out for help but no sound came. My throat constricted, choking out a laugh instead of my desperate pleas. My teeth ground together and my body thrashed in Damian's hold. His strength alone kept me from falling to the ground. Vicious desires ran through me. I could smell blood and sweat permeating the room.

You promised us a kill and there will be a kill, stupid girl.

My teeth ached for the tender curve in Damian's neck, where all the blood ran bright and the skin was thin and I could see the soft blue of his veins. Sweet salty iron. Stringy tense flesh. I began to pant. I struggled now to keep my teeth clenched.

I had made a mistake.

The harder I fought the more it hurt. My ears popped and began to ring. I thought my teeth might crack. My eyes rolled back as my spine began to curve. Through my blurred vision I watched Damian's lips move as if in slow motion. It sent shudders through me. I tasted bile. The room spun.

Damian carried me up the stairs. My greatest fight now was the struggle not to hurt him. I had the strength to do it: to snap his neck, gouge out his eyes, tear into his throat. The voices swirled in an endless cacophony of glee and fury: encouraging me, berating me.

You're ours now. You needed us. No turning back. Open the gate. Kill him. Stop fighting.

They grew louder and louder until my head was reverberating with solid sound. I felt as rigid as the stones my body was laid upon. Damian hovered over me, both far away and far too close. I wanted to reach out for him. I desperately did not want him to let go. I was terrified, falling deeper and deeper toward whatever void awaited me.

What if I couldn't go back?

He straddled my body, his weight preventing me from thrashing. My lungs felt as if they were being gripped by two large fists. With one hand he pressed my head down, preventing me from knocking it against the dirty chapel stones. I realized I had been laid before the chancel, and high above me the unfeeling marble Christ stared down. My arms thrashed, seeking a grip on Damian's face. I didn't want to hurt him, but my nails sought to dig deep. He caught them, contained me. He held my wrists pinned and shouted my name loudly enough for it to come through over the clamor of voices.

"Don't let go, Samara." He sounded far away, as if he were speaking to me from beneath the river waters. "Don't let go. We'll fight them together. I'm not leaving you."

I was being smothered, slowly suffocating within my own body. But despite my struggling, Damian did not stop fighting back. He wiped the ash from his brow, slick with the sweat of his exertions, and marked it in an X upon my forehead. It began to burn, deep and agonizing, but the pain made my body feel like my own again. The scream that ripped from my throat was mine alone, unclaimed by them. And still Damian held me there, and said, "Tell me your name, dark one! May the one who holds her come forth, come forth and speak your name! Relinquish your hold, free her!"

His name...his name...I knew it...but it burned. It burned in my throat and sliced over my tongue. I could see the Black One's eyes all around me, filling me with a fury and hatred that I had not felt since I last laid eyes on Richard Morrison. I could see the demon, blackened and cracked, yellow eyes bright, scuttling across the ceiling like a roach.

I had let him in. I had submitted to him.

I couldn't kneel for him anymore, I had to fight it even through the pain-

"Krahia," the name croaked out. It was as if my tongue was sliced in two, but I said it again. "Name...Krahia."

I had spoken his name. The screech that came from the demon's mouth felt like needles through my head. He scurried this way and that upon the ceiling, teeth gnashing, rushing for me but unable to reach me. If he did, if he reached me...it would be my death. I was certain of it.

"Be strong, Samara," Damian's hands held my face, warm, rough, and strong. "I'm going to call him out. He'll fight, hard. I need you with me, Samara, don't be frightened." His voice echoed, so hard to discern. But I made it out. Even as my body defied me, and the pain swelled, and darkness began to take my sight, I found the strength to cling on to his hand.

I couldn't see.

I was sinking.

"Don't be afraid, Samara."

"We're going to cast him out."

"Don't be afraid."

"Keep fighting."

Everything was grey, thick, unbreathable. I fought, heavy as a stone. I struggled to the surface.

When I broke above, gasping, into a gray field beneath a gray sky, I didn't know where I was. I was sopping wet, lying in the mud of a shallow puddle. Tall grass swayed silvery and damp around me. Dark clouds roiled like river mist. I panted, my aching lungs desperate. When the ache finally eased, my vision settled, and panic set in for another reason.

Damian was gone. This place...it was Lily Dale once more.

Had I fallen asleep? Was I dreaming? Unconscious? I didn't understand. I quickly closed my eyes, whimpering, hoping I would open them to find myself back in the chapel, safe and secured beneath Damian. Safe...yes, yes he made me feel safe. I couldn't explain it. But I had to get back...

I sat up, vertigo causing my head to spin so that I had to roll over to my side, fingers digging into the damp earth until the sensation settled. I stood, and stared out over the familiar misty fields. With the fog on every side, I could imagine their emptiness went on for eternity.

But I knew that wasn't true. The house was out there, somewhere. I had to get to it. I wasn't sure how nor why, but I couldn't stay out here in the fields.

I wasn't alone.

I could hear movement in the grass, the blades slowly parting and snapping, the mud squelching and squishing. I began to run, blind. I listened for Damian's voice, hoping that somehow, someway, I would hear him even here. He had said he wouldn't leave. He had told me not to be afraid...

But he was gone.

I paused, lost. The mist consumed me, just like it had on those early mornings when I would rise before my parents and walk out into the gloom. I would walk on and on, until I had lost east from west, with the hope that I could wander so far that nothing and no one could ever find me again. But they always did. Papa always brought me home, furious that I had missed morning chores. He would call me a stupid, foolish girl. My mother would tell me I should be ashamed for being so selfish.

I was used to being surrounded by people, yet very much alone.

Wherever Damian was...perhaps he had abandoned me too...

I walked on with my head in my hands, fighting my own thoughts. My nails dug into my skin, and I wished I could tear at the brain that was making me feel so terrible. So afraid, so confused. I was stronger than this, wasn't I? Or was I weak...so weak that I had allowed a demon to have control of me?

The noises in the grass intensified. The wind sounded like whispers. I ran again, feet sinking into the mud. I ran until the house appeared, just as I remembered it from my dream, and from my reality. Old, weathered, and beaten. Slowly leaning toward the ground, unkept and unloved.

I ran up onto the porch, and flung myself at the door. The old brass knob was cold, worn and blackened by decades of hands running over it. But it was locked. Though I tried, and pushed and pulled with all my might, the house was sealed from me.

I sunk down with my back to the door. There was no way out...I was trapped in my own head, in my own twisted memories. Was I supposed to know what to do? Was I supposed to know how to pull myself out of this, how to make it all stop so I could just go back to reality? How could I, when it was my own mind, my own demons I was fighting? Everything those voices hurled at me, every insult and every fear, was part of me.

"Don't be afraid," I whispered, as the grass moved and I knew he was approaching. "Don't be afraid. Keep fighting." Bright yellow eyes stared at me from within the grass. He had come to claim me.