He had left her where she lay, half-naked, bloody, and violated. Ducking out the back door, he’d raced to the truck he wasn’t old enough to drive, and his feet had barely touched the pedals as he’d started the thing.

They had come after him, and to this day, he had no idea how he’d managed to get that old truck to go that fast down that dusty dirt road.

Bertie spoke up quietly. “You must accept this as both reality and your destiny. For her sake if for no one else’s.”

Jim opened his eyes and looked at Nigel. “Is there a Heaven?”

“We are on the edge of it right now.” Nigel nodded over his shoulder at the castle wall, which ran off into the distance. “On the far side of our gracious manse, the souls of the good tally in fields of flowers and trees, their hours spent in sunshine and warmth, their cares and worries no more, their pain forgotten.”

Jim stared at the footbridge over the moat and the double doors that were each the size of an RV. “Is she there?”

“Yes. And if you do not prevail, she will be ever gone as if she never was.”

“I want to see her.” He took a step forward. “I have to see her first.”

“You may not enter. The quick are not welcome therein, only the dead.”

“Fuck that and fuck you.” Jim walked and then ran for the bridge, his boots thundering across the grass, then echoing on the wooden planks over the quicksilver river. When he got to the doors, he grabbed onto the great iron pulls, yanking so hard his back muscles screamed.

Fisting up one of his hands, he pounded at the oak, then pulled again. “Let me through! Let me through, you son of a bitch!”

He needed to know for himself that she wasn’t hurt anymore and that she didn’t suffer and that she was okay. Needed that reassurance so badly, he felt like he was shattering as he fought to get past the barrier, his battering fists driven by the memory of his beloved mother on the linoleum in the kitchen, the stab wounds in her chest and her neck bleeding out onto the floor, her legs spread, her mouth gaping open, her eyes terrified and imploring him to save himself, save himself, save himself….

The demon in him came out.

Everything went white as rage took over. He knew he was hitting something hard, that his body was going wild, that when someone put a hand on his shoulder he took them down to the ground and pummeled them.

But he heard nothing and saw nothing.

The past always unwrapped him, which was why he made a point of never, ever thinking about it.