I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.

Well, I was, but it had dulled enough that it wasn’t my biggest fear. No, that was reserved for what would happen when Dad woke up. When Hellen returned. When his nightmare started from the top all over again.

I didn’t think I could live through that a second time. How had he managed for eighteen years?

I wiped my face of the remnants of tears, sitting up. I kept one hand on the lump that was Dad. He was still out cold—well, as out cold as a corporeal soul could be, I supposed. He felt real enough to me, although bone-thin, and the smell was … he smelled like decomposition …

How long did we have before he roused and the cycle started again?

Don’t just sit there, Bliss! Get your shit together and figure out how to wiggle yourself out of this mess before she comes back!

If I could follow the wall, around the edge, until I hit the doorway Hellen had come through earlier … I didn’t trust the empty blackness in the middle of the room, but with a solid wall of rock under my palm, I thought I could do it.

But what then? If I found the door, it would be locked. It wasn’t going to unlock until Hellen checked on me again, which might not even be for hours yet. I was getting thirsty. And man, did I need to pee!

I could drink my pee—that was what survivors did, wasn’t it? Two birds, one stone? The thought turned my stomach. I wasn’t desperate enough to pee myself, or drink it, just yet.

So, the plan was, get to the door, wait there until Hellen let herself in to gloat … and then, what? Did I clobber her over the head with my shoe? Crash tackle the demon outside? If he was anything like that one I’d spat on in the tunnel, he was far too big for me to take on.

And I needed to take Dad with me. No way was I leaving him to his fate in this Hellhole …

A muffled roar from outside had my heart leaping into my throat. Because I knew that voice, even though I’d never heard it sound so … ragey … before.

“SJ?” I breathed, barely daring to hope. But it blossomed inside me anyway, blooming in my chest until I could barely breathe and I was stepping away from the wall.

“Yer ‘Ighness!” The words were a shocked, stifled gasp. “Yer sister wouldn’t—gak!” A heavy thud shook the room. I scrambled backwards just as Dad stirred behind me.

“Elsie?” he coughed, and I wrapped an arm around him.

“No, Dad,” I whispered raggedly. “It’s Jemma.”

“Noooo,” he whimpered, just as the slab of rock that was the door ground open, silhouetting the most wonderful devil ever born.

And I burst into tears all over again.