I can’t take it any longer. I push the shovel into the ground. I lift the dirt out of the hole and look up to toss it onto the pile.

He’s here. He’s right in front of me.

Thomas Carrington.

He’s standing exactly where the footsteps stopped. He looks as he did in the photos. Imposing. Intimidating. The only difference is his eyes. Instead of the clear blue eyes Rebecca Harker described, they now are milky and gray and stare lifelessly ahead.

He’s not looking at me, but I can feel his awareness.

My feelings of dread and fear evaporate. This thing knows where Caitlyn is.

“Where’s my daughter?”

He stares straight ahead.

“Where’s my daughter, you son of a bitch?!”

No response.

“Answer me, Goddamnit! Where is my daughter?! Because I’m about to find yours.”

His face lowers. Those eyes don’t focus but he’s looking at me — through me. His expression doesn’t change but there’s pure hatred emanating from him.

I wait, thinking I’ll have to defend myself, but nothing happens.

Fine.

I ram the shovel back into the dirt. I glance up. He’s still there. I hoist the shovel, full of cold black dirt, out of the hole, and throw it across the floor.

He still doesn’t move.

I do it again. No reaction.

I remove two more shovelfuls. I go to throw the last load of dirt and stop.

He’s gone. The room is empty, but I can still feel his presence. He’s still here. I don’t know what to do … so I go back to digging.

Suddenly, I feel it: the cold. Not just on my skin. This is different. It’s in my bones. It’s a cold that’s painful. It’s the same cold I felt in the bedroom with the gun in my hand and in the living room when I almost stabbed a pencil through my eye, when he had taken over. It makes every movement feel like bits of broken glass are circulating in my veins, but I still keep digging.

I’m about to lift out another shovelful of dirt, when I’m shoved by unseen hands. I stumble backwards against the floorboards, but stay upright. I widen my stance, bracing myself against the sides of the hole, and slam the shovel into the dirt.

A roar begins to build like an oncoming freight train, but it’s not in the air around me. It’s in my head. It grows from a steady rumble to a skull-splitting roar. I keep digging. It feels like my head is about to cave in. Every fiber in my body is in agonizing pain.

I go to drive the shovel into the ground again, but the weight of it is unbearable, and my arms refuse to respond.

He’s inside me.