Jack and Gabe escaped with their book, and I sat on my knees. The shrieking echoed through the halls, and my heart beat faster. I stood, determined to stay, focused on the room I was in, trying to ignore the fiendish and frightening noises growing louder as they closed in. It was my dream. I would stay.

The room blurred, and time pulled me away. My stomach tugged, and then I was gone, violently thrust to the roof. Gabe took my father in his arms and leaped with transcendental strength to the site of my father’s brutal end. Once again I refused to move, locking my knees in place. The tugging began, but my feet remained on the ground.

Just then, countless shadows swept past, traveling with such momentum that my hair blew forward, as if two trains were passing at full speed on each side of me. The sounds that came from the shadows were indescribable, so loud that my hands automatically cupped over my ears. I screamed aloud to try to drown out the evil that saturated the space around me.

Then it was gone.

I waited. Sounds from the street below replaced the deafening roar of Shax and his minions, and my knees buckled, letting my body fall to the ground.

“Please stop,” I whispered, knowing no one could hear.

My breathing accelerated. The air seemed too thin, and the tugging began again. “No,” I pleaded, just as a hole opened up beneath me. I fell, landing on the wet cement of the alley.

A pair of familiar shoes stood before me, and I followed the tailored suit with my eyes to the face of my frightened father. His hands were wrapped around the book, his knuckles white. I closed my eyes, waiting for what would come next. The sounds of hands exploding through the door, and the audible shredding of Jack’s clothing and skin were much more vivid when I refused to watch. The bones of his spine snapped as demons yanked him through the hole in the door, and into the building to his brutal death.

I cried out. Not so much a scream, as a low, guttural moaning, sobbing for my father. The alleyway quaked, as if the earth below was trembling in the presence of such evil. Dark turned to dim light, and I focused as Jared’s warm hands shook me awake.

“Nina?” he said, holding my cheeks in his hands, waiting for me to look him in the eye.

Once again soaked in my own sweat, I tore my nails from my palms, still clenched from trying to force myself to stay in one place. Jared looked down, and then left for only a moment, bringing back two rags.

“Jesus, Nina,” he choked out.

The white towels hid the four tiny, half-moon gouges in each hand, but quickly revealed the damage as they began to turn red.