I could only nod, my jaw clenched in some toxic combination of grief and rage. Then I waved toward the hallway, urging him on. “Do you have a car?”

He dug in an inner pocket of his cassock without slowing, then handed me a set of keys. “East parking lot, third row. I’ll tell them you stole the keys.” He stopped in front of an unmarked metal door and pulled another set of keys from another pocket. “Your sister’s in here, but she has a visitor. Someone they brought in to get her to talk. They’ve had her on her knees for days, but she hasn’t told them anything. She’s in rough shape. Strong kid, though.”

My heart ached. Mellie shouldn’t need to be that strong.

Flores unlocked the door, then opened it, but he didn’t put away his keys. The room beyond was actually two rows of steel-barred cells divided by a wide aisle. All the cells were empty except the one at the end on the left, outside of which stood a woman in a pale blue cassock and a cop frantically sorting through the keys on his metal ring.

“Anabelle!” I whispered, and she and the cop both turned. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I recognized Officer Jennings, and the fact that he hadn’t pulled his gun told me Finn was still in residence.

“Nina!” Anabelle’s gaze slid from me to the cop behind me, and when she was sure he wasn’t going to prevent our reunion, she raced down the aisle toward me and nearly bowled me over with her hug. “Officer Jennings said you’re innocent.”

Officer Jennings obviously hadn’t mentioned that he wasn’t himself at the moment—not that we had time for such a complicated explanation.

Anabelle pulled away from me and stared straight into my eyes as if she could verify my humanity at a glance. “You’re still you, right?”

“Yes, and Mellie’s still herself. It was all a lie, Anabelle. So many lies, the whole time, and we never saw it. My mom was a demon. She was never sick or high, she was possessed, right under our noses.”

Anabelle’s forehead furrowed. “Since when? How is that possible?”

“Since forever. Since before I was born.” Seconds ticked away in my head, and I knew we were running out of time, but I needed Anabelle to understand, and I needed to keep her safe, somehow. I couldn’t let the Church claim her soul. “I didn’t know the truth about myself until I exorcised her—”

“You—” Her eyes widened.

“I’m an exorcist. The Church said I killed my mom because they can’t afford for anyone to find out the truth, but I’m innocent, and Adam was innocent, and Melanie is damn well innocent.” I glanced at Finn over her shoulder. “Speaking of which, where do we stand on the jailbreak?”