“I can’t find the right key,” he said, frustration echoing in his deep, borrowed voice.

“Let me.” Officer Flores pushed past me, already flipping through the keys on his own ring as he marched down the aisle. Finn stepped aside to give him access to the cell door, and that was when I saw my sister. Melanie was lying facedown on the floor of her cell, her legs still pinned to the floor by steel bands bolted to the concrete just below her knees.

She wasn’t moving.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Melanie!” I raced down the aisle and gripped the bars of her cell with both hands while Flores unlocked the door. As soon as it swung open, I fell to my knees at her side and brushed limp, pale hair from her face. “Unlock her legs,” I demanded, but Flores was already squatting next to me, searching for another key. “Mellie,” I whispered into her ear. “Wake up. It’s Nina. I came to rescue you, and that’ll be a lot easier if you can walk.”

Her eyes rolled behind their lids; then those lids fluttered open, and I exhaled.

“Nina?” My sister’s voice was dry and hoarse, but she was awake and she recognized me.

“Yes. I’m here.” I blinked away fresh tears. “Hold still for just a minute while we get you unlocked.”

“Finn.” I twisted to whisper into his ear while I smoothed Melanie’s hair back. “Bennett was disembodied a few minutes ago.”

His eyes widened and he glanced at my sister, then back at me. “You want me to make sure Mellie’s…still in there?”

“Will you have to let go of Jennings to do that?”

“No, I should be able to sort of…push her, mentally. If there’s give she’s fine. If not, she’s possessed,” he whispered.

“Do it.”

While Flores unlocked, then flipped back, the steel bands that had bound my sister into the posture of penitence until she’d lost consciousness, Finn closed his eyes. A second later, he opened them, and I saw his relief even before I heard it in his voice. “It’s her. She’s fine.”

Tension eased within me—my unconscious sister would have been an easy and convenient target for the newly disembodied deacon. “Thanks,” I said to Finn. Then I turned back to my sister. “Let’s get you up slowly. Can you stand?”

“I think so,” Mellie said. I helped her carefully to her feet and kept one arm around her while she stepped over the restraints bolted to the concrete floor. “Yeah. I’m tired, but I can walk.”

Anabelle slid her arm around Melanie’s other side and Mellie looked surprised to see her. “It was all a lie, Ana. Mom was the demon, not Nina, and—”

“I know.” Anabelle smiled. “I’m not sure I understand it all yet, but I know,” she said as we helped my sister out of the cell.