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“You can get out of this, brother,” she says. “You can…you’re still inside of her. You can help us.”
It only takes me a second to realize that this means the priest has to be winning. That there’s no way they can stop them. That even if this means that I’m going to be tortured for the rest of my life, it’s going to be worth it.
Because she’ll be free of us.
Because she’ll get to live.
Because Trine is a good person. She doesn’t deserve this.
She deserves to have a normal, undisturbed, demon free life. I’ve been around for too long. I’ve hurt too many people. I don’t want to hurt Trine again.
This pain–fuck it. I’ll get used to it.
“You can’t get used to eternal pain,” Alecto says, reading my mind again.
I shake my head. “I can,” I say. “If it’ll help her.”
And then everything goes black.
LUKE
It’s been hours and it feels like I haven’t made any progress.
Every time I approach Trine and pray over her, she writhes and shakes as if I’m torturing her, and there’s a part of me that just wants to stop this. I don’t want her to hurt. I don’t want to make things harder for her. I know I’m attacking the demons inside of her. I know it’s working because Malon is here too and he seems to be having a terrible time.
Rei ushered him into a chair and grabbed a bucket for him. He didn’t tie him up because he didn’t think that Malon would take it as hard as Trine has. He is a demon, not possessed.
Trine’s screams feel like they claw their way into my soul and every time I splash holy water on her, it makes me feel like I’m shaky. I know this is what I’m supposed to do. I’ve never felt so much like I want to stop. It’s always a bit emotionally brutal to do an exorcism, but it’s never this bad.
“We need to take a break,” Rei says.
I look up at him. He looks like shit, too. “We can’t just leave her tied up here,” I say.
“I’ll watch her,” Misha says, then looks at Alana. She also looks terrible, but just the kind of terrible that anyone would look like if they’re seeing a close friend be possessed. “Alana, you should probably take a break too. This is…hard. I know this is hard.”
She nods, swallowing. She looks so fucking pale. I think she might pass out, which is definitely something that I don’t have the resources to deal with right now.
“We’ll bless your house once this is done,” I say. “You don’t have to be scared. This won’t linger.”
“I’m not scared of this,” Alana says. She sounds sincere, which surprises me. “I’m scared of what’s going to happen to her.”
“We’re doing our best to…” Misha starts, but he trails off when he hears rattling. We all turn to the bed, where the rattling and vibration is coming from. The bed slowly–very slowly–starts to rise up toward the ceiling as Trine falls quiet.
There is no sound except for the sound of the bed shaking slightly. I don’t think any of us know how to react except to watch, in horror, as the bed keeps rising and rising. It feels like it’s about to go very close to the fan, which Misha turns off and it slows before it can hurt her.
But we keep watching her, none of us sure of what we’re supposed to say or do until the bed falls so hard on the floor that it bounces.
So does Trine.
If she wasn’t bound to the bed, I’m almost sure she’d go flying.
She doesn’t. Her body moves and she screams in something that sounds a bit like agony. Her eyes open. They’re swimming with tears as she looks at me. “Can you stop, Luke?” she pleads. “Can you…you’re such a good man. I know you don’t want to hurt me. Can you stop? I’m in so much pain.”
“Don’t listen,” Malon says through gritted teeth. “Don’t listen, that’s not her.”
Trine laughs. When she does, a black liquid slowly slides down her chin. There are tears on her face, too, but I’m watching the black liquid mixed with her spit instead. She coughs. When she does, the black cough spatters over the white band shirt she’s wearing, and then her eyes turn completely black as the glass in the window starts to shake.
“What’s your name, demon?” I ask.
