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“No, stay here!” I hiss at Diablo, but the little fur ball leaps from the car, already running across the street where I parked the Mustang, and into the woods.

Dammit.

Cars line the side of the woods, Diablo disappearing between them. I recognize a lot of these cars. There’s Mark Winston’s—he’s at church every Sunday. And there’s Jeremy Rodrick’s—my math teacher in the seventh grade.

And of course, there’s my mother’s car—which Daren has a habit of borrowing without permission on late nights.

I zip Marcelo’s hoodie up to my neck and grab his mask still hanging from the pocket. I know my identity being hidden won’t make a difference, but . . . Marcelo always finds strength from this piece of painted leather. So maybe I will too.

Sliding the mask over my face, I pull the ties on the back of it till it conforms to my cheeks, my chin, my eyes. The material is tough and the small, hidden eye holes darken my vision—but something about wearing it also invigorates me. I will be Marcelo’s Salvation, just as much as he is mine. I’m ready for whatever the Hell this demon is about to throw at me.

Patting the rosary still around my neck, I sprint across the street and into the woods. Diablo matches my pace next to me and together we run to where Marcelo and I had found the hatch just days ago.

The moon is bright, not quite full but definitely close, and the early fall wind is in full bloom as it rushes against me. Trees rustle, leaves dance, and while I am absolutely terrified of what’s about to happen, of what is currently happening to Marcelo, a part of me is also . . . happy.

With the wind rushing through my hair like this, it reminds me of driving with Marcelo, the windows down. It reminds me of running from Daren that night, of running from my mother’s house and all I’ve ever known. It reminds me of letting myself give in to my desires and fucking Marcelo in that confessional.

It reminds me of being free, and in a sad, twisted way, this decision I’ve made here, tonight, is the first real decision I’ve ever made for myself. No one else contributing or telling me what I should do, no one else stopping me, no matter how reckless I may be. Tonight, I break the final pieces of the shell Marcelo has been hacking away at.

Tonight, I am Junia Forester, a woman free to make her own choices, to live her own life, to write her own song.

My boots skid along the leafy ground when I finally spot the hatch. It’s not covered like it had been the other day, the leaves clearly misplaced when people had used it earlier, I guess.

I heave it open. A gust of stale air hits my legs as I stand above the opening. It looks so much different than it had when the sun was up. Now, the ladder leading into the hole completely disappears before reaching the bottom, as if begging me to climb into a fathomless abyss. I take a deep breath, steeling myself for my recklessness, sending a prayer to protect Marcelo.

“Okay, now you have to stay here ,” I tell Diablo, scratching between his ears. But the cat only continues to look at me with those golden eyes. His pupils are huge and so freaking cute, but no matter how much it might make me want to cuddle and squeeze him, I won’t bring him into demonic affairs.

However, Diablo seems to have other plans. The moment I begin my descent, the cat leaps onto my shoulders, digging its claws into my hood and climbing till, somehow, he’s resting between the back of my head and the fold of the hood. Diablo meows into my ear, clearly annoyed, but makes no further movement.

I pause in my descent, ready to throw the cat back up if I have to, when I hear a guttural, agonizing yell. Immediately, I know it’s Marcelo.

“Fine,” I grunt at the cat, not wanting to waste a moment more as I hurry down the ladder.

It’s pitch black as I climb down, down, down. I don’t remember the ladder being this long, nor the tunnel’s ground being this far away from the surface. With each step, I’m more and more sure the next peg just won’t exist, and I’ll slip all together and fall into the nothingness below me.

Finally, my boot hits something, and it takes more than a moment to realize it’s solid ground. I don’t know how I’m going to navigate the rest of the tunnel in the dark, but—that fear doesn’t matter.

Because right when I plant both of my feet in the tunnel, the entire path illuminates with red wax candles.

Just like the other day, the path curves, making it seem endless—just like the ladder. I step into the tunnel, slowly making my way to the door leading to the convent.

It’s so much eerier now than it had been the other day, when Marcelo was with me. Now, it feels like something is walking right behind me—on top of me almost. It’s different from feeling eyes on the back of my head—I can feel the warmth, almost hear the sound of footsteps, the hair on my neck reacting to the static of something else . But every time I look over my shoulder, nothing is there.

The candles continue to drip with wax, overflowing the sconces and spilling onto the floor. They look like they’ve been burning for hours, which can’t be since they only turned on when I got here, but the red wax leaves trails like blood on the ground, my instincts screaming at me to run away .

I shiver, so glad now to have the warm fuzzball at my neck comforting me.

And it is exactly when I have this thought that all comfort shatters.

Because, shit—every horror movie has trained me for this moment, trained me to know that shit is about to go down.

At that moment, down the winding corridor, an organ strikes its first note.

It’s somber than anything I’ve ever played, eliciting even more fear within me. The notes match each of my footsteps, drawing me closer and closer to the door awaiting me at the end of the tunnel. The music from the organ reverberates through the dirt around me, the candle lights flickering as if an unfelt wind were blasting through, surrounding me.

Diablo’s nails dig through the hoodie, poking at my skin, and the slight sting reminds me this is real. Not a horror movie. Not a nightmare. Not a vision.

I’m really here—in the tunnel leading me to a real cult, worshiping and summoning and doing Heaven knows what with a real demon. All to save my real , incredibly hot, incredibly scandalous, priest , exorcist , boyfriend —three words that sound so fictional, the idea of them together makes even less sense.

But somehow, it’s real and I’m here, and the haunting symphony only an organ can make is pulling me deeper and deeper into this warped reality.

Finally, the familiar wooden door with black iron designs stands before me. The door almost seems to . . . to breathe, growing slowly as if it’s been waiting for me for a very, very long time. I now realize the symbol on the door had been carved and weathered into it. The style just doesn’t match the gothic slopes of iron, not with its fast and jagged lines.

I take a deep breath, finding the mask oddly breathable as the warm air against my cheeks steadies me. As I approach the door, the music begins to speed, the player clearly laying on the keys with fast fingers. Once again, I feel the draw to go within as I near, the symbol almost begging me.

Staring at it, I notice it starts to look like overlapped letters. I see two X s, and L and a C . I know CLXX is 170 in roman numerals but . . . the number doesn’t mean anything to me. I reach my hand up, ready to trace the symbol, when the music slams into an eruption of sound. I jump out of my skin, yelping as I feel my heart burst from my chest.

Like an explosion, everything is too silent the moment the notes fade—the music stops, the violent scream from earlier doesn’t repeat, and all I can hear is my own rapid pulse thrum in my ears.

My mother’s words from what feels like a lifetime ago slither into my mind. “We need to fight off his influence. You don’t want to be his puppet, do you?” She was talking about the Devil then. How everything I thought I knew has changed since she said that to me. How she was the puppet controlling my strings all along, influencing me to retreat, to hide, to obey.

But . . . if Marina and her husband, if Father Rodrigo, if Marcelo are all right . . . if the Devil is not one to fear, then maybe I’ve been just afraid for nothing all along. Maybe the “Devil” hasn’t been the evil lingering over my life that my mother always warned about—maybe it’s not the pitchfork-wielding red guy in Hell, but more the devils we know, the person sitting next to you in a pew.

And if that’s true, the devil I know has always been her. She’s brought the danger to me, brought her flock of demons in the men she dated. She beat me like I was a seducer in Dante’s eighth circle, a demon in her own right.

Compared to her, compared to what I’ve lived through, this demon—Valac—will be nothing. And maybe . . . just maybe . . . she’s been influenced all along. Maybe the daggers in her eyes have been caused by the demon—like my bouts. Maybe those daggers aren’t really her.

That’s when I realize the sigil on the door isn’t roman numerals—those aren’t X s, but a V and an A.

The sigil is spelling Valac.

I take another deep breath and push myself through the marked door and into the stone basement of the convent.