That night, my dreams dragged me backward through time, not gently, but by the throat. I was small again, no higher than an average adult’s waist, planted in my childhood bedroom as if I had never escaped it. The air smelled wrong, stale and metallic.

  Before I had time to think on anything, the doorknob rattled.

  Locked.

  The sound was soft at first, almost polite, as though whatever waited on the other side hoped I might answer willingly. I took a step toward the door, already rehearsing my apologies, already reaching to open it, when the knob rattled again, harder this time. Angry. Insistent.

  “VINCENT!” my father roared from the other side. His fist slammed into the wood, once, twice, again, each blow deep and vicious, making the door groan like a wounded animal. “Vincent, open this damn door!”

  I had no idea what had made him so angry, which was all too common. Sometimes the reasons for his wrath were obvious. Sometimes they came out of nowhere, like thunder on a clear day. Terror flooded me, cold and clawing, because the outcome was always the same. I could already feel the beating waiting for me on the other side of that door, my body bracing for pain it remembered too well.

  Each impact of his fists against the only thing separating us sounded less like knocking and more like siege work. A battering ram pounding at castle gates that were never meant to hold. My muscles locked up, my skin prickled, and my breath shortened as my mind raced ahead to the moment those hateful hands would find me.

  The window became my only idea of survival. My bedroom was on the second floor, and I hated heights, but fear has a way of reorganizing priorities. Hiding in the closet was a lie. He would find me there. He always did.

  I slid the glass open, the sound too loud in the quiet room, and crawled out onto the stretch of roof above the front porch. The shingles shifted beneath me, loose and unreliable, scraping against my palms. I clutched the windowsill with one hand, knuckles white, my heart hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it through the walls.

  Behind me, the assault on the door turned feral. Wood splintered. The frame screamed. “OPEN THE DOOR!” His shouts had become rabid, like a creature devoid of reason or any sense of mercy. The house itself seemed to flinch. I knew I had seconds at most.

  Below me waited a ten foot drop. I pictured bones snapping, breath knocked out of me, pain sharp enough to cut through the fear. Yet, I felt I could endure it better than I could endure his violence. At that point, he’d trained me so well that even the mere sound of his voice induced pain.

  I laid myself down on the slanted roof, my body stiff with dread, and angled myself toward the edge. I told myself not to think. Thinking made it worse. I loosened my grip.

  The door exploded inward.

  It fell apart in pieces, crashing onto the bedroom floor like a slain guardian. He stood beside my bed, nostrils flared, face swollen red with fury. Every vein stood out in his arms and neck, cords of frenzy pulled tight beneath his skin. I knew that look. I had memorized it. It was the same expression he wore while watching the news, spitting hatred at the television, raging about Islamic terrorism and the Democrats. It was the same face he turned on me now.

  I let go of the windowsill.

  The shingles burned as I slid, skin scraping, breath caught in my throat. Then there was air, a brief weightless moment where I thought maybe, just maybe, I had evaded him.

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  Hands caught me.

  Relief came first, swift and stupid, the thought that I had not shattered myself on the ground. It died instantly when I looked up and saw who held me.

  “What were you going to do?” my father shouted. “Break every bone in your body and then try to crawl away? Think, Vincent! THINK!”

  I kicked and thrashed, my limbs useless against his unyielding grip. He carried me as if I weighed nothing, hauling me back toward the house. The front door swung open without being touched, like the mouth of some devouring beast. Inside waited only darkness, thick and absolute.

  As my eyes adjusted, the dark gave way to a sight that froze my blood. The living room tiles were slick with red. Blood spreading slowly, deliberately, like it had all the time in the world.

  He shoved me face-first into the wall, my back toward him, his breath hot at my neck. I screamed until my throat burned, begged until the words turned to noise, but there was no one left to hear me. No neighbors. No guardian angels. Only the man who had dragged me back into Hell.

  I knew what came next.

  Agony was already on its way.

  That was when I awoke.

  I came out of sleep like a man surfacing from deep water, lungs burning. Without thinking, I swung my legs from the bed and stood, already searching for an exit. My body remembered before my mind did.

  Run. There might still be time.

  I took two unsteady steps before the room began to resolve itself around me. The ceiling slanted wrong. The shadows sat where they should not. Then I saw the trapdoor in the floor, the square cut of it leading down to the garage, and memory snapped back into place with an audible click.

  I was not a small child. I was nineteen.

  I was not trapped in that demonic domicile.

  I was in Lloyd’s loft.

  The relief should have been complete, but it wasn’t. It never was. I’d left a Hellish home, but carried demons with me. They paced in the dark corners of my skull, whispering doubts and dragging memories back into the light so they could feast upon my despair all over again.

  My heart refused to slow. The room tilted as I moved, and I had to catch myself against the wall before making my way to the bathroom. I flipped on the light.

  It invaded in the darkness, driving back every shadow.

  White pain stabbed through my eyes, and I winced as my pupils shrank against it. I leaned over the sink, turned on the faucet, and splashed water onto my face in desperate handfuls. Cold. Too cold. I welcomed it.

  My fingers curled around the porcelain basin, gripping it hard, anchoring myself to something solid, something real. I focused on the feel of it beneath my palms, the slickness of water, the hum of the pipes.

  He was dead.

  The thought felt dangerous, like saying the Devil’s name aloud. Still, I clung to it. For all the guilt that had gnawed at me for years, there was that small mercy. He would never pound on my door again. Never roar into my life. Never bellow, “Think, Vincent! THINK!” with the threat of violence waiting just beyond the words.

  Unless he’s waiting for you in the next life.

  The thought slithered in uninvited.

  What truly horrible deity would consign me to such a fate?

  I already knew. I had gone looking for answers once, digging where I should not have. In my extra-curricular studies, I had wandered into the occult, into books no sane person would touch. One horrible name surfaced.

  Abraxis.

  The syllables made my stomach tighten.

  There’s no use dwelling on this now. Focus on the things you can control.

  The words became my mantra for the next several minutes.

  I stepped into the shower and twisted the handle until the water steamed. Then I turned it further. Hotter. Still not enough. The heat crawled over my skin, but the chill inside me stayed put. I scrubbed hard, harder than necessary, until my skin reddened.

  Something clung to me.

  I could not see it, but I felt it all the same. A filmy, oily residue, tacky and wrong. I imagined it seeping into my pores, slipping into my blood, spreading quietly until it permeated my life force.

  Steam swallowed the bathroom, fogging the mirror, blurring my reflection into something vague and unfamiliar. Even if the water had been scalding hot, even if it burned, it would not have mattered.

  Some things do not wash away.