The ride back to her small apartment was a blur of neon lights and humming tires. Angela sat in the back of the taxi, her legs pressed tightly together, feeling the sticky, drying remnants of Lucifer’s release clinging to her thighs. Every bump in the road sent a jolt of soreness through her pelvis, a physical echo of the hammering she had endured.

She looked at her reflection in the window. Her lips were swollen, her neck mottled with dark purple bruises that looked like fingerprints. She pulled her scarf tight around her throat, hiding the marks of the beast, but she couldn't hide the hollow look in her eyes. She had saved her grandmother, but she felt as though she had walked through a fire and come out as ash.