My hospital room is quiet for the first time in hours. As grateful as I am, I don't even know what to do with myself.

I just sit in my bed, staring blankly at the television, muted but closed-captioned. I could pay attention. I have a little more brainpower today. And maybe I ought to, but I reflect on the abysmal night I had and cry in a steady stream instead. Every couple of minutes, I take a new tissue and leave the old one on my bed table. There's quite a pile now sitting there.

It was him or me. It was foolish to ever hope we'd both survive.

I wish it was him. The tears burst out of me. I can't live like this...

I regained consciousness at a truck stop, in a puddle beside a dumpster. This was Ivy's form of "mercy," I guess. How very metaphorical. I'm yesterday's trash.

There were three bearded middle-aged men hovering over me, whispering. I was wearing only that long-sleeve pajama shirt—bloody, soiled, and twisted up by my waist. They may have meant well, and an ambulance arrived not long after, but I still felt dirty beneath their gazes, like I was just another prostitute having a rough night.

Dizzy and disoriented, and motion-sick almost instantly, I somehow managed to convey to the paramedics who I was and the basic outline of what happened to me. I am the girl who was abducted, and I hit my head trying to escape.

By the time I arrived at the hospital, it was a circus of broadcasting vans and blinking lights.

I was treated for hypothermia and dehydration, and diagnosed with a concussion. Faolan's hit with the rock required eleven stitches. I needed the glass shards extracted from my feet and six more stitches in the foot I kicked Rollin with. They tried to push a rape kit on me as well, which I declined, more than once, despite the "spotting" and "evidence of abrasion."

The "morning after pill" is still sitting in its little cup on my table. Of course I should take it, but I can't bring myself to do it. It goes against everything I used to believe in. Even if I gave in to temptation before marriage, I would have been careful and in love. This was never supposed to be me. And I just can't bear the thought that Jael and all possible traces of him will just cease to exist.

The great news is, none of my ailments are that serious, and I get to go "home" in a few hours. Yay!

And while I wait for the elusive doctor to appear, my parents have been requesting to see me again. They popped in last night, but I pretended to be sleeping and fell asleep pretending. Now that I'm more cognizant and stable, they'd like a legitimate chance to kick me while I'm down.

My nurse claims, "she's on my side," but suggests I get it over with if I have to go home with them. The staff can only keep them calm and contained for so long.

The detective from Winchester has arrived and he'd like to see me as well, "when I feel ready." I am nothing of the sort, but I give the okay. Sadly, his company seems preferable right now.

I don't even know what to tell him, though. Do I want justice in the legal sense? Would it work even if I tried? Or would it do more harm than good, especially for Jael and the slim chance he's still alive?

It's not as if I'm going to get any police protection. Even if I did, if Ivy and co. wanted to punish me for talking, it'd be as easy as it was the first time. If I mention any of the supernatural shit and why we should all be concerned, the cops will think I'm crazy. But, how could I even begin to describe anything without it? According to Jael, I can't trust them, anyway. Anything I say may be used against me. As the victim, I can't even begin to describe how unfair this is.

Take the win is the last thing Faolan said to me. He's an asshole too, but it's probably advice I should heed...

The balding guy in the suit introduces himself, I immediately forget his name, and then he gives me his bullshit introduction. We're so sorry this happened to you, and we're glad you're okay. We can't imagine what you've been though, and you're very brave to talk about it.

Then he dives right in. "There was a heated exchange between a few football players at a Halloween bonfire, and it involved you. Witnesses claim, at the peak of it, that you were dragged into the woods by a wolf?"

"That's right," I confirm. "But it let go of me. It was shot, actually, and wandered off, severely injured. I don't know what became of it. I wasn't hurt until I fell down a hill."

"Were you unconscious?" he inquires. "There were people looking for you. They allegedly called out to you and there was no response."

"I-I must have been," I stammer and spit out. "And they must not have seen me. When I woke up, everyone was gone. I was lost in the dark. My phone was in the back of Ted Moeller's truck."

"There was a lot of arguing and finger pointing, as you might expect. Did Ted Moeller have anything to do with your disappearance? What about Ian Tierney?"

"Ted is not innocent, but no, not technically. A black eye and some stalking, in case you were wondering," I add in, seeing few reasons why I should protect him anymore, and questioning why I ever did in the first place. "Ian didn't do anything wrong." Not at the time, I think but don't add. But the night was young, and he has a reputation. "We were kind of on a date and we were just talking," I carefully divulge, giving Ian the benefit of the doubt. "Something Ted didn't appreciate. Ted and I dated in the past, and it ended violently."

"Got it. That's fairly consistent with Tierney's claim, and I'll set that right in the proper channels. So, what happened next?"

"Well," I start, and then hesitate. "I was lost, like I said, and was wandering around the woods for hours. I couldn't find a road and came across . . . a group of Satanists." It totally sounds like I'm making this up now. "I asked for help, and they played along, but in the end..."

"Are you sure they were Satanists?" The detective writes that down and appears to underline the word in his notepad. "Did they bring you somewhere nearby or take you somewhere else?" He looks up at me, his thick eyebrows raised.

I'm sure he's heard this type of crap before, and it's something the media will enjoy latching on to, if they haven't already. It makes for a good story, but how often does it pan out to be true? If the truth is something you're trying to avoid, they're a convenient scapegoat. They're faceless, untraceable boogeymen that need no motive for evildoing. Their existence is terrifying but only slightly plausible. It's that terror and the public outcry that will keep even cynical cops running in circles for as long as their dedication and resources last. Even with good intentions, it won't be long. A month or two, tops.   

"I think so," I respond in regard to his Satanism question. "Or something like that. I'm no cult expert, and they didn't exactly spell out their tenets. And it was somewhere else. I was knocked around and blindfolded. And drugged, I think, so I'm not sure how far we traveled, but I do vaguely remember a vehicle."

"Do you have a description of the vehicle?"

I shake my head. "I'm sorry. I'm not good with cars," I claim while the truck they loaded Jael into comes to mind. A black Dodge Ram with a soft-top. Virginia plates, HXE-3489. "It was a van or, or . . . no, maybe one of those covered pickup trucks? Beyond that, I couldn't say."

"Can you describe where you were kept? Is there anything you picked up on? Names? Towns? Landmarks? Any physical descriptions?"

Ivy Fowler, nastiest witch in the universe, wears black and always has her cleavage in your face. Prue Fowler, like a schoolteacher from a horror movie, is a close second. "Not really. It was wooded, mountainous, remote..."

I was beaten on a regular basis by an ugly old witch. I was also tied up naked and had the blood sucked out of my upper thigh by a vampire, who was more intriguing and attractive than I'd like to admit. He told me I wasn't worth saving, though, and then I was rescued by a werewolf. A wolf shifter, by his definition, who I never should have stopped loving. And because he had consensual sex with me, he basically signed his own death certificate. And if he had to do it all again, knowing we'd get caught, he absolutely would, because that's the way he is...

"They didn't really interact with me all that much," I lie for them and hate myself for it. "It was an old three-story house, and I was kept in the attic, completely isolated. I think I was somewhere near the Shenandoah River. I couldn't hear it or see it, but it was a relatively short running distance away."

I have to give him something to go by. It's all that I do, in fact, know about the location. Maybe it'll keep this guy out of my hair for a few days. If he shows up on the Fowlers' doorstep, I have no doubt Ishmael will be able to smooth everything over, unscathed. It'd be a mere inconvenience, one that's hopefully not worth another round of retribution.

"Do you know why you were being kept there?" the detective probes further. "What did they want from you?"

"It was supposed to be some sort of sacrifice." I lift my hospital gown and show him the mark of the devil. He finally seems somewhat convinced that I'm not a complete fraud. I'm not sure what the mark will tell him, if anything, but he seems to think it's a key piece of evidence, and he takes a bunch of pictures accordingly. "I escaped in time to avoid the worst of it."

The questions go on and on, for the better part of an hour. How I escaped and how far I think I traveled and what happened to my head.

I leave out Jael entirely, and simply say I ran as far and fast as I could the moment they got careless. I slipped and hit my head by the river, and finally collapsed when I came to a truck stop. Then I refuse the rape kit in his presence, too.

I don't have to fake my impatience and fatigue, and at long last, he takes the hint, hands me his card, and makes it known that I can call him at any time if I think of anything else. 

Thanks to the brand, I get a sense that he believed me, to a degree, but he seems to have some sun and an ample water supply for that seed of doubt. I'm sure he knows I'm hiding something. These guys are used to being lied to, and he has to consider that I'm making this up, at least in part. Or my memory isn't reliable for whatever reason. Or that I'm protecting someone, maybe myself, because I'm scared—which I am, of so many things.

Whatever. This interview will probably be the only thing today that doesn't go terribly. I doubt I'll be able to say that about my parents' interrogation, where I'll be guilty no matter what.

Sure enough, not five minutes later, high heels are fast-approaching. My mother comes in, wearing her Sunday best. Her hair and makeup are done. Although her eyes are dewy from "all the emotion," it wouldn't be enough to smudge anything.

I bet she's offered a sound bite to every media outlet by now.

She struts right over to me, grabs my bandaged head, and air-kisses my temple. She wouldn't want to smudge her fresh coat of lipstick. "How are you feeling, honeybee?" She uses the nickname for me that no one has used in years, and sweeps a hand down my hair, always so proud of my natural, honey-blond color.

"A little better," I reply, my eyes darting to the doorway in anticipation, and then to the TV, when expectation becomes reality. 

Amos plods into my hospital room in his typical fog of disgust, and he lingers by the wall, as if my depravity were contagious. 

"What's this?" my mother immediately asks me, picking up the little white pill in the cup and glancing in at it before handing it to me. "Something you forgot to take?"

"Nothing." I dump it in my mouth and gulp it down with my cup of water. "Just a painkiller."

No, it's actually a split-second decision to minimize the chance of a pregnancy.

It goes down rough, and I regret taking it before it even hits my stomach. I didn't want them—specifically him—to get a good look at it. I'd never want them to know I was considering it, and why I should take it. I had sex, I didn't use protection, and I would never ever ever want to bring a fatherless child into their household, especially one that would always be different.  

"Then why didn't you take it earlier?" my stepfather puts forth, knowingly enough to make me squirm.

I shrug in response and hope my burning cheeks don't give anything away. Amos would disagree, and I'd be damned any which way, but I know it's for the best and Jay would understand. We never got a chance to talk about it, but I assume he'd want the same thing under these circumstances.

The sudden reality is still miserable, though. My stomach turns. My eyes resume watering, from the physical pain of swallowing a pill, quickly and carelessly, and all the implications. All I will ever have of him is the memory. 

Amos is watching me with his beady, hawk-like eyes, but at least my mother has the attention span of an eight-year-old. She picks up the remote and turns up the volume.

"This is it, I think," she announces, oblivious to my actual pain and humiliation. She'd rather hear about it on the news, something she'd regard more favorably on behalf of her own contribution.

The segment begins in a tone of celebration, something that doesn't infiltrate my hospital room.

The search for Samantha Hartwell, the missing Winchester University Freshman, has finally come to an end. Her friends and family once feared the worst, and are now overjoyed that she was found alive... 

They cut to the cheerleaders and football players in a line beside the field, with their pom-poms and full uniforms.

"We miss you, Sam," says a smiling Ian Tierney. "The team is not the same without you. Prayers for a speedy recovery." And thanks for clearing my name. I'm sure that's at the top of his mind, higher than any of his actual words, flawlessly delivered as they were.

"He likes you," my mother comments while she briefly peels her eyes away from the screen.

He likes him, I'd like to share, but there's no one to share it with.

The camera jumps to my tearful mother, somewhere outside of the hospital. "We'd like to give thanks to the Lord, for He is good," she says and then they cut back to the journalist.

"That's it?" she complains to Amos, who shushes her. "They cut me off," she grumbles to herself, a few notches lower, though still loud enough for us all to hear.

They've taken a turn toward the darker side of the story, one Amos would undoubtedly hit someone to appreciate in full.

The abduction is still under investigation. There are few leads, although the rumors of Satanism, ritual sacrifice, branding, torture, and sexual assault have gained new credibility...

My mother gasps and turns to me. "Honeybee, were you . . . raped." Out of that long list, that's her cause for concern, and it's the only bullet point that isn't as accurate as the rest.

"No!" I insist, cowering beneath the weight of their horrified gazes.

Even if it happened that way and was fully beyond my control, I'd still be tainted in the eyes of the Lord. My parents are no doubt wondering what my marriage prospects will be after this. It's more baggage than any good Christian boy would be strong enough to bear.

"Then why would they say that?" My mother turns back to the television just as they reveal a blurry, blown-up picture of my scabbed side.

It's not one of the pictures taken by the detective. I couldn't even begin to guess who took it instead, or what state I was in when it occurred. I suppose I'm "lucky" it was cropped.   

"Answer your mother!" Amos barks at me when I don't respond.

I snake both hands around my gut and look toward the depressing view out the window. "It's the media. I think it's safe to say they've been wrong before." My stomach is not only twisting. The burn is not fully healed. It's still oozy if I overexert myself, and it's sensitive to the lightest touch. And right now, I'm squeezing it, just to distract myself.

"Don't get smart with me," is Amos's current and classic response to that. "Sounds like they put the devil inside of you, somehow."

Wouldn't be the first time, right Dad?

Except this time, he's right...

His angry meandering in my direction is cut short when the nerdy doctor breezes in, like he needs this over with as quick as possible. He's overly cheerful, probably to counteract any negativity and ensure my compliance.

"Good news, Samantha. It looks like you're free to go home!" He hands me a clipboard with my discharge papers. "We'll have you out of here in no time."

"Great," I say dryly, signing my life over to my parents. "I can't wait."