No, no, not now. We're so close.

That voice had thrown a crashing wave of despair over me. I wanted to fall down to the floor and scream out my endless frustration. Why the hell was all of this happening to me? Why could I never seem to catch a break, even when all I wanted to was to get away and have both worlds leave me alone. It didn't scream, as much as I wanted to, I wasn't going to let him see me beaten. One last shred of determination remained inside of me, and I would expend it in one last ditch effort to save my own life – oh, and Jesse's too of course. Hell had made it abundantly clear I wasn't ever going to be welcome back with open arms, and I'd be damned if I'd return as a captive.

“Rayne?” Jesse asked, his voice quivering with fear as he stared back at the demon he thought we'd left behind.

“Jesse, just get in the car,” I hissed without looking back, hoping he would obey my command unquestioningly.

“No,” the demon rasped.

It held out a clawed hand and I felt a bolt of energy charge through the air. I braced myself for the impact, dreading what it might do to me – his mind control power was horrifying just to witness – but it rippled past my ear and I didn't need to turn around to know that he'd been aiming for Jesse.

The car keys Jesse had held in his hand fell to the ground with a clatter. I risked as quick glance over my shoulder and saw that he wore the same blank, glassy stare all the others hit my The Whisperer's hypnosis power did.

“I knew you couldn't be trusted,” the demon said, speaking slowly as he wrapped his mouth which was ill designed for human speech around the words. “But you really thought you could get away with it.” He let out a rough, grating laugh that sounded like he had a throat full of gravel.

I shook my head, feeling the prickle to tears in my eyes; I wouldn't let him see me cry, and I wasn't about to give up, not yet.

“No, no Jesse, please get back in the car, please.” I hated how pitiful my voice sounded as I fought back the tears of despair.

“Foolish girl,” the demon growled. “You really think you can stop the inevitable? Your future has been written, it is done and this is how it will end.”

“No,” I muttered quietly as I took a deep breath and sucked back the tears, I would not let it swallow me. I needed to remember the anger, the frustration, the indignation at the whole messed up situation. The rage could give me power if I would just embrace it, but I realised to get anywhere I might just have to do something I wasn't yet prepared for

“No!” I said again, finding more fire to inject into my tone. “It can be unwritten. We re-write people's futures all the time in our job, why should mine be any different?”

“Because my concern is for my own life, not for yours. Handing you over will buy me back my old life, love, and that's all I care about.”

The Whisperer had a point, as much as I didn't like to admit it. He'd only helped me out with Jesse so he could get back in good with the powers in Hell by handing the two of us over to them. He'd failed in dealing with me the first time and I had a feeling they'd planned to leave him stuck inside of that drunken human meatsuit indefinitely by way of punishment, that was why he'd been so hell bent on me freeing him. His bloodbath inside the prison wouldn't have bought him any favours; the only way he was winning his place back amongst the valued of his kind was if he turned up with us – both of us, one just wouldn't cut it.

I'd weaved myself into an even deeper tangled web of mess with this plan of mine, I'd known from the off it was going to be complicated but I had no choice but to go through with it. There was no way Jesse could have kept those secrets under questioning, on trial, he'd let something slip and, despite everything that had happened I still felt the need to keep those secrets – the rest of the world was better off not knowing the truth.

But, even above all of that, I'd grown somewhat attached to Jesse during the weeks we had spent together. I felt a longing for someone to share things with, a friend, someone I could just talk freely to. A part of me had lost all hope of seeing Lucas again, and Jesse had somehow started to fill that void. In this uncomfortable, unwelcoming world on the surface, I felt rather lost without him by my side.

“You and me both,” I said with a shrug. “You knew all along that I wasn't just going to let you take us, why'd you even play along at all?”

“It was fun to watch you think you could win, love. Besides, was nice to have the feel of blood on my hands again.”

“I'm not just going to come with you.”

“I assumed as much.” The demon held up a blackened hand once again and beckoned to Jesse with a crook of his finger.

Glassy eyed, as if not really seeing nor caring where he was going, Jesse strode towards the demon. I rushed in front of him and tried to bar his way, shaking his shoulders and willing him to snap out of it, but the Whisperer's power had too great a hold on his mind.

“Jesse, no! Don't do this, c'mon think for yourself. You don't have to go to him.” But it was no good. He ploughed on through me as if I wasn't even there, knocking me to the ground in his unwavering progress. The demon laughed again as Jesse walked right into his grasp. I scrambled to my knees in the dirt just in time to watch The Whisperer encircle Jesse's throat in one of his large, skeletal hands.

“My power is stronger than any connection you thought you had with him. Now, come along quietly before I pop his head off like a champagne cork.”

Jesse was entirely unafraid, even as the demon's hand tightened around his neck. He was so lost in the hypnosis he was no longer aware of anything happening to him. If Jesse died then all of my crazed efforts to save him would have been for nothing, but I had a feeling that he was actually of more value to the Whisperer alive, I had to take a chance and call his bluff.

I shook my head, getting back to my feet. “You won't kill him, you need him alive to buy your way back into Hell.”

“You willing to take that chance, love? They want him dead anyway, I'll kill him and we'll call it collateral damage, if it means I got to you it'll be worth it.”

“No. You need us both, you know you do, and you're not going to get us,” I said with far more confidence than I was feeling.

“By my count I've already got half of what I want.”

“Well, you won't get me, and what's he really worth on his own? Let him go, go raise some more hell, kill some more people, I don't care any more. Please, just let us go. We'll run, you'll never see us again, and Hell will never hear from me again. I'll just disappear.”

“That's not how it works, love. They won't stop coming for you, not while the secret remains alive inside him, and you pose a risk. And as much as you might want to live up here now, I don't.” He clawed as Jesse's throat with his second hand, cutting of the supply of oxygen. It was unnerving to watch the tinges of blue creep into Jesse's skin, and yet he didn't so much as struggle against the grip that choked him.

Maybe he wasn't bluffing after all. I couldn't let him kill Jesse – well okay maybe I could, I just didn't want him to – but I also wasn't willing to give up my hope that I could, somehow, save the both of us. If I went with him willingly it would be over. A shrill wail of sirens approaching in the distance dragged me away from my frantic thoughts.

“Looks like you're running out of time, love. Make your choice.”

“I'm not coming with you.” I shook my head. It was a risk just letting those words slip from my lips, but he'd held onto Jesse for long enough already, through all my refusal, and he still lived. I took a chance. “You might want to get out of here before the cavalry shows up, a carpark showdown with a whole squad of armed police might just make the price for our heads redundant.”

With a roar of frustration, the demon threw Jesse to the floor and held his hand out to me. “Dammit girl, stop being a fool and come with me. You know it's your only choice.”

I felt his power ripple through the air once again and didn't have even a moment to brace myself before it hit me. It was agony as I felt the fingers of power pierce through my head, it was as if those long, sharp talons were digging deep into my brain. What was he doing to me? None of the others showed signs of this kind of agony, I almost willed the quiet, peaceful bliss they seemed to enjoy under the power of his hypnosis. With that thought, the pain actually started to lessen. A hazy, light-headed feeling came over me as the pain faded, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was on my knees once again and quite content to stay there as a white mist descended over my vision.

“Come to me...” The Whisperer's voice echoed through my mind, and I found myself rising to my feet, entirely compliant.

What are you doing? A voice so faint in the back of my head muttered. I could barely hear the words, but the murmuring noise distracted me. It was a voice I recognised, but it was not the demon's this time. I stumbled as the compulsion to keep moving fought against my desire to stop and listen to this other voice. A cry of pain escaped me as my knees, yet again, smashed into the concrete; they were going to be raw and bloody by the time this day was over. The voice spoke again, louder this time and distracted me from the pain.

He's using his hypnosis power on you. Snap out of it or this'll be the end of everything. Of course, I finally recognised the voice, it was my own. My own internal monologue was trying its damnedest to wake me up and drag me from the grips of The Whisperer's power.

“Get up! Come to me, now.” The demon's voice resonated through my head once again and I felt a huge, overpowering compulsion to get back to my feet and wander straight into his waiting arms, but I was hearing my own voice too, loud and clear now, and it was saying things I knew I should be taking heed of.

Get up and get away from that thing. You can fight off his power, but not for long. Get up and run!

The hypnosis trying to take its hold on me, as well as my own advice urged me to my feet. The demon smiled, a hideous expression on his pointed face, and let out a soft, self-satisfied chuckle.

“That's it, come to me now, love,” he urged again, but I was resolute to ignore him.

I was on my toes ready to run, listening to my own good advice for once, when I suddenly remembered something.

“Jesse?” The word was on my lips before I could stop it. Could I really run and leave him with the demon? All of this had been about getting him out of that place and getting away together, I couldn't abandon him now to save myself, could I?

“You're stronger that I would have believed,” The Whisperer croaked, aloud this time, not in my head, and I felt the vague hold he still had on my mind slip away. “Still leaves us at odds though, love. And we're all but out of time for this stand-off.”

He was right, the wail of sirens had grown louder, screaming as the cars ploughed down the empty street. Still being there when they showed up would cause more harm than good, for the both of us.

“Then go, you won't convince me to come with you willingly.”

The demon frustratedly wrenched Jesse up off of the ground, where he had obediently lain since the moment The Whisperer had cast him down, and clasped his vice-like grip back around the man's throat.

“Fair enough, love. But I'm taking him with me.”

Jesse's eyes suddenly stretched wide with fear as the hypnosis that had held in him a state of controlled calm was wrenched away, and he realised what was happening to him.

“Rayne?” he called out to me in a strangled voice as he clawed at the arm that held him still. His expression and tone begged and pleased with me for help. It clenched a fistful of emotion in my chest to see him so desperate, so helpless – my fault yet again – but in that moment I knew resoundingly that there was nothing else to be done.

“I'll see you in Hell, love. You just know you'll be coming after him, he can still be my leverage.”

The screaming sirens were at their loudest as the police cars turned into the car park, preparing to surround the prison and take stock of the tragedy that had occurred inside. The Whisperer's lips moved in a quiet muttering incantation as he summoned The Void to open at his feet.

“Don't wait too long, or he'll already be dead by the time you get there.” Clutching Jesse tight to the defined ribs of his chest the demon leaped into the darkness of The Void. Jesse's scream was the last thing to reach my ears as the hole resealed itself as if it had never been there.

With no one there to witness it, I allowed a single tear to slide down my cheek. Could this plan have gone any more wrong? Who knew how many people lay dead inside of that prison, and all for what? The demon's got exactly what they wanted – well, pretty much they still didn't have me – and I'd was left in even deeper shit than when I'd started.

I sank back to my bloody knees, my body rippling with a heady cocktail of emotions. I might have been free, but I was alone and lost, and without the one person I'd wanted to have by my side. Now an army of police officers swarmed around me and I had nowhere left to turn. Could I be any more screwed?