Planning, as it turned out, didn't take all that much time and we found ourselves done by early that same Tuesday afternoon. We had worked out a basic idea of what was going to happen, but when we got down to the nitty-gritty details, we realised we'd just have to play a lot by ear. Neither of us knew the place where Jesse was being held, so we couldn't exactly draw up any maps and plan some elaborate escape route. We'd just have to take stock of the way in to the visiting room and work out the best way to make our escape once our distraction was in full swing.

I was apprehensive about the whole thing. Now matter how much we talked over the idea it was still insane, stupidly risky, and I had to keep reminding myself that I had nothing left to lose. Frank, on the other hand was decidedly excited about the whole thing. I knew it was primarily the prospect of being freed and creating some carnage that had his blood pumping. I just hoped it wouldn't turn into too much of a bloodbath.

Once we were done, Frank decided it was high time he made his daily appearance down the local, and I had to admit it probably would arouse some suspicions if he didn't show his face. Though I made my demands that he shouldn't get hammered, and that he make sure he was back at the house at a reasonable hour. I was loathe to let him stay in the house with me, but it was the only way I could guarantee I'd still be able to find him when the time came to visit Jesse; I was fairly certain he wouldn't skip out on me, but a Whisperer really wasn't the sort of demon you could trust. But for the time being, it would be a relief not to have Frank hanging around the house. As amicable as we'd managed to be during our lengthy conversation, I wasn't so sure it was going to last, and we needed to be able to get along for our plan to work.

In the meantime I raided the kitchen for what little food Jesse still had left stashed in the cupboards and the fridge; after not eating since breakfast the previous morning I was positively ravenous. I also needed to ring Nick and see if he could pick up Jesse's car from the police station, but a part of me was putting it off. I really didn't know where to begin explaining how his best friend ended up in prison. But, I needed my things now I was no longer able to risk even opening that small portal into Hell. I might not have owned much, but having a few personal possessions made me feel less like I was drifting with no place to belong. I might no longer have anywhere to call home, at the very least I could still have some things to call mine.

Once I'd found some bread that wasn't entirely blue with mould and managed to make myself a sandwich – though the pickings had been slim, and I feared the fact I may have to spend what little cash I had left on a takeaway for dinner – I finally plucked up the courage and phoned Nick.

It was an awkward conversation, I should have been used to those by that point I supposed, but it didn't make it any easier. Somehow I managed to gloss over the most pressing details, feigning ignorance of the whole ordeal and claiming he'd need to speak with Jesse about what was really going on. He hadn't sounded very happy, but in the end he'd agreed to go and pick up the car, and all of our things along with it. It wasn't the first time Jesse had been arrested for something, but it was certainly the most serious of offences, and the only time he'd never been let out again with a slap on the wrist and a fine, I couldn't blame him for being concerned for his friend but I just couldn't let anything slip that would jeopardise our plan.

Nick wanted to see Jesse, naturally, and I think I managed to put him off trying until at least Friday of that week, it would hopefully give us a good couple of days to get away once we got him out of that place – and of course if we managed to get away from Frank. That was really the most pressing detail of the plan, and the part that worried me the most. Of course I hadn't said a word when I discussed things with the demon himself, but I couldn't help but worry that he knew exactly what I intended to do; he knew just as well as I did that Jesse and I were fresh out of other options.

Frank managed to make it back a little before closing time, which surprised me, I was so certain he'd be there drinking right up until Frances called time. It made me think somewhat better of him and his commitment to our plan – though perhaps it should have made me more worried. He stank of drink, and the lecherous smile he wore made me feel uneasy. I didn't want to be in his company much longer than I had to, at least not until he sobered up – thankfully the demon possessing that human body meant that the intoxicating effects would pass fairly quickly, I needn't worry about the state of him for the following day – so I decided to turn in for the night. I was, if truth be told, exhausted. I only wished the door to the bedroom I'd been staying in had a lock on it.

Frank stayed on the sofa. The house was empty besides the two of us and there were two free beds alongside the one I used for myself, it would have been easy for Frank to stay in one, but I was loathe to let him sleep in Jesse's bed even though he might never get to stay in it himself again. The second bed wasn't made, and I had no idea where Jesse might keep any spare bedding, so in the end I threw and extra pillow and and old sheet I found in the airing cupboard at him and declared I was going to sleep.

“Oh, so I'll just stay in here then, shall I?” he asked, disdain dripping from his tongue as he spoke, clutching the bedding he'd caught under one arm.

I fixed him with a stern glare and nodded, “Yes, kip on the sofa. It's a step up from the park bench.” With that I breezed down the hallway and shut the door to the room I had started to consider my own. For good measure I snagged one of the high backed chairs from the dining room as I passed and jammed it under the door handle. Call me paranoid, but the last thing I wanted was Frank paying me a late night visit unannounced.

Before I got into bed, I ran through the things in my bag one last time. Once Nick had brought the car back, I had packed a few essentials into my handbag and then stowed the rest of my belongings back in the boot of the car along with Jesse's, which I had rifled through and repacked with a few more items. Frank was going to drive us to the prison the following afternoon as, much to my surprise, he actually had a drivers license. So once we made our break for it, Jesse and I could get away in the car, at least that was my plan. It would have to be dumped eventually, too easily identifiable, but we'd need a decent getaway to start with. I also had Jesse's phone and mine, what little money we had between the pair of us, his car keys so that Frank wasn't tempted to take a drunken midnight joyride and, of course, what remained of that small vial of yellow potion. You just never knew when it might come in handy, at the very least I could overdose someone and poison them if it came to that.

Happy that I was as prepared as I could ever be, I stashed the bag beside me in the double bed – call me paranoid again – and settled down beneath the covers. As tired as I was, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to sleep much, but I'd make the most of what might be my last night in a real bed for a while.

The following morning dawned with a heavy feeling of tension hanging in the air – or maybe it was just me. I awoke feeling groggy and a little sick as my stomach twisted itself into knots of anxiousness. I'd known I wouldn't sleep too well but hadn't anticipated quite how hard it would be to catch even a few hours. My mind hadn't stopped working overtime all night, running through every potential scenario that could occur the following day and I'd worked myself into such a nervous frenzy that sleep just hadn't come.

I managed to drag myself out of bed, throw on some clothes and venture down the hallway in search of coffee in the vain hope that it might help to wake me up; I really needed to have my wits about me today and walking around like a zombie wasn't a good start. Frank was already in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge dressed in the only pair of corduroy trousers I'd ever seen him wear, just as creased and grubby as ever. His dark blue plaid shirt was half unbuttoned, exposing a doughy chest covered in a carpet of greying hair. The stench of stale alcohol that perpetually clung to him filled my nostrils and caused the nausea in my stomach to creep up my throat. I needed to get a handle on these nerves before they really did get the better of me.

“Morning, love,” he said as he slapped the fridge door closed, coming out empty handed. He took in the sight of me and I could see the expression of amusement fall over his face. Even in his state of half undress, Frank somehow managed to look better than I did in that moment. “Well don't you look a sight. Maybe we won't need my distraction after all, you could just scare them with that look of yours.”

“Oh shut up.” Was all I could muster in way of a retort, my brain not quite up to feeling witty, or even insulting.

I reached up a hand to brush my hair out of my eyes and cringed as I felt the birds nest of tangles that currently sat on top of my head, the result of night of tossing and turning – not to mention it was dirty and the bottle colour had seen better days. I'd risked a brief glance in the dressing table mirror before I'd left my room and grimaced at how pasty my ordinarily pale skin appeared, not to mention the huge dark bags that hung below my amethyst eyes, I hadn't even bothered to slip in my coloured contact lenses. It was only Frank in the house with me, and I wasn't in any way trying to impress him, so I wasn't bothered so much about the mess I looked, but I should have known he wouldn't let it go unmentioned.

He cackled at me as I filled the kettle with water and set it to boil. “What, no better comeback than that? You really must feel as bad as you look.”

His goading me and my biting back had come to feel like a comfortable game between us, but I was just too sick with nerves to play. So I glared at him and shook my head.

“Yes, I get the picture, I look like shit. I didn't get much sleep last night okay, so just drop it, Frank, please.”

“Wow, a please? You're really not yourself this morning, are you?” Frank studied me as I leaned back against the kitchen counter and waited for the water to boil so I could make myself a black coffee – the milk had sadly turned while Jesse and I were away, still I couldn't complain too much, at least there was still some instant coffee in the jar.

“Don't feel so nervous, love. Yeah, your plan is pretty much the craziest idea I've ever heard, but think of the fun we're going to have while we do it. And besides, it's not like you've got anything left to lose now, is it?”

That was the problem I was facing. The more I had rolled things over in my mind as I lay awake in bed that night, the more I had started to realise that no, I didn't have nothing left to lose, I had everything. Everything was resting on this plan of mine succeeding, every last hope I had scraped up that I might be able to find an escape from this ridiculous set up. Even if there was no hope for me ever returning to my old life it didn't mean I was entirely willing to just give up and roll over dead for the demonic bounty hunters.

Hell might never be my home again, but as the human blood in me grew stronger every day I spent on the surface, surrounded by others that might be companions, I'd certainly grown more accustomed to the idea that perhaps the surface could become a home for me. Frank was the key to my plan succeeding, as well as its biggest obstacle and I was stuck having to trust him, and trust in myself that I would be smart enough to get away from him when the time came. Too bad I wasn't exactly brimming over with confidence.

I managed a weak smile. “Yes I suppose, even when you put it like that, you do have a point.”

“Well sound a little more enthusiastic about it, love. It was all your idea after all.” Frank clapped me on the shoulder, buttoned his shirt and grabbed his coat from the back of one of the dining room chairs. “There's sod all to eat in this house, I'm going to buy breakfast. You want anything?”

I shook my head, my stomach was still churning far too much to consider food; I wasn't even sure I'd manage to keep my coffee down.

“Okay then, well you'd better at least have a shower or something, else the prisoners are gonna be much more scared of you than they are of me.”

“Ha ha,” I replied, dryly, still the best response I could come up with. “Don't disappear for long. They should be ringing me with confirmation of my visitation, and a time. I don't want to be late.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the drill. You think I'm going to skip out on this opportunity, love?”

With that he left, the door slamming hard enough behind him to make me jump. Get a grip Rayne, I told myself as I willed my heart to slow before I poured the boiled water into my mug. You're never going to survive the day if you don't pull yourself together. You came up with this idea, it's all your plan, you can make it work. Are you a demon or not? These days though, that question was getting harder and harder to answer. My human side was always much more in play than I liked to admit; the demons being out to get me left me feeling incredibly detached from my demonic roots, but most of the time I was left feeling stranded somewhere in between the two worlds, not really belonging nor welcome in either.

Nerves started to give way to a wash of self pity which wouldn't serve me any better when it came to breaking Jesse out of his prison, nor in escaping a fully fledged demon. Shower, I commanded myself, shower and you'll feel more human. There was that phrase again, it had been cropping up a lot recently and it bugged me – it was also clear that my own inner voice wasn't any less confused than I was on the outside. Demon or human, which part of myself should I side with?

It was a question I mulled over while standing under the hot water of the shower. I didn't come up with many answers, but I managed to make myself feel a little better about the situation by realising that how things worked out today would probably determine which part of myself I should allow to reign, and that unless I pulled things together and put the plan into action I would find myself stuck in this perpetual limbo. It wasn't much in the way of a motivator, but it did the job in its own way and I stepped back out of the shower feeling more confident and far less sick. Maybe I had been over thinking, and Frank was right, nothing else left to lose.

I received a phone call from the prison not long after I'd stepped out of the bathroom, fully dressed and in much more of a state of be seen in public. They confirmed my name was on the visiting order to see Jesse that day, and all of the protocol that I would have to go through to be admitted into the visitation room. It was rather nerve wrecking, and for one horrifying moment I saw my entire plan falling through – Frank's name wasn't down on the list, they wouldn't let him in.

Somehow Frank actually managed to ease my fears on the matter. I'd been correct in my thoughts about the demon inside Maura at the wake, that she'd been trying to hypnotise Jesse from outside of his body to turn him against me, I hadn't known they could do that. Apparently it wasn't especially effective and would only last a few sparse moments, and they weren't typically allowed to use that particular power. But Frank was confident enough that he could put the whammy on the guards just long enough for them to allow him to enter the room with me. I was dubious, but I supposed if it didn't work I could always just release the Whisperer earlier than intended, it would increase the level of carnage but if it was the only option I could live a little extra blood spilled.

“So, you ready for this then, love?” Frank asked as we made our way to the car.

“What? The plan, or letting you drive Jesse's car?” I quipped back, a genuine smile curling my lips.

“Ahh, there she is, back to her old self again.” He cackled as he slammed his door and started the engine. And he was right, through much thinking and introspection I'd managed to get a handle on the anxiety that plagued me, remember your last thoughts, I'd told myself, if you're going out, go out with a bang, and that was exactly what I was going to do.