My mother floated through a field. I could barely make her out in the darkness. She was a shimmering light that seemed to fade in and out and she was crying.

I tried to reach her, but every time I thought I was close she would float away. My heart broke each time she wailed. My family was gone, and my mother would forever walk in between, mourning their loss unless I could get close enough to her spirit to coax her into the light.

Abruptly, the dream changed. There was a swirl of black, and I felt myself falling. I landed before a great crater of darkness. My father approached from within a gray mist. He walked toward me, a smile on his face.

Then his expression morphed.

His eyes suddenly changed. They turned red, and evil shone through them. His smile was now unnatural, unearthly. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the evil vanished and he was my father again. He raised his hands and called out to me. I yelled his name, frightened he would change again. I tried to run to him, but I couldn't, frozen in place.

Then he left, taking the blackness with him.

The dream changed once more. I was in a room. In the center of the space, there were black-lit candles arranged in a large circle. Spread across the floor were paintings—drawings of animals. On the walls, there were two dozen red symbols. What are those?

As I moved closer to the symbols on the wall, a strong metallic smell filled the air. I touched a red circle. It had been newly drawn, shining against the white surface. Red drops of fresh paint ran down the wall. I touched the circle's line, then lifted my finger to my face.

It didn't feel like paint.

I touched a fingertip to my tongue and tasted copper. Metallic smell, copper taste, the feel of it as I rubbed my fingers together.

Blood.

I heard a noise and turned. In the center of the circle of candles stood a figure cloaked in shadow with its hands raised toward the ceiling. It held something. Then it opened its hands and raised the item resting in its palms higher. My stomach coiled in disgust and disbelief.

A beating heart lay cradled between the fingers while blood dripped down the person's hands and arms.

A heart.

Each time it beat, I heard a loud scream.

* * *

Nurse Harrington came into my room in the morning. She was a middle-aged, mousy woman with a brisk, efficient personality. Dressed in bright, cheerful scrubs that didn't seem to match her matronly air, oddly, she didn't comment when she saw the dripping clothes on the bathroom floor or the cracked mirror. She just pulled out another gown from one of the drawers and handed it to me.

I moved off the bed slowly, my body sore. A long, black-and-blue bruise now ran from my rib cage to my thigh from where I'd been tossed on the floor. I took the robe off and put the gown on.

The nurse had glanced towards my bruises, but she didn't seem shocked nor concerned about them. Instead, she seemed to focus on the injury no longer hidden beneath my clothing.

She motioned toward my hand and its makeshift dressing, crusted with blood. "After you clean up, we'll get a bandage on that."

She didn't ask what happened, and I didn't offer an explanation. I followed the nurse down the hallway and into a bathroom. This wasn't like the bathrooms in the old, rundown area of the hospital. This was a modern facility only one hallway over from my room.

Nurse Harrington handed me a towel and a bar of soap and asked if I wanted to take a bath or a shower. My hands trembled as I took a step away from the closest tub. I didn't think I'd ever take another bath again. I could still feel the pressure of Larry's hand on my head, forcing me under the icy water.

I told her I preferred a shower, and she asked if I needed any help. When I assured her, I could manage on my own, she told me she would be back for me in twenty minutes.

I got undressed and stepped into the shower. I stood under the water, enjoying the feeling of the heat on my skin. It was lovely to be warm again after last night. As usual, there was no shampoo or conditioner. I was no longer surprised by the lack of amenities in this place, so I did the best I could, washing my hair with a bar of soap.

Once clean and dressed, I waited for the nurse to come back.

All the while I thought of the medallion. I'd lost it somewhere last night, and I was desperate to get it back. If we did find a spell to help Luke fully take over Dean's body, there was no way I could power it on my own. But that wasn't the only problem. Luke was back and now in the body of someone who had never finished the rituals. Dean had never gained the full power and training of a death dealer. That meant Luke, for the time being, did not have any powers.

Luke had tried to summon banshees the second night he'd possessed Dean, but it hadn't worked. The look of frustration on his face when he failed had almost broken my heart. Luke's mind had the knowledge he needed to do the spells, but Dean's body didn't. Until Luke was able to successfully go through the second ritual again, he wouldn't have any power.

Could Luke even attempt the second ritual? What happened when the body was already possessed by a spirit? Would another spirit jump in and force Luke out forever?

To me it wasn't worth the risk for him to even try, not until we could get some answers. We could ask Walter, I thought, but changed my mind immediately. Would he even know what to do? He had no clue how my powers worked, and he had given me this spell that proved to be a dud.

If we ever got out of this place, we could try and find someone to help Luke restore his powers.

I pressed my forehead against the closest wall and sighed, turning my thoughts back to the real problem at hand—the medallion. It had to be in Dr. Barton's office or in the hallway between here and there. I knew I'd had it in my hand when the orderlies had grabbed me. I had to find it before someone else did.

I walked to the door, opened it, and looked up and down the hallway. No sign of Nurse Harrington. The coast was clear for the moment. This might be my only chance to search. I made my way down the hallway and through the doors, scanning the floor as I went.

No medallion.

When I was finally in front of Barton's office, I tried the handle, only to find it locked. No luck. There was one other place I could have dropped it—the old bathroom in the vacant part of the hospital. I wasn't keen on going back there and reliving last night's adventures, but if the medallion was there, this might be my only chance of finding it before someone else.

I made my way through the hallways and down the stairs. I passed a couple of nurses and patients as I went, but I kept my expression calm and my gait slow. As long as I looked like I belonged, I doubted anyone would stop me, not in the daytime. The hospital, for once, didn't seem to fight me, and the path in front of me made more sense than it usually did. I only got lost twice before I made it to my destination.

I walked through the swinging doors and into the old bathroom. Oddly, a wheelchair rested upside down on the side of one of the tubs—the same tub Hank and Larry had tortured me in.

What's that wheelchair doing here? I walked over to the tub and looked down into it. It took me a moment to process what I was seeing.

The tub was full of water. A few small pieces of ice floated across the murky surface. Dean lay at the bottom. His lifeless eyes stared up at me.

The medallion lay next to his head, sparkling brightly under the water.

* * *

I stood paralyzed. Memories whipped through me of people in black robes rushing around the ballroom, screaming in fear and pain. Luke, his body crushed under the stone altar, his face ashen, his lifeless body.

I remembered desperately trying to reach him, to heal him, but hands had grabbed at me and pulled me back.

Voices screamed, "Help us!"

Spirits in the here and now were screaming at me too, startling me out of my memories. I was back in the present, gazing down at the motionless body in the water.

He's drowning... I have to get him out!

"Luke!" I reached into the tub, grabbing him around the waist and trying to pull him up. He was too heavy. "No!" I cried in frustration and changed position. I reached under the water again, and this time grabbed his right arm. I braced my feet against the tub and pulled, straining with every bit of strength and, ever so slowly, his body began to move. I dragged him out of the water, inch by painful inch, until his upper half tilted over the edge of the tub and his weight carried him over and down onto the floor.

I knelt over him. His eyes looked dead. No breath came from his lips. I was once again frozen by fear, trying desperately to remember what I should do.

A cool breeze brushed across my cheek. "CPR..." a voice whispered in my ear.

I leaned forward and put my lips on his. I breathed once, twice. His lungs inflated with each of my breaths. I put my head down against his chest but heard no heartbeat.

"Come on, Luke! Come back!" I crossed my hands, one on top of the other, and brought them down hard against his chest. I pushed again and again. I can't remember how many times to push before breathing into him. I stopped my frantic compressions and focused. I took a deep breath, put my lips against his, and blew.

I don't know how long it went on. Every ounce of my being concentrated on doing this one task. My life narrowed into nothing but pushing and breathing.

Walter had warned me. I had one shot at bringing Luke back. He'd told me that if I used this spell, if I forced Luke's spirit into this body, I was messing with the very laws of nature. To do it once was taking a risk. Who knew if Luke would be the same when he came back?

The time spent in between, the pain spirits felt over the loss of life, the loss of loved ones, the suffering they took with them, unresolved issues from their lives, tasks left undone, regrets—all these things could change a person, make them different.

But Luke had come back the same. He was the same guy I met in the magic shop, the same guy I fell in love with.

Walter had warned me that if for some reason Luke couldn't stay inside Dean—if Luke's spirit was forced out and I tried the spell again—there was a chance Luke's spirit wouldn't come back at all.

I pushed the thought away and refused to give up.

I pushed, I breathed. Time stood still.

And then suddenly, he coughed. It was a beautiful sound. I sat on my knees, and tears of joy streamed down my face. He's alive. Luke is still here, with me.

"Luke," I whispered, leaning over until my face was close to his.

His eyes opened, and he moaned and turned his head, reaching out to me.

I fell back in shock.

It wasn't Luke I saw in the eyes that were now open and looking directly at me.

Blue eyes stared at me as his mouth opened and a voice croaked out. "Colina? Where am I?"

It wasn't Luke's voice.

"Who are you?" I whispered, afraid to hear the answer.

"Dean. My name is Dean."

With those words, my world came crashing down. If Dean was back in his body...that meant Luke was gone, thrown back into the spirit world. He was once again in between.

I heard someone screaming. Only later would I realize that it had been me. Hands grabbed me from behind. There was a commotion.

I heard someone yell, "She tried to kill him!"

I felt the jab of a needle in my arm. The world around me went dark.

***