Love & Exorcisms | 18+ | COMPLETE |

- Chapter 50 -

Damian

Damian knew he had to give her time. He had worried about what would happen when he returned to work, and in truth, it had not seemed to go as badly as he feared. By the way Alexander described the day, Samara had her odd moments but was quiet and peaceful...until the wine. In the days she had been there thus far, Damian had never heard her request wine before. It was not a problem he had anticipated facing.

"She was distracted, frightened," Rachel signed, when she explained Samara's sudden request. "She was trying to forget something. I would know the look anywhere, the way she gulped it down." She shook her head. "Something happened. She dropped her tea cup before lunch and ran upstairs...I heard her talking."

Damian waited until the clock struck the next hour to go upstairs. He could only imagine what Samara was feeling: her comments about Alex being the "nanny" were telling. She was a grown woman, used to being independent, accustomed to dealing with her own problems. Damian knew he would bristle too if he suddenly was being watched and guarded every hour of the day. He did not want her to feel like a prisoner. He wanted her comfortable, he wanted her to feel...at home. But that feeling had to come with time, and somehow, time always felt so short.

He knocked softly on her bedroom door. When no response came, he called her name and waited for a response. Had she already fallen asleep? After the wine she'd drunk, he would not have been surprised. He edged open the door, expecting to see her lying peacefully in bed. What he saw instead stopped him cold.

Samara sat in the farthest corner of the room, her knees pulled tightly to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her face was nestled down, so only her eyes peeked above her knees, staring hard at the far side of the bed. They did not even flicker towards him as he pushed the door open fully.

"Samara?" Her eyes were bloodshot. She was whispering something...over and over again...but her words were muffled. He came closer, cautiously, prepared for her to be violent. Had she been overtaken again? Had another demon assumed control?

"Samara? What's wrong?" He crouched beside her, and could make out what she was saying: "Oil and wine...oil and wine..." Again and again. He followed her gaze, toward where she was staring fixedly at the bed. But there was nothing there, only rumpled sheets.

Her whispering stopped. Tears dripped silently from her reddened eyes. "Make it stop," she begged, her voice desperate, frightened. "Please Damian. I don't want to listen to it anymore."

He did not need further encouragement. He gathered her up, tucked into his arms, her body curled so tensely she felt like stone. It did not matter what she saw, or what it said - not now. Whatever it was, she was not about to face it alone.

He carried her from the room as her body shuddered. She had covered her eyes with her hands like a frightened child, still whimpering, still saying, "Please make it stop. I'm sorry, mama. I'm sorry. Please."

It hurt. It ached to see her like that. And he could do nothing. He could not exorcise what he did not know, and he had no idea what tormented her. He took her down the hall, where his own bedroom stood behind shut double-doors. Her hands had knotted up fiercely in his shirt, clinging to him with her eyes squeezed shut.

"He said I had to face it," she said. "Don't panic...can't panic...it's what it wants..."

"Who told you to face it?" he said, torn between his bed and the less intimate nature of the corner velveteen chair in which he usually read in the evenings. He settled for the bed, as there was no comfortable way he could fit the two of them in his chair. But as he laid her down she didn't release her grip on his shirt, and he had little choice but to lay awkwardly beside her, still cradling her, one arm squashed beneath her as he used the other brush the hair from her face.