How long had it been? Days? Weeks? A year?

Time was no longer of consequence to John. He drifted in and out of consciousness, plagued by visions of hell, of the carnage, of the girl's severed hands in his. He'd failed her, and he'd failed his crew, all because he'd been too bloody stupid to realize the didn't have the demon's real name. Now Nergal had the girl and a bone to pick with John to boot. And, of course, everyone thought John had killed the girl, because who the f*ck would believe him when he said a demon had dragged her to hell?

At the end of the day, he may not have meant to do what he'd done, but he'd still done it. He hadn't murdered the girl, no, but he may as well have pushed her into hell himself. And his attempt at rescuing her had only made everything worse.

John had checked in at Ravenscar Asylum willingly, wanting to recover from the whole thing. Instead, it'd made everything worse. The staff at the asylum were as demons to him. They beat him, shocked him, tortured him, mocked him, treated him as a murderer—all except one. A nurse, the one in charge of him, actually seemed to think John was a person and not a complete monster. His drugged, fractured mind couldn't tell, though. To him, this one was a demon too, here to punish him for his sins. To give him false hope, only to let him fall into the others' clutches, again and again.

"Bloody hell," he hissed, not bothering to struggle against his restraints when he saw the nurse come in. "Just leave me alone already. I don't want your sh*tty soup, and I don't need another f*cking bath. Just take my damn blood, give me the stupid pills, and go."