Zoe was sitting in the dark cab of her vehicle in the driveway of her house. She'd been sitting in there for a good ten minutes, just staring at the darkened windows of her lovely little haunted home and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. She knew any sane person would drive fast and far away from that place, especially once they knew what Zoe knew. But she couldn't do it. No matter how much she tried to persuade herself to go somewhere else, she just couldn't. She was no longer just attached to her quaint little space; she was attached to the thing that lived inside of it. She didn't know how or why, but just like her mother she was entranced. It made her feel sick to her stomach.

She'd left the box of her mother's diaries at the library, locked up in the librarian's office. Thankfully the librarian had understood; Zoe was nervous to ask her but she made it clear that she had a very good reason. She was too afraid to bring them home. She knew Zak knew what they were. She knew he'd do anything to stop her from reading them. So she decided to keep them far away from his reach. Now she just had to fear what he'd do to her for hiding them from him.

With shaking fingers she pulled her keys from the ignition and got out of her car. Very slowly, she walked to her front door and took her time putting the key in the lock and twisting it. The door opened inwards with a soft little creak and she stepped into the darkened house, shutting it behind her. It was incredibly quiet inside. She was just blindly searching for the light switch on the wall beside her when there was a breeze and a high-pitched sound right by her face seconds before there was a loud crash and the sound of glass breaking into a hundred pieces right by her left ear. She screamed and jumped away, her boots crunching the chunks of glass on the floor. She hurried to turn on the light after that and saw one of her wine glasses was lying in shattered pieces at her feet.

Her heart was hammering in her chest and she was breathing so hard she felt lightheaded. He'd thrown a glass at her. It'd just barely missed her face. She knew it was him. Suddenly she could feel the tension and anger in the air; it was thick and it crept into her skin and froze her blood. She couldn't move. He was all around her.

"Please," she pleaded softly. "I haven't done anything wrong, I swear. I didn't call Ghostbusters or anything…just, please, leave me alone."

After a second she felt the uncomfortable air around her change and she could finally move from her position. She walked up the staircase in a very deliberate, careful manner. She was afraid, of course she was. The devil was in her house and she couldn't get him out. She had never felt so out of place in her own home before. It wasn't just her home she felt uncomfortable in anymore either; she felt wrong in her own skin too. Who was she? Who had her mother been? Zak had changed her mother, so he was going to change her too, wasn't he? What would happen to her when he did that? Her body shook with soft, horrified tremors at the thought.

She undressed and shut the lights off before crawling under her blankets and resting her head on the pillow. Her body ached for sleep, but she was still too scared to let her eyes fall shut. Every shadow and every shape in the darkness around her was something malevolent, something terrifying. Plus, if she let herself fall asleep, he'd be there, waiting for her. In her dreams he could touch her, which meant he could hurt her. She hadn't done anything. That was what she would tell him if he got angry: she hadn't done anything. She'd only been reading. And even though what she'd read had disturbed her, it wasn't like she could do anything to Zak over it. She certainly wasn't capable of hurting him. She could yell at him, but that would only make things worse for her. No, she'd have to handle the matter in a calm and collected manner. Unfortunately, she was in no position to act calm and collected. She was too scared.

She began to feel too hot under her heavy blankets, so she kicked them off and laid on top of them for a little while. When that did nothing, she slipped her robe on, walked over to her window, and opened it. The cool night air seeped through the screen and hit her, forcing her to hug her arms around her waist. It felt good on her clammy skin. It tossed little pieces of her hair around as she stared out at the empty, dark street. The only light source came from the lonely street lamp across the street, and it cast nasty shadows on everything just outside of the light's reach.

As she was admiring the way the light disfigured everything, she felt the delicate pressure of fingers down her spine and arm. They were enticing; they were fingers that said 'come back to bed…come back to bed with me'. They transformed into the sensation of hands and arms and they wrapped softly around her waist. She gave a soft sigh of contentment, feeling safe in those arms, and she leaned back a little, expecting to find a whole body behind her for some reason even though she knew she was alone. She was reminded that she was alone when she stumbled back into the empty space behind her and she turned around to find no one standing there. The feeling of arms around her waist had vanished and suddenly the air coming in from the window had gone too cold. She shivered and shut the window but stood in front of it for a moment, hesitating to return to bed.

She'd felt so safe and at home in the ghostly arms that had held her a moment ago. In her head, for some reason, she truly felt like there was a solid human body behind those arms. She'd felt like it was someone who truly loved her that was holding onto her so kindly. But it had been no one; it had been a phantom. No, it had been worse than that: it had been a demon; a trickster. It was all a trick. He was just trying to get her comfortable enough that she'd fall asleep. He was evil and couldn't be trusted.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled to the open air before exiting her room.

She turned on the hallway light and made her way down to the kitchen, where she began to brew a pot of coffee. If she just didn't sleep, he couldn't do anything. Well, he could throw more objects at her, but what would that accomplish for him? It wouldn't make her talk; not that late at night. He'd just have to sit there and bare it and relax until he was fit to speak to her. When she stopped feeling like she was suffocating in her own house, that was when she'd allow herself to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, the coffee didn't keep her awake for long enough. She fell into a fitful slumber around three-thirty in the morning on her little couch, with a thin blanket wrapped loosely around her legs. Her dreams weren't solid, but instead little flashes of images that terrified her. Zak was in every one of them, his face contorting into something made of pure evil. His teeth were sharp and jagged points that curved out of his gums as his mouth opened in a menacing snarl. She could hear echoes of his voice as he yelled at her, but she couldn't understand the language he was using. His eyes were that horrid oily black colour, glistening as if lit up by a flickering white flame. He had black leathery wings that sprouted from his shoulder blades with a span that easily broke twelve feet in width. There were deadly horn-like spikes poking out of the top finger joints on each wing, matching the curled, dark horns that had grown out of his temples. With every snapshot image he got closer and angrier, slashing at her with clawed fingers. She felt like she was on fire at one point, and her body felt wet with her own blood and sweat. She began to fear the worst. In her dream, she had died at the hands of the devil himself.

When she awoke, however, she was in one piece with nary a scratch on her anywhere. The sky outside was a pale lavender as dawn had just barely come around. The blanket that had been simply tossed over her legs when she'd fallen asleep was now a tangled mass between her knees and calves and she struggled to remove it. Her hair was stuck to her forehead, face, and neck from her sticky cold sweat. The temperature in her house was freezing cold and she hugged herself tightly as she got her stiff joints to move over to the thermostat.

She drew herself a hot bath and afterwards made the decision to go back to the library. It was probably a stupid idea, given what had happened to her the night before, but she decided that she needed more answers. What had happened between her mother and Zak? Maybe she'd find some information on how to get him out of her house and back to wherever he'd come from. At that point, the diaries were her only hope. If she had to live in a hotel room until she figured it out, well, that was just how it was going to have to be.

Before she shut her front door behind her, though, she turned around to look back at her house. She could feel eyes on her and she knew he was listening.

"If you were half the monster to my mother that you are to me," she said icily, "then I am positive she hated you to her very last breath."

She shut the door tightly behind her.