Cyra screamed, her vocal cords strained, her arms flayed outward as she fell through the air. The darkness was like a pillow over her mouth and nose. She’d lost her sense of reality, and why she was falling; instead. she pictured herself hitting the ground with a splat. Dread curled at the edges of her mind, insisting this was the end. She’d die here… wherever here was.

A sudden flash of light nearby blinded her, and she squinted, trying to make out the source. What’s going on? Where’s the light coming from?

She hit the ground, hip first, and sprawled backward. “Fuck!” Tears crammed into her eyes as a dull ache swallowed her whole.

Around her she found a bleak forest crowded with dead, gnarled trees bent at odd angles. Their bare branches spiked into a sky burning with orange flames, lighting the place with a yellowy haze, though it was impossible to tell if it was day or night. The heat scorched across her shoulders, her face… everything. This was definitely not the attic. Had she fallen into Hell?

She pressed her hands into the ground and pushed herself up, but something wet and spongy wriggled under her palms. Beneath her, she found a pile of bones and mangled flesh. She rubbed at the blood on her arms and splattered across her clothes and screamed, unable to stop as she scrambled to her feet. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Rivulets of red zigzagged down her pants, flowing like a lazy river.

Steam rose up from the parched ground, stinking of sulfur. Unbearable heat burned the soles of her boots, slinking up her legs. She had to leave this place and return home.

But only decayed woodland robbed of leaves and life surrounded her. Nothing made sense. Already her knuckles turned white as she clenched her hands into fists against her stomach. Her thoughts tumbled with horrific scenes of her death, and her breathing quickened. Fear gnawed at her, melting her defenses like a festering wound.

“I shouldn’t be here.”

She retreated, picking up speed as she scoured the woods for a way back. This wasn’t where she belonged—alive or dead. She imagined herself turning into the pile of massacred remains she’d crushed. Then dying over and over again in the flames of Hell. She used a shoulder to wipe away the tears threading down her cheek. The demon in the attic must have shoved her down here, and nobody would know. They’d search and never find her. Chase would never give up until it drove him insane. And Gunn… he’d blame himself.

Movement to her right.

She shuddered and leaned forward for a better look past a cluster of trees.

A shadow flittered between the trunks several yards away. Something huge leaped on all fours, black as ink. The wolf-like creature unleashed a deathly howl. A dozen others followed, and they were coming her way.

A strangled cry escaped her throat. Her fingernails bit into the fleshy part of her palms as she clenched her hands. “God, please no.” She wanted to go back and leave this Hell, the deathly heat, the mutts that would rip her to shreds in seconds.

Without another thought, she spun and bolted in the opposite direction. Where was she going to go? Didn’t matter. Only running from the monsters mattered.

“Cyra.” Her name whispered on the wind again and again.

She glanced back to see the shapes gaining speed, their growls piercing. Her breaths raced. This wasn’t how she wanted to die, not being chomped down by hellhounds. Not in a billion years.

“Cyra!” The male voice grew louder, deeper.

Up ahead, a white rope dangled down from a gigantic oak barren of leaves. Any other time, she’d steer clear of anything resembling a noose, but today wasn’t that day.

She flung herself toward the lifeline because there was no other option for escape. The second she grasped it with both hands, it wrenched upward. But not before something sharp snagged her pants and leg, burning her calf like boiling water. It tugged her back down from sheer weight. She yelped, rocking to shake it loose. “Get off!”

A monster with wire-like fur had a fang hooked into her pants, ripping into fabric and flesh as it slid down. Fear collected in her chest and the excruciating pain shuddered through her.

Her grip slackened. No!

She’d end up as the mutt’s dinner, so she kicked the beast in the snout with her free leg, dislodging it.

The rope heaved her up so fast, her head spun.

Above in the fire-streaked sky was a gaping black hole, through which the cord dangled. Her brain hurt too much to make sense of the scene. The hounds beneath jumped up, stretching their long snouts to reach for her legs. One even scaled a tree. She drew her knees higher.

With a last glance, she spied an open landscape in the distance with an enormous charred castle atop a burning mountain, and below, forests and red rivers snaked throughout the land. Oh shit! This was Hell, wasn’t it?

On her next breath, she hit a solid floor, a familiar coldness folding around her.

Someone touched her shoulder. She convulsed, her fists flying outward, and she scrambled backward as her sight adjusted to the dark surroundings. The hole she’d come out of no longer existed. She jerked her vision left and right, unsure what was real and what was in her mind.

Gunn kneeled in front of her, concern marring his perfect brow, his lasso in hand. He guided a strand of hair stuck to her lips back to the side of her face and pulled her into an embrace, his arms shaking. “You scared the shit out of me. Don’t ever go anywhere alone. If I lost you…”

“You were terrified?” She pushed herself free. “Did you see that place?” Her words trembled, and she stared down at her arms. No blood. She patted her legs to find the leg of her pants torn from the knee down. Blood rolled along her shin. “Freakin’ hellhound almost made me its dinner.” And had ruined her only business pants.

She wiped the wound with the ripped part of her pants, but blood kept bubbling.

“Got to get that clean to avoid demonic parasites entering your system.” Gunn pulled a vial of what she guessed was holy water from his belt and splashed her wound. It didn’t sting, so that was a good sign.

As Gunn sat back on his heels, he focused on to Cyra, his jawline twitching. But when a black mist rose out from a corner, she scrambled farther back, dread colliding around her.

In a flash, the miasma snapped across the room, over their heads, and out the door.

“Shit!” Gunn jumped to his feet and sprinted after the strange apparition.

Shock ricocheted up her spine. Was it the demon that had shoved her into Hell or something else that had escaped the portal?

Staggering down the stairs, she limped along the long corridor with the bedroom doors opening and shutting as if applauding the show.

“Gunn?” She hurried downstairs. At the landing, she gasped for air. “Where are you?”

Footfalls came from an adjacent room, and her insides pulled taut. They all had to leave this house. It wasn’t safe. She sucked in each breath, unable to fill her lungs. But when Gunn appeared from around a corner, a loud breath gushed out.

“Fucker is gone,” he said. “No idea where it went.”

That thought alone had her trembling. Sure, being brave sounded easy in her mind, but she’d just visited Hell, so if the demon in the attic had done that to her, what else was it capable of?

Gunn snatched her elbow and drew her away from the living room. He headed toward the still-open front door, which revealed a snow-covered street. White flakes dropped over the landscape… yet her insides twisted into knots. A dog barked in the distance and she flinched, inching closer to Gunn. And there across the lawn, her sights settled on an old tree, warped and similar to the one she’d seen with the hellhounds. Her breaths raced.

The memories scalded her mind, and her heart hammered inside her chest. Sickness rose to her throat.

“We’re dealing with major demonic shit here,” Gunn said, wrapping an arm around her waist, holding her, yet his body remained rigid, and for the first time she sensed fear from the guy. “Got to say, baby girl, never heard of anyone getting transported into Hell before.”

“You’re not making me feel any better.” Those were the worst words he could have said to her. Being the first drawn into the underworld wasn’t good in any way. And right then her breakfast made a show. She dashed outside and decorated Henry’s lawn with the contents of her stomach.