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"Something went wrong, I get it. I grant you leeway to this point. Now it stops. If there was a demon here, it's gone. Now there's just me, and I am done with this. So back the hell off."

"Roslyn?" Roslyn's brother Joe asks. His voice is tainted with pained love for his little sister. This has been such a horrific ordeal. He has seen so much evil, so much torture of her body. If she comes back he will welcome her with tears of joy, release her and take her out of this nightmare to their waiting parents.

"Do not listen to her," Father Bedford says. "The demons that possess her lie. They will prey on your weaknesses."

"I do not lie." He should know that. "There is no one in here but me, and I am no demon."

"In the name of CHRIST, I command you! Answer! What is your name?"

She yanks her arms out of the bindings. Of course there is pain, but nothing beyond what she can endure. The twists that let her come out of the knots are long practiced and effective, but it is disturbing that the bones in these pale hands feel each de-jointing like a novice's would. It serves to make her that much more irritated. "You have no authority over me, priest." It is the only title he is worth at the moment. "This ends."

With that she is up on her feet. A quick scan of the room tells her that her gear is not here. She will have to find it. There are ways. For now, she braces to fight these men with her fists and feet.

The two young ones move on her, at once both threatening and holding back. Their foe is young Roslyn, much loved and fairly dainty. Her possession has made her body change in horrific ways before their eyes, but then it would go back to this slight build and all their straining efforts to hold it, or defend against its attacks would leave it bruised and bleeding, retied to the bed, an exhausted, dehydrated rack of skin and bones.

Now she is on her feet again in a battle stance, her eyes fierce and hard like a killer's. She holds her hands in a way they have seen in movies. They do not know whether she will punch them, grab them or scratch.

"Grab her!" The priest shouts to counter their hesitation.

"Fuck off," she says to him, and to them: "Back the fuck off!"

For Father Bedford, this is an alarming turn. He has chased his possessed parishioner before, in an earlier round of exorcism. The demons hurt her badly, running her senselessly over rocks and fences. He cares for this pitiful girl. He wants desperately to help her, and now that the process has been so long, and so fruitless, the other clergy have withdrawn. He and her family are all that she has left. Even her body is starting to give out. She is literally at death's door. "Roslyn! Fight them, Roslyn!" he begs, reaching an imploring arm in her direction.

She hears the concern in his voice. She would speak calmly with him. She would try to sort this out peacefully, if she could, but the others are obeying his order to attack. They are moving against her in slow cautious steps. The painted wooden door behind her is locked and barred with wood.