Marcelo

I don the mask, becoming more than Father Marcelo Serrano—stand-in priest at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Belmouth, Massachusetts. I become more than Father Marcelo, the coveted exorcist who’s traveled the world to rid it of demons for the Vatican.

I become more because of her.

Junia Forester. My little songbird. It is for her I don the mask, it is for her I become Salvation.

For June, I will find the demons plaguing her day and night, and I will stop the very real—very human—evil that torments her.

I will break her in order to break her free.

June

I have been a shell of myself for as long as I can remember, hiding deep within the confines of my own skin. But the moment my fingers touch the keys of the cathedral’s organ—I am free. The moment my hands create music, I don’t linger in the hell that is my mind, thinking of my body or my mother or anything that brings my pain, that brings me back to my own reality. The music unlocks my soul bit by bit, unraveling every tether I have knotted tight. It’s my only escape, my only solace—

Until my Salvation creeps into my bedroom at night. Until he tears the fabrics binding me. Until he breaks me free.