The drive home felt almost surreal to Valerie. The streets blurred in her peripheral vision as she hummed softly along with the melody playing on the radio. Her fingers rested delicately on the wheel, the leather of the steering gliding beneath her fingertips as if she were in a trance. The events of the night,the calculated calm, the slow unraveling of Raymond’s composure,played over and over again in her mind like a symphony. She had orchestrated it flawlessly. Her breath quickened slightly as she relished the memory of Raymond’s expression, the moment when he finally began to realize the impossible: Nina’s spirit had returned, inhabiting a body far more powerful and far more dangerous than he could have ever imagined.
Her lips curled into a smile, the kind of smile that had once only c
