Several hours before Lola’s encounter with Nora, Russel woke up from a dead sleep. His body was stiff and there were a myriad of muscles all throughout that didn’t want to work correctly at first. He groaned as he moved when a bunch of parts of himself all protested in very painful ways. The fight with his father had taken its toll and although he felt whole and healed up again, there were still some lingering aftereffects.

The room was dark, the fire in the fireplace had long ...