Book Three: Double Feature — 11.

Three men, led by Mr. Salem, restrain Donna, mask her face, and wheel her through sterile corridors to an imaging suite. Joe Valentine appears with a clipboard, dismisses her protests, and orders an MRI despite Donna’s acute claustrophobia and her demand to see Mr. Francis, who is “away.”

Donna is shoved into the tube, lights cut, and the machine hammers for nearly two hours—far beyond the promised forty-five minutes—triggering panic and hoarse screams. When the scan ends, Valentine isolates her inside the room while Salem and Nurse Dover observe from behind glass.

Valentine displays the images: a spectral serpent—King Sorrow—coiled twice around Donna’s chest with its head resting on her heart. He says Van “told us more than that,” revealing Van’s cooperation under duress. Donna recalls past warnings that bargaining with such people is futile and braces against further intimidation.

Closing in, Valentine mocks her, taps her mask to provoke flinches, and reveals he requested the amputation of her hands as a “safety measure,” promising there could be another vote. The scene ends with Donna terrorized but defiant, the enemy now certain Sorrow inhabits her body and prepared to escalate control.