“How so?” I said, gritting my teeth.
“You’re stronger than she was when I met her,” he said, waving the dagger in the air to dry the blood on the blade.
I don’t know why, but that made me happy to hear. “Good. Then, I’ll finish the job she started.”
Balthazar clenched his jaw, and the muscles in his cheeks twitched.
“I’m going to destroy you,” I snarled. “I’m going to find your weakness. Every demon, or darkness, or whatever you call yourself, has a weakness. I will find yours and bring you down.” The strength of certainty flooded my veins like a power surge.
His nostrils flared. “That’s where you’re wrong, my sweet.”
“Stop calling me that!”
He smiled and shook his head. “One thing you will find out, Olivia, is this. As long as you live, you’ll lose everyone you care about. I’ll make certain of that.”
“I will kill you, Balthazar,” I stated. “I will find your weakness and bring you down. I will destroy you if it takes my last dying breath.”
Balthazar let out a wicked laugh. “Your mother said the exact same thing to me, and where is she now? She’s buried deep in the ground, rotting. If Alina couldn’t kill me, you can’t either.”
“You’re wrong,” I snarled.
“Stop talking!” Balthazar shouted as if frustrated. “You talk all tough, but you’re as weak as they come. Nowfind me the journal!”He swept his arm through the air in a grand gesture.
Everything around me grew dark. I couldn’t see, smell, or feel a thing. Then, the wind whistled next to my ears, and I landed with a thud on my back right next to Emily’s burned-out home, the blood from my wounds dribbling into the Earth.
Olivia
I came to consciousness in Emily’s old yard as elephants stampeded on my brain.
Good God, what happened to me? My head feels like it was hit by a Mack truck.
I rubbed my temples and the back of my neck to relieve the pain.
The long branches of the willow tree danced and swayed in the breeze as I massaged myself. The sun felt good on my arms, giving me comfort.
And then it all came back to me: Roman was in a cockroach-infested prison, and I was here. I’d left him bleeding, his ankle shattered, and his spirit barely clinging to his body. If I didn’t find that stupid journal, he’d be dead, and I’d be ruined.
I dropped my head into my hands.
“What have I done?” I whispered.
The sound of rapid footsteps made me look up in alarm.
Marcellious rushed from inside the burnt-out remains of the house. “Olivia! Bloody hell. What happened to you? Where did you and Roman go?”
Without thinking, I scrambled to my feet, rushed toward him, and threw my arms around him. “I’m so glad to see you!”
Marcellious stiffened, holding his arms away from me, but I didn’t care.
“Balthazar has Roman, and he’s dying! He hung us both from the ceiling in his den of nightmares and showed me all the daggers from all the time travelers he’s murdered. And then he showed me my mother’s life by putting a drop of blood on the blade of her knife, and I saw her doing all sorts of terrible things withhim.”
Marcellious gave me a few tentative pats on the back, then placed his hands on my shoulders and eased me away.
“Slow down, slow down. You’re raving like a madwoman.” An uncharacteristically gentle smile creased his face. “Slow down and start at the beginning. Balthazar took you and Roman somewhere?”
“Yes, I don’t know where, though. We ended up in this horrible place filled with cockroaches the size of my face. They clicked and hummed and crawled all over us.”
Marcellious’ lips pulled back, and his hands dropped from my shoulders. “That does sound ghastly.”
