“You don’t seem scared,” Eliza said.

He shrugged as best as he could in chains. “For our kind, death is only the beginning. Sometimes I think that second death is only one more doorway.”

“Dying isn’t the worst thing,” Kate said, holding one hand out toward Eliza, who tossed her the water gun. Kate caught it, pointed at Balthazar, and fired.

Balthazar’s flesh started to sizzle the moment the holy water made contact with it. He screamed, and the sound was so horrible I thought I would pass out. Then I smelled the burning and had to clutch at the wall for support.

“Oh, my God,” muttered Raquel. She paled and ran outside. Through my tear-blurred eyes, I saw Dana move to follow her.

Kate, unmoved, stood by the smoke drifting up from Balthazar’s writhing body. “You sure you don’t know what she’s up to?”

His voice shaky, Balthazar managed to get out the word, “N—no.”

“I might believe you,” Kate said. “I just don’t care.”

She shot more holy water at him, and he screamed again. His scream felt like acid washing over me. I slid down to the floor, huddling with my knees against my chest.

Milos said, “Hey, Lucas. Your girlfriend’s losing it over here. Better take her for some fresh air.”

I tried to shake my head. The only thing more horrible than seeing Balthazar hurt like this was the thought of leaving him. But Lucas was at my side in an instant, pulling me up. “Come on,” he muttered. “This is enough.”

“But—”

“Bianca. Please.”

From his place on the floor, Balthazar shouted, “Get out! I want you gone—want you all gone—”

“You wish, bloodsucker,” Kate said, her voice harder than before, and Lucas pushed me roughly out the door.

Once we were outside, I started to bawl—huge, racking sobs that made my throat and gut hurt. When I sank onto the ground, Lucas knelt beside me, his hands on my back as I wept.

“I’ll think of something,” he said, an edge of desperation in his words. “We’ve just—we’ve got to.”

I leaned back against him, trying to stop crying. In the distance I could see Raquel sitting near the river, her head in her hands, Dana beside her. Was it possible that even Raquel saw how far over the line Black Cross had gone? Could she make Dana see it, too? If we had to do something big in order to save Balthazar, something dramatic, it would help to have them on our side.

After several more minutes that felt like an eternity, the hunters started coming out. When Kate emerged, she glanced down at Lucas and shrugged. “He passed out. We’ll start on him again later.”

“The guy really might not know,” Lucas said. “Mrs. Bethany played favorites, and Balthazar More wasn’t one of her pets.”

“You two knew him?” Kate’s eyes narrowed. I realized that she could now see my tears for what they were—compassion—instead of mere squeamishness. Compassion bothered her more.

Lucas quickly said, “He put the moves on Bianca last year. She told him no, and he didn’t like it. Made a scene. So the guy kind of gets under her skin.”

Kate shrugged. “Seems like you’d be cheering us on, Bianca.”

And that was when it hit me. Oh, absolutely, that’s it, that’s it!

I dug my fingernails into my palms to keep myself from smiling. “I’m just so—tired.”

“Me, too.” Her posture slumped. “God, me, too.”

As she walked off, I turned back to Lucas. “I know how we can save Balthazar.”

At first, there was nothing to do but wait. Lucas walked with me to a nearby market, where we grabbed a couple of bottles of orange juice and some honey buns. They were the cheap kind, wrapped in cellophane and sticky like glue, but they were the first food I’d had in more than a day, so I wolfed them down.

“You need anything else?” Lucas said as we walked along the sidewalk. I knew he meant blood.

“I’ll grab something if you just give me a second.”

“I could—”

“No,” I said firmly. “Lucas, drinking your blood has to be the last resort. It’s already changed us both too much.”

“It ties us together. That’s not a bad thing.”

I remembered how I had nearly been able to find Lucas in the middle of the battle only because of the bond created by his blood. But Lucas didn’t know about that; he was talking about something else. “You’re jealous of Balthazar,” I said.

“Should I be?”

“I didn’t mean—Lucas, you know I love you. Only you. But you know that I drank his blood, too, and I think that’s freaking you out. Please understand, that was totally different.”

“Totally more intense, you mean.”

I shook my head. “Different. That’s all. Trust me, there is nothing—nothing—in the world that makes me crazier than being close to you.”

“He matters to you,” he said quietly. “There’s no hiding that.”

“You matter more.”

I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. His mouth was sweet with juice. At first the kiss was tender, but soon it became deeper. Lucas’s hands tightened around my waist as our lips opened and I felt his tongue brush eagerly against mine. I remembered the night before, how we’d slept beside each other. Juxtaposing our closeness then with our kissing now in my mind created an image so powerful that it made me feel weak.

We kissed again, harder, but then I pulled back. “You’re making me hungry.”

“Like I said, I don’t mind.”

“And I said no. I’m going to catch something. Don’t watch, okay?”

“Shy,” he said, but he turned away.

Honestly, I wasn’t that hungry for blood, but what we were about to attempt was risky. I needed to be able to concentrate. I needed to be strong.

Once I’d had a pigeon, and rinsed my mouth out thoroughly with another bottle of orange juice, Lucas and I returned to the harbor station. I was afraid they would already have started in on Balthazar again, but he must have been terribly hurt, because he didn’t wake up for hours. It was a long time to wait.

As I did the busywork they gave me, sharpening stakes in a vacant lot nearby, Raquel sat down next to me. For a while we whittled side by side in silence, sweating in the hot sun, but finally she said, “That was rough in there.”

“Yeah. It was.”

“I know you used to care about him.” Raquel made quick cuts with her blade. Splinters fell from the wood. “I guess it’s hard to remember the lies he told you while—while something like that is happening.”

“Torture.” I figured we were better off calling it by its rightful name.

Raquel paused, her knife suspended above the stake for a few seconds. Then she nodded. “Yeah. It was torture.”

Maybe she really was thinking sanely about this, instead of letting Black Cross do the thinking for her. I wanted to find out, but now wasn’t the time. Lucas and I could do this alone, and it was better for Raquel if we didn’t involve her.

Finally, around dusk, Milos called, “He’s coming around.”

Lucas and I glanced at each other. We waited until the others were all inside, because we’d need to make an entrance.

“I’m not much of an actress,” I murmured, “but it won’t be hard to act upset.”

“Angry, angry, angry.” Lucas was talking to himself. “Okay, let’s do this. Ready?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Together we ran toward the harbor station. When we came in, Milos turned, saw us, and scowled. “Your girlfriend going to run off crying again?”

Lucas snapped, “Bianca and I have some business to resolve.”

Milos looked surprised, but he took a step back.

Lucas pushed his way toward the front of the crowd; I lagged behind. I wasn’t a player in this scenario; honestly, I was more of a prop, there to look stricken and weep. Though I hated pretending to be so helpless, I’d have to take comfort in the fact that this was my plan.

Then I saw Balthazar, and there was no comfort to be had.

His flesh was striped with lines of raw skin from the streams of holy water. Both his eyes were swollen and dark, and his jaw was lumpy from repeated blows. His lips had cracked open and bled, as had his wrists. He looked worse than I knew anybody could look. Balthazar’s bloodshot eyes met mine, dull and incurious, like he was past even imagining that help could come.

“Back up, Mom,” Lucas said, pulling her away. “It’s my turn.”

“Like hell it is.” Anger seemed to illuminate her from within, like a candle in a leering jack-o’-lantern. “This thing killed Eduardo. I’m going to have answers, and then I’m going to have its hide.”

“He didn’t just kill Eduardo.” Lucas swaggered up to Balthazar, who didn’t react. “He went after Bianca. You know that. What you don’t know—what I didn’t know until today—is how far he went. How close he came to hurting her to get his way.”

My crying wasn’t an act. I backed away, body shaking, as if I were somehow afraid of the bloody, broken figure chained to the railing. The hunters parted for me, respectful of what they thought I’d suffered at a vampire’s hands.

Lucas grabbed Balthazar by the hair. I winced—but there was no other way to do this next part. He growled, “You tried to screw my girl.”

“Well, you know.” Balthazar’s mutilated smirk might have been genuine. “I figured she needed somebody to show her how it was really done.”

Lucas backhanded him, hard. A few of the hunters made approving noises—not cheering, but muttering “yeah” or “that’s it.” I hated them so much I wanted to scream.

“You listen to me.” Lucas panted. His green eyes blazed, and he looked utterly wild. When he got like this, gave full rein to his hot temper, sometimes he scared even me. “You know how bad I hate you. You know I’d never get tired of hurting you. So you better tell me what it is we want to know, and you’d better do it now, or they’re going to turn you over to me for the remainder of your existence. I promise you, you’d rather go fast. So what’s it going to be, Balthazar?”

Under my breath, so low that nobody who wasn’t a vampire could possibly have heard me, I whispered, “Make something up. We’ll take care of the rest.”

Balthazar hesitated, confused. Lucas kicked his leg.

Come on, Balthazar, you can think of something! Anything! Just trust us!

Lucas shouted, “Spit it out! What was Mrs. Bethany after?”

“You!” Balthazar said. “She was after you.”

“Lucas?” Kate stepped forward in alarm. “Why do they want my son?”

“Mrs. Bethany blames him,” Balthazar said. Could the others tell he was making this up as he went along? Apparently not. “And I think she—she thinks Lucas might have gone through her records. She’s scared he knows too much. Mrs. Bethany’s never gotten over the fact that you planted a spy at her school. It drives her crazy. I think the burning of Evernight pushed her over the edge.”

Kate lifted her chin. “So she’s scared, you’re saying. Desperate. Lashing out at my son because she doesn’t know what else to do.”

“She knows exactly what to do,” Balthazar said. “As long as Lucas Ross lives, she’ll be after him. After anybody who’s with him. So maybe you want to think twice about how tightly you stick to this one. From now on, anybody who’s standing next to Lucas has a decent shot of ending up just as dead as he’s going to be.”

Coolly Kate glanced at her son. “Do you believe him?”