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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.”
