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?”

“Yeah,” Lucas said, drawing a stake from his belt. Then he slammed it into Balthazar’s chest.

I heard Raquel stifle a small cry. Balthazar gasped in pain, but he immediately slumped forward, unconscious and paralyzed.

Lucas said, “I want to burn this trash myself. Bianca can come with. I think it’ll help her get over what he did, torching him.”

Eliza nodded. Kate put her hands on my shoulders as I wiped my eyes. “Just remember,” she said, “you’re free now.”

The others helped us load Balthazar’s inert body into the van. I couldn’t get over how, well, dead he looked, with the stake poking out of his chest. Milos gave Lucas a few hints about good spots for burning vampire corpses, which made me think he’d done this several times before. That gave me the shivers.

I slammed the van doors shut. Lucas started the engine and pulled onto the road. Once we were a few blocks away, I slipped into the back where Balthazar lay and said, “Now?”

Lucas nodded, never taking his eyes from the road. “Now.”

With both hands, I grabbed the stake and pulled it out of Balthazar’s chest.

As soon as the wood slipped free, Balthazar jerked, then writhed beneath me in pain. His bloodied hands sought the gaping wound in his chest. “What the—”

“Shhhhhh.” I put one hand on his forehead. “You’re okay. We had to pretend we were going to kill you. There was no other way to get you out of there.”

“Bianca?”

“Yeah, it’s me. You remember what happened?”

“I think so.” Balthazar grimaced, but he forced his eyes open to look at me. “You and Lucas—”

“We broke you out,” Lucas called. “Listen, we’re on a tight schedule here. Is there a place we can drop you? Where you’ll be safe while you heal up?”