“Why would you do that if you don’t care about Anna anymore, enough to get vengeance for her death? What’s the point?”

Again, he stroked his beard thoughtfully. “There are those who create and those who destroy. Chaos doesn’t need a reason to exist.”

I saw it then all too clearly. His insanity went far deeper than the surface and couldn’t be fixed by absorbing Roth’s—or anyone’s—life energy. And it wasn’t only because of his soul. The Hollow’s supernatural junkyard of dark energy had changed him over the years, bleeding his sanity—his love for Anna—away drop by drop until there was nothing left to salvage.

I cast another glance at Jordan and our eyes met. I saw the same realization on her face that I felt inside myself.

We were in very deep trouble.

But I already knew that.

I returned my attention to my birth father. “If I’m so unworthy of breathing, what do you need me for?”

His dark brows drew together. “I never said you were unworthy to me. Just to them you are. They would kill you in a heartbeat and they would use you for their own gain—as they already have.”

“And you don’t want to use me?”

This earned the shadow of a grin. “Touché. The truth is, I need what you and I share. That hunger that has awoken inside you. It’s powerful, that hunger. Some might call it an anomaly, but it’s an asset. It’s not like what you felt before with the need to devour souls. This serves you...and it can serve me.”

My stomach convulsed at what he was suggesting. “I’m not helping you destroy the world.”

“Of course not. I know you wouldn’t agree to such a thing. Not now, anyway.” He grimaced again and the lines moved all the way down his hands to his fingertips. He looked at them grimly. “Seventeen years of absorbing the energy of the Hollow—the energy of each discarded demon or angel who found his or her way into its belly. I took as much of it as I could get. It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized it was too much.”

“What do you mean, too much?”

“The energy is overwhelming me. I need to release it so I can gather my strength again. Otherwise, it will break me into pieces.” A glimmer of knowledge came over his expression and, if I wasn’t mistaken, an edge of fear.

“Sorry, Dad.” I said it as harshly as I could, despite quaking inside. “But you being destroyed before you put your nasty plan into action? Doesn’t sound like a tragedy to me.”

He laughed at this, a sharp crack of a sound. “No, I’m sure you’d think that, given all evidence to the contrary. But you’re wrong. Those pieces of me will each become a Hollow of its own. Countless hungry mouths seeking energy with no conscious being controlling it. I might relish chaos and the destruction of my enemies, but not at the risk of my own existence. I want to be the one to destroy Heaven and Hell. Me alone.”

Could it be that the power inside Nathan was ready to shatter tonight and that one of those pieces was what destroyed Trinity as it did in my vision?

No one to control it. No one to stop, because there was no one  to stop.

My throat tightened, as if gripped by an invisible hand as I stared with fear at the man I’d always thought harmless from the moment I met him. Harmless and in need of help. I’d been only half right. “You want me to take some of that power away with a touch because I’m the only one who can. Take it into myself—that poison you’re dealing with right now that’s causing you so much pain.”

“From what I’ve seen of you, beautiful star, you have a need to help others. Even though they would turn their backs on you, abuse you, use you and underappreciate you. You want to help them. You want to save them.” His jaw, covered in those strange black lines, tightened. “This is the only way you can.”

Jordan continued to look on in shock, following this conversation as if fascinated and horrified by everything said.

That made two of us.

What Nathan was asking settled over me like a rancid, moldy blanket. “You’re asking me to sacrifice myself tonight to save this city.”

He shook his head. “No, not sacrifice your life—that would require taking all of my power. I’m the only one capable of using that power to destroy. You’re too young, too fragile to handle that. It would kill you.”

“Sam, no...” Jordan whispered.

“You don’t belong here, beautiful star,” Nathan continued. “Not here. You’re not one of them and you never have been. Taking part of my energy to relieve the pressure on me temporarily will not kill you, but it will change you into what you were always meant to be. You will become a permanent part of the Hollow, just as I am. And if you refuse, everything in the world will suffer and there’s not even anything I can do to stop it. It’s as simple as that.”

“Simple.” I swallowed. “You think any of this is simple?”

“It is to me. I see the truth. Even your adoptive family rejects you. Nobody cares about you at school. Even the girl who stands here shivering before us both hates you and has caused you only pain.”

“He’s wrong, you know,” Jordan spoke up, her voice strained but steady. “I don’t hate you. I actually like you. I think you’re all kinds of strange and make stupid decisions nearly every day, but I like you. Normally I wouldn’t admit this out loud, but I feel like the situation sort of calls for it.”