And Nathan was very right about one thing. There was no time. No time to try to contact Bishop through that thread that joined us. For all I knew, it wouldn’t work anymore, now that I wasn’t a gray. Maybe the part of his soul I had inside me was gone now, too, just like the power to help him fight his madness.

Jordan inhaled sharply as she finally woke up, her gaze darting around the scene before her she probably hoped had been a nightmare. “The demon...the creep. Where’d he go?”

I shot a look over to where Roth had been. She was right; he’d disappeared. The moment he’d had the chance, he’d taken off and left us all behind to deal with this mess. He didn’t get his end of the bargain, so he’d settle for self-preservation.

I wasn’t all that surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

“I think my ankle’s broken,” Jordan groaned, sliding her hand down her leg. Then she glanced at the person sitting on the ground holding her. “Oh, hell. Stephen...it’s you.”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

She sat up and quickly scooted away from him, grimacing from the pain in her ankle. “Why— Where did you come from? What are you doing?”

He looked at her bleakly, shrugging. “I have this weird impulse to protect you.”

That earned him a dark look of disdain. “When you’re not knocking me unconscious and holding me prisoner while asking someone else to devour my soul? Based on recent experience, the only person I need protection from is you. Well, and the homeless demon dude who’s about to go all apocalyptic.”

“Good point. And yet, here I am anyway, when I should be anywhere else.”

“Sam,” Carly said, drawing close enough to touch my arm. “Can you please explain to me what’s going on?”

I looked into the face of my best friend since we were little kids, playing in sandboxes and swimming pools. Running through sprinklers. Catching frogs and kissing them, hoping they might turn into princes.

It was a phase when we were ten. It passed.

I thought I’d be able to save her.

At the moment, it seemed as if there was only one person I might be able to save. And it was the last person who deserved it.

The tremors were growing more intense. The entire city shook as if the earth was about ready to split open and swallow it whole.

I took a deep breath in. “You know how I’ve always been a realist, despite loving monster movies? How I’ve always looked at facts and figures and tried to understand things in black-and-white terms?”

“Yeah. So annoying.” Carly laughed shakily. “Why?”

I hugged her hard. “If I was a dreamer, I’d believe there was another solution. But there’s not. Not this time.”

“Wait, Sam, what are you talking about?”

I let go of her and walked straight over to Nathan. The lines on his skin were alive, writhing, and in between, there was a glow emanating from them, as if the energy inside him was ready to burst free and shatter him into a million sharp and hungry pieces.

I reached my hand out to him. It trembled.

He grabbed it so tightly, I winced.

“Do it,” he gritted out. “Save me, Samantha.”

“I’m not doing this for you.”

This ability was still new to me and it had happened with Connor by accident. Still, that hunger woke up again now the moment I touched Nathan. Supernatural energy surged beneath my touch, bigger and brighter than anything I’d ever felt.

Dark energy. It had no purity to it, no true light. It was messy, cluttered, angry and filled with muck. And yet, I hungered for it anyway.

Nathan had said he was in control of this ability—and so was I.

I guessed we’d soon find out if that was true.

A greediness rose up inside of me and I began to absorb that energy into myself. So natural, it was as if I’d done this all my life—same as drinking a milkshake. And it was much different from being a gray. This ability—this anomaly—felt right.

After a minute, Nathan’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s right, beautiful star. You’re doing so well.”

I gripped his other hand and we stood there, face-to-face, as I absorbed his supernatural energy—the energy of the Hollow he’d taken so he could control it; that had begun to control him, to destroy him.

I took enough of it to save him and keep him from destroying the world.

But then I kept taking some more.

My stomach roiled from the darkness of it, like mounds of junk food, full of fat and sodium, with no nutritional value. This was the Hollow. Bad things had been cast inside. This was the essence of that.

No wonder it had changed Nathan so much. After all, you are what you eat.

I could still think, still reason. This wasn’t controlling me, I was controlling it.

Good.

“You said before that there are those destined to create,” I said, “and those destined to destroy.”

He managed a smile. “I did say that. Which are you?”

I locked gazes with him. “Let’s just say, I think I take after my father.”

I tightened my grip on him and his grin faltered at the edges. “You’ve taken enough now. Let go of me.”

I didn’t let go. I continued to absorb his energy. And the more I took, the more I wanted.

He hissed, trying to pull away, but failing. “Let go of me. I told you already, you can’t take too much or it will kill you.”

“Yeah, you did say that, didn’t you? But this is the only way you’ll be stopped. The power of the Hollow—the part that you were able to control—is going to die with me.”