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Nick scowled at the unfa," Mark repeated "Itit"

"Then why didn’t you say that?"

Mark looked at Bubba "Reet him a word-of-the-day calendar" Then he pinned Nick with a sha stare over the back of the seat "You need to up your vocabulary, boy You can’t walk around letting people think you’re stupid Expand your horizons Besides, it’s fun to call people names they have to look up to realize they’ve been insulted"

Bubba laughed "Yeah, that’s a twofer there You get aith it and then they’re twice as mad when they realize how bad you really insulted them Especially if they mistake it for a compliment when you say it and thank you for it"

"And," Caleb jurounded by your mom"

You know, they all had veryvalid points

"And best of all, it’ll help you with your SATs," Madaug said as he hung up the phone--he would think of that He looked at Mark "Eric and the zoo crew are heading to the store for supplies Do /all have enough stun guns for the had insulted him "Does a bear defecate rurally? What kind of question is that for soot plenty I got enough Tasers to light up New York City and Boston just for giggles"

Good, ’cause Nick had a feeling they rabbed the bookcase and sla the ancient books he’d carefully collected for centuries across the floor of his stygian office It probably destroyed a few of thee burned through him with the power of a thousand suns so raw and potent that he could taste it

"Why can’t I stop it?" he snarled Why, with all the powers he’d mastered, all the elements he controlled, couldn’t he prevent aan idiot? No

And he wanted blood

He felt a cal his bow-and-arrow o he should have no memory of it Yet it was forever carved deep in his oddess of the hunt, put all wo red hair flowed to her tiny waist, which was accentuated by the white Grecian gown she wore "ShhhYou shouldn’t work yourself up to such a frizzy"

His anger tripled "The word is frenzy," he corrected Because of the differences between the English he spoke and her native ancient Greek, she constantly screwed up sayings and colloquialis here, Arte to calm you down, love You shouldn’t do this to yourself It pains me to see you suffer like this"

And that dark power inside hi for hisharder and harder to fight

Soon there would be no way back from it It would consu machine that lacked all co

Kill everyone

Ambrose stared at the wall, where he saw himself as a boy Nick Gautier had no idea how the randoht noould turn him into the beast Ambrose had become

/ have to save myself

More than that, he had to save the ones he loved Before it was too late But how?

God, howcould I have been so stupid, even at fourteen? It was so hard to look back and see the faces of his friends and loved ones, especially since he kneould become of them if he didn’t alter history It cut so deep that it alone was alh to make him insane

Howdo I stop it?

Ambrose turned to Artemis He hated her She, like Acheron, had played ahim into the Malachai

No, Nick, you did that to yourself

But it was so much easier to bla decisions Decisions he was now trying to un in frustration, he ht him back fro to unlock earlier in his life Had he possessed some of them as a kid, he could have saved the ones ere most important to him

He could have saved his mom

Nick flinched as he forced thathe’d said to hiave him a blank stare "Never heard of hiirl"

One of her perfect brows shot up as jealousy darkened her green eyes "What kind of girl?"

"I don’t know Nick knows her"

"You are Nick" Her tone was testy

"Exactly How can / not knoho she is?" How could he not have seen her as he looked back? For sohost to him No matter what power he used, he couldn’t find this piece of his past Even with certain aspects altered, he should still be able to hone in on her

Yet he couldn’t

Why?

Arteot her It happens You were humanonce"

But he wasn’t human noas the type of creature he and Tabitha had once hunted and put down like a rabid ani

Arte here with hier and deadlier It was getting harder and harder not to kill her with his powers and absorb hergodhood

Harder to not destroy everyone and everything

I wont do it

Yes, you will In tiht all you went In the end, you are what you were boe that

But he refused to believe it

He stared at hier him innocently rode in the back of Bubba’s SUV toward a destiny that had been carved in blood onto his heart C’, kid