The world fell away in the moments that followed.

I heard nothing except for the static buzz ringing in my ears. I saw nothing but the way Olivia's teeth stained with blood, before it leaked through the pearly white grin and dribbled down her porcelain chin. A single drop fell, and my eyes followed it down. Down to where my fisted hand was pressed against her supple body.

From a distance, it would look like I'd thrown a brutal punch to her diaphragm, but I could see the silver glint of the knife in my blood-soaked hand. I could feel the way her hot blood slicked my skin and caused the handle to slip in my grasp.

The lightning from the storm outside threw the world into stark relief, like some scene from a graphic novel, all black, white and red. It seemed impossibly close, like it had ripped through the ceiling to land at our feet. I was sure that, if I could tear my gaze away from the horror in front of me, I'd see scorch marks surrounding us. Burning portals showing a glimpse of the hell I was destined to.

What had I done?

It was the only way you could escape, my mind reasoned. But even if it had been part of the plan, the rage that drove the knife through her gut hadn't been fuelled by self-preservation. I had wanted her to suffer for what she'd done to Nightmare. Even now I could feel that need itching under my surface, barely swamped by the wash of horror I'd felt crash over me.

Even when strong hands pulled me away, and Olivia disappeared from view, I was still caught in that moment.

"We're too late," a brusque voice shouted, piercing my muffled hearing.

"If we were too late, we would feel it," a second countered, assertive but desperate. I could hear the edge in his voice as it cut through the din. It was as clear as day and equally bright, burning away the fog like Summer's sun.

Warmth hugged my shoulders; a welcome jolt against the cold that seemed to envelope me, sinking down to my bones. With sluggish movements I dragged my gaze away from the thick sticky blood, starting to coagulate on my skin, and looked to the source of the heat.

Wide hands gripped me tightly, making dimples where their fingertips pressed into my skin. I traced the long nimble fingers up to strong bare arms. The muscles under the surface were tensed and defined. From the long swoop of his forearm to the impressive bulge of his bicep, all quivering gently, not with the cold, but with the restraint he held me with.

"Anna? Anna, say something. Please."

Fuck, that voice.

The timbre of it made everything in me vibrate. The pained edge did nothing to dim the delicious way it wrapped around my name. Like a siren song, it pulled me back, breaking the cycle I was stuck in.

My eyes blinked away the sight of Olivia's blood - etched as it was behind my eyelids - and when they cleared they focussed on the man holding me.

My breath shuddered when I saw him. Had he always been this beautiful? Perhaps it had been shrouded by the mists of memory, or the sculpted lines of his face had been eroded with time, like the coastal cliffs of my beloved beaches. Or maybe the adrenaline imbued into every inch of me had just heightened my sense of sight, noticing every delicious detail of him.

Whatever the cause, the effect was devastating.

My eyes traced the planes of his face, from the sharp lines of his jaw, to the sculpted peak of his cheekbones. It was a face of contradictions. Strong masculine lines, sat in perfect balance with the curves of his lips, the lower slightly thicker than the top, and wide, brilliantly blue, eyes lined with dark enviable lashes, nestled under thick straight brows.

His eyes had always been enchanting, like windows to the ethereal being beneath. Over the past few months, I had thought too often about those moments when he would look at me and the heat in his gaze would make them almost glow, like living blue flame. Now that heat was amplified, charged, with lighting sparking through his irises, raw and powerful.

"Atticus?" I croaked.

Not Book Boy. Never again would he be Book Boy. There was nothing boyish about the man in front of me. Nothing that left any doubt about the power he had roiling beneath the surface.

"Are you OK?" His voice was gravelly as his gaze drank in every inch of me.
He was asking if the blood was mine. If I'd been hurt. What would he think when I said no, when he realised what I'd done?

What did OK even mean now? After everything that had happened tonight, and the things I'd learnt, I didn't know if OK would ever be a word I'd use again.

Lightning sparked in his eyes as he gently brushed his thumb over the apple of my cheeks, catching the tears before they could fall.

As I tried to piece together how I felt I answered, "yes... no... fuck knows." The final word broke as rogue tears slipped free.

"She's not going to hurt you. No one's ever going to hurt you."

Olivia cackled. "Empty promises, Atticus. We'll come for her and when we do Fate will be set free."

Brief relief flashed through me when I heard her voice. At least I had avoided adding murder to my rap sheet.

I looked to see Olivia pinned in Aslo's grasp. The blood from the wound I'd inflicted had started to slow, but she had new injuries too. Scorch marks and bruising marred her perfect skin.

Aslo rolled his eyes at her taunting and tightened his grip around her throat. With it, a chain of lightning licked across her skin like a living necklace of electric thorns. The sizzle of flesh hissed and Aslo grinned.

"Keep it up, Starling. I've always wanted to see what a book burning is like."

Olivia's eyes baulked as she wriggled in his grasp.

Aslo continued, "I reckon, the right amount of current, in the right place and ..."

His lightning crackled, licking hungrily across her skin causing her to gasp. With it, a ghostly book flashed in and out of existence, and an electrified reverb buffeted against my ears as Olivia screamed. The sound cut down to the pit of my stomach, and I wondered if any human could experience the same level of pain without their body giving out. Could a Watcher even pass out with pain, or were they doomed to endure it?

Aslo's eyes glinted with enjoyment as his lightning pulsed, flaying Olivia alive. He was a cat toying with a mouse, or a child burning ants with a magnifying glass. A sick kind of curiosity quirked his wide lips into a smirk.

"Aslo," Atticus said sharply. Aslo's lightning stopped in an instant at the tone.

Olivia's book disappeared from view, hiding in that alternate place, as she flopped against him. Her eyes dropped wearily as she sagged in his arms. The juxtaposition of her petite, sylphlike frame against his broad, stocky build was startling. I almost felt a flash of empathy when I thought of what she'd endured by other men in her life, and how it must have felt to be helpless against one like Aslo now.

"What do we do with her?" he asked, as if he hadn't just tortured someone he'd spent months living beside.

Atticus tore his eyes from me and looked grimly at Olivia slumped in Aslo's arms. "We turn her in to the Council." His voice was flat, devoid of the emotion I'd heard moments ago. "If she has information on the Order, they'll want to know. Perhaps they'll give her a new book, a new vessel, once they've pulled what they can from her memories."

Olivia's head lifted slightly as she rasped, "if I go, you go with me Atticus." Her sneer was cut short by another zap from Aslo.

His thick eyebrows knitted together. "I hate to agree with the Bitch, but she's right. Any information she has will lead them right back here. You've not exactly been playing by the rules this past year."

His blue-grey eyes flicked towards me. As if sent through telepathy, the image of the tattoo emblazoned on Atticus' chest flashed in my mind. I knew the rules it signified, and I knew  Atticus had broken nearly every one since meeting me. Aslo and Olivia would have the same, and I wondered if Aslo's concern was as much for himself as his friend. He would be in almost as much shit as Atticus if he turned himself in. Could he take another black mark against him when he was already on the Council's shit list?

If Atticus was thinking the same thing, he didn't show it as he replied, "so be it."

"Fucking masochist," Aslo hissed.

"We've already spoken about this, Aslo. At the first sign of trouble, you make sure she's hidden."

I bristled at his authoritative tone. Despite the relief of having him here, and the gratitude of being saved, I resented the idea that I was just a damsel to protect and decide for.

"And remind me, why am I the one stuck on babysitting duty?" Aslo asked mockingly.

"I'll be the first one they'll hunt down if Olivia breaks. They can track us, but they can't sense her."

"Fucking Crowes, gluttons for punishment. Stop being a fucking martyr. They might not be able to see our memories, but you know what they'll do to you to get the information out of you." Aslo's voice made a chill run down my spine. "Wipe her memory, like you should have done months ago. If she doesn't remember, then the worst they can charge you with is a breach of diligence."

Atticus' mask cracked as his eyes sparked. "Fuck the Council, fuck my orders, fuck all of it," he growled as he took a step to block me from view.

The sound of pages flaring tickles my ears as I try to see past Atticus' towering frame.

"Don't you fucking dare," he snarled as I watched lightning skittering across his palms. "You agreed."

"That was before she ripped you to shreds on that field..." Aslo snapped. I spotted his book in his hand with a page held ready to be torn free. Olivia had been cast to the floor, a crumpled pile of limbs shaking against the burned wood.

Atticus' hands flexed and the lightning twined up his arms. "It changes nothing," he hissed. His voice sent shivers down my spine, like some subconscious part of me recognised the predator he could be.

For the first time, I saw fear skitter across Aslo's face. "So that's it? After millenia you're willing to risk it all for some girl?" His cool eyes flashed to mine before returning to the chilling sight of Atticus laced by lightning.

Atticus shifted to block Aslo's view of me as he countered with an ardent rumble, "there was nothing to risk until I met her."

Aslo huffed, snapping his book shut and returning it to some hidden place. Atticus' body relaxed instantly, and the lightning crept back to whatever current ran below his skin.

My heart clenched as his words replayed in my head. He was willing to risk everything, being discovered by the Council and enduring their punishment, just to let me keep my mind as my own.

"Ah ah ah," Aslo taunted as he caught Olivia by the hair and pulled her back to his side. She had used their distraction to inch silently towards freedom.

"I don't get it, Liv," Atticus implored in a wounded voice. "I know things have been bad lately, but where did this come from?"

Olivia's hazy eyes burned at him, refusing to answer.

He turned towards me, his eyes hurt and gentle. "Did she say who she was working with? What her plan was?"

"She said I was going to change everything," I murmured as I replayed all that Olivia had revealed, the zealotic rhetoric she'd unveiled.

Atticus ran a distracted hand through his hair. "I should have noticed the signs. Some of the things she's said recently..."

He turned back to the girl he used to call his friend. "Did the Order contact you? What do they have against you?... It doesn't make any sense, you don't do something like this on a whim."

I could hear the hurt and confusion in his voice. He had known her for centuries, had trusted her and treated her as a confidante. These things, and the wounded expression on his face, almost made me hold in the truth, but he deserved to know the depth of her deception.

"She didn't," I said quietly. Atticus turned toward me, his bright blue eyes searching mine. "She's been planning this for years."

Olivia's cackles bounced off the walls, reaching a crescendo when Atticus turned towards her. His eyes almost glowed in the darkness.

"Uh oh I'm in trouble now." She grinned, her eyes flashing with wicked delight.