Taking a deep inhale, I get up and go over to the window, my knees wobbly and my palms covered with sweat while vomit burns at the back of my throat as I peer out.
Garbage cans burn in the streets and fires light up the sky. At the next house over, a vampire is drinking from a woman’s neck in the front yard, right out in the open, as if it didn’t matter, as if all the rules have changed.
“What did you think was going to happen?” Nicholas asks as I back away, putting my hand over my mouth because I’m fairly sure I’m about to puke. “That you could change events and everything would be okay? That you could mess around with visions and everything would be fine?”
You need to prepare yourself. The brief vision I saw was a warning.
“Why would this happen just from me changing one event of my life?” I motion at the window where fires blaze and screams flood the streets. “How could it lead to all this destruction?”
“Don’t you remember the butterfly effect?” he asks. “This all happened because I never handed you over to Stephan that day; therefore he had to work harder to try and capture you. He started igniting the Mark of Malefiscus on the followers of Malefiscus, something he was going to do when the portal opened, but he did it sooner so they can help him capture you. And thanks to Stephan and his memory tampering abilities, they think they’ve been born with the mark.” He nods his head at the window where outside in the street a witch is attacking a helpless man with sparks of fire flying from her hands. “They think this is the way things are supposed to be.”
“Can we fix it?” I brace my hand on the wall to stop from falling over. “Can we make all the madness stop… make things better?”
“Perhaps.” He looks at the ring on my finger. “But right now every single creature marked with the Mark of Malefiscus is roaming the streets.” He grazes his finger across the mark on his forearm. “My mark is useless, though, since I’m dead.”
“I’m going to fix it,” I say in a trembling voice. “No matter what it takes... even if I have to die sooner.”
The corners of his lips quirk as he eyes my stomach. “You sure you’re strong enough to take that risk, even in your condition.”
I put my hand on my stomach and I swear to God the heart beat grows louder, stronger. “What condition?”
“Oh you don’t know yet.” He’s enjoying himself way too much. He steps toward me and reaches for my stomach, but I jerk back, which makes his eyes flash with anger. “You’re choices aren’t just your own anymore,” he says.
I look down at my stomach as what he’s saying clicks. “No… it can’t be… it’s not…” I shake my head in denial, the room swaying as reality slaps me across the face hard. “I can’t be pregnant.”
He laughs, but it’s rough and raw. “I guess I should be saying congratulations.”
Tears pour out of my eyes as my legs give out on me and I buckle to the floor. I press my hand to my stomach and listen to the heart beat and the fires and screams just outside, wishing desperately that Alex was here.