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After a few seconds, Nick realized she was talking to other people in the room.

He waited patiently for her to finish.

While he did, he found himself looking at Mal’s painting.

Once he made out some of the images in it, he zoomed the image forward, and started looking at it for real.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “Morley, have you looked at this? The painting?”

“Yes,” he said.

There was another silence.

Then James Morley turned his head, looking seriously at Nick.

“We need to go up there, don’t we?” he asked.

Nick was still staring at the image, fighting warring reactions of panic, fear, anger, denial, and what was slowly building into a form of animal, murderous rage.

It was like Mal painted Nick’s worst nightmare.

It’s like everything that twisted vampire said he wanted coming true in front of Nick’s eyes. It was like Mal painted it already coming true.

Nick felt his jaw harden.

His eyes blurred briefly.

He realized he was crying when they stung.

“Yes.” His voice came out thick. “We’re going up there. We need to go up there, James. Right now.Right fucking now.”

Morley didn’t argue.

He also didn’t need to be told twice.

The police car with the surprisingly large engine had already begun picking up speed.

Within seconds, they were going so fast down the two-lane road, the cement walls on either side of the road blurred into white and green lines. The trees visible above slid by so rapidly that even Nick could barely see them.

CHAPTER26

NON-NEGOTIABLE

Nick,I need you to calm down… I need you to calm down, Nick…

Wynter thoughts grew pleading, cajoling, even verging on angry.

Please, baby. Please just take a breath… even Mal is saying you’re overreacting. He says it’s not for sure that any of what you saw in the painting will come true––

Because his track record’s been so shitty up until now, right?Nick growled, cutting off her thoughts before more could form.Because every single painting Mal’s shown me over the past few years HASN’T come to pass within a few days or hours after he showed me. Is that it, Wynter? Are we now going to pretend Malek has some spotty track record with this stuff? That he’s hit or miss with his predictions?

Wynter let out an exasperated sigh.

That doesn’t mean THIS painting has to come true, Nick.Her thoughts grew openly frustrated.Nick, you need to calm down. Mal is adamant about this. He keeps saying it’s just apossiblescenario, that all he ever sees are possibilities––

Nick’s jaw hardened to granite.

Yeah, that’s great, Wynter. That’s really wonderful… and tell Mal thanks for that, but I just saw his painting and it’s my WORST FUCKING GODDAMNED NIGHTMARE… not to mention the future a psychopathic, baby-murdering, obsessed-with-my-wife vampire just threatened me with while he pointed a spear at my friend’s chest. So yeah, I think I’m going to just take this moment to completely fucking overreact, if it’s all the same to you––