Page 71 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

the others from that. And Nick couldn’t stop bullets either. He was immune to monster powers, but not guns. And he was still

fighting to hold the line with just a dagger and a sword. “They’re going to kill us!” Joan blurted to Aaron.

There was another ping . But before Joan could even flinch away, the bullet vanished midair.

Joan gasped as Ruth sprinted into place beside her, a hand outstretched. She felt her mouth drop open. “Did you...?” Had

Ruth just used the Hunt power on that bullet? Had she pushed it into another moment in time?

“Who knew I could ? Not me.” There was a shaky smile in Ruth’s voice. Her hair had fallen out of its pretty braid, her curls in tendrils around

her face. There was a streak of blood on her cheek—a cut from flying glass. “Wait till I tell the rest of the family.” The

smile fell away, and Joan knew why.

Even with Ruth stopping bullets and Joan and Nick holding back this attack, it wasn’t likely they’d ever see the Hunts again. They weren’t going to be able to keep this up.

More blasts followed then—one after the other, and for a long moment, Joan couldn’t concentrate on anything but stopping them.

She felt a wave of despair. Maybe Aaron was right—maybe she could unmake the bond between Eleanor and the timeline. But she couldn’t do that and counter the attacks. “Aaron, I—I can’t break that bond. I can’t do that and protect us.”

“Then unmake everything you can. All at once,” Aaron said. He saw the doubt in her face. “You can do this. Don’t hold back.

Feel it.”

There’s an emotional component , he’d told Joan in the van. And Joan had known for some time that her power came out in moments of strong emotion. She’d

torn holes in the timeline when she’d unmade Nick, and again when she’d thought that Nick had died.

“Feel it,” Aaron said again. “Just feel it.”

Joan had a bad habit of suppressing difficult emotions. Even now, she could feel her body trying to push down her true fear

and anger.

A memory came to her—of Aaron looking at her in the bathroom mirror, pressing a hand to her chest, easing the pressure. That

pressure was still there right now, behind her breastbone—bottled-up feelings trying to be felt.

Aaron was right. If she was going to break the bond, she needed to tear a hole in the timeline. And to do that, she needed

to feel all the terrible things she’d been suppressing.

She drew a deep breath and let her mind turn to how much she missed Dad and her ordinary life.

Let herself think of the unfairness of growing up without Mum.

Of Mum, here in this timeline, losing both her children.

And Nick’s and Aaron’s counterparts and their painful lives.

All her family and friends here. Nick’s family.

She thought of the glimpse she’d had of the true timeline.

Of what their lives would have been— should have been.

She took another breath, raising her hands. And then she let her feelings consume her.

Power roared from her in an unbroken blaze, and the effect was instant. The attacking blasts halted as Joan’s power stopped

them at the source. She could vaguely hear murmurs of confusion and consternation—maybe even fear—from the members of the

Court.

Eleanor’s eyes flew to her. “How did you do that?” She seemed shocked. Joan couldn’t answer. She barely knew how she’d done it. “Are your old powers coming back?” Eleanor murmured. She answered herself before Joan could.

“It doesn’t matter if they are. You’d still be no match for me.”

Joan swallowed. The ribbon around Eleanor’s body hadn’t budged. She needed to dig deeper, she knew.

She let her mind turn to herself and Aaron and Nick—to the precious moment they’d had together in the library. To everything

that had been taken from them. That might still be taken.

Sadness and pain ripping through her, she ordered the bond: “Be unmade!”

The Grave power answered her as it never had before, rolling out in waves that shook the whole house—far more violently than

the earlier attacks.

Around the room, velvet hangings exploded into silken threads and then curled up again into cocoons. Brick melted to clay, smearing down the walls like blood. Wood panels turned green and sprouted leaves. To Joan’s frustration, though, Eleanor’s bond with the timeline remained stubbornly intact.

She dug deeper, pouring out power. By the wall, Eleanor gestured with her hands. Nothing happened. The murmurs from the Court

rose to true fear as they realized that even Eleanor was being neutralized.

Everything seemed affected—except for the people themselves. Underfoot, rugs fluffed up into unspun wool and puffs of flossy

cotton. Leather wallpaper sprouted fur.

Water dripped from the ceiling as the plaster was unmade too, until—with a terrifying crash—the ceiling fell, and then the

roof beyond that. Everyone stumbled back from the falling furniture and raining dust. Joan looked up and felt a snapping sensation—a

thousand elastics breaking. And suddenly, the sky was full of writhing shadows.

Behind her, Jamie gasped. “You broke the Ali seals!”

She had . She’d torn open the seals that had been hiding Eleanor’s broken timeline. And they hadn’t only been in the sky. She’d broken

one at the far end of the room—shadows whirled there, by the fireplace. Joan shuddered at the sight of them. This world really

was falling apart.

But still Eleanor’s bond with the timeline hadn’t torn. Everything else was unraveling, but not that.

“Why are you even fighting?” Eleanor said hoarsely. “You have to know it’s pointless! Just give up!”

“ You give up!” Joan snarled back. She was starting to shake. Why couldn’t she tear away that bond? She had the capacity to break

it—she could feel it inside her. She just couldn’t access the deepest well of her power.

Eleanor attacked her again, and again her power fizzled at the source. “Don’t just stand there!” she screamed at the Court.

“Stop her! Kill her! Do whatever it takes!”

Joan pushed harder and harder. She felt the timeline thinning around her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to find something

more inside her.

Eleanor made a sudden shocked sound, and Joan’s eyes flew open. Had she done it?

No. To her disappointment, the ghostly bond was still tight around Eleanor’s waist.

The room seemed oddly lit, though, as if someone had opened a curtain, spilling in sunshine.

Joan followed Eleanor’s gaze.

To her confusion, the sunroom behind her was completely intact again—the glass whole, with morning sun shining sweetly through

an open curtain. It took Joan a long second to understand that she wasn’t seeing this room. The last blast of her power had created a window showing another timeline—just like the one Mum had created at the

Grave house.

And in that window, there was another Joan.

The other Joan sat in an overstuffed chair in the sunroom, a book folded around itself. She had shoulder-length hair and a

serene expression that changed to confusion as she caught sight of Joan and the devastated house around her.

With a jolt, Joan realized that the counterpart could see them , just like they could see her.

Joan’s counterpart spotted Eleanor then, and her expression shifted from confusion to pure, shaken horror. “ Eleanor! What’s happened!” She scrambled up, dropping the book. “Is that your blood?”

Eleanor’s mouth dropped open. From her shock, this had to be Joan’s original self. Eleanor’s actual sister. And once again,

Joan felt the cogs of the timeline turning. It seemed she’d been in this house in the true timeline too. She always came back

to this house.

“I need to get you to a hospital!” Joan’s counterpart said. “Don’t worry, I’ll—” But as she took a step toward her sister,

she vanished—as abruptly as she’d appeared—as if she’d been nothing more than a soap bubble all along.

Eleanor’s mouth was still open, as though she’d been about to reply. She stared in the direction of the sunroom, her expression

raw.

Mum had told Joan that Eleanor had never been able to create windows like this. It struck Joan then that this might have been

the first time Eleanor had seen her actual sister since the King had erased the Grave family.

As Joan wondered that, Nick gasped out, “ Joan! ”

Someone had finally made it past his defense line. Joan stumbled back, taken by complete surprise. She had a split second to see that it was

Conrad, his face and hair moonlight-pale, his strange, glass-like eyes trained on her. He had a gun, already pointing toward

her.

Conrad shot at Joan before she could react. The split second seemed to stretch and stretch. Joan could see Nick’s hand reaching, desperately trying to stop Conrad. She could feel Ruth, turning a moment too late.

There wasn’t time to stop the bullet. There wasn’t even time for Joan to scream.

Even as she thought that, though, she realized that someone else was screaming.

“ No! ” The word was thick with emotion. And the voice was Eleanor’s.

Before Joan could even process that, the bullet vanished from in front of her face.