she doubted very much that he would just let them leave him there. Mac liked power too much to let their time machine fall through his fingers. This was a trick.
She was about to tell him what she thought of his little plan when another choked cry from inside the hotel room stopped her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
“Who do you have in there?” she asked instead.
Mac grinned, and Dorothy felt duped. Clearly, he’d wanted her to ask.
“See for yourself,” he said, throwing the door wide.
Dorothy didn’t want to look, but her eyes seemed to move on their own, zeroing in on the figure lying utterly still on the floor.
Ash had been beaten, that much was clear, but it wasn’t the beating itself that caused horror to rise in her throat. It was how he’d been beaten, how he’d been kicked and carved and sliced. His skin was white except for where it was red and clotted with blood. God, there was so much blood. Where had it all come from? It pooled around him and stained his clothes and hands and feet. A roaring sound filled Dorothy’s ears.
Whatever had been done to him had been done gleefully.
Dorothy’s first thought was that he was dead. This monster had killed him. But then she noticed that he was shaking, whether from the shock or the blood loss she couldn’t tell.
Not dead yet. But close.
Mac was studying her now, his eyes narrowing like lenses. Dorothy had to work hard to keep the emotion from her face. He knew. Somehow, impossibly, he knew about her history with Ash. He knew what he meant to her. How?
It didn’t matter. Mac was going to kill Ash if she didn’t stop him. Her stomach roiled and her fingers curled around her hidden daggers. She wanted to pull them free and slice the smile off Mac’s face. She wanted to add his own blood to the blood that already painted his clothes. The want was so strong inside of her that it felt like heat.
He’s near, she thought. Near enough that she if she struck now she could drive a dagger through his chest.
But could she do it? Could she end a man’s life?
She eased her daggers out of their harnesses.
Yes, she thought.
As though reading her mind, Mac hobbled out of easy reach. Her Cirkus Freaks closed around him, making it so that Dorothy couldn’t reach him, not unless she was willing to go through them.
And were they hers any longer? Eliza, it seemed, had already defected. What about the others? Were they working for Mac now, too?
Dorothy felt her heartbeat pulsing in her palm, vibrating through her daggers. She couldn’t risk it.
Mac held out his hand and, as though on cue, one of the Cirkus Freaks handed him a knife.
Smiling at her, he said, “Let me just finish this guy off and then we’ll discuss this further.”
Finish him off?
The thought made her feel like screaming.
“If you really want to go back in time, we should leave now,” Dorothy said, her mind working quickly. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Roman’s gaze flicker and settle on her. Dorothy didn’t look at him. In this moment, all she could think about was getting Mac away from Ash. Not just five years this time. Decades, centuries. “Before—”
But her mind froze, and she could think of no reason that they should leave now, before Mac had a chance to kill Ash.
Roman cleared his throat. “As I’m sure you know, the person you’re torturing is Jonathan Asher,” he explained. “He should have a public death, don’t you think?”
Roman said all of this as though it were obvious, his expression blank.
Mac’s eyes flicked between the two of them, suspicious, but he lowered his knife. “That’s not a bad idea.” Over his shoulder, he added, “Keep him alive until I get back.”
Skin humming, Dorothy turned and started down the hallway, trusting the others to follow her. She slid her daggers back into their holsters.
She may have let one moment pass, but there would be another. She’d make sure of it. For now, Mac wanted to go back in time, and so they would take him.
He just couldn’t be allowed to return.
42
Ash
“Ash . . . come on now, time to wake up.”
The voice drifted out of the black, tugging him from unconsciousness. It was familiar.
He struggled to raise his heavy lids. “Dorothy?” he murmured.
And that’s how he knew he was dreaming. Because Dorothy couldn’t be