I needed to go further back in the picture. I needed to rewind the scene just a few minutes more. But to when?

“Okay,” I said, trying to appease her.

Crystal had been there when I felt the tug. I had to try to manipulate time to see further back. I bit down and concentrated.

“So, now?” Crystal asked.

I gave them a blank stare. “What?”

“The knife. The weapon. We should go now before curfew.”

“Oh, no, I can’t go,” I said, blinking back to them. “I don’t have any money.”

I did have money, actually, a little, but I couldn’t waste it. I was saving it for a plane ticket. I had a feeling I was going to be rushing back home. If I was going to die in the apocalypse, I was going to do it among family and friends.

“I do,” Wade said. “My parents are loaded.”

I smiled. “I can’t take your money.”

“Not mine,” he corrected. “My parents’.”

My smile morphed into a teasing glare. “I can’t take your parents’ money either.”

“Come on,” he said, pulling at my jacket sleeve. “It’ll be fun. Just the three of us.”

When he tugged my sleeve, his fingers brushed across the back of my hand. I’d been diving into pictures, my mind focused, so I’d left myself wide open again. I got a vision before I could brace against one. Before I could erect my mental barrier.

I bit down, braced myself, expecting to be shown Wade’s death. Usually when I had a vision, I was shown the most pressing issue for that person. An imminent death. A wreck that damaged a spine. The loss of a loved one. But it was different with Wade. Darker. Hungrier.

Gone was his sweet, easygoing nature. A predator had emerged. With my fingers still on the screen, I was first catapulted back into the picture. I watched as Wade watched me. Followed me. Waited until I was so crushed by students, I wouldn’t notice him as he slipped the note into my pocket. His hands shook when he drew it, but not with fear or anxiety. With anger. With a seething kind of hatred.

He hurried through the throngs after depositing the note, then waited for the halls to clear, hoping to catch me looking at it. But I’d fallen, like the stupid bitch I was. He curled his hands into fists, frustrated he didn’t get to see the look on my face when I saw his masterpiece.

That was okay. He’d see the shock on it when his knife punctured my heart. When he stole the beast within me. Surely when I died, the beast would leave the vessel it was in and search out another. And he’d be there waiting. With that thing inside him, he’d be strong. Invincible.

First thing he’d do? Kill his parents.

No, wait. First he’d kill Headmaster Tompkins. He’d cut his face with a broken bottle and watch him bleed out.

Of course, before he could do any of that, he’d have to kill the prophet. The great prophet who was going to save the world.

The thought of putting a stop to that nonsense made him hardened. Every time he realized the prophet he’d heard about his entire, miserable life had practically fallen into his lap, he wanted to laugh with glee. It was a gift from heaven. Or would have been if he believed in heaven. After growing up with parents as loony as the day was long, he wasn’t sure heaven existed anymore.

Still, they’d been right about the prophet. They were believers. They’d taught him about her since he was a kid. They’d longed to meet her, to invite her to stay with them, to call her their own. They never said that, of course, but he could see it in their eyes every time they looked at him. Their disappointment. Their desire for something more in their child. Something that hinted at greatness.

He’d show them greatness. Right before he pulled the trigger, he’d show them just how great he could be … with a demon inside him.

If only Lorelei weren’t so freaking stupid. How could this idiot girl from a bass-ackward state like New Mexico, of all places, end up being the prophet? How could she have such exquisite power lurking just beneath her skin and not utilize it? He wanted to bash her skull in with a baseball bat every time he thought about it.

“Lorraine?”

I heard Crystal’s voice through the fog of hatred and venom. Shock held me down longer than I would’ve liked, but I eventually clawed my way to the surface, following Crystal’s voice out of the vortex Wade had sent me to.

He still had his hand on my jacket sleeve, a silicon smile painted onto his face.

I jerked my hand back and a hint of suspicion flitted across his eyes. Not only did he know I was the prophet, but he knew my real name as well. He’d thought it in my vision. How? Who were his parents?

“What do you think?” Crystal asked. “I can pitch in, too. I’ve been saving my money for a rainy day, and guess what? It’s raining! No, really. I heard it.”

Wade’s eyes didn’t leave mine, his expression knowing, accepting.

“Come on,” he urged again. “We’ll find you a knife. Everyone needs protection in this day and age. Even our schools aren’t safe.”

“I just told her that!” Crystal shouted, thrilled that someone was agreeing with her. “I think we need to write the governor. This is just ridiculous. Our security measures are way too lax.”

“I agree,” he said. He didn’t move an inch. He watched me, took in my every move, calculated how hard it would be to push the knife he had hidden in his coat through my sternum and into my heart. Or that was where my mind was headed. My thoughts.