Page 60 of Burn Like An Angel

“What’s going on?” Lennox asks groggily.

With his long limbs stretched out, it takes him a moment to sit upright. He blinks rapidly to clear his seafoam eyes. Spotting me in Raine’s lap, his spine stiffens.

“What is it?”

“She’s okay,” Raine replies in a gravelly rasp. “Just… struggling.”

“Struggling?” I let out a strangled sound.

“You’re supposed to be breathing, Rip. Not arguing.”

“While we’re sitting here waiting to be slaughtered? And Warner is out there risking his life! This is fucking stupid!”

When I try to climb off Raine’s lap, determined to do what’s necessary to abate the storm brewing beneath my skin, I find myself trapped.

“Stay.” His arms imprison me in a steel cage, pinning me to his chest. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve calmed down.”

“You can’t fucking make me, Raine! I need… I can’t… I…”

Running out of words, tears hit me hard and fast. The wave of mental torture rises from a deep well, a poisonous smog that gains speed until it’s sweeping over me in a pyroclastic cloud.

“She’s losing it.” Lennox narrows his gaze on me.

“No shit, Sherlock. You want to try?”

“Isn’t she your problem?”

The cruel bite of his words lashes into me, slashing skin and bone. Turning my tear-blurred gaze on Lennox, I want him to see just how much power the heartless bastard holds.

The power to heal.

The power to break.

The power to end it all.

“I c-could’ve run and left you to die,” I snarl at him. “I could’ve been f-fucking free and safe right now.”

“Maybe you should have gone,” he replies softly.

“Is that what you want, Nox? To be rid of me?”

Sitting up straighter, he scrubs his hand down his face, careful to avoid the gauze on his cheek. Frustration quickens my pulse when I don’t get the answer I want.

The old Lennox was as cruel as he was sadistic. That in itself was safe. Predictable. Not this weird, introspective in between who runs so hot and cold.

“Answer me!” I thrash in Raine’s arms.

“If it means you’re safe, then yes!” Lennox suddenly yells back. “That’s what I want! You… gone!”

The tears filling my eyes run over like burst riverbanks, the hot dribbles coating my cheeks and jaw. For once, Lennox stares back without flinching. A turbulent hurricane swirls in his conflicted gaze.

“Nox,” Raine scolds. “Shut up.”

“She asked for an answer.”

“You didn’t have to give that one! Fuck!”

Looking at Raine, the mental assault only intensifies. I’m surrounded by my failure on all sides. The man I saved who doesn’t want me and the one who wants me so much I’ve ruined his life.

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