Page 138 of Power of the Mind

“Get. Out. Now.” Diem’s deadly tone was enough to fell an army.

Hilty moved like his ass was on fire.

Before he got to the door, I heard a familiar crunch.

“Motherfucking fucker,” I spat. “Tell me that wasn’t my glasses.”

32

Diem

“Get. Out. Now.” The caustic tone got Hilty moving, but he stepped on Tallus’s fallen glasses in his race to escape the office.

Tallus spat profanities as the door slammed behind the doctor. I couldn’t see past the blinding rage making my vision red. I was an inferno and wanted nothing more than to chase that motherfucking doctor down and kill him for daring to come into my house and make threats.

Somehow, I managed to maintain a sliver of self-control. Maybe it had something to do with the thrashing man in my arms.

“Put me down. I swear to god, I’m fucking cursed. If they’re broken again…” Tallus growled in frustration, bringing me back to the present. “Guns! Put me down.”

I set him gently on his feet, and he immediately fell to his knees, retrieving his frames. Holding them close to his face, he examined them. Whimpering, he got to his feet. “The frames arefucking broken. That asshole is getting billed for repairs. How does this keep happening to me?”

“Let me see them.”

Tallus flung them at my chest in irritation. I fumbled and almost dropped them. After a quick examination, I determined it wasn’t anything I could fix. He was right. They were toast.

He took them back and put them on. They sat crooked, framing his scowl. “Just what I needed. Another outrageous expense after I already made promises to Memphis I can’t keep. Why is this my life? I need a better job.” He continuously moved them on his nose, trying to find a proper balance so they didn’t list to one side. All the fiddling in the world wouldn’t make them sit straight, and he soon gave up.

The fury that had boiled to the surface when I’d found Hilty holding a knife to Tallus’s throat simmered, but my skin continued to buzz and tingle with residual adrenaline. My insides ceaselessly quivered, making my teeth chatter if I didn’t cinch my jaw.

Tallus removed and inspected the frames again, gently attempting to tweak them back in shape with no luck.

A wave of grief hit me unexpectedly. I loved the come-fuck-me-style of his glasses, but I was less concerned with the broken frames and more concerned with the blood drying across Tallus’s throat and staining his collar. The profoundness of it was a lead ball to the chest. It threatened to buckle my knees. He was hurt. Bleeding.

My sudden urge to kill the doctor reignited until Tallus looked up, wearing a look of defeat along with his lopsided eyewear.

“I’m pissed.”

“Sit down.”

“What?”

My entire focus was on the blood. The cut wasn’t much more than a paper-thin line, but my stomach soured when I considered an alternate ending to the confrontation.

“Sit down,” I repeated.

Tallus gave me an odd look and preoccupied himself with the glasses. “I have a solid theory,” he said, twisting the plastic frames.

Ignoring him, I retrieved a first aid kit from the bathroom. On my way back, I snagged an orange plastic chair from the waiting room and plunked it beside Tallus. “Sit. Down.” An edge of impatience crept into my tone.

Tallus blinked blurrily up at me, confusion written all over his face. “What? You’re not listening."

The shaking wouldn’t abate. Whether it was returning rage or residual adrenaline, I wasn’t sure, but it was joined by the steady thump of my heart beating too fast. “You’re hurt. Sit. Down.”

Tallus squinted at the first aid kit as his hand went to his throat, fingers prodding the thin cut. They came away sticky with drying blood. “Oh. I think I’m okay.”

“Tallus.” I rattled the chair. “Sit.”

“Guns…”

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