Page 28 of Demon Hunter

All three of them stare at me.

“Bro…” Ian shakes his head. “Major fail. Like, I’m offended and all, but still. No.”

I try backtracking. “It’s not the same?—”

“No, it’s not,” Dyl snaps. “You made the decision so you’d heal faster, but guess what? You only got to make that decision becausewehad already decided to let a higher demon use his magic tosave your fucking life.If I hadn’t told Ian to pick me up—oh sorry, you don’t like those words. How did you put it? If I hadn’t told Ian to have Marcdisintegrate me?—”

“That’s not how it works.” Marc sighs.

“—then I wouldn’t have been there for that decision. I’d have been driving through the desert in the dark, alone and terrified in the middle of the night. And I might even have argued with Ian when I got there and realized what they were doing. I hate myself for that, but I might have, Matt, because he was using demon magic on you and all my life, that has been the worst thing that could possibly happen. So no, I’m not sorry I let Marc use magic on me, because it caused me no harm, I got to you faster, and I did not fucking hesitate when he said he could use it to save your life!”

As if I’m not stunned enough by that rant, he punctuates it by punching me in the stomach.

“Oof!” I double over, gasping.

“It was good to see you again, Ian,” Dylan says while I’m still recovering. “We should catch up in person more often. Ibet Marc would like San Francisco—there’s tons of pretentious places we can take him.”

“I am not pretentious. I am discerning.”

“Babe, you’re pretentious as fuck. Yeah, we’ll definitely take you up on that, Dyl. Maybe in a couple weeks? We have a couple of classes to make up first, but then we’ll zip up to visit you both, bring Matt some new gear. I wanna see your lair.”

Dylan laughs as I finally manage to straighten. For someone who claims to love me, he didn’t bother to pull that punch. “My what?”

“You know, your lair where you do your woo-woo computer stuff.”

“You watch too many movies. I work at a desk in the second bedroom of my apartment.”

I step back a little so he can’t see me and shake my head at Ian, then hold my hands out to show how big Dylan’s workstation is, followed by four fingers so he knows how many monitors there are. Marc looks baffled, but Ian and I share a unique bond, and he instantly gets it.

“Still can’t wait to see it” is all he says to Dyl.

My boyfriend shakes his head and turns to Marc, sticking out his hand. “Thank you. For letting me travel with you and for saving Matt’s life. I know sometimes he doesn’t seem worth the effort, but he really is.” Ouch. “I hope…” He takes a deep breath. “I hope we can be friends.”

Marc was reaching out to shake Dylan’s hand, but that last sentence makes him falter. “You do?” He glances at Ian. “Why?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” my brother-bestie mutters, and Dylan laughs.

“Because Ian loves you, and you saved Matt’s life when you didn’t have to. We didn’t know you could do that, so nobody would have blamed you if you didn’t. Plus, you’re really trying to do right by us humans even though you hate us, so I figure that’sgotta be worth something. I was in for the project, but now I hope we can be actual friends.”

I fall a little bit further in love with him, even as guilt stabs me. I should have made more of an effort with Marc. He’s annoying as fuck, but heistrying.

In every sense of the word.

Chapter 12

Dylan

Marc shakes my hand.“I would… I believe it would please Ian for us to be friends.”

Ian groans, but I know Marc well enough after this past week to know that was practically an agreement to be besties. “Just wait, dude,” I promise, “I’m gonna friend you so hard.”

He blinks in confusion, which is partly why I said it. Not even I know what it means. Ian and Matt get it, though, because they laugh.

Then Matt sighs. “I know it didn’t sound like it, but Iamgrateful,” he says to Marc. “We both know you did it for Ian, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful anyway. Dyl was right when he said you didn’t have to do it.” He swallows, then adds, “And he’s right that you’d like San Francisco. I promise we won’t take you to the parts of the city that we enjoy, only the pretentious bits.”

Wow, did Matt just invite Marc up to visit? That’s gotta be growth. Maybe next I’ll work on getting Connor to like Marc.

Marc looks at Ian. “What is happening?”

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