Page 17 of Passion and Payback

“You think this counts after everything I’ve?—”

“Don’t! Just don’t. I attacked you, okay? I fucking invite you into my home, and the first thing I do is attack you when you were…were just trying to save me from the hot pan. I freaked out for no reason, and I…just don’t. Okay?”

“Okay.”

That felt way too easy, but I wasn’t going to argue, not when I could feel my sense of control still teetering on the brink. Now I was finally calm enough to think, even around the shameand heated embarrassment, I realized what had happened. I’d panicked, grabbed the pan, and burned myself. When I’d tossed it down, it had been close to my feet, and Kai had tried to pull me out of the splash zone. Which he probably had, but I’d repaid him by freaking out and attacking him. I didn’t know how I had ended up on the other side of the kitchen so quickly and without burning myself.

“It wasn’t for no reason,” he said, interrupting my spiraling panic.

“What?” I croaked, realizing I’d clenched my eyes, and looked at him.

“You freaked out for a reason, not no reason.”

“Nogoodreason, then.”

“You were never good at deciding when a normal reaction was a good thing.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Kai! Don’t!”

He eased into view by leaning on the counter and watching me carefully. “Look, someone doesn’t have that kind of reaction unless there’s a really good reason, okay? It’s not something you would have done three years ago.”

“Fuck, I wonder why,” I snarled and then clamped down on my anger as the shame rose to prick at my eyes. “I’m sorry, I just…this hurts and I?—”

“And you went through a lot more than you told me,” he finished, stopping my explanation dead in its tracks.

“Why would you say that?” I asked him.

“Because I know you, and I know you held back the full truth. I don’t know whyand,” he said, a little louder as I opened my mouth to protest, “I’m not asking you to tell me the whole story either. I know what I know, and I know that for whatever reason, you decided to keep what happened with the cops and all that to yourself as well. And again, I’m not asking.”

“Then what are you doing?” I asked, my hand limp under the water now. What could I even tell him if he did ask? That I had been stonewalled and then harassed? That the fuckers who raped me and killed my boyfriend, almost killing me in the process, had all got off without so much as an interview because a couple of them were from Port Dale’s oldest families?

“I’m asking you not to be this hard on yourself.”

“I attacked you.”

“Because I grabbed someone who has clearly gone through hell and back, who was attacked. Someone who was panicked and in pain, and I grabbed you. I knew better, but I still did it.”

“That doesn’t?—”

“And at least you didn’t try to stab me.”

“That’s not funny, Kai!”

It wasn’t funny, not in any way I could find, because I’d felt something come to life inside me in a way that scared the hell out of me. It was as if that thing inside me had stirred to life, and I was even more aware and intent than before, perhaps seeing my desperation and seeking its chance. Despite the fuzziness of the moment, I could still remember how I’d felt. Not just fear, terror, and panic but something else. Something bleaker, darker, and more horrible.

I’d meant to harm. Maybe even kill. It had been the same feeling that snapped to the front of my mind when Callum and his buddies had…but it hadn’t served me or Lucas that night, and it wasn’t going to serve me now. Not when I was dealing with the reality that I might have been willing to kill my best friend and the last bit of closeness I had left.

So, no, it wasn’t funny.

His brow rose slightly. “Do I look like I’m joking? This isn’t the first time I’ve seen someone have a flashback. Trust me, I’m used to guys having them. Never out and about. Your brainknows when it’s in danger. But back at base? Some of us were given barracks away from everyone else’s.”

“Why?”

“Because why remind the everyday grunts and guards and guys doing the cooking or basic patrolling of the fucked-up shit that’s out there by making them hear the screaming some of us did when waking up? Or why make them deal when some of those guys wake up and start swinging the knife they keep under their pillow? Shit, we had to ban guns in the barracks after one nasty incident.”

I probably looked as pathetic and miserable as I felt, but I still looked up to meet his eyes. “Did you?”

“Scream or attack someone?”

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