Page 45 of Scorching Sienna

“Well, you have your hands full, and I need to rest, so I will chat with you soon, okay? Send my love to Dee and give my little terrorists big kisses from their aunt. I love you, Liam.”

“Get well, sis. I love you, too.” And with that, the call ends, and I slump back against the pillows.

He believed me. Or he didn’t. But what could he do? If I said I was okay, then I was okay.

Was I? Would I do what I tried doing before? When I search myself and my feelings, hopelessness and sadness are the predominant emotion, but did I really want to die?

The Reaper would win. Could I live with that? The conundrum itself. Die and let him win, live and let him win. Unless I tracked him down first. And then made him pay.

Damon’s presence beside me forces my eyes open. He is holding the book pages and the handwritten letters. The movers must have told him where they were.

My eyes meet with the nearly black eyes of the man who looks like the devil himself in the dim light of this room.

“I want to find him. I want to make him pay.”

“So we will. I will be your tool for vengeance, Sienna. I will make him beg on his knees before you for mercy and then show him your wrath. My hand will be yours. My darkness will do the bidding of your light.”

Light. There is no more light.

“It’s gone, Damon. My light. My soul.” A tear rolls down my cheek from all that I have lost.

“Then we will use mine in the meantime. Until we get yours back. As for the light, Sienna, the darkness cannot exist without it. And I am still here. You will understand this with time.”

Damon slowly reaches a hand out, his thumb grazing my cheek softly as he catches another tear.

“I will tear through this world for you, rainbow, until we find what you are looking for. Even if you don’t. But we will do it together.”

Damon's words comfort me in a way that gentle ones cannot.

Perhaps, just maybe, I would survive this.

Chapter 13

Shadow

Sienna's soft, even breathing tells me she is sleeping. And peacefully from her expression. But that only comes with the help of sedatives. Otherwise, she is thrashing about, her tormented moans sitting deep in my heart, lodging themselves in the darkness that resides there. Festering.

I don’t mind. Fuel for the rage. And fuck if it isn’t consuming me, enveloping me in its toxic presence until I drown in it.

I feel like a pressure cooker. The warning whistle is the quiet, sizzling restraint tethering me to the edge. Waiting for the time when I will be unleashed, soaking myself in the blood of the walking dead man who dared to touch her. To make her feel anything but good.

Who tried to steal her light.

Fuck, he would pay. In all the ways I had visualized and all the ways that only snapping could conjure up—losing control so that all that remained was chaos and questions about how someone could do something so heinous. So fucking deranged. He made me thiswhen he touched my rainbow.

She blames me. And that’s fine. If this is what she needs from me, I will be the villain in this scenario. I always have been. But there is another. And his obsession dwells in the realm of the mentally insane. Though some would no doubt relegate me into that category as well.

My obsession was different. I would never hurt Sienna.

The other psycho stalking her has proved he will.

And based on the timeline and contents of the book pages he has sent her over the last two months, I fear this situation would have arisen regardless of the place.

With one last look at Sienna, I leave the room.

When I walk into her living room, it looks like an IT department, with all the equipment and computers on her dining room table. I couldn’t leave her, so I brought the investigation here.

Head of IT, Jordan, and one of the best hackers in the world, Kai, have been here for hours, their hands flying over their keyboards. Coffee cups are scattered around them, which irks me even at the office. Why they can’t just re-use the same cup is psychotic in its own right. At this moment, though, I couldn’t give a flying fuck. If this is what sustained them while working, I would buy a fucking Starbucks to keep them happy.

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