Page 84 of Price of Angels

Almost.

“Get it out of my system?”

He took a step back, and looked down at her with unreadable blankness. “Do we have to have one of those woman conversations about it?”

She felt her brows go up. “I’m sorry, what’sthatsupposed to mean?”

“Oh shit. We do.”

“Michael.” She shoved her arms through the sweatshirt sleeves with agitated stabs. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say, based on observation, you don’t know a damn thing about women.”

“I know women make you pay for everything you ever say to them,” he bit back, irritation coloring his voice. “I know I yelled at you, and now we’re gonna have to talk about it.”

She hadn’t expected this out of him of all people, this defensive, hot-heated reaction. She lifted her chin, matching him stare-for-stare. “Well if that’s what you’re anticipating, I’d hate to disappoint you. Okay, big man, why’d you yell at me?”

At a different time, she would have laughed to see so much expression in his face, all the lines his displeasure pressed into his skin. “Because you needed to be yelled at.”

She opened her arms, inviting him to explain further.

“You were actually going to apologize to that man, weren’t you?” He made it sound disgraceful.

“It’s the least I can do!” she said, feeling the swell of desperation again.

“Christ,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Don’t you get it? If you go tell someone you got your friend killed, the cops will haul you in for questioning. That guy, all torn up as he is, isn’t gonna think you’ve just got a guilty conscience. He’s gonna hear you blame yourself, and he’ll blame you too.”

He frowned at the microwave, jaw clenched tight. “She was your friend, and she died, and you feel bad–”

“I feel terrible,” she corrected softly.

His eyes came to her, unsympathetic. “Do you want to go to jail just because you feel terrible? Do you want to be questioned? Do you want to be treated like a suspect?”

“Maybe I ought to be.”

“No you don’t!”

“You’re yelling again.”

“I don’t care! You’re being an idiot. Why the hell would you do that to yourself?”

“Because it’smy fault.”

“Like hell it is.”

“Do you not understand how unfair it is? One of them murdered her, so who cares if I got away. My escape isn’t worth a life.”

“It’s worth your life,” Michael snarled, leaning into her face. “You got out, and you got to live. That’s worth something.”

“No it’s not.”

“It is to me!”

Holly took a step back. Tears burned at the backs of her eyes, and her lungs closed tight against the strangulation of emotions she didn’t begin to understand. “But–”

“Just shut up, I’m tired of hearing it.” There was disgust in his face. “You can’t control evil. Do you get that? You can’t. That son of a bitch I fed to the hogs – evil. And you shouldn’t have to live under him, or any of them, just to keep bad things from happening to other people. It is not your…your fuckingdestinyto be abused just to keep the rest of the world safe. And I’m realizing that’s exactly what you think, and I want to smack the idea out of you, goddamn it.”

She took a deep breath, and forced the tears down. “Go ahead then. I’m not afraid of anything you can do to me.”

With an inward tightening, she braced herself for the slap. Her face tingled in anticipation of his rough hand.

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