Page 113 of Chaos
Her eyebrows nearly flew up into her hairline. “Are you kidding me? You’ve repeatedly done exactly that.”
“No. No, Merri, I haven’t. We’ve been working on teaching you how to block would-be attackers. I’ve never done a damn thing we hadn’t agreed upon. I attack, you try to block me. If you fail, I get in. That’s how this works. But you”—I heaved a sigh and raked a hand through my hair, mussing the well-styled locks—“you broke into my mind and stole something I wasn’t ready or willing to share.”
“Malice, no, I didn’t. I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing. I just sent a little probe, thinking it would bounce off likeit always does because you were being weird and just standing there staring off into space, and the next thing I knew, I was stuck in that memory with you. I wasn’t snooping. It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t know how to get myself unstuck until you pushed me back out. It was an accident, and you blew up at me and treated me like I betrayed you or something.”
“It was a betrayal!”
“No, it wasn’t!” she shouted back at me. “It has to be on purpose to be a betrayal, and as I just fucking said, it was an accident.”
She might have had me there, but I was too fired up to be reasonable.
“You never should have tried entering my mind at all.”
“You do it to me all the time!”
“To test your barriers. To help you!”
“Well, where the fuck were your barriers, Malice? If you didn’t want me in there, why did you let them down?”
Should I tell her my barriers were up and as strong as I could make them? Part of me worried that would terrify her. She was so worried about how powerful she was. The whole reason she’d originally isolated herself had been based on that very thing.
Before I could say anything, she softened her voice and took a tentative step toward me. “I never meant to pry. And I promise you, I will never use what I learned against you in any way. That’s your secret, Mal. Your pain. I... I just wanted you to know that it’s safe with me. You’re safe with me.”
But I wasn’t. Not even fucking close.
If anything, I was in more danger with her than I’ve ever been in my existence. She’d already experienced parts of me no one else had been privy to. Both willingly and without my consent. The way she’d taken my pain from me the first time I fed her wasn’t something I’d soon forget.
Fuck.
I couldn’t continue letting her in. She would ruin me.
I’d barely survived Odette. But there was no way I would come back from Merri.
Odette had strung me up by my balls and broken my heart. Merri would consume my soul.
“I have to go.”
“Malice—”
I brushed past her, not stopping even though I could hear the pain I was causing in the shattered way she said my name.
All I allowed myself was a brief moment to close my eyes. Then I pushed forward, shoving all these unwanted feelings down as deep as they would go.
I had a devil to deal with.
The scents of unwashed human,stale alcohol, marijuana, and hot garbage permeated the air as we materialized in the dark alley on the edge of the Las Vegas strip. The mortals would have you believe everything was business as usual, despite the notable destruction of some of the most iconic hotels. The Stratosphere was broken in half. The Sphere looked like a ruined disco ball, with only a few of the panels still able to flash their various images. The hot-air balloon at Paris had shattered, and the tower was little more than scaffolding. But people still came and went as though nothing was wrong.
At least those who could afford to bury their heads beneath the sand. The truth was in the alleyways. That’s where the transients found shelter and the drugs they’d resort to in order to block out the terrors around them. Not much made me wary, but the sheer number of humans who were stood around staring blankly at things I couldn’t see gave me the willies.
“It’s a shame to see them like this,” Grim said as we moved through the alley. “They’re either numb to it all or ignoring it until the bitter end.”
“You could help them on their way,” I pointed out. “Wouldn’t take much for you to reap them.”
Grim gave a brief shake of his head. “It’s not their time.”
“Since when has that ever stopped you?”
“More often than you could know.”
