Page 36 of Cast in Shadow
The staring contest between Emerson and I went on for gods only knew how long before my phone buzzed in my pocket. I answered without looking. “Yeah?”
“We’re on the road.” It was Nguyen.
A sliver of the tension keeping me in place melted away.
“Good. Be evasive, and call HQ and let them know what’s happening. I’ll contact you when I wrap things up here.” I ended the call and pocketed my phone again.
“Whyareyou still here?” Emerson asked, looking as irritated as he did curious.
“I told you I would give you the director if you let them go. I’m holding up my end of that deal.”
Jabiah shifted at his side. “Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”
Emerson shook his head, but I spoke up before he got the chance. “What does it look like to you? Like maybe it was a member of the Brethren who found a way to exile Theloneus to the Alius? And maybe he tried to pin it on me because he didn’t have a fucking clue who I really was? And maybe you killed two members of my team and kidnapped and tortured two more for nothing?”
“Easy, Senna,” Emerson said calmly.
“She is eighteen years old!”
He put his hands out like he was trying to calm a wild animal. “We should go inside and talk, rather than hashing out our issues in an alley where anyone can see.”
Gritting my teeth, I cast my magic out around us but didn’t pick up any other living creatures larger than a rat. Still, he was right. It was the kind of conversation that should probably be handled with a little more care.
Ice slid through my veins when I thought of going into the same room where they’d held Shay and Nguyen. I was barely hanging on as it was. If I saw their blood splattered across the floor, all bets would be off.
“Not here,” I said, grinding out the words.
“Senna, we didn’t know.” He reached out one of his big hands to touch me, and my anger flared at the thought of what those hands might have done to Shay.
I yanked back and punched him as hard as I could. His head snapped back. When he straightened, blood dribbled from his lower lip for just a second before the split healed itself. As it did, an eerie red glow returned to his eyes, but just for a blink. There and gone.
“Feel better?”
He knew I didn’t, and with how quickly the red faded back to that signature blue—so dark now that it rivaled the night sky—he also knew I’d hit him without magic. An emotion a fool might mistake for regret flickered across his face, but I didn’t care.
I swung again. Then again, and I reveled in the sensation of his jaw cracking under the force of my third punch.
He didn’t howl in pain or hit me back. The bastard wasn’t even defending himself. It was like he wanted me to beat the shit out of him, and now that my fury was unleashed, hot and sharp, I was more than happy to oblige.
I didn’t hold back. His face, his chest, his stomach—I kept swinging until my knuckles were a bloody mess and he was on his knees, holding his hands down at his sides like a man waiting for absolution.
It took me entirely too long to figure out that was exactly what I was giving him. By absorbing my anger and my hurt, he was absolving himself of the pain he’d caused.
I stepped back, breathing hard, barely registering the sting of the fractured bones in my hands.
“Don’t stop now.” He sounded strange, resigned in a way that hurt more than it should have. “Get it all out of your system.”
“Why aren’t you fighting back,” I breathed, flexing myfingers and sending a thread of healing magic through the nerves to repair the damage.
He lifted his head, looking up at me with an unreadable expression. “Why aren’t you using magic?”
I didn’t answer, but he knew. I wanted to hurt him with my bare hands. To inflict pain on a purely personal level.
Pulling in an unsteady breath, I took another step back, but Emerson stayed as he was, on his knees on the asphalt, with Jabiah looking on like a man lost.
“We didn’t know who she was to you,” Emerson finally said.
Yeah, he’d said that before. It still didn’t change anything. “She’s just a girl.”
