Page 229 of Heresy

He knows what its mean to lose, but he never stops fighting

He wears his heart on his sleeve

But exists within nightmares

He is shrouded in the name that the Inferno gave him

Angry.

Feral.

Wild and Careless

Damon is an unpredictable storm without rhyme or reason.

He needs something from me that I’m unwilling to give.

And he keeps coming back, always worse than before.

I see in him what I have in me.

When apart, we barely hang on to our feigned smiles.

But when together, we’re explosive.

I’m not sure I can endure this man’s games.

There’s no telling if his storm will consume me.

We’re hopelessly addicted to that which harms us.

I knew better than to allow Damon in my life.

But now that he’s here, and now that he has me…

…I’m not sure there will ever be an escape.

Nine Ruthless Men. Nine Unrepentant Sinners. Nine Irresistible Manipulators.

Damon

Past

I’ve never been good at expressing myself. It’s like thoughts swirl around my head, always spinning but never settling down enough for me to make sense of them, much less tell another person what I’m thinking or feeling.

Sometimes, I wonder if I’ve been knocked around too much. All those hits to the head can’t be good for the melon, my skull more a hard shell that keeps my brain in place and doesn’t protect it.

Then again, it could all be part of growing up that made my thoughts difficult for me, that makes speaking difficult or even just simply feeling.

I was a happy kid. A little too happy, now that I think about it. My family wasn’t the best and my parents were never around, but the nannies were nice and I was given everything I wanted.

Most importantly, I had my twin brother. We were inseparable. Two halves of the same whole. We could speak our own language and know what the other was thinking without saying a word to each other.

Our ability to connect like that is probably the only reason I’m still breathing today. At eighteen years old, I’m about to graduate high school and head off to Yale. I’m about to escape a home that became a nightmare and a father that has turned me into Anger, and my brother into Violence.

We’ve been beat down until we became the monikers assigned to us as members of the Inferno.

Yet, we’re still two halves, one hot and the other cold.

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