Page 162 of Anger

The moment his hands gently grip my shoulders, I turn to him and break down in tears, the fears assaulting me so violently that I don’t know whether to curl up in a ball or fight and scream.

I have nowhere I can run.

No way I can help her.

The monsters didn’t get to me, they got to Brinleybecauseof me.

Choosing to curl in a ball since there’s no place to run, my knees give out from under me, and I fall to the ground.

Damon drops to the ground beside me, his presence too intense, his storm brewing so large that it blends with mine.

Kneeling down at my feet, he reaches up to cup the side of my face, his thumb wiping away a tear that’s quickly replaced by another.

“She’ll be okay, Blue. You should take a breath and calm down. We’ll get her back.”

“Get her back?” My eyes meet his. “Alive or dead, Damon? Can you tell me that?”

His eyes close slowly before opening again. “We’ll get her back.”

This is what my mother was always running from. This fate. This feeling of losing a person you desperately love and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

I tremble as sobs tear through my body. I’m losing my mind over this.

The fear is all-consuming.

Damon’s voice is a soft murmur beneath the thoughts screaming in my head, the rush of blood in my ears. But it’s not his voice that I need right now. I need something more.

“Damn it, Blue. You need to trust me. For once in your fucking life, trust one person to help you.”

His voice is a roar now, breaking through the haze.

Trust him?

After everything he’s done?

How can I trust the person who made me betray Brinley in the first place?

I shake my head, flat-out refusing.

He’s exactly the type of person I should never trust. And for this exact reason. I was right to never let him close. I was right about every man I’ve ever known.

Regardless of everything I knew not to do in this situation, I still let him get to me a teeny tiny bit. And look where I am now? On some silver-spoon shitting, rich guy’s plane, flying over I don’t know how many states, on the way to Georgia to save my best friend.

A gun?

Please let her be alive.

If this is another one of the universe’s screwed-up jokes, nothing about it is funny.

A keening sound leaks out of me at the thought Brinley could already be dead.

“For fuck’s sake,” he grinds out between clenched teeth. “I bet you have questions. Don’t you, Blue? An entire list of them written on a never-ending scroll somewhere in your annoying head. Why don’t I answer them now? Don’t you want to know? How many were left? Three?”

He pauses as he gathers me to him, his shoulders rising and falling with his breath. His heart beating nearly as hard as mine against my ear.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Isn’t that what you said?”

I don’t answer.

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