angelic command and once again had gotten himself jacked up in a situation that they'd all had to figure out how to live with, or the mere fact that he hadn't been strong enough at the core to not do something to their relationship that would damage the one thing that had been rock solid between them--trust. Instantly she decided that it was all of the above.
"Fuck you trying to tell me about some black smoke coming out of my head. It's probably coming out of my ears, too, from being so damned mad at you, Carlos! If the same thing happened to me, you'd be off in a lair somewhere, alone, licking your male ego wounds, with me having to beg you to come back to me. You'd have me on my fucking hands and knees groveling to make it right, explaining over and over again every detail of how it happened, why it happened, swearing on a stack of Bibles that it would never, and could never, ever, ever happen again."
"No, I wouldn't," he said, now pointing at her, "because that weakness that got me fucked around in the first place is gone, D!" He stepped toward her, head tilted to the side, ready to go to war over the principle. "I know who I am now, the male Neteru." He pounded both fists against his chest. "No bullshit is ever gonna make me doubt the Light again. I'm not ever gonna be unclear about my powers, you got that? I refuse to go backward, I'm going forward, and this time there's something messing with you--but your ass is too arrogant to accept that just maybe you ain't invincible." He leaned in toward her. "You ever consider that, D? Ever think about the fact that that's how I got messed up? Your best bet is to learn from my big mistake, rather than try to rub my nose in it. I ain't no puppy, or no newbie, D."
She pointed at him and then drew her hand away quickly to press her palm against her stomach while willing her voice not to crack. "You'd be so hurt, Carlos," she whispered. "You'd wanna know, 'Baby, how'd it take your mind like that--how'd it get inside the black box of me and you?' And . . ."
Damali briefly closed her eyes and two huge tears rolled down her cheeks without her consent. "And you'd want to know what was already resident within me that would have allowed it to get its claws under the lid to lift it enough to take me there." She stared at him. "The Chairman and the Harpies couldn't get into it, because at that time, the seal was tight between me and you--unbreakable. But once you felt like I was the team leader, your ego gave the core of us right to 'em on a silver platter. That's what I can't forgive. Juanita being dragged into a trance by a Level-Seven demon using your body, nah," she added, shaking her head. "That ain't what's making me put my clothes on and leave. It's not about her; it's about you. Period. I don't trust how you really feel down deep. So, tell me I'm lying. Isn't that how you'd process all of this?"
When he didn't respond fast enough to her liking, her voice took a dangerously low dip as she spoke between her teeth. "And then you'd make me TWIST, my Scorpio brother, and you know that. Don't try to confuse the issue and get out of this by talking about some black smoke you supposedly saw in the bathroom. Be real. Things would never be the same between you and me again. If we both lived to be a hundred years old, you would whip out your 'right as a man,' " she added, making little quotes around the words in the air with her fingers, "to fling a transgression of this nature in my face whenever the mood hit you. It would be the perpetual ax over my head until the end of time. The blade of Heru!"
She paced back and forth in a tight line, raking her locks. "You'd be telling me that, possession or not, I shoulda loved you so hard that something like this couldn't have happened. Then you'd be telling me some male Latino-based yang about how it's different for a man than a woman, and I'd have to give you time to sort it all out. Tell me I'm lying?"