Despite her conscious confusion, her subconscious spirit apparently guided her not to share a drink of anything with him, not even water, while in the house... just as it seemed to block his advances by conveniently making her fall fast asleep and light up internally with protective inner silver. He could have attempted to physically violate her while she slept, but her will was strong even in her unnatural slumber, presenting an impenetrable barrier. She hadn't dropped that, even though he'd f**ked her brain real good.
Carlos paused. What was he thinking? It sounded so crude even in his mind. He had never f**ked Damali. He gently extricated himself from her embrace and stood, needing space to really call it what it was.
He hadn't just violated her mind last night; he'd raped it. He wiped his hands over his face and began to pace, not sure what to do. It didn't matter that, at the moment, she'd never know. The fact remained, he knew. What had happened to him last night? All he did was accidentally sit in the Chairman's throne - but he'd gone to Hell and had been forced into one of those before, yet never lost his true self. Why was this time so different? Could the contagion have altered his ability to cope? What if... ?
Carlos became still for a moment. He'd violated a direct angelic command to not sit in the throne. Was he insane? They had said wait for a sign, and he hadn't. He rubbed his palms down his face. His judgment was all f**ked up.
The reality frightened him. It was as though there were two entities constantly warring within him. He could practically feel it beneath the surface of his skin. Every decision was an acute struggle to do the right thing. By day, he felt different. By night, he had something within his psyche that was too terrible to name.
New fear covered him in a sheen of cold sweat. What if, with this contagion in him and whatever else he'd picked up on Level Six, he didn't have a line? Just like he'd pried open Damali's brain and licked her gray matter until it trembled and shrieked and begged for mercy, one night he might brutally pry open her thighs to do the same to the sacred orifice between them. It would most assuredly not be his tongue that battered her... What if he totally flipped dark, kept her on her knees, and sodomized her - some twisted shit like that?
Last night he'd just come into the throne power, didn't know how to wield it, but like all things, he'd be able to in time, and her barriers would come crashing down. Carlos backed away from her shaking his head. No! What? His brain was flipping back and forth between right and wrong even in pure daylight! He needed to purge his system, and do it fast - but how!
He had to get out of there. He was losing touch with any mission he'd clung to, losing touch with who he had been before he fell into the dark throne and came back as something that now, in the cold light of day, truly scared him.
First her mind, then her body, and ultimately that might break her spirit. It was the way of that realm. Pure darkness knew no limits. Level Seven had no delimiters, no boundaries. Such an assault coming from him, a known, trusted source, might be more soul-scarring than from a stranger, an unknown predator that she could fight to the death before ever submitting.
"Give her back her blade," he whispered to himself as he glanced at her, retrieved and covered her with Jose's blanket, then made his way out the back door. He crossed the deck with purpose. He needed the sun, the Light, to explain.
Stopping abruptly as he made his way to stand twenty-five yards away from the house, Carlos lowered his head in shame, bent his knees, and dropped, not caring that small rocks and sand stones cut into his flesh.
"Please forgive me," he said, clasping his hands. "Don't let this thing take hold in me. Preserve my spirit. Get it out of me. I'm clinging to the thin thread of silver lining. I disobeyed, I know, but we're all infected... Don't leave me. Don't let me hurt her or the family."
She woke up with what felt like a horrible hangover. Damali sat up slowly and glanced down at the blanket that covered her. Vaguely, she remembered that Carlos had been there last night. In slow increments the accident and burning his clothes came back to her, but as she gathered the blanket closer to her, guilt stabbed at her. He'd wrapped Jose's blanket around her?
When she attempted to stand, she was forced to hold her head with both hands. She looked at the small coffee table and the remnants of dirty wineglasses and groaned. "No more, never again," she said with a wince. "How much of this crap did I drink?"
She allowed the rhetorical question to follow her to the bathroom, and then into the bedroom. Catching her profile in a mirror, she looked like pure hell in the disheveled clothes that she'd obviously slept in.
Blurred memories of insane, terror-filled dreams flitted through her brain like snatches of dark confetti, but she couldn't string together anything that made sense. All that remained was the sensation of pure horror and a throbbing headache that culminated at the base of her skull. Did Carlos leave already?
Then she remembered his potential relapse and began walking through the house with urgency. Her gaze tore through every room, half afraid of what she might see. God forbid that anything might have happened to him. If a pile of ash greeted her somewhere, she'd die on the spot of a heart attack.
But when she ran out onto the deck, bright sunlight made her shield her eyes. Relief dropped her shoulders and slowed her frantic pace.
She stood in awe, slowly lowering her hand from her eyes. He was on his knees with a lemon yellow towel wrapped around his waist, consumed in silent prayer near the cactus that had transformed into her long blade in the earlier vision. The way the new day's light played across his bare shoulders and sent a prism of color between him and the desert plant, made her squint.
Immobilized by the spectacle of watching him send his inner thoughts skyward, she added her own fervent message in silent refrain: Please let him be all right. Watch over him.
As though sensing her presence, Carlos lifted his head, stood, and turned to face her. When he stepped before the cactus, Damali stopped breathing. He was in the same position as he was in her vision, his brown eyes begging her with a question that she didn't understand. Pained, worried, glassy eyes filled with unshed tears stared back at her. He was shadowed, and outlined in a luminous frame of sunlight.
Suddenly, she flinched, mentally hearing the wind catch her blade, followed by the inevitable thud.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"Are you okay?" Damali asked as Carlos came up the deck stairs.
He almost couldn't speak as he stared at her sad eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said quietly. "You okay?"
She smiled. "Must have drank too much wine on an empty stomach last night," she said 'with a weary sigh. "Guess that's what I get for giving you the blues about going out with Yonnie." She chuckled and opened the screen door. "What's that old saying? Judge not lest ye be judged, or People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
"I like the first one," he said, his voice distant. "The biblical version."
She turned and stared at him in the kitchen.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," Carlos closed his eyes, gathered up her hands and pressed them to his mouth. "Damali, forgive me... I am so sorry, I'll never, ever, betray you like that again. Just don't give up on me."
She slid her hands away from his grasp to wrap her arms around him and pull him in close to her. She found herself stroking his back and beginning to gently sway him in a comforting hug. This was not Carlos. This didn't even sound like him. His ragged breaths were thick like he was trying not to sob. "Baby, what's wrong?"