Mark of Damon by Eva Chase Page 0,8
“What are you talking about?” our supposed ringleader said.
Everything I’d noticed during the dinner collided with the weeks, maybe months, of pent-up frustration in one angry surge that clawed up my throat. “Are you kidding me? Do you think I can’t tell? You all walk around here putting on this front like your lives are absolutely perfect now, as if the shit we went through last year isn’t still screwing us over in all sorts of ways. It’s pathetic.”
Confusion colored all their expressions now. My hands balled into fists.
“Nothing’s perfect,” Seth said slowly. “But that doesn’t mean—everything’s been fine since we got through that whole mess—”
“There you go, acting like you’re impervious or something. You want me to spill my guts when none of you will admit anything’s even the slightest bit hard? Fuck you.” I pushed the dessert plate away, shoved back my chair, and vaulted to my feet. Right then, I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing any of their puzzled, well-meaning faces for a moment longer.
“Damon,” Gabriel started, all calm compassion, and he was lucky I didn’t hurl the slice of pie right at him.
“Sort out your own shit before you come asking about mine,” I said. “You can’t ignore the crap you’re still sitting in forever. And hiding it doesn’t make you better than me.”
Before any of them could respond, I spun on my heel and stalked out of the room.
Chapter Four
Kyler
Anyone who thought computer work was all sitting in a chair at a desk had clearly never revamped the IT for an entire two-hundred-employee company. Right now, for example, I was lying on my back under one of those desks, making sure all the cables lined up correctly so this entire room would be able to use the massive printer beside me.
My nose itched with the sickly sweet scent of the cleaner the janitor must have used to wash the linoleum recently. I switched a blue cable from one port to another since the first one was proving finicky. There, hopefully that would do the trick. With an awkward roll of my shoulders, I reached for the leg of the desk to help pull myself up and out from under it.
My body swung toward the dreary gray underside—and a jolt of sensation hit me. For a second, all I could see was a blur of sunlight and grass hurtling toward me—no, I was hurtling toward it. Pain burned across my back, and an invisible force walloped me down even harder…
My forehead smacked into the desk bottom. The images jerked away with that more immediate pain. I found myself sitting partway up on the floor, my head spinning not just from the impact.
That moment wasn’t real. Not now. I didn’t have to ask where the images had come from. Every thump of my heart and twinge of adrenaline now racing through my veins brought me back to my mad dash from Charles Frankford’s house more than a year ago. It’d been the first time I’d really gone on the front lines in our battle with the witching people who’d wanted to enslave Rose and destroy the rest of us. Also the first time they’d caught and almost killed me. The echo of an enforcer’s restraining knee radiated through my back.
I eased myself the rest of the way out and let myself sit by the desk for a minute before I moved to the chair. The adrenaline eased off, but it left a hollow in the pit of my stomach.
It didn’t matter what had happened back then. We’d won. Rose had found a way through, and I’d helped her get there. We were all safe now. If at times I’d put us in a worse position because I hadn’t been quite ready for everything our enemies would throw at us, there wasn’t any point in dwelling on it.
The remembered sense of helplessness stuck with me as I tapped at the keyboard to test the printer, though. By the time I’d finished with my work, my mouth was dry.
We didn’t know for sure that we wouldn’t face any more enemies from within witching society, did we? Or that some new supernatural beast wouldn’t emerge?
Last night when Damon had started ranting, I’d wondered what had gotten into him. It’d been a little over the top even for him, especially since he’d seemed to mellow out from his usual caustic self in the months after we’d settled in at the manor. But maybe he’d been at least a little right.