Durance by Lyn Gala Page 0,63

in the break room.

“I sure cared what Dave thought. I cared enough that I gave up on my dream and became an FBI agent.”

Darren scooted forward until his knee pressed against Kavon’s thigh. “Dave manipulated an adolescent kid. But that doesn’t take away the fact that you’re a great agent.” Darren’s confidence flowed through the bond like a balm.

“So, was I a great agent when I stepped all over Coretta’s authority and then left her agents in the field?” Kavon asked.

That made Darren’s certainty falter. Yeah, that was what Kavon thought.

“You’re a human being,” Darren said. “Welcome to the human race where fucking up is one of the requirements. We’re all under a lot of pressure, so it’s not like anyone expects perfection.”

The surge of anger caught Kavon off-guard, and for a moment he thought the bond had channeled Darren’s anger toward him. But it hadn’t. No, he was angry at Darren—for forgiving him, for holding it together in the field, for nearly dying, for not calling Kavon an asshole. Kavon wasn’t even sure. Rather than start a fight, Kavon surged off the couch and headed for the bedroom. He slammed the door hard enough to make the wall shiver, and then guilt piled on top of the anger.

Kavon sat on the edge of their bed and he tried to sort his feelings. In the living room, the television played softly. Part of Kavon appreciated the privacy, and another part wanted Darren to storm in and demand answers. Kavon didn’t have time for a nervous breakdown. So what? He’d fucked up the chain of command. He’d done that before and he would again. Dave had tried to send him off on what would have been a suicide attack. Even if Kavon had lived through a direct attack on Anzu on the spirit plane, the monster could have dragged Kavon so far into the deeper wells that Kavon never would have found his way back.

Maybe his soul would have been lost altogether. The dead who stayed on the spirit plane gravitated to one of the three main streams. Lots of shamans thought those were the paths to heaven or hell, or whatever afterlife they believed in. But what would have happened if Kavon had been trapped in one of the other streams? And if Darren hadn’t been there, Kavon might have listened. If it weren’t for the bond that guaranteed that Darren and Kavon’s bull and Bennu would have all been dragged with him, Kavon might have listened to a man who saw him as a tool.

He had rejected the approval of so damn many people. He hadn’t even read most of the evaluations he’d gotten from White. He checked to make sure he was still in good standing, signed the paperwork and threw it in a drawer. What the hell was wrong with him? Kavon sat and stared at nothing.

He had almost reached the point where he had locked down his emotions when the door opened slowly. Darren leaned against the jamb. “Want to talk?”

Kavon said, “No.” He sat in silence, but Darren just waited. “It’s my job to provide solid judgment in the field.”

“Yep,” Darren agreed, “which is why the regs ban you from investigating cases where you have too much invested to stay cool. This case... it’s pushing a lot of buttons. No one will think any less of you for having human emotions.”

“Maybe they should,” Kavon said. “You had even more reason to lose it. Anzu nearly killed you, but you’re the one trying to keep me from charging around like a bull.” Kavon snorted at the appropriateness of that image.

“Ah.” Darren sighed and then inched his way into the room as though expecting Kavon to go off like a bomb. That heaped more guilt onto the pile of emotions Kavon was already trying to process. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve lost it plenty.”

“No. You don’t. When O’Brien had me pinned in that zombie spell, you kept calm when I panicked.” That had been one of the worst moments of Kavon’s life. Dying in the line of duty was a danger he willingly faced, but the threat of having his free will stripped by a manipulative puppeteer was terrifying.

“And when Ben Anderson used a spell that didn’t have the power to do more than annoy me, I blew up a big chunk of a downtown street. I acted like a child when I saw him getting your attention, and I’m not even going to try to defend