Chapter 42 Disaster
T here’s no warning.
Not a single fucking hint that Julien was about to leave me, until I’m falling back on the seat with a shocked gasp.
I’m immediately pulled from the darkness and the stark contrast has me squinting to adjust. Both brother’s gazes swing over to me, before darting all over my flushed skin, and I instantly slam my legs so hard together my teeth rattle.
“I’ll take her back to the house,” Kane says, the phone still against his ear as he now looks and speaks to his brother.
“What, right now?” I quickly get to my feet, tugging my skirt down as I go and feeling thankful my power soothes any light-headedness from the sudden movement. My eyes dart between the two dark gazes, one much calmer than the other. “But I need to help Kacey with the dragon.”
Kane’s stoic disposition fractures and his dark irises explode as he takes one step towards me.
“What?” His teeth snap together and the desperate urge to recoil hits me.
“Kacey needs me to help with the dragon, she needs to feed him so I said I’d go into the cage with her but—”
“Are you serious?” Kane’s glare swings over to his brother. “Is she fucking serious?” Kane’s sudden use of profanity is making me feel all sorts of things, anger is one but that isn’t the emotion which scares me.
“I mentioned it in the group chat, before… all of this.” Ezekial casually shrugs, which only infuriates his brother more. “Did you not check—”
“I’ve been a little preoccupied, brother.” He tries to keep his voice calm, steady, lacking any emotional attachment but I was becoming skilled at recognising Kane’s tiny specks of emotions, his rage, and I definitely noticed the slight snarl lacing his words just as he hits me with his intense gaze again. “No.”
“No?”
“No.”
I scowl back. “It’ll die if we don’t— ”
My wrist is gripped beneath his cold fingers and I stumble when he releases me seconds later. I frantically search the space whilst catching my breath and when my gaze lands upon the ornate, black table, I grit my teeth and seek him out.
“You can’t just do that!” I shout, my voice bouncing off the walls of the house I’d been caged in, watching as Kane calmly slips his phone into his pant pocket. His gaze barely registers me before he pulls out another identical phone and begins typing.
I grit my teeth. “Take me back, now.”
“No.”
I close my eyes and take a deep, deep breath. I try to seek out tranquil emotions to help maintain the rage slowly bubbling but it returns with nothing.
“Please, I told Kacey I would help. She’s tried since the ‘Lockdown’ and if you could feel what I can, you’d understand.”
He continues typing, tapping gently with his thumb a few times before finally slipping this phone back into his other pant pocket. When his eyes meet mine there’s no colour, no emotion, just a blank abyss which stares back and the hairs upon my neck raise.
“You may play these games with the others but I’m already bored.” His eyes stay fixed with mine, his words like a physical hit as my breathing halts. “I do not have time for these childish antics and I will not waste my time pandering to your every whim.”
“I don’t need you, or want you, to do anything .” My voice is level, even if my heart is pounding, even if my fingers are coiled so tightly my nail beds ache. “I understand that you’re all very busy guys, enforcing the law, torturing creatures, locking them in cells and all that.” My heart is racing, his eyes bore into me. “Because you were all so busy when you kept visiting me at the club.”
Shit. My anger got the better of me.
A miniscule tick in his jaw tells me I’ve hit a nerve, warns me it’s time to back down and just text one of the others instead, just go to my room and plan my next steps, but I don’t. Instead, I make my way towards him whilst maintaining our mirroring glares.
“You know what, I don’t want… No, I don’t even need your permission. Forget I ever asked. I only did because Kacey requested it, practically begged me. If I want to go into another cage, with another creature who might try to take a bite out of me or harm me, or kill me, well, I guess it’d be no different than what I’m currently dealing with.”
Silence.
I stand a few steps away from Kane now, my chest rising and falling more prominently than I’d like. He remains stoic.
“Just take me back and I’ll deal with it myself.”
“Deal with it yourself?” he repeats, there’s no questioning tone in that cruel and dark sound.
It’s all poisonous malice and mockery as he steps into my space, feeding the shadows which explode and plunge the temperature. I force myself to maintain his bottomless stare as he begins his barrage.
“How? With powers you can hardly control?” He doesn’t let me answer. “With a darkness which controls you? One which results in you dragging beings into the Dark Realm without even realising?”
I grind my teeth at his comments but he doesn’t give me any time to respond. “Stay here. That’s it. We will deal with everything as we always have and will continue to do so. You do not need to do anything but remain here and remember your place.”
“My place ?” I blurt, my eyes wide and incredulous at his words. “My fucking place?” I close the space but hold our gaze, my neck straining as I hold my chin up. “Please, enlighten me, mighty enforcer, what is my place exactly? Chained up in a cell? Locked up in here? A slave like my ancestors?”
“You were there for one day, one day, and—”
“—And I’ve already helped you find the mole!”
“Everywhere you go, disaster follows.”
My breath catches.
His words are a stinging slice against my skin, my stomach, my chest. The ache they create is cold and deep causing my anger to stutter from the penetrating sensation. I struggle to stay composed but we remain stood, toe-to-toe, in complete silence. I can’t even hear him breathing over the pounding of my heart.
“Just stay in the house and fucking eat something.”
Gone.