Chapter 2 #3
Her eyes narrowed, remembering that their powers varied greatly depending on what demon, but some were more intrusive than others. “Did you get into my head?” she asked. “Read my mind?”
“I mean.” He pulled his shoulders up, lessening the importance of the topic. “Not all the way in.”
“Fuck this.”
She shot to her feet so fast the chair scraped back with a scream.
Her heart pounded at the rhythm of every single thing she’d thought about him in the last week, and it all crashed down like a humiliating thunderstorm.
How weirdly safe he’d made her feel. How she’d noticed him when he came in late.
Oh. Oh no. How hot he was, and how she thought his body belonged on top of hers. Or underneath.
She had to get out of here. She marched away, made it right outside when he grabbed the sleeve of her coat. She pivoted without thinking, her training and instinct first and foremost, and hit.
The right hook took him square in the jaw. His head snapped to the side, and he stumbled back a step.
She could’ve sworn, just sworn, he mumbled, “I wish you would stop doing that.” But that was impossible because she would remember hitting him.
Feeling his face with one hand, he reached out to her arm, but she wrenched it away as if his touch burned. “Don’t touch me.”
Hunter froze. Hands up, palms out. “Okay.”
“No. Not okay.” Her voice came out too sharp, too loud in the silent street. Her pulse was hammering in her ears, and she couldn’t seem to slow it down. “You were in my head.”
“It wasn’t–”
“Don’t.” She took a step back, hand raised like she could physically ward him off. “You don’t get to decide what it was like. You don’t get to be in someone’s head without permission and call it ‘not all the way in’ like it’s a funny joke. It’s a violation.”
He didn’t flinch, but something changed in his posture. He stood there, still and quiet, a demon absorbing a blow that hadn’t fully landed yet.
Well, he was about to learn the meaning of fuck around and find out. “You think this is normal?” she barreled on. “That this is fine? That we sit here and drink peppermint coffee and joke about shit while you’re crawling in my thoughts like some twisted peeping Tom?”
He had the decency to actually wince that time. “I wasn’t crawling.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, biting the words. “Am I misrepresenting your abuse? Was it more of a casual psychic loiter?”
“Daphne–”
“Don’t say my name like that.” Her throat burned. “You don’t get to say it like it means something.”
He ran a hand down his face and muttered, “What if it does?”
For a second, for one stupid second, her heart lurched because he sounded honest. Confused.
But no.
No, no, no.
She shoved her hands in her pockets, voice low and shaking.
“You’re nothing but a stranger to me. And you’re going to stay away from me.
You’re not coming into the library. You’re not showing up at the gym.
You’re not going to smile at me like you know me, because you don’t.
You dared stealing my thoughts and now you think you’ve earned something? ”
“I don’t think I’ve earned anything,” he said quietly. “I’m trying to fix something.”
“Would that be me?” She chuckled, blinking hard. “You can’t fix me.”
“Not you,” he murmured.
Her stomach twisted. “Then what? What would you want to fix about me if it’s not me? You don’t make sense, ever. All you give me are half answers and cryptic messages.”
He didn’t answer.
Of course he didn’t.
She backed away. “You were in my head. You knew things I never would have said out loud. That is not okay. That is not normal.”
“I’m not normal,” he said simply.
“Stay away from me, Hunter.” Daphne closed the sides of her coat as she swallowed tears she would never allow to come. “Stay the hell away from me.”
~*~
Hunter reformed in his office, dropped into his chair, and hid his face in his palms.
He was a fucking rotten dickhead.
He was supposed to observe. Monitor. Record activity. Identify what could have explained her ability to blend dream and reality.
What he was not supposed to do was talk to her. Or flirt. Definitely not tell her the truth. He told her he was a demon, for fuck’s sake. He had to go full Erik, The Phantom of the Opera dude, all tragic honesty and peak goth romantic disaster.
Nice job, asshole.
He’d gotten everything wrong from the start, believing he could stay detached.
Playing it cool. She was just a file. But then she opened her mouth.
Glared at him like she found his entire existence not impressive in the least. So of course, he kept going back.
Day after day. Telling himself it was the job.
It’s always the job.
Except this time, it wasn’t.
Maybe.
Kinda.
He rapped his forehead on the desk because fuck this, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Her mind was strong and clear and impossible to ignore. Her presence was blunt, stubborn, wildly human in its courage. There were depths to her she never let out, but he’d touched those. Knew they were there.
And so, he’d leaned closer when he should have kept his distance.
Had uncovered part of his truths when he should have stayed invisible and learned hers.
Now she was gone, her anger echoing in his skull and her fist printed on his face. Again.
And the worst part? He couldn’t even stay away. He would have to keep breaking the very valid request she gave him–stay away–because, simply put, he had no other choice.
She was the job.
In a way, she was the threat.
And he was going to have to stick around.