Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Kainda
H is emotions and thoughts smacked into me repeatedly the way a battering ram hit a fortress wall. It bothered me how much he beat himself up over a panic attack. Yes, my arms throbbed with my pulse from the bruises there, but he didn’t mean to hurt me. Shit, I should’ve known better than to crowd his space while he’d been so out of it.
I’d felt him start to spiral for a few miles before the anxiety had turned into a panic attack. The worse it got, the more I needed to help me, and that’s what I’d planned to do. Instead, I’d hit a trigger and put myself in danger. Whatever supernatural lurked in his genetic history had given him some superhuman strength. I should’ve been able to break his hold, but I couldn’t and all my struggling did was amp him up.
More turbulent emotions came at me as I took the on ramp for the interstate. It broke my heart. Give him space to process it, Kainda. But I didn’t want to give him space. I wanted to stop the car, climb into his lap, and hold him until he felt like E again. Right now, he felt like the Elijah from the hospital, the one I’d first met that didn’t drive me crazy and stir up feelings in me. I didn’t like it.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.” His voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper. “Maybe me going along and being bait isn’t a good idea.”
I pulled over again, at this rate we were going to need to rent another hotel room because we wouldn’t make it before dark. “Elijah, look at me. I want to make sure you hear this because I’m only going to say it once.”
Slowly he moved his body so he kind of face me, but his eyes stayed trained on my knees. Goddess, give me strength. Taking care of someone’s emotional health was the furthest thing from my wheelhouse. But, I needed to figure it out fast because he needed to snap out of this funk. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Look at me.” I waited for him to listen to me, but his eyes never shifted. “Look at my face, not my knees. You knew what I meant the first time. If you don’t do it on your own, so help me I will use my magic to make you, the consequences be damned.”
It took him a minute and I held my breath the entire time, but he did finally look me in the face. That had been an empty threat, but he didn’t have to know that. Just saying it had left a bad taste in my mouth. I wouldn’t betray his trust in me like that or take advantage of him with magic when he had no defense against it.
“I’m fine, no harm, no foul.” He scoffed at that, but I ignored him. “These bruises don’t even rank in the top 100 of bad injuries. You’ve seen the scars on my skin, you know I’m telling the truth. They’ll be healed by tomorrow night at the latest. I’m not upset with you about it, I’m upset with myself. Getting into your personal space when you couldn’t see me during a panic attack was my stupid mistake. I know better, and you reacted in fear beyond your control. Once you fully realized it was me and not her, you let me go. Stop beating yourself up over it.”
He shook his head before looking at my arms. His deep breath came out shaky. Slowly reaching over, giving me plenty of time to move if I wanted to, he lifted the short sleeve of my t-shirt to reveal the whole bruise. He sucked in a breath as he took in the damage, and carefully inspected both arms. All five fingers and the palm were clearly visible in a vivid purple. Given how pale I am, it wasn’t surprising it was that dark. He was careful not to touch them, and after a minute he sat back, his hands in his lap.
“Those are pretty bad. They have to hurt like a son of a bitch.” This time his voice was a little stronger but still hoarse.
I waved him off. “Nah, I’ve had worse. This is like hitting your funny bone compared to everything else. I won’t even remember it once the bruises are gone. Remember that bite scar on the back of my calf?”
“Yeah.” He looked so confused at my abrupt change in subject, it was kind of cute. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Checking my mirrors, I got us moving again before I answered his question. “Hida, Evin, and I were on a mission tracking down hydra that somehow ended up in our realm. But that’s a story for another time. We’d finally found the fucker and Evin, she’s an attack now think later kinda chick. Fully knowing better, the bitch still cut on of the heads off. Well, the severed head landed next to me. And little known fact, their heads don’t die immediately, takes a couple of minutes. I was in the majority of people who didn’t know that, so I stepped over it and when I did, BAM! One-hundred-and-fifty teeth sank into my left. Went through my pant leg, sock, and part of my boot like butter. Ruined my favorite knife strap too. It held on until it finally gave up the ghost, despite me stabbing it repeatedly and blowing out its eardrums with my screaming. Burned like a bitch. Compare to that, this isn’t even painful, just mildly annoying like a gnat.”
“It's incredibly off-putting how much glee you had on your face while you were telling me that. Has anyone ever questioned your sanity?” The feelings had settled and slowed their assault on my senses as I told him that story.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, my mother questions it every single day. But she knows exactly where I got it from, and she has no one but herself to blame. She’s the one that decided to procreate with Theron.”
“You know, most people don’t refer to their father by his first name. Most normal people call them dad.” Now, he thought he was funny.
I waved it away. “No one is normal. All the best people are weird. And after I started training to follow in his footsteps, it felt weird to call him dad or daddy, especially in the field. After a while it sort of stuck even when we were training or on a mission.”
“So do you call your mother by her first name?” He took another drink from the water bottle and opened the center console to snag a piece of gum, I’d stashed there after I’d finished my lunch to get rid of the onion breath from my sandwich.
We weren’t going to make it to base camp tonight when I checked the clock before answering him. “Only when I’m being a brat and want to piss her off. Or just when I’m being a brat and not wanting to piss her off. She doesn’t find it nearly as endearing as Theron did. Now enough talking about my parents find us a hotel about thirty minutes from here. It’ll be dark before we get to base camp, and I don’t want to traipse through the woods at night.”