Chapter 21 – Damon
DAMON
“No!” I shout. “No!”
I start to race toward where Cody went down when strong arms wrap around me. I struggle against them instinctively before Jordon shouts, “Fucking stop! He’ll be behind the walls before we can reach him”
I’m breathing hard, not willing to give up, but I stop fighting, worrying I’ll send us both tumbling from the sky.
“He’s been taken. If we go over there now, we’ll all be taken.”
“First Elliot, then Cody!” I roar the words, their names ringing through my soul.
I haven’t drank since this morning. I’d decided that I wouldn’t let the fucking shade be right about me.
Every time I looked at the bottle, the word weak rang through my mind, until I couldn’t even look at it.
But now? Now, it feels like the drug that’s been keeping me numb to my world isn’t there anymore, and I’m feeling things I haven’t in years.
Like the sense that my Brotherhood is my family. That they’re all I have. That I’m the most experienced monster hunter among them, and I’ve been leaving them to struggle through what the hell to do.
And now Elliot and Cody have been caught, all because of my selfishness.
“It’s okay,” Jordon says, his voice softer than I can ever remember it, and tinged with heartache. “The shade is going to take down the shield and we’ll save them.”
“And what if she doesn’t?” My voice croaks.
“We will save them, one way or another, you have my promise on that.”
I stop struggling and Jordon’s arms drop. We stare at each other, and the moonlight highlights him from behind. There was a time when Jordon and I were close, but it’s been too long. Too many years of fighting and keeping a wall between us. But right now, we can’t fight each other and the enemy.
“Okay,” I say, “what should we do?”
I see the surprise in his eyes. I don’t normally treat him like the second-in-command. “Let’s go back to camp and talk.”
We fly down, back to camp, and shift into our human forms. Sitting before the fire, I realize I’m shaking. Time seems to stretch around me into nothingness when Jordon hands me a cup of tea.
My gaze connects with his gentle one, and I take the tea. “Thanks.”
He nods and sits down across from me. “Let’s have some tea and calm our nerves.”
“We need to talk strategy.”
Again, he looks surprised.
“What?” I ask, but there’s no fight to the word.
“I just forget how you are sober sometimes.”
“Fuck.” I run a hand through my hair. “I deserve that. That and more. I’ve acted like an idiot.”
“You’ve just been trying to survive like the rest of us. Only, you’ve been alive a lot longer. I can’t imagine feeling this way as long as you have.”
It’s my turn to be surprised. “You never seemed to understand why I was struggling.”
Jordon’s mouth twists into a rare half-smile. “Of course I did. I’m not exactly doing well either.”
“You’re not?”
He shakes his head and looks down at his tea. “Every day I wake up and move around the village, asking anyone if I can help them. I do the tasks with efficiency and everyone is grateful. But inside, I’m dying. I feel trapped. Like I can’t breathe.”
I had no idea. And I feel shitty that I didn’t. “You just seemed to be handling everything so well.”
Jordon raises a brow. “You know Brotherhoods are connected, right? In a deep way that no one understands. When one of us suffers, we all suffer, and because we’re all suffering, I think we just have fallen deeper and deeper into the darkness of our misery.”
“Fuck,” I mutter. He’s right. He’s completely right. “Elliot thought this mission would change everything for us.”
“I tried to hope it would too, but deep down I knew it wouldn’t be enough, I think. But now, all I want is Elliot and Cody back safe. I can handle anything as long as they’re okay.”
“We can handle anything,” I correct him.
This time, he actually smiles. “We. You’re right.”
We discuss strategy. Where the safest place is to test when the shield goes down and where we suspect our friends will be kept. By the end, we have a plan. A plan that relies solely on the shade taking down the shield.
But while before I was so certain she’d screw us over, now I’m feeling a little more hopeful. If the others trust her enough, who am I to be the pessimistic voice? And telling myself that I’m just being the logical voice doesn’t excuse being a dickhole.
So Jordon and I finish our tea, and he tells me he’s going to take a break and bathe in the lake.
What I really think is that he knows I need a minute to myself.
And I hate to admit it, but for the first time in a long time he’s right about what I need.
So I close my eyes, and try to calm myself down.
But it doesn’t work.