Chapter 27
CELINE
Ispoon hot cocoa powder into cups mechanically, my ears ringing from the gunshots, my heart pounding as I relive–over and over–what happened in the basement. I pray for the women and girls, though I’ve never been very religious. I pray Damian’s contact can find them, save them.
Carrying the cups into the living room, I find Julian standing at the front window, peeking through the curtains. The decorations seem out of place now. For the first Christmas ever, the sight of them does nothing to me.
Damian takes the cup gratefully, our hands brushing, a soft but conflicted smile on his face.
“No sign of anyone,” Julian mutters.
“I made us hot cocoa,” I say, trying to put some optimism into my voice. “A little Christmas cheer to push away all that darkness.”
“Thank you,” Damian says when Julian doesn’t reply.
A belated shock response triggers inside me when I sit down. I’ve seen it countless times as a nurse, but even knowing what it is, I’m unable to prevent it. I shudder all over, gripping my knees tightly, digging my fingernails into my thighs.
Damian stands, walks to the couch, sits beside and wraps his arms around me. Through my stinging tear-blurred eyes, I see Julian turn, see what’s happening, and turn back without a word.
Damian cradles me gently, his hand rubbing my back. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” he whispers with more gentleness in his voice than I could’ve imagined just a week ago.
By the time the panicked breaths have stopped, Damian has made countless circles over my back, tracing my scar though he doesn’t know it, and my cocoa has gone cold.
“We need to leave,” Julian says.
“He’s right,” Damian says, looking at me. “Sooner or later, they’ll find us and—”
“No,” I cut in coldly.
I jump to my feet, waving my hands, anxious energy pumping through my body like adrenaline-filled poison.
“We can’t leave. Those poor women and girls… They were broken. They were suffering in ways I wish I couldn’t imagine, but just being around them for a few hours, I can imagine it now. There are more. We have to do something. We can’t just run away and forget about it, about them.”
Damian stands, reaches for my hands. Julian flinches as though he’s thinking about hitting his best friend again. For a surreal moment, I float out of my body and view the scene from a third-person perspective.
This couldn’t be any messier.
I take a step back for my brother’s benefit, though it’s tough. All I want is to fall into his arms.
“If we stay,” Damian says darkly, “it means all-out war with the mob. More killing. It means letting the Beast out until there’s no one left to challenge us, eradicating countless people, dozens.”
I straighten my back. “Good.”
Julian gasps. Damian looks genuinely shocked.
“Good,” I repeat. “I was na?ve before. I thought it was black and white. But it’s not simple, is it? If we have to do bad things to stop those monsters from doing even worse things, then good. It’s what they deserve.”
Damian takes my hand. This time, I don’t flinch away. I can’t. I need the support, the closeness. I need him, and I’m getting tired of pretending I don’t.
“It’s dangerous—”
“I don’t care,” I interrupt. “It’s not going to be worse for me than it is for those poor women and girls.”
Julian sighs. “If we do this, we’ll need a plan. We’ll need to know where their other locations are.”
Damian shakes his head. “That was the only place I knew about.”
My brother clicks his teeth together. “It’s getting late. Let’s focus on the next few hours. We’ll sleep in shifts while we keep watch. If the mob arrives and starts shooting, Celine, you hide. We’ll fight.” He returns to the window. “I’ll keep first watch.”
“Are you sure?” Damian asks. “I don’t min—”
“Shower. Rest. Recover.” Julian’s tone is firm. “We’re going to need all the energy we can get.”
I walk into the steam-filled bathroom. Damian kneels beside the tub, putting his hand into the water, testing its temperature. He looks up at me, blood still splattered across his face, wild and brutal and somehow still handsome.
“I want it hot,” I tell him. “I want to burn this day away.”
I turn away from him and begin peeling my clothes off. A moment later, he walks up beside me, his powerful hands carefully helping me to remove my clothes. When he takes off my shirt, everything in me tightens. He sees my scar.
“I fell into a greenhouse as a kid,” I tell him.
He gently traces the lines of my scar with his finger, with the same hand that snapped a man’s neck for daring to touch me. It’s difficult to believe this is the same man as he gently caresses me.
“I’ve always been self-conscious about it.” I laugh nervously. “It seems silly now.”
“It’s part of you,” he whispers huskily. “Which means it’s beautiful.”
He takes a step back, a shuddering noise escaping him.
I turn to find the reason: his hardness pressing through his pants. He sees me looking and laughs savagely. “I know, Celine. Inappropriate as hell. I can’t seem to control myself around you.”
I bite my lip. It’s crazy. Even now, with a panic attack constantly hovering at my periphery, part of me wants him badly.
I look down: at the floor… at where Julian would be if we could see him. Damian doesn’t need me to say anything.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asks.
Yes.
More than anything.
But I’m afraid of what we’ll do if he stays here. I’m afraid I’ll ask him to join me, and we won’t be able to stop, with Julian downstairs, with so much still up in the air.
“I’ll be okay,” I tell him. “You need to rest too.”
“Are you sure?”
No, not even close.
I want him to climb into the tub with me and wrap his arms around me.
“Yes,” I lie.
Once he’s gone – after giving me a reluctant look – I climb into the tub and close my eyes, trying to forget.
After the bath, I towel off and put on the bathrobe he’s left for me, tying it tightly around my waist. I’m tired, but the idea of sleeping alone terrifies me. So I go downstairs and join Julian.
He’s pulled a chair close to the window, with a rifle leaning against the wall.
He looks at me, registers I’m in the robe, then says nothing.
“Anything?” I ask, sitting on the couch.
“No. Just Christmas decorations. Just people living their lives.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Good.”
We don’t say anything for a long time. Then Julian whispers, “I’m so happy you’re okay, Celine.
God. I can’t even…” He shudders. “And Damian–he’s different.
You’ve changed him. I’ve never seen like he is with you, caring and loving and…
like he wants to participate in life instead of just watch it go by. ”
Sparkles shimmer inside of me, but I don’t let myself get overexcited. This is very different from an approval.
“I’m going to lie down here,” I whisper. “If you don’t mind?”
He turns, smiles tightly at me. “I love you, Celine.”
“I love you too.”
I lie down, knees to my chest as though to protect myself. I don’t mean to fall asleep when I close my eyes. I drift in and out, vaguely aware of Julian kissing me on the forehead and telling me he loves me again.
When I wake up, it’s still nighttime, the room dark except for a single lamp making the snow globes and the decorations glimmer. I sit up, rubbing sleep from my eyes.
Damian now sits at the window, hunched over in his tank top, his back muscles bulging and thick. He looks at me, his mouth tight, his eyes widening and flitting to my thighs as if he can’t help himself. He swallows and turns back to the window.
“You can go back to sleep,” he says softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I sit up, adjusting the robe. “Any sign of them?” I ask.
“No,” he says huskily. “If there was, we wouldn’t be talking.”
“Thank you, Damian.”
“Thank you?” he repeats, looking at me strangely. “You don’t need to thank me for what we did.”
“You could’ve gotten hurt.”
“I would’ve died if it meant getting you out of there. I’m just glad we got to you before they could…” He clenches his fists, breathing raggedly through tight clenched teeth. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if they’d touched you.”
I remember what he called me when he killed that man.
His woman.
“Getting into the Christmas spirit yet?” I ask, trying to make my tone jokey. It comes out dark instead.
He grunts out a laugh. “I’m this close to singing a carol.” He gestures with his fingers.
I smile somehow. It’s a miracle. He seems to me to be smiling, and his lips twitch too.
I stand, go to him, and slip into his lap. He lets out a sigh and wraps his arms around me, but his eyes never leave the window, the street. He smooths his hand over my leg, but somehow, it’s not sexual.
I can feel his hardness, but he doesn’t take it there. It’s like he simply can’t help what his body does when I’m around.
“I thought I was going to grow your heart, you know, Grinch-style, when this started. But I think I’ve just made Christmas even worse for you.”
“You’re wrong,” he whispers huskily, his breath shivering over my neck and sneaking into the robe, dancing temptingly over my body. “You’ve shown me something else, something damn miraculous, Celine.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You’ve shown me that even when things get dark and evil, there’s hope. There’s light. You’ve shown me we can make an effort even when it seems futile. You’ve shown me that maybe I don’t have to accept…”
“Accept what?” I whisper, taking his face in my hands.
He looks up at me with something devastating in his expression. I know he’s thinking we should stop. We shouldn’t touch like this, not with Julian sleeping upstairs, when there’s still so much that could go wrong.
Not just for those poor trapped women and girls… but for us, our story within the story. Julian could still turn on us. He could still hate us both when all this is over.
“It doesn’t matter,” he whispers huskily.
“It does–to me.”
He grits his teeth.
“Say it,” I whisper, a daring note in my voice. “Just… just say it, Damian.”
“I never thought I could have a future.”
A gasp punches out of me.