Ruined (The Eternal Balance #1)(58)

She kept talking. “I was attacked.”

Chase stared. Face pale, his eyes settled on me. “Attacked? By who?”

“By what,” Sam corrected.

Wonderful. Just what I needed. “It was a demon.”

Chase’s face turned scarlet. He stalked the rest of the room, stopping inches from me. The accusation in his eyes was plain as day. “Why the hell would a demon attack her, Jax?”

Azirak roared. It flashed a barrage of images. A million different ways that it could kill Chase right then and there. Snapping his neck. Hitting him at just the right angle to send fragments of his nose shooting into his brain. Grabbing the pen that sat inches away, on the coffee table, and jamming it into the hollow of his throat.

I pushed the thoughts from my head. It would probably upset Sam if I ripped Chase to shreds right here on Kelly’s living room floor. “Back away from me before I rip your throat out.” Thankfully, he did as told. “As for why Sam was attacked, it was to get to me.”

“Get to you? Why?”

“Not really clear on that part, and really, it doesn’t matter.”

Chase slammed a fist against the small table by the door.”Like hell it doesn’t—”

“There are bigger issues to deal with. When she was attacked, this thing linked to her. If it gets hurt, she gets hurt. If it dies, she dies.”

“Then we break this link.” Chase turned to Sam, and the expression on his face, unadulterated fear and concern, pissed me off. Suddenly the time he’d gotten to spend with her over the last three years was the only thing I could think about.

“We’re working on that, but we don’t even know who the demon is,” I said as evenly as possible.

“Assuming it matters?”

I clenched his jaw and silently counted to ten. He was still looking at Sam. “It matters,” I said coolly.

Chase was oblivious to my near meltdown. “The attack happened at Huntington, right? Let me do some poking around. I know a lot of people. Let me see what I can find out. Maybe someone saw something.”

“Suit yourself.” It’s not like he’d find anything. Sam said the police were no help, and if everyone at the party had been drinking, the likelihood of someone having witnessed anything helpful was slim.

Chase nodded and started toward the door. Stopping for a moment, he turned to me. “Keep her safe.”

Sam had been trying to get me talking since we hit the interstate. While Chase was off chasing his tail, we decided to move on plan B. Sadie Gray. If we got Havat his stone, he’d tell us the name of the demon that’d fed off Sam.

She asked, “Will you still leave? After all this is over?”

“For everyone’s sake, yeah.”

I could see her face from the corner of my eye. Disappointed. Somewhere deep down I hated that she felt that way, but a larger part was glad. If she begged me to stay, there was a good chance I’d consider it. “Where will you go?”

“Nowhere particular. I try not to stay in one place too long.”

“So you move around a lot? Where have you been?”

“All over, really. Most of the fifty states. Parts of Canada. Even Australia for a few months.”

“Why? I mean, why bounce around?”

“Is there a point to all this?” I snapped, gripping the wheel tighter. The more she talked, the more the deeper feelings fought for attention.

“Just trying to make conversation.”

“Well, don’t, okay? No point in making this harder on yourself than it has to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Why did she keep pushing? Why the hell would anyone in their right mind dig themselves in deeper with someone like me? “Pretty sure we went over this earlier and I’m not sure why you think it might have changed.”

Her jaw dropped. In that moment, I was thankful to be behind the wheel instead of her.

“Know what I think?”

“No,” I responded, even though she’d tell me anyway.

“I think you’re using this thing as an excuse to run away.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it, stunned. “Weren’t you listening when I told you what I wanted to do to my brother? Did you see what I did to those men in the field?”

“They weren’t men, though.”

Now she chose logic? Great f*cking timing. “Your point?”

“My point is, you’ve been in town for days now and you haven’t really hurt Chase. You haven’t hurt me. And as for the non-men, they were trying to hurt us. You didn’t just go out and randomly attack someone on the street.”

“Actually,” I said. Either she was blocking out Gutierrez, or she had serious memory loss issues. “I did. You were there, or don’t you remember?”

“Technically, you saved lives. Didn’t you tell me he was dangerous?” She kicked at the dash. “Jesus, Jax. You keep trying to make yourself out to be the devil, when really, you’re just a guy dealing with a shitty hand. Get over it.”

Get over it? Was she f*cking kidding? I was forced to live each day caught up in a storm of violence that there was no way to escape, and she tells me to get over it?

I wanted to yell. At her. At life. At fate. Instead, I laughed. “There aren’t many people who would ever have the nerve to say that to me.”