Grave Mistakes (Hellgate Guardians #1)(51)
Bob Builds-A-Lot keeps talking, but I’m not listening to his experienced advice anymore. I’m just staring off into space, noting how the morning sunlight is trying to filter in past the edges of my curtains. Not today, happy sunshine. Not today.
I feel bone-tired. Like all the way past my skin and through my muscles, right down to my marrow, tired. And not just because I’ve been hacking at my house for the past six hours like a crazy person, but because of my life. I couldn’t help but recap my entire twenty-eight years as I smashed and tore apart more of my existence.
An only child to two awesome parents who were too good for their rebellious, snarky daughter. I hated school, got in too many fights to count, and then when the few friends I had graduated from high school, they went off to college where we lost touch, while I stayed here in Sandpiper and got a meaningless job for meaningless pay, and then one day, as fast as a snap of my fingers, my parents were dead. Gone. Just like that.
The only two people I had in my entire life were buried in the ground, and I’ve been floating in space ever since with nothing to secure me. I hate to admit it to myself, but I’ve been stuck for nine years in a shitty life that I had no way to escape. And now this? Now I get tossed from a luke-warm frying pan into the acidic air of Hell? I just don’t understand how this can be real or how I’m supposed to play the hand that I was dealt.
Somewhere in my foggy brain, I hear a low whistle, and I turn around to see Iceman standing in the middle of my house. His presence is so unexpected that I just stare at him for a moment. He doesn’t fit in the catastrophe that is my house—not with his pristine gray suit that accentuates his perfect navy blue hair and cool skin. Even with his curling horns and the slightly sinister arch of his brows, he’s a gorgeous being, and just the sight of him makes my stomach tighten.
“How did you get in here?” I croak, my voice surprisingly sore. I guess it’s the physical manifestation of the rage-screaming I’ve been doing all morning.
“I have my ways,” he says simply, his icy blue eyes sweeping over the chipped concrete and broken tiles that litter the floor.
“Did you find a way to reapply the block?” I ask.
“No,” he replies as his eyes come back up to me.
I nod, picking at the bandage on my knee. I wasn’t really expecting anything else, but I’m surprised Iceman came here. I haven’t seen him since that night I left the graveyard.
“I’m afraid that type of demonic skill is beyond the people I can ask. If I were to dig deeper, it would only make things worse. Right now, the four of us have been able to keep your existence between us and the few Outer Ringers who’ve seen or sensed you. But if Inner Rings know about you, it will...complicate things.”
“Complicate things even more than they already are?” I ask.
“Yes. They could report you. Lobby to force you to live in Hell permanently. Some would argue it’s where you belong.”
“I belong here,” I snap, feeling the backs of my eyes burn. I pick up the metal pick and start working on the grout again, just to give myself something to do so that I can hide my face from Iceman’s perceptive gaze.
From the corner of my eye, I watch as he stuffs his hands into his pockets and leans against the wall. “You want to tell me what happened in here?”
“Jerif told me I should open up the wall because it would expand my kitchen’s feet,” I answer numbly, my aching hand screaming as I continue to hack away at the grout.
He nods slowly, and even though he’s quiet, I know he’s taking in everything about me and cataloguing it. I know what this must look like. My house in tatters, I’m half-dressed and filthy, sitting exhausted on top of the countertop as I chip away at old grout. It’s an entire kettle of crazy tea that nobody wants to drink.
“I’m surprised you listened to Jerif,” he finally says, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“He was right,” I say, throwing my back into the movement to get a particularly stubborn piece of grout to come out. I grind my teeth and scrape harder, ignoring all the aches and pains I feel not only on the outside, but on the inside as well.
“Well, I suppose it does open up the space,” Iceman says, but I shake my head.
“Not about the wall. About the other stuff,” I explain. “Those things about me...he’s right. I am a selfish coward,” I admit, feeling the admission of my words like a lead weight falling into the pit of my stomach.
I take a deep breath, trying to put to words all the jumbled thoughts I have spinning in my head.
“But I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do,” I grit out as I hack away at my countertop while my vision goes blurry with tears. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman with no family, no friends, and no job. I have no one. Nothing. And now all of a sudden, I’m supposed to guard a Gate to Hell?” I ask, emotion leaking out of my tear ducts like the first signs of a cracked dam. “I can’t do that, Rafferty...but I can’t do this either,” I say, waving around at the disaster that is my life before dropping my hands again and scraping the grout harder.
My shoulders start to shake not just from exertion, but from a sob. “I can’t live the way I’ve been living, with nothing, just an empty life. But the thought of doing something so important like help with a Hellgate...I can’t do that either,” I confess, swiping my cheeks against my shoulder and hating myself for breaking down like this in front of Iceman. I mean, out of all of them, he’s the most put-together and commanding. He must think I’m pathetic.