“You don’t have that in you.”Shut up, Dev. Just stop there—“But that’s not why you wouldn’t do it. You want to leave Caldwell right now,but something’s keeping you here… something that’s breaking your heart. And it’s not your empty-ass job.”
“How… can you see all that,” she whispered.
“Goodbye, Lyric of Lyrically Dressed.”
As he started to shut the car up, she leaned forward and stopped the door. “Wait, how did you know—”
“I looked you up.” He shrugged. “Your pictures are good. You’ve got a knack for posing for the camera—”
“I lied to you.” She glanced around. Then refocused on him. “I didn’t come to give you the jacket back…”
“So it was the phone,” he prompted.
“I couldn’t remember…” Her eyes seemed to bore right through him. “I couldn’t remember your face.”
Dev had to laugh at that. “I’m forgettable. By design—”
“Tonight’s event was a blur, and preceded by weeks and months of the same. And that’s my normal amnesia, when I’m working. But you save my life, in the middle of the street, from a fucking billboard—and I can’t remember you? That’s justwrong.”
“You were in shock.”
“No, I was on autopilot because I’m not doing anything with my life, and when something worthless almost gets taken away, it’s no big deal.” She brushed a tear off her cheek with impatience. “I don’t want to live like that. I just didn’t know it until recently.”
Now Dev was looking away—and not because he was worried anything or anybody was lurking in the shadows.
“Have a safe trip home,” he said roughly. “Nice to meet ya.”
He didn’t wait for any kind of goodbye from her.
He couldn’t.
The two of them really shouldn’t have had anything in common.
Especially not the one thing that haunted him more than all the ghosts of his past put together.
He too was busy forgetting himself, every moment of every day.
And night.
CHAPTER TEN
The Black Dagger Brotherhood’s training center was located deep underground, about an eighth of a mile behind the First Family’s mansion. Though the big house had been abandoned, the training facility was very much in use, and as Qhuinn ripped open the steel door in from the parking area, he couldn’t decide whether he needed the medical clinic, the weight room, or the target range.
What a fucking night.
Striding down the concrete corridor, he unzipped his leather jacket so the warm air could get at his cold body. The classrooms were all empty, and just as well. Considering who they’d brought into the clinic, it was better for the place to be NPO.
Necessary Personnel Only.
And of course, then there was his mood. He really shouldn’t be around anybody who wasn’t in the thick of this fucking mess.
All parts of it: The shit that had almost happened to Lyric, the shit that might have happened to L.W., and the shit that had definitely happened to that male they’d found in the hidden room at Whestmorel’s.
After spending the last three hours threading the avenues of downtown, looking for the heir to the throne’s body, he’d pulled off the huntto come assess how this other unstable situation was going. When he was done? He was going to head to Blay’s parents’ house and check on everybody there, including his daughter.
Lyric went there at the end of every night.
At least she was physically okay.
