Kirin catches my gaze and nods, but it’s clear he’s not buying my act either.
Both of them can see right through me. That’s the worst part.
They always could.
“Whatever it is,” Stevie whispers, “we’ll work through it. You’re not alone, Baz. I’ve got your back.”
I pull her in for a hug, bury my face in her hair. It’s nearly impossible to speak around the damn knot in my throat. “I know, baby. I know.”
“And I know how to rock a sword,” she teases. “Also a selling point.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Yeah, Stevie may be a natural with that sword, and I swear just thinking about the way she threatened that Dark Arcana dickhead tonight gives me a major fucking hard-on.
But the demons on my ass aren’t the kind you can take down with threats and a magick sword. They’re the kind that infect the mind, invading every last place inside until they’ve got you convinced the only monster worth killing is you.
That torment, that agony… I’ll never let her see it in my eyes. Never.
“Get some rest.” I try to dislodge from our embrace, but she’s still holding tight.
“Please stay,” she says again, her voice equal parts satin and steel.
But deep down, she knows I’m leaving.
Deep down, she knows I’m already gone.
* * *
Back in my own suite, the ice-cold shower makes my dick shrink, but does nothing to chase the damn ghosts from my head.
Naked and dripping, I stand in front of the bathroom sink and glare at the mirror, trying to find one familiar thing about the asshole staring back at me. I’m almost embarrassed that Stevie saw me like this at all—confused and weak, broken, barely keeping it together. My eyes are bloodshot, my mouth drawn tight, jaw clenched.
I hate that Janelle turned me into this.
Crazed or not, I still wish they’d have let me kill her.
In the dream realm, Janelle had claws and teeth. But here in the material realm, she needs neither; the memories of what she did to me are more terrifying and vivid than any monster my subconscious could serve up.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her.
That awful red lipstick staining my pillowcases, my skin. Her laughter as she caught me in the laundry room a hundred times over, frantically scrubbing the evidence from my sheets, so sure her husband would come home from some business trip and discover what’d happened. That she’d make good on her threats to tell him I attacked her, forced her. That she’d tell him I liked it. That he’d take away everything they’d given me, and my parents would find out, and Carly would be devastated to discover the boy she thought was her best friend was nothing more than a sick, filthy little bastard.
But every time I open my eyes, I see my own shame. My cowardice, staring right back at me, daring me to take a stand.
How can I be the man Stevie needs, the man she deserves? Earth magick was a temporary solution to get us out of a jam tonight, but it’s going to take a lot more than dropping a few rocks on someone’s skull to truly defeat the Arcana. How am I supposed to stand in solidarity with my brothers against the darkest enemy we’ve ever faced when I can’t even get over some shit that happened when I was a stupid fucking kid?
Rage burns a path clear down my throat, right into my gut.
I slam my fist toward the mirror, stopping just before I smash the glass. All I want is to shatter it, to slice my hand to ribbons, to feel the pain of something else for a change. But I hold back.
Denied its outlet, the rage inside boils. I’m fuckingtremblingwith it, half a heartbeat from tearing the mirror from the wall, when a searing pain lances my chest.
I sputter and gasp, stumbling backward as I frantically claw at my own flesh. I barely manage to get on my feet again when I see it in the mirror, a beacon to my secret shame.
There, blazing red with blackened edges, the mark shines bright over my heart.
Roman numeral twenty—XX. The mark of Judgment’s wand.
