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Only it was on fire as well.
Chapter Six
Anything else I can help you with?” the waiter said, a too-cheery smile plastered on his face as he placed the rich-looking cake on the table.
“No, thanks,” Damon said, a touch impatiently. When the waiter left, he looked at me. His dark eyes were filled with a sympathy that was just about my undoing. “Are you okay?”
I nodded and wrapped my hands around my coffee. It didn’t do a lot to ease the chill.
“It’s losing all the little things that hurts the most,” I whispered. “All the photos, the knickknacks that wouldn’t mean much to anyone else—”
My voice broke, and I stopped. No thinking, I told myself fiercely. No feeling. Shove everything back into its box and deal with it later.
“What I don’t get,” I added, once I had everything under some semblance of control again, “is why they’d want to burn down both apartments.”
Damon’s expression suggested he wasn’t exactly buying the act, but he didn’t say anything, instead grabbing several sugar packets and tearing off their tops before pouring them into his black coffee. “There could be a number of reasons.”
“Like what?”
“Like wanting to destroy any evidence you might have collected. Or ensuring you had nowhere to run.” He shrugged and picked up his mug. “Or maybe it’s simply a warning.”
“What, stay away or they’ll burn me to death?”
Even half-breeds like me were hard to destroy with flames alone. Fire was part of our soul, and it was in our nature to be able to control it—whatever the source. This wasn’t to say mistakes didn’t happen, or that we could control every single fire we came across—especially if they were as large as the one currently destroying my apartment—but such things were rare.
His gaze met mine, dark eyes somber. “I think you’ll find it’s more a ‘Stay away, or we’ll completely destroy everything in your life.’ ”
I steeled my mind against the thought that they already had, and tried to ignore the cold tremor that ran deep through my soul. “There isn’t a whole lot more in my life that these men can destroy.”
I hoped that by saying that, I hadn’t jinxed myself—or the people I cared about.
“At least you still have your life. As does your brother.” He hesitated. “Where is he? Perhaps you should warn him.”
“He’s away on business. But trust me, they wouldn’t want to tackle him anyway.” Unlike me, he wouldn’t be an easy target.
“These men have killed to keep their secrets, Mercy. Don’t doubt that they will kill you, or your brother, or anyone else who happens to get in their way.”
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. I took a sip of coffee, but it didn’t do a whole lot to chase off the chill. “So why didn’t they kill you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “For the same reason they didn’t kill you. They wanted information.”
“The difference between us is the fact I don’t know anything.” And yet I’d recognized the voice talking to Angus on the phone, and if his comment about the steel room bringing back delicious memories was anything to go by, he’d obviously known me. So, was this more than what it seemed? Was a grudge behind the initial attack? Or was the chance to make good on a grudge just a bonus?
Maybe the information I needed was somewhere in the mists of my mind—I just had to remember it. Which was easier said than done when I’d spent the last ten years trying to forget. “You, on the other hand, know a whole lot of something.”
“If I knew as much as you seem to think, those men wouldn’t still be out there.”
Because he would have killed them. I shivered, then reached for a fork. Maybe some chocolate cake would help make the situation feel less dire.
“So what’s our next step?” I said around a mouthful of the deliciously gooey cake.
“Your next step is to be sensible and get the hell out of here.”
I didn’t answer immediately, concentrating on the chocolaty goodness instead. “You’re a smart man, so you can probably guess my response to that particular suggestion.”
He leaned back in his chair, his expression so cold the chill of it ran down my spine. Scary didn’t even begin to describe his countenance right now. “You really don’t have any common sense, do you?”
Anger swirled again—a firestorm that rippled across my skin, making the shadows in which we sat briefly flame to life.
