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I can’t.
“The scar from my knee to my ankle,” he says, the tone of his voice bitter and sharp. “It was given to me by Tanner’s dad. He took a knife to my leg and dragged it down because my brother refused to fight. I felt my skin split open, slowly, while those bastards laughed. Ezra fought the other guy. He lost because he was too busy worrying about how badly I was bleeding, but he fought to stop them. They stitched me up right there, Blue. With no painkillers or anything. I was forced to walk around the following two weeks like nothing had ever happened.”
Those fucking bastards!
Fury slithers up my spine, for what’s happening to Brinley and what happened to him. It’s like two twin snakes fighting to see which one will reach the top first.
I want to kill whoever put a gun to her head. I want to beat the shit out of Brin’s father. I want to laugh as that piece of shit governor is hauled off to jail, but mostly I want to spit on the graves of the men who’ve caused all of this.
Every last one.
Blood rushes to my face, the heat of it coloring my cheeks. I push up from the ground to capture’s Damon’s angry gaze with mine and our emotions collide together into a tumultuous storm of combined turmoil, rage and hatred.
He nods at me as if he approves of what he sees.
“That’s right, Blue. Hold on to that anger because it’s the only thing that’s going to get you through this.”
The plane dips suddenly and my stomach feels five miles above my body, turbulence knocking us together so that Damon’s arms tighten around me in something I’ve never felt before.
Protection.
Nope, I think immediately, I’m not buying it. Believing he protects anybody but himself is what got me into this mess in the first place.
I have to force my anxiety back, have to will my breathing to slow despite my rapid heart rate. I have to think of something else besides the entire world crushing in around me.
Fluffy kittens aren’t cutting it.
Neither are Christmas movies or rainbows.
Then the thought of kicking Damon’s ass comes to mind, and a small smile tugs at my lips. But even that thought is fleeting after hearing what was done to him.
But there are other asses to kick.
Slowly, the thoughts stop colliding and bouncing, and they form into a single-minded focus and a linear line.
“Anger, huh?” I swipe away the tears in a piss-poor effort to dry my cheek. “Is it anger that helped you survive all those scars?”
He nods his head and swallows. I follow the way his Adam’s apple dips down, notice the strain of the tendons in his neck. Damon’s body is rock-solid, but his hands tremble. Not that anybody would know it. You’d have to be touching him to know.
“How did you walk? If they cut you from knee to ankle, how—”
“They never cut deep enough to injure the muscle. Just the skin.”
“That man at your house, the night you took me there, you told me he’s your father.”
Another nod, this one slow, more careful. “What about him?”
“He just let his friends do those things to you?”
It takes him a few seconds to answer, anger rolling behind his eyes so hot that the amber almost glows. His pupils dilate and contract, the vein at his temple steadily pulsing.
“He made money off it. They all did.”
Rage pulses in me, too. For what he was put through, for the secrets he’s been forced to keep, and because that those sadistic bastards now have Brinley.
“Please tell me you tossed that fat fuck out of your house. Tell me you tossed him out hard enough that he slid across the concrete and got road rash.”
Damon’s lips pull into a thin line.
