It makes the itch worse. It’s inside me in a spot I just can’t reach. Begging me to grab him by the hair and pummel his skull into the desk until I’ve split it open.
It’s the only way to make the yellow disappear.
But I can’t do that, I tug on the reins of those urges and instead, tilt my head to one side, “Were the cleaners sent?”
Dahlia casually reaches for a remote beside a stack of papers and when she turns on the TV, billows of smoke and flame colour the room and the new headline stares back at us like a punch to the guts:
‘Tragedy at the Nash Residence.’
Ha!
“You fucking torched it.” My smile is widening into something a lot more sinister as I lean off the table, and this time, Everett has the sense to step back.
“I—I didn’t,” Everett stutters as he looks between me and the screen with wide eyes. “When I left, everything was intact.”
“So it just happens to torch itself when you come back here without the rest of your team?”
“Reuben!” Dahlia snaps but I know she’s not thinking clearly. She’s happy to have at least one member back. She won’t accept the reality that the survivor is the snake responsible for killing them all.
But if I force the truth out of Everett now... there won’t be any way of curing her darkness again.
“Christian maybe set it up for the aftermath,” Everett’s wide eyes beg me to believe him, but I’ve already seen him through, “I don’t know anything about the fire, sir.”
His emotions are practically blinding me—hovering over his shoulders like a nauseating mustard fog and my eyes narrow as I watch him. Even he must know his story is too clean. Too convenient. There are no witnesses. No video records. And with the feds all over the scene now, no way to send our guys in to verify his story.
Only that disgustingly annoying colour.
Even without evidence though, I could still make the call and kill him. The family recognized my gift for reading people since I was 5; they and I both know I’ve never been wrong about anyone…
But if I do that, it will break Dahlia.
And Dahlia is family.
Though I suppose I could always kill Everett anyway and lock Dahlia in a room so she won’t give in to that darkness.
I’m seriously contemplating it when Dahlia’s phone buzzes and she pulls it off the table to take a look. I put my hands in my pockets as I turn to watch her, but her expression freezes and her eyes go wide.
She stares at her screen for a few moments and it takes all my patience not to snap and wait until she finally looks up from the screen.
When the dark energy around her finally breaks, it’s converted completely to a bloodthirsty shade of red.
“Let him in.” Her command is laced with unhidden poison.
I’m not entirely sure what’s happening when the door to the office opens, revealing a man with curly black hair and intense blue eyes. Under the dim light of the room, I can barely make out sculpted cheekbones and a defined jawline, but that’s not what’s pulled me in and made me lose my breath.
It’s the energy around him—a cacophony of colours I’ve never seen before, comparable to those auroras you can supposedly see in faraway places and northern night skies. It is a shimmer of sapphires and scarlets, like a galaxy filled with furious stars staring right back at me.
And I think I’m having a stroke.
His shirt is damp with blood from a wound somewhere on his body and with one glance I can already tell he’s lost too much, that his life should be hanging by a single thread. But his eyes are clear, just like the energy around him, unfazed and calm, like a cool breeze spreading into my chest and easing that mad itch inside me.
The moment his focus is directed towards Everett in the centre of the room, the gorgeous energy around him transforms into a raging red and the chaos inside me practically sings along with it until Everett breaks the spell with his annoying voice.
“You—You’re—”
“Alive after you shot me in the fucking back?” The man’s voice is like honey in the air and my dick twitches. I have to remember to breathe but my heart is suddenly running a marathon in my chest and my thoughts are suddenly so fucking quiet.
“Hey, I think I’m having a stroke.” I reach for Dahlia’s hand and when I put it to my chest she’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. I think for a moment I probably have, and she smacks me on the chest with a glare before turning her attention back to the man in the doorway.
