“You’re safe where your body is?” I ask.
“I have Valerie, Nolan, Wyatt, and five other supers in the room with me. No one’s attacking me… unless Valerie sucks out my soul like you claimed.”
“Okay,” I say as I join him. I set Pocket Lint down since she enjoys galloping after us.
“Do you want to talk about last night?” he asks while we head for the lobby doors.
“No. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong with you?”
He laughs, but it’s a pitiful sound. “Not really. We really are a mess.”
“I… I fucked up,” I say once we make it outside. He turns toward the lane that wraps behind the large building and beginswalking. “I nearly shot August. I just… I was so caught up in killing the guy. He stationed himself right in front of August and I didn’t see August behind him. I don’t know how I didn’t see him. I nearly killed him.”
“But you didn’t. You didn’t hurt anyone.”
“I could have. I came so close to it, you don’t understand.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I think this job comes with a lot of risks… but at the end of the day, don’t we do it so we can protect others?”
“That’s true,” I say.
“I wish… I could fight like you. I wish I could just like… whip out a knife like you do and stop someone, and then maybe…” He pauses. “Can you teach me how to fight?”
I pull out my switchblade and flick it open. “Knives aren’t the easiest to use.”
“You know, I was held at knifepoint one time when I was younger and I remember thinking that if I didn’t have my illusions, that guy probably would have killed me. Like… how do you just… grab this thing and just… make your problems go away?”
I hold it out to him, and he takes it from me and mimes throwing it before a troubled look crosses his face. “I fucked up, Asmodeus. I just…” He shakes his head. “Teach me how to stab someone.”
“I think you’d be better off with a gun.”
He sighs. “I think… that I’d be better off back in my office where I don’t have to use a gun or a knife… but you’d never step away from danger, would you? I would just keep ending up in danger again and again because of you guys.”
“It does seem to find us,” I admit as I slide his hand into the proper position on the knife. “You don’t want your hand to slide down the handle and onto the blade when you stab someone, soyou need to hold it properly. You have to be extremely close to someone to use a knife.”
“I don’t mind being close to you,” he says as he leans into me and sets his head on my shoulder. “Everything’s a mess right now…”
“Am I making it worse?”
He looks up and tilts my head up to kiss me. “No, you couldn’t make it any worse than it already is. Honestly… you’re making this whole thing better.”
Pain bites into my side when the blade I’d just given him pierces my skin. I jerk back, but with his arm around my neck, I drag him with me.
“Oh… sweet Asmodeus, don’t run away, we’re just getting started,” he says as his face twists into a cruel grin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ELLISON
“It’s not working,” I say as I stare at Valerie. I feel so desperate. I feel like I’m shattering and I don’t know how to change that.
Her lips are drawn tight, and I can tell she has as many answers about the matter as I do. “Maybe you need to give it more time.”
“No, I need to get away from here. I need to go someplace…”
Valerie shakes her head. “What do you think that’s going to solve?”
“He targets people I care about. I need to go someplace where I have no one.” My thoughts flash to Asmodeus, and I realize how horrible I am because of my fear of being alone again. “I’ve put him in danger because I’m selfish.”
