Fuck him.
Seriously. Fuck him dead.
Chapter 28
Demon
Itgoeswithoutsayingthat I’m never, ever going back to his place. He’ll have to drug and possibly kill me, to get me to go anywhere near him again. I’m done with his bullshit.
Done.
In fact, I can’t remember a time I’ve ever been more done with anything. It’s almost scary how done I am with every single thing about Joseph St John.
I’m done with his bullshit for the whole of the next day and the next one, too. On the third day I do go over to his place. Not because I’m not done. I am. I’m done as fuck. I just want to let him know how done I am, that’s all.
I knock when I get there. I have a key, but I want to get him off his ass to open the door. He doesn’t answer. I knock again, hard enough to wake the neighbors, and then let myself in. The apartment is empty. It’s excessively clean and tidy. I walk down the hallway to his room. The bed is made neatly, with the corners tucked in tightly, military-style. I open his bathroom cabinet and find his leather toiletry bag and most of his toiletries gone. I don’t need to search his wardrobe to know the hideous cargo pants he bought to replace the ones I threw away are gone too.
Asshole’s away. Out of town. On a work trip, or whatever you’d call it.
I briefly consider heading to the nearest fuel station to buy a few gallons of gas and setting his apartment on fire, but I can’t think of a way I could do it and guarantee the health and safety of his neighbors. Don’t have the pyromaniacal skills needed, I guess.
I head home instead.
I go back the next night again. And the one after that. He isn’t there. During the day, I’m a shadow of my usual self. I feel like I’m drowning in fury. Like I can’t breathe from anger. Like my chest has been ripped open and I’m bleeding out. At work, when people talk to me, it feels like sound is traveling slowly through space. It feels like it takes a long time to get to me. When it does, I hear it, but it takes a while for me to translate what they’re saying into something that makes sense. I go through the motions, how successfully, I couldn’t say.
On the sixth day after the shit show at his place, my phone pings. I look down, time speeds up to Mach ten, everything comes rushing towards me at once.
You free tonight?
I ache. I physically ache. I ache with relief. With rage. With shame. Exhaustion weighs me down. It’s so heavy, it feels like it’s crushing me. I’m tired of myself. I’m tired of the shadows. I’m tired of waiting all day to see him. I’m tired of being something he hides.
None of that stops me from going to see him. I don’t even go home to shower or change. I head to his place straight from work. He opens the door and gives me the biggest, dumbest grin I’ve seen yet. It ignites a fury in me unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
I take two quick steps towards him and raise my hand to strike him. I haven’t thought the plan all the way through, but I’m so angry I feel sure I’m going to injure myself if I don’t lash out in some way. He sees me coming a mile away. He catches my wrist. His grip is steel. I struggle to no avail.
He looks genuinely curious. “What are you doing?”
“I’m slapping you.” I’m annoyed but not surprised at having to explain it to him.
“If you want to slap me, Demon, all you gotta do is ask.”
“Please may I slap you, Asshole?”
“Sure, have at it.”
He purses his lips slightly and turns his face to the side. He has the terrible nerve to look hot while he does it. My hand flies through the air and connects with his cheek with a loud, tacky slap. His head whips to the left from the impact. He shows no other sign that he felt it. He looks at me indifferently. “Want to do the other side too?”
My palm is stinging, and I can’t say how much the fact he doesn’t seem fazed by my treatment of him upsets me, so I say, “No, thank you.”
He stares me down. “Are you angry with me, Demon?”
“Yes!Yes, I’m fucking angry with you.”
“Why?”
“Why? Are you for real? I’m angry because you fucked off without telling me where you were going. I’m angry because I know you’ve probably been babysitting some other kidnapping for ransom victim and God knows what you’ve got up to with them.”
The bemusement that was drawn into the lines of his face fades and then deepens into something different. “You think I make a habit of this? You think I do this with other marks? I’m a professional, Damon. Give me a little credit.”
