Having met Vox, I now suspected that he had likely gone through something similar, though Vox seemed less eager to obey Damian’s commands than Cal.
Maybe it’s because Vox didn’t have anyone he loved that he needed to protect… well, except for maybe Cal himself.
If someone like Vox couldn’t keep him safe, how could I ever hope to help him?
I grit my teeth at how fucking useless I was feeling.
I needed to learn how to use a fucking gun.
Vox had been trying to teach me, but on some level, I had been resisting because… well… I could literallyspeakto dead people. The last thing I wanted to do was kill someone and have their ghost follow me around out of spite for the rest of my life.
But after seeing Cal in person and realizing just how much Damian Ryker had clearly fucked him up, I was quickly giving less and less shits.
I would kill fucking Damian myself and never lose a wink of sleep if I had the chance. The thought of him putting his hands on Cal made me see fucking red. He could haunt me all his bitch-ass wanted, and I would spend every day letting Cal fuck me while Ryker’s cunty ghost watched. Just to rub it in his fucking face.
I let out a frustrated growl and stormed over to the cabinet where I knew Theo had kept the tequila.
Being helpless like this was not a feeling I wanted to get used to. I needed to do better… or at least dosomething.
Grabbing a bottle of Anejo and pulling out my phone, I opened my conversation with Cal for what felt like the ten-zillionth time.
I’d sent him messages every day while he was gone. They were all still unread. He hadn’t looked at them, not even now that he was free again.
It hurt.
He had barged his way into my life, broken into my house, forced me to develop feelings for him, and now he was just…gone.
It had been so easy to take his smiles and his upbeat attitude for granted, and I’d never regretted anything more.
Scrolling through the unread messages I sent him, my heart squeezed in my chest.
They had started with me just frantically asking him where he was and if he was okay. Once I accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to have access to his phone for a while, I switched tactics.
I told him things I had never told anyone before.
I told him how I was pretty sure my mother was clairvoyant, and I was almost positive she had predicted that he would come into my life one day.
My mother had been telling me my‘dark angel’was coming since I was a small child.
I was convinced now more than ever that she had been talking about him.
Hewas my dark angel, and I had been a fucking idiot to try to push him away.
Because now that he really was gone, I felt like I would give up an entire limb to get him back.
Tossing my phone angrily on the table, I spun off the lid of the tequila bottle and raised it to my lips. I just needed something to take the edge off and slow my mind down.
However, before I could take a swig, my mother swept into the room and gave me a stern look.
“Put that away, Ryan. You’re going to need your wits about you tonight,” she said, her voice firmer than I had ever heard it.
I frowned and lowered the bottle.
“What do you mean?”
Just then, Theo and Cassandra barrelled into the kitchen. I had texted Theo to let her know that Cal was back earlier, but I haven’t heard anything since.
“I can’t believe you’re just telling me thisnow!”Cassandra snarled. She was dragging her Louis Vuitton luggage behind her, and Theo was tailing her with a bored expression on her face.
