I don’t want to see him in pain anymore. Especially pain, that deep down, I feel like I could have prevented. If I was just strong enough, or quick enough, things would be different. He wouldn’t have to look at the marks on my body every day or destroy himself just to try and heal me.
This wouldn’t happen if I was strong enough for him.
“What the fuck happened back there?!” Damien yells as he, Ezra, Alex, and Satori walk into the room. Damien’s jaw is already bruising, but Satori’s cheek has a nasty gash—obviously from when Damien punched him. He strides directly over to me and grips the back of my chair, but his focus is solely on Carter.
“The footage shows one of Popov’s men entering the warehouse behind Alex’s group. Andrei was the one that saw him and immediately fired before the enemy could fully draw his pistol, but it still went off. That was the louder shot that alerted everyone. We had no idea there was someone else coming, D. It’s no one’s fault.”
My heart sinks to my feet. Andrei is one of Satori’s men, and I’m sure that information just made everything worse.
“We should’ve known! We should’ve had people surveying the perimeter!” Damien yells, and I reach my hand up to lay on top of his. His grip on the chair tightens, so I put a little more pressure as well to try and soothe him.
“Popov’s men have been on strict rotation schedules for days, and no one has ever been late. We couldn’t have known this would happen. We’ll find him again.” Carter tries to placatehim, but from the tension building in the room, it’s clearly not working.
“He’s never going to come back here, Carter! He’s scared! He knows we’re still after him now! So, I’m sure he’ll warn the other three!” Damien lets go of my chair and starts to pace the room. His steps are harsh and forceful enough to shake the conference table as he stomps around. He reaches up to grip the hair at the base of his neck again, something he only does when he’s truly losing it. Then he starts to mutter to himself, and the sound breaks my heart even more. “I’ll never find them. I need to find them. I failed. I failed.”
I stand up and look around the room to see everyone staring at him. Satori and Kade have disbelieving looks on their faces, like they’re not sure what they’re looking at, and my blood boils. They haven’t been here to witness what he’s been through, and they don’t understand him—not like we do. They’re observing him like he’s an exhibit at the circus and the thought only makes me angrier. Everyone else looks at him with sympathy, and while I know they understand what this means to him, those kinds of expressions will only make it worse.
“Everyone, get out,” I say pointedly, and then swallow harshly. I’m not sure I’ve ever commanded them to do anything before, but this is a good time to do it. If Damien needs to lose it, then he’s going to do so without being judged.
“Damien, let us help you…” Satori ignores me and directs his soft words at Damien, approaching him like he’s trying to persuade an aggressive animal into a cage. His tone is condescending at best, and it really strikes me in the wrong way. The last thing he’s going to want is Satori treating him like a lunatic, and I’m not going to sit by and let him degrade my husband in any way.
“I said get out.Now,” I demand a little more harshly, and before he has the chance to disobey another time, Zekestands aggressively before taking one large step over to Satori. Shockingly, Zeke throws his hands in his direction and violently pushes him out the door, taking everyone by surprise. The others follow suit, knowing that there might be another fight in the hallway, but at the moment, my main concern is Damien. Alex and Carter can handle Zeke for a while, and it might actually help him to let some aggression out.
Plus, I’m totally okay with Satori being a punching bag.
Once Kade shuts the door, I turn back to Damien to witness his pain. His hands are planted on the nearby wall now, and he’s leaning into it like he needs it to hold himself up. He’s breathing heavily, like he’s refraining from destroying this entire room, and his veins are raised on his arms and neck—showing the extent of his emotional torment.
“Baby…” I say softly, trying to decide the best way to approach this. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it isn’t!” he yells and turns back to face me. His face is red, and his pupils are so enlarged that I can barely see the ever-changing blues around them. He’s fading into that dark place again, and as much as I want to pull him back from it, I’m not sure that I can this time. It’s clear he’s fallen too deeply into his self-hatred spiral, and he needs to let it out. “We’ve been tiptoeing for almost two months waiting for this! How are you supposed to heal when I can’t finish this?!”
“Wearehealing, Damien,” I say without a doubt. Yes, it’s been hard, and there’s still a lot of thoughts and feelings we need to work through, but we’ve made progress.
“Are we?” he yells again, and my hands start to tremble. The emotion on his face and behind those perfect eyes is raw and consuming enough to steal my breath. “We haven’t been able to talk about it! Not fully!”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Damien. You saw it, and going through it over and over again is not going to help either one ofus.” I try to reason with him, but deep down, I know he’s right. We’ve both been suppressing how we’ve really felt, and in his mind, getting Popov would’ve opened the door for us both.
“I don’t want to go through it again! I just want to understand!”
“Then let’s talk about it!” I can’t help but get loud back at him, not really wanting to do this now, but the last couple of months of silence are blowing up, and there’s no way to stop it for either of us. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to relay every detail of those few hours? Are you looking for a play by play? Oh, I know! How about we talk about how you almost got yourself killed tonight instead?!”
“Trust me, I knoweverythingthat monster did to you! Every second plays in my head repeatedly!” He swallows harshly and shakes his head like he has to physically push the memory away. “And I did not almost die tonight,” he says angrily.
“Really? Because from where I was sitting, you did. Damien, what were you thinking?” My hands start to do that annoying thing where they move on their own when I’m upset, and now I look like a crazy woman, flinging my arms around as I talk.
“I was thinking that I needed to get to him! No matter what!”
“No matter what? That includes ending your life?!”
“No! I had it handled, and now it's done! It’s over!”
“No, it's not! I could've lost you tonight!”
“And I could've lost you seven weeks ago, but you keep avoiding that fact like the plague!” He’s shaking as much as I am now, and even his hands are flailing about.
“What do you want me to say?!”
“I want you to tell me how you feel about it, Ashia!”
