Page 118 of Ravage
“I can offer my services as a helping hand this once. Just to help rescue the people taken because of Joe.”
“Who the fuck is Joe?” Dane snarls.
“No,” Aiden answers at the same time as Dane. “I can’t trust you in the field yet until I can see you’re able to follow my command.” Then he answers Dane, “He’s the congressman that Raegan cozied up to and who’s currently got GE on the attack after us.”
Dane’s expression turns murderous, and I shoot a glare at them. “What you meant to say, asshole, is that he’s the guy you let walk after you and Kellan broke into his home to question him. So, he’s out for revenge on you two for your fuckup.”
Aiden’s eyes narrow. “At least I didn’t try to fuck him for the information.”
Oh.
Oh.
My vision blurs to red, and I hear the crack of my hand sweeping across his face. My hand pulses and tingles at the contact as blood rushes to my palm.
Fury and pain blend in a toxic combination. My gift hisses and spits in my gut, and then it begins to fade and fall out of my reach. It’s still there, but it’s like a clear, steel wall has been erected around it. I feel hollow and empty without it, and panic begins to backfill that void.
I blink out of my head to find Dane’s grabbed my upper arm and his hand is emitting white light between us. He’s blocking my gift.
Aiden’s hands are balled into fists, and a red mark is blooming on his cheek.
“Fuck. You,” I utter darkly with as much venom and hatred as possible. I step back and then glare at Dane when he doesn’t let go. We’re both trapped in a stare-off of wills and unspoken threats.
Me being around them is like a ticking time bomb.
All I bring with me is chaos and destruction.
I am the villain in this story.
He finally releases me, and I storm out.
Chapter twenty-nine
Raegan
I scrub myself clean with such voracity that my skin burns bright pink under the scalding heat of the shower. Washing my hair is no less violent. I attack my body with soaps like it was the one who destroyed me with a single sentence. Whether he knows it or not, Aiden saw through to my weakest link and plucked it out with so much contempt that my sanity almost crumpled to ash at his feet.
He can’t know the truth.
But it’s terrifying how close he came to it.
Seeing my weakness and attacking it must be his true superpower, because no one else has ever come that close. He knows exactly how to dig under my skin and get to me no matter how many walls I’ve erected to keep others out.
I hate him.
I hate him.
Hot tears glide down my cheeks as I slam my fist into the shower tiles repeatedly. My body slides down the wall to a heap at the bottom. I curl my head between my legs and let grief over what I’d lost and who I’ve had to become consume me in silence.
My hands and feet are tight and wrinkled when I shut the water off and drag myself out. My skin is overheated, so I lie naked on the bathroom floor to cool down. Not that it’s much, considering the bathroom has become a sauna so thick I can hardly see a thing.
Once I feel strong enough to move again, I open the door and inhale the cool air of my apartment. I’m tempted to call Kellan over tonight. As a big fuck you to Aiden. And then Jackson’s words about using him as just a distraction filter into my mind, and I abandon that idea. I never meant to use him like that. Either of them.
They deserve better than that.
Better than me.
At least I have Portia.
