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"Fake mother," I automatically shot out. I cringed every time she was referred to as my mother because it was an insult to the real one who I would never remember, and it hurt my heart to think about being robbed of getting to know her.
"Vivian was not her real mother," Rain snarled out at the same time I'd spoken.
This time it was a blast of heat that blew through the kitchen and had my hair floating around my head and the tiny hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rising as little bumps covered my skin.
"Knock it off," Dash said in a low, threatening voice, and the parts of his body touching mine grew hotter and almost hurt to touch.
"Guys," I muttered.
"Both of you stop it," Tyson snapped.
I wanted to look at Tyson and nod my head in approval because we were on the same page here, and he was back in my good graces and back to being my partner in crime, whether he wanted to be or not.
"Tell us about how you know Quinton," I said in a small voice as I finally looked at Rain. I told myself I could do this without crying or breaking down or further embarrassing myself in front of him. But I was crying on the inside, because if Quinton had lied to me, it was going to hurt me like a mother, like nothing had ever hurt me before. He played the role of my protector so well that I sometimes forgot just how conniving and asshole-ish he could be when he needed to be in order to get what he wanted. I was so comfortable with Quinton, even when we were fighting, that I had forgotten how scary he was. Or, maybe forgot wasn't the correct way to explain it. Maybe it was more along the lines that I had grown comfortable with, and even fond of, the scary parts of him. But I was only able to feel that way because I had thought he'd never, not ever, do anything to hurt me. If he'd lied to me about Rain it would kill me, and I didn't think I would be able to ever get past it.
Rain looked at me, and there was absolutely nothing friendly about him in that look or his body language. His face was closed off, shut down, and his eyes had gone empty and dead. I had to admit, it was a scary look, and if it had been just the two of us in the room it might have even frightened me. I had never seen anything quite like it before, and wasn't sure I wanted to see it on anyone else's face again. His whole body practically vibrated with his rage.
The front door banged open with a crash, and I heard it hit the wall in the mud room. Footsteps thundered down the hall. There were more than one set of them, and they were headed our way.
"Umm," I mumbled. "I forgot to mention that I texted Damien before I got hurt. I told him that there was a scary monster trying to eat me in the woods, and that I needed immediate back up."
I knew my cheeks were red as I lowered my eyes and looked down to the floor. I couldn't remember what exactly it was that I had texted Damien, and kept coming up with a blank every time I tried. But I was sure I wasn't too far off the mark, because it had felt like there was a scary monster in the woods that had wanted to eat me.
"You probably scared the shit out of him, girl." Tyson said.
Again, he and I were on the same page.
Dash leaned to the side and turned the faucet on. He held an orange washcloth under the spray for a couple of seconds before pulling it out again and shutting off the water. He wrung out the cloth before turning back to me.
"What happened?" Damien asked breathlessly as he rushed into the room.
Julian was right behind him. He had his big black bag of tricks clutched tightly in his hands.
"What's wrong with her?" Julian asked into the silent room.
Dash turned into me and put his free hand on my shoulder. He pushed on my shoulder, pushing forward until I was slightly bent over. His hand moved from my shoulder to the back of my neck where he started to push my hair aside. I sucked in a sharp breath as he touched a spot on my head. It hurt, but wasn't something that would kill me. I would live, and it didn't feel big enough or deep enough that I would need stitches. I'd had worse. Much, much worse.
Looking back on it now, I couldn't believe that a little bump on the head had made me pass out like that. Vivian was probably looking up at me from her throne in hell and laughing her ass off.
My hair was pushed in front of my face and the lovely view of my legging covered knees vanished behind the messy strands.
I talked through the hair. "We went out to investigate something," slight exaggeration, but they didn't need to know that. Also, it must be important to note, not out loud of course, but my first mission with Tyson had ended in a disaster and with me bleeding. If that was the way our partnership was going to go, then we were both screwed six ways from Sunday. "Then someone showed up at the house, and we didn't know it was Dash, so Tyson went to investigate that on his own and left me alone in the woods." Okay, so maybe I was going to exaggerate everything slightly. At least this way it would look like it was all Tyson's bad and not mine. "And, well, there was some rustling in the woods." Gods, this was painful and made me sound like the big wimp that I was. "And, umm... I got a little scared, so I texted Ty, and when he didn't respond, I had to text someone else, so I sent that message to Damien and well... I might have fallen and cracked my head on a brick, and now we are here."
Okay, so I'd skipped exaggerating at the end there, and decided to leave most of the facts out. They could guess, because I wasn't about to share any more facts that made me look like a wimpy girl.
"Who the hell is this?" Damien asked, and his voice got closer with every word.
Dash pressed the washcloth against my scalp and gently started cleaning up the blood. It stung, but I tried to blank it from my mind and push the pain to the back part of my brain, instead of the front where it threatened to make me cry and probably make a whole lot of unattractive noises.
A hand that didn't belong to Dash touched my shoulder hesitantly, and I knew who it was immediately. It was Damien. We weren't to a place yet where we were comfortable with touching each other, and we didn't know how far the other one would be comfortable with going, there'd been no line drawn to cross, yet. I reached up and placed my hand over his, holding it to me. I heard his sigh before I felt him move closer to me. His body moved into my legs and he touched me with more than his hand. I guessed Damien was a lot more comfortable touching me than I had thought he was.
"Well?" He asked in dark voice. "Who are you?"
"How do you not know who he is?" Tyson asked. "He looks just like he did in the photos."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Damien shot back in a haughty voice. "I've never seen him in any pictures, and I obviously have no idea who he is because I've asked twice, so I would appreciate it if you'd answer the question and stop giving me a hard time."
I didn't think Tyson was giving Damien a hard time. He'd asked the same question of Dash when he'd had no idea who Rain was, too. I hadn't realized Damien hadn't looked through the box of stuff I had from Vivian.
