Page 61 of Malachi
There was rage above everything else.
My hands clenched into fists against the countertop as I struggled to hold it at bay. Too much had happened today. Too many Elders. Too much biblical bullshit. Too much — everything.
“Enough!” I barked, halting the words she spoke that I most certainly did not hear. My hands pounded down against the countertop, the sound of the dishwasher door clanging as she dropped it following my outburst.
Her wide, surprised eyes should have stopped me.
The way her mouth hung open in shock should have stopped me.
Fuck, anything at all should have stopped me.
But it didn’t.
“There has to be a better way. And there is!” I bellowed.
“There is?” she barely muttered.
“Yes!” I screamed in a mockery of laughter. “We leave. We leave tonight. Right the fuck now. We get the brothers. We get in our cars. Pack only what we can take. And we leave. We leave and we go as far away from here as we can. That was the plan in the beginning, dammit, and it was a good plan,” I huffed off, standing from the barstool and pacing back and forth in anger — no, in rage.
“But, Kai —”
“No! No more of thesebut Kaimoments. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it. Dammit, I’m stronger than that. I won’t stand for it. That ismyniece or nephew and I will be damned to the fire and brimstone pits of hell itself before I see anything bad happen to that little baby. We leave and we leaveTONIGHT!”
I was shaking.
My whole body shook as I screamed the word. My eyes found hers as I stood stone still, the rage inside of me threatening to change from a leak to a goddamn flood at any moment.
But she wasn’t afraid.
The look in her eyes was one I knew of, but did not know personally, and I was unwilling to dig deeper to discover its origin or meaning.
Without a word, she walked towards me, a smile of understanding on her face. But she didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. No one did. No one ever —
“Malachi…” she began softly with such gentleness that it threatened to break away all the rage that roiled inside of me.
“No, Eden. You don’t get it. Levi thinks he has a plan. He always thinks he knows best because he’s older, but it’s not that simple. The FBI isn’t going to help us the way he thinks they will. What, they’re going to show up in the nick of time and save us all? It’s too dangerous. It was too dangerous before and now there’s a fucking baby in the middle of it all? Christ Almighty, this is fucked up! It’s impossible! It’s —”
“It’s too much. You’re right. But we can’t give up,” she persisted softly, her hand gently running soothing circles along my forearm down to where my hands clenched in tight fists.
“It’s not giving up,” I scoffed, but in reality, I felt helpless and near panicked. “It’s being smart.”
“Not tonight, Malachi. Tonight, let it go. Just for tonight. Okay?” she offered softly.
With gentle hands, she uncurled my fingers, sliding hers between mine until we held hands like goddamn teenagers. Without a word, she pulled me towards the stairs, leading me up towards our bedroom. The raging anger still swirled and roiled within me like a tidal wave ready to crash over everything in my path, but her gentleness somehow held it at bay. Just barely.
I didn’t see anything — not the dark wood of the banister as we climbed the stairs, not the rich green of the bedroom walls, not even the bright lights of the bathroom as she flipped the light switch on. Nothing existed except her tiny hand in mine, holding my Beast at bay as we walked.
The sound of the water running as she turned on the shower barely made it past my understanding. It wasn’t until she unlinked her fingers from mine that I came back to the present.
“Don’t,” I protested, reaching for her hand again.
“Shush, love,” she soothed me. “I’m right here.” With a gentle touch, she kept her hands on me, carefully pulling my shirt up as I realized what she was doing. And against everything within me, I let her.
I let the little bird undress the Beast.
I let her see my vulnerability like I had let none other see before in my entire life.
She undressed me completely. As I stepped out of my pants and boxers, my eyes moved away from her shockingly brilliant green ones, moving lower to see that somehow, in some unknown time, she had discarded her own clothing as well.
