Page 27 of Origins
I couldn’t tell him. If he was this upset about me being with a friend, then who knew what he’d do if he knew said friend was his estranged brother. Plus, he’d connect the dots and figure out how I met Damen.
I was such an idiot. I never should have opened my mouth. This was all my fault.
I barely noticed that my hands shook, and blackness swam along the edges of my vision. I had no idea what to do—what to say. But Finn was getting more furious by the second.
“Bianca!”
He’d find out. He’d find out everything and tell.
There was a sudden movement beside me. Miles had snatched my phone out of my hands and walked out of my reach as he began to pace in front of the fireplace again.
I watched in panicked disbelief. I had, quite honestly, forgotten about these two. And now my day had gone from bad to worse.
They had to know it was Finn on the phone. Miles had been sitting next to me the whole time, and Finn had been talking very loud…
“Hey, asshole. I didn’t hear everything, but I heard enough. You can’t talk to her like that! Who the hell do you think you are?” Miles snapped.
I jumped to my feet, desperate to put an end to this disaster.
But I hadn’t taken two steps before Damen was upon me. He pulled me back into his chest, holding me against him. He tried to console me by making a shushing noise in my ear, but I barely noticed.
I could only see Miles’ face—furious, as he yelled at Finn. I couldn’t even hear myself think as I watched this unfold.
Damen was shaking behind me, but I couldn’t fathom why. I was grateful that he, at least, hadn’t been the one who took my phone. I wondered if that was deliberate, because Finn would have recognized his brother’s voice for sure.
“I don’t care—you don’t own her.” Miles sounded hard as he frowned into the phone. There was an indistinct sound of Finn responding, but Miles cut him off. “It doesn’t matter who I am. All you need to know is that I’m her friend.”
Another pause.
“I don’t care why you think I sound familiar, but you can go fuck yourself.”
With those words, I watched, horrified, as Miles pulled the phone away from his ear and disconnected the call.
“I hate that little douchebag,” he growled.
I felt my world imploding around me. “Finn is so angry…”
What was I going to do now?
Chapter Nine
Fear
Damen’s hold briefly tightened before he let go, turning me to face him. His hands remained on my shoulders as a comforting presence. “Who cares, Bianca? What can he do to you anyway?”
His words seemed harsh, but his gaze was anything but. His eyes sought out mine—concerned and wanting answers. But I knew I couldn’t respond—because the answer to his question was ‘a lot’.
Thinking back about how all of this started, I realized that I had been so stupid. I never should have mentioned the haunting to Finn at all. It was my fault that it had come to this. I knew all along what might happen, but I had been so desperate I didn’t care.
I had only hoped that Finn might have listened, for once.
Then I had picked a fight about my medication. Of course, he was suspicious.
Finn on the warpath meant that he’d be seeking out answers. And when he wanted something, he was relentless—destroying everything in his path in order to get it.
It was too late now. There was no way he wouldn’t know that I had seen Damen. No way that he wouldn’t put two and two together.
No way that this wouldn’t end with the same thing happening to me again...
