Page 72 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“Okay.” He was thinking, staring at her with the wheels turning behind his keen brown eyes. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to clean up this shithole and get some better locks installed so you don’t get murdered in your sleep. Then we’re going to go through the phone book and find you a good therapist, because you really need to get your head screwed back on straight, sweetheart.”
“I’ve already had dozens of therapists, Ash. They don’t help—”
He gave her a hard little shake that snapped her jaw shut. “Then you just haven’t found the right one yet. A therapist is non-negotiable, Em, if you want to keep my beautiful ass in your life.”
She stared at him in horror. “You’re blackmailing me!”
He shrugged, unfazed. “Take it or leave it. And when I say that, I mean take it.”
She hung her head and stared down at their feet, toe to toe against the faded linoleum kitchen floor. Something scurried past on buggy legs in her peripheral vision and she sighed, envying how simple its little buggy life must be. Around the lump in her throat she whispered, “Okay.”
Asher gathered her to his chest in a fierce hug. “Good girl.”
Into his chest, after a moment of silence, she accused, “You called me an asshole.”
He chuckled. “I know. But you’re a tough nut to crack, honey, so I had to play my trump card. I should have called you names years ago. Chicks hate that.”
“Jerk,” she whispered, and hugged him as tight as she could, as if she were drowning, and he was the only thing keeping her afloat.
Because he was. Right now, he really was.
“Are you listening to me at all?”
Leander’s curt question jerked Christian back from the memory of Ember’s face. The depth of anguish he’d seen in her eyes when he’d recoiled from her had been seared into his memory with the excruciating, scarring permanence of a red-hot brand. It hovered around the edges of his vision like a malicious specter, a poltergeist always ready to torture him with some fresh misery when he was least expecting it.
“Yes,” he answered flatly into the phone. “I’m listening.”
A blatant lie. He couldn’t get himself to concentrate long enough to focus; she invaded his every waking thought, and even his dreams. He’d never had nightmares before, even after his parents had died, but now they were a nightly occurrence. Flames and screams, squealing tires and pounding rain—and always her face, her eyes, her look of wretched torment. Then everything would spin to black and he’d jerk awake in bed, sweating and panting as if he’d run a marathon. It had been this way every moment for the past two weeks.
He’d never, ever experienced such relentless hell.
There was a long, heavy silence. Then Leander said, “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind so we can get back to business.”
Damn. His brother knew him too well. Avoidance was useless; Leander was a pit bull when it came to getting answers. Christian passed a hand over his face and sighed. “Have you ever tried to reconcile two totally opposing viewpoints about something?”
He used the word “viewpoints” instead of feelings. He and his brother didn’t talk about feelings.
“You mean like, on the one hand, I know there’s a genocidal megalomaniac who needs to be taken down or thousands of people will die—and my brother is the best man for the job—and on the other hand, I’d do anything to ensure my brother never gets hurt, but giving him said job pretty much guarantees that he will?”
Christian’s lips twisted to a wry smile. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You’re damn right that’s a yes.”
There was another long silence, and Christian felt Leander’s frustration and worry even though he was a thousand miles away. They’d always been close; somehow they’d grown even closer over the past few months, the way people do when they know time is scarce.
“So how did you reconcile it?”
“I didn’t. I can’t. But being conflicted about something doesn’t mean you put logic aside. You have to weigh all the pros and cons and make a decision. In my case, that decision has to be best for the majority, which means even though I’d rather cut off my own arm than see you get hurt…” He left the rest unsaid, but his silence filled in the blanks. “In your case, that decision has to be whatever your conscience can accept without the guilt killing you.”
Guilt. He’d hit the bullseye with that one. Because even though logic told Christian that he and Ember were possibly the worst mismatch in history, and even though part of him was horrified by her admission, and even more horrified by the ways in which fate could be cruel—dangling such a tantalizing carrot of happiness in front of him only to rip it away with a few whispered sentences, by even putting her in his path now, of all goddamn times in his life—he still felt a tremendous sense of guilt about turning away from her.
Like it had been the wrong thing to do.
Like he had let her down when she needed him most.
So his mind and his heart were in total conflict about what she’d done, what he’d done, and what he should do next, all of which made it very hard to concentrate on anything else. The sleepless nights alone had taken their toll; he was about as animated as a zombie, all day, every day.
“One other thing, too, helps in making a hard decision,” said Leander.
