Everything was calm as I stood guard, staring into the dark, waiting for Brock to wrap things up with Cindy. He was taking too long. Not that I could blame him. Time was an incredibly easy thing to lose track of when wrapped around a body like hers.
Silas had suggested that we stand guard, just in case Collin came back here bringing trouble with him. I didn’t think it was a horrible plan, but we weren’t supposed to keep standing around for the length of time Brock took to mark Cindy.
He had to push for his way on everything. Never mind he should feel grateful that he was given what he wanted despite everything that he had done. After all, we were in this mess right now because of him, no matter how much he wanted to blame others.
At the end of the day, he was the one that decided to turn Collin into a monster. Not us.
The air instantly changed, turning static. A split second later the hairs on my arms rose. I had enough time to suck in a breath when Collin appeared out of nowhere. He slammed his palm into my chest, sending me flying through the air. I landed down the hall, on the opposite side of the mansion from where I was standing just seconds before. My flight was stopped by the exterior wall. My impact had caused a good portion of it to crumble, and I had knocked a sizable chunk out of it, leaving a gaping hole.
“Xavier, you all right?” Silas called out just before he grunted. Seconds later, another crash into the mansion. The building shook.
I stared through the hole at the night sky outside of the mansion. I sucked in a breath and considered myself lucky the damage wasn’t worse. “I’m good. You?”
“Yeah. Just testing the integrity of the mansion’s framework,” he called back.
“Same,” I said.
I chuckled under my breath. And searched the darkness for a sign of Collin. He stood in the hallway switching his gaze between me and Silas.
“Where is he?” he snapped.
“Who?” Silas asked.
“The man who made me,” Collin said.
Silas and I took controlled, careful steps toward Collin. He was like a rabid, feral animal. His next moves were going to be impossible to predict. Especially since he seemed cold and calculating. He handled himself in a way that didn’t make sense.
I pressed my lips together. It seemed impossible for a newborn to have such grace and power. But I also didn’t have time to figure it out.
Collin was out to destroy me and Silas in order to get to Brock, and he wasn’t above tearing down the mansion in the process. We were out of time. Though it was too late to think about it now, we didn’t need to use Cindy as bait anymore.
Collin was coming for us regardless. The only question I had the chance to think of was, why?
“I’m afraid he is unavailable at the moment,” Silas said, taking another step forward.
“But he is here. I can smell him,” Colin snapped.
He was becoming blood raged. I wondered how many people he took out during his little outing.
“I never said he wasn’t,” Silas added. “Perhaps we can help you?”
“There’s no help for me now.” He closed the gap between him and Silas first.
I jumped into gear, heading toward them. But I was too late.
Collin sent Silas flying through the air again. He crashed through another wall. This one was load-bearing. The mansion shuddered. Cracks appeared within the floor. Bits and pieces of the ceiling above me broke off and fell to the floor.
I cursed under my breath as I jumped out of the way of some falling debris. It seemed Collin’s goal truly was to make the mansion topple down around us. I couldn’t let him do that without bringing him down with us. So, I jumped into the fray and surprised Collin with a heavy hit to the side of his face. He toppled to the ground and clutched his cheek. He spat out blood before glaring at me.
“You’ll have to do better than that now,” he said.
I shrugged. “We’ll see.”
Just as things were starting to explode between the three of us, Brock and Cindy showed up.
“You took enough time, don’t you think?” I snapped.
Collin’s attention settled on Brock. He twisted to face him. “About time you showed up.”