Page 166 of Heresy

“You need to be completely honest with me, Brin. This won’t work if you’re not.”

“I was honest, I just forgot. Even you have to admit a lot has been going on. I’m sorry if I screwed up your friends’ timeline or whatever—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he snaps. “I couldn’t care less about their damn timeline.”

God, this man is insanely confusing.

“Then what are you talking about?”

He pauses, his head dropping just slightly as he rubs his hand over the back of his neck.

“Shane?”

He shakes his head again and straightens his posture. “It’s nothing. We should leave to pick up Damon.”

What is running circles in that man’s head? I think back on everything and start to follow him, but then I stop in place.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.”

His back is to me when he also stops in the doorway between the bedroom and the common area.

Turning to face me, he looks pained, the chaos in him back again, the storm that brews behind his stare a stark but brilliant ocean color.

I study his expression, notice how his jaw is held tight so that his high cheekbones are like blades running beneath his eyes. Even the way he stands is off. There’s a subtle threat in the way he rolls back his shoulders, in how he holds his arms slightly away from his body and plants his legs.

Shane looks more prepared for battle than I’ve ever seen him. More than the night he fought. More than when he discovered the vandalism to his house. More than when we stood on the side of the road, realizing that someone had tried to kill him by messing with his car.

Whatever this is, it’s so far beyond anything he’s encountered before, and he stares at me now like I’m the problem.

I want to abandon ground and run to hide. It’s my go-to response. What I’m accustomed to doing.

But I stand my ground instead, demanding answers.

“What won’t work?”

His jaw tics, something gnawing at him like a rat trying to escape the metal confines of its cage, its long, sharp teeth running a mile a minute.

Another shake of his head. “It’s nothing. Not anything I can sustain anyway.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The question crashes against his back because he’d immediately turned to leave.

No.

Not this time.

I’m not accepting some vague demand that Shane will neither confront himself nor explain to me.

He wants to claim that I’m a pain in the ass when in truth, he’s just the same.

How is it possible to be so opposite of another person yet be so much alike that anybody looking between us would fail to find a distinction?

Chasing him through the hotel room, I’m almost in reach of him when he opens the door to leave.

My hand falls to my side, Shane and I both stopping in place.

Two familiar faces stare back at us, both I’ve known for as long as I’ve lived.

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