For a heartbeat of time, the single sentence hung between us. I didn’t have to go into details; I could see he understood. I’d known he would, which was one of the reasons I’d chosen to tell him. Of all people, Kerry Harker knew how vile the Real World could be.
“Did he—” His big hands had clenched tight enough to make his knuckles white. “Did hetouchyou?”
“Worse.”
His curses had burned my ears.
Bile had clogged my throat, but I didn’t know if it was from the memory of what had happened or the knowledge that my mom chose her lover over me.
“What did your mom do about it?” Kerry had narrowed his eyes to blue slits.
“She called my warden and shipped me off to the Sanctuary. To remove his temptation, she said.”
Shame had curled my insides into tight twists of barbed wire, and I’d wanted to shatter the words as soon as I’d said them. What mother chose a man over her child?
The next day, Kerry had disappeared. His warden and our friends were shocked, but not so much as Gemma. Oh, he’d called her before he left and said he needed to take care of something, to trust him, that he’d be back as soon as he could. She was theonlyone he’d called, then he’d turned off his phone to make himself untraceable on the Sanctuary’s tracker app.
Despite his assurances, Gemma worried herself sick during the three days he was gone, which made my silence on the matter even more damning.
I’ll admit, if only in the privacy of my own head, that I’d told him because I had wanted my mother to suffer. To know a little—just a fraction—of the terror I’d felt every time she brought home another new lowlife who thought I was fair game.
I’d always been too weak to accomplish that myself. Then I met Kerry, and he wasn’t.
If you wanted someone punished, wanted them to understand fear, Kerry Harker is the perfect tool to use. He has a wealth of hands-on experience, no qualms about dealing out justice, and already damned himself. What does one more sin matter to someone Hell-bound?
Or so I tell myself whenever my conscience stabs at me.
Which was why Chance Parker would never know anything more about me than the basics. A soul like his, as luminous as the moon, should be shielded from the sort of filth that layered my own.
So, even if I wanted to curl up in his kindness, even if Iyearnedfor it, I wouldn’t. I was going to keep my distance, push him away, hurt him if necessary. It was the right thing to do toany guy who showed interest. Remaining alone and lonely until the end of my days was a proper punishment.
Monsters didn’t deserve anything better.
17. I’m His Bodyguard
Kerry
I led Mira to a bank where I had a safe deposit box and asked her to wait while I got something outta of it. It didn’t take long until I was back with a box wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. As we started to walk down West 42nd Street, which would take us almost straight to Mammoth’s, she glanced at the package.
I could almost see her vibrating with curiosity, but “What do I need to know about this place and your contact?” was all she asked.
“’S just a bar.” I lifted one shoulder. “Guy we’re gonna talk to is named Isaac Black, but he goes by Zick.”
“What is he? Nephilim? Div? Human?”
“See if you can guess.”
“Challenge accepted. What do I get if I do?”
“I dunno.” I frowned. “What do you want?”
“Whenever we get to the Sanctuary, I’ll need a sparring partner. I wanted to ask Rome, but he would hold back because he’d be afraid he might hurt me. Where’s the fun in that? But you and I are similar in size and neither of us were trained in combat.We learned tooth and nail on our own. And, as a plus for me, you don’t know how to hold back.”
While we walked on, I thought about it. I didn’t much like being touched by anyone other than Gemma, although I was getting used to Jax and Gigi. I could use a good sparring partner, though. Neither Jax nor John had any idea about hand-to-hand fighting, and Travis didn’t have the right mindset for it. And while Gemma loved to spar with me, she wasn’t up to my weight if I wanted to go hard.
I went back and forth with myself.
I would instinctively use my power.
