As if they’d heard me, they both scuttled a little closer to their victim, scorpion number two taking the opportunity to flick its tail down and skewer Hendler a second time.
Now I understood Nate and Arik’s joke: the whip-like motion of the scorpion’s tail totally made me think of the Devo song. “He definitely didn’t get away without whipping it,” I commented absently.
Nate spun on me and grinned. “Thankyou!” he cried. “Jesus, Ian and Matthew didn’t get itat all. Their taste in music couldn’t be more different, and yet it both sucks in a way I can’t even describe. Ian doesn’t like any bands whose hair’s smaller than Dolly Parton’s, and Matthew always listens to that crap with the banjos…”
He went on, abusing his mate and his brother-in-law’s musical tastes with equal vigor, but my attention had wandered back to Jack and Brent. Jack stood at the foot of Brent’s tree with his arms stretched up to help him down. Brent had tears gleaming on his cheeks, and his big dark eyes were all wide and limpid and shining with…
Who fucking cared what they were shining with. It didn’t matter, because Jack was apparently eating it up.
Fuck them both.
I turned my head away in time to tune into the tail-end of Nate’s rant. “…can’t appreciate New Wave, then you have no business having an opinion on our scorpions!”
“Those scorpions are totally metal, you’re wrong,” Ian said, finally having come back from watching the scorpion show.
Whatever Nate would’ve retorted got swallowed by Ian wrapping him in his arms and kissing the hell out of him.
Ugh.
I glanced over at Arik, who was petting one of the scorpions. The other appeared to be dragging Hendler’s still-twitching body away.
Well, double ugh.
And abruptly, I’d had enough. Jack had rescued Brent from his tree, Nate and Ian didn’t show any sign of doing anything besides making out, and Arik had his scorpion friend.
Leaving me cold, annoyed, and feeling like the loneliest vampire in the world. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stay warm in Nate’s inadequate sweater, turned, and walked away.
Chapter 11
There’s No Ritual
Jack caught up to me as I stood in front of the pack house, cursing and pulling at my own hair and basically having a mini tantrum.
It had dawned on me a little belatedly that I didn’t have a fucking car anymore.
So I stood there, muttering my frustration to the carpet of twinkling stars filling the velvety sky, until Jack came loping out of the woods and stopped right in front of me.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
And oh, that was rich, coming from the man who hadn’t even looked at me while I got dressed after he fucked me, and then buggered off to tenderly help Brent out of a tree.
“Anywhere but here,” I snapped. “As soon as I can find a car,” I added anticlimactically.
Jack huffed. “We’ll get a ride once the ritual—”
“There is no we!” Okay, so he meant to go through with breaking the bond, and that made me feel better, but there still wasn’t a goddamnwe. Jack would be him and I would be me, but that was as far as it went with the fucking pronouns. “I’m going back to Lancaster and my life. You’re going to pay the Armitages extra for your own taxi service, pick up your truck, and get the hell out of California. And if you leave Brent in the vicinity of Lancaster, that won’t work out well for him, so I recommend against it.”
I didn’t give a fuck what happened to Brent, but I sure as hell didn’t want him slouching around my hometown, either.
Jack blinked at me, frowning, his handsome face set in tight lines. “I’m taking him with me so I can hand him over to the cops for attempted murder.”
Well, that sounded like a road trip I’d be glad to miss.
“Fine,” I said, my belly churning with a horrible mix of upset and anger and grief and…gods, I needed Jackgone. So I could go back to my repetitive, lonely life.
Fuck my life.
“Arik’s strip-searching him. Making sure he doesn’t have any more magic tricks up his sleeve.”
