He tossed me onto the bed between the packs. I tried to reach for my magic but there wasn’t much to work with. Not even enough to draw a circle around myself. I pushed up into a crouch on the bed. Kai swiped at the pack on my right. It fell to the floor. He latched onto my left ankle and dragged me forward until our faces were inches apart. Something unhinged stared back at me from behind his eyes.
“I told you to stay put,” he snarled. I wanted to curl into a ball or run. That was precisely why I forced myself to take a long breath. Years of practice trying to be invisible and hiding in plain sight allowed me to slow my heartbeat. Inch by agonising inch, my primal instinct gave way to reason. I was still skittish, but I’d be damned if I gave him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to me.
“Did you just want me to wait on my hands while all of my friends died?” I snapped back.
“I expected you to have learned some common sense by now!” I tried to kick at his fingers to get him off me. It was like trying to move metal.
“As opposed to kidnapping me and bringing me god knows where!”
He leaned forward then. His voice became unnaturally even. “You better get used to this,” he said. His eyes flicked around the room. “Thanks to your stubbornness, this is going to be how we live the rest of our lives.”
He let go of me and turned abruptly. My brain cascaded. I couldn’t comprehend exactly what he had said. He strode over to the bathroom. The door was jammed because he’d slammed it so hard earlier. He kicked it open at the same time I picked up the remaining backpack. I stood up in the bed and hurled it at his back. I misjudged the weight of the bag by a mile. He whirled around but there was no need for alarm. Instead of smacking him in the back and sending him sprawling like I had hoped, the stupid thing just dropped. Its contents spewed out on the carpet. Short-range weapons fell out amidst charms, an industrial-sized bag of salt, bottles of disgusting puce tablets, and two hand grenades.
This was preppers gone horribly wrong. He had packed like we were preparing for a siege. “What in the world do you think is happening?” I screamed. “Take me back home!”
His jawline became granite hard. “Pick that up.”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“Keep your voice down.”
The very short leash I had on my temper snapped. I curled my hands into fists and dug my nails into my palms so hard I could feel my fingers straining. It was a monumental effort not to scream.
“Please take me back home.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“No. You’re never going back to the Academy. Or the Reserve. Or anywhere the demons know you frequent.”
My jaw dropped. “You don’t get to make unilateral decisions for me.”
“I do when you can’t follow simple orders to save your own life.”
“Not even then.” My voice came out cold. “If I want to throw myself on a demon blade, it’s my choice.”
“And how are you going to do that? You can barely put one foot in front of the other. You’re not throwing anything anywhere.”
“Just wait until I get my powers back.”
“And then what? You’ll broadcast to the whole Hell dimension that you’re an all-you-can-eat demonic buffet and they can traipse through a portal anytime to get you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. You’re so busy trying to prove you’re a hardass and you don’t need anyone.”
“I’m not joking,” I said. “Take me home right now.”
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Something flickered behind him, but I was too furious to care. “So this is what it’s going to be like?” I said. “I don’t get a say in anything?”
“You’ll get a say when you make some sense.”
“Screw this.”
I jumped off the bed and made for the door. I ran right into his chest and grunted. I hadn’t even seen him move. He locked his hand around my wrist and forced me away from the door. I winced at the shackle.
His grip released just a fraction. “When I give you an order, you follow it. Stay put. It’s not that hard.”
I heard Chanelle’s words in my head. And I knew that as wicked as she was, it was the truth. As long as I was alive, I’d be in danger. And Kai would never have any peace. What would happen if Lucifer broke free of his chains and came for me? Kai would kill himself trying to keep me safe. Heck, if Lucifer never got free, I was a human living in a supernatural world. If Sasha or Trey ever went haywire, I would be dead in a second. All of this time I had pretended that safety was something I could cling to. But it wasn’t for me. And yet the thought of being locked up in an ivory tower grated on my nerves in worse ways than the thought of dying needlessly. An involuntary shudder arched over my spine as the memories of a childhood spent being neither seen nor heard assaulted me. Helplessness was not an option. Ever.
“I can’t.” I tried to unlatch his fingers, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Of course you can. Whatever you think you want to do, just turn around and do the exact opposite.”
I swallowed and took a step back even though he still had a hold of me. You might be
