“Well, fuck you then. I would never hand him to you willingly, but even more so now.”
She does that smile thing again. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand.” The van stops and I look out my window to see we’re back at the school. My truck door is still open. “Just remember this one thing, Madison.” She searches my eyes and I meet hers. “He’s not a good man. He’s the worst of the worst. You wanna know why?” she asks, tilting her head.
“Why?”
“Because he feels nothing. No remorse, no love, no nothing. Daemon is void of natural human emotions. He does not feel physical pain, nor emotional pain. He was born this way. Then he was trained on top of that. He’s a very rare human, but he also suffers from the shadows.”
“Like congenital insensitivity to pain?” I ask, still stuck on her first revelation.
She nods, leaning back. “Yes. One in a million get it. It’s genetic, you know?” She smirks. “But I know it hasn’t run through you.”
“His emotional lack of feeling though, is there a condition for that?”
“There are lots of conditions that could trigger it, and truthfully speaking, Daemon probably has all of them.” She pauses as if to think over how much she should actually disclose. “Ask him about the shadows, Madison, and then call me. I’m sure you will want to talk.” She hands me a card. I look down and read over the gold cardboard with the name Katsia embossed in white and a simple phone number underneath.
The man who is sitting beside me, leans forward, cutting the cable ties off from around my wrist. He slides open the door, and I get out, turning to face her one last time. “Why do you think he can’t feel emotions?”
“Because I’ve seen it, and you will too.”
The door closes, and the van takes off in a whoosh, like it wasn’t there trying to tear into my life a second ago. Picking my bag up from the ground, I throw it into the truck and get into the driver seat, pushing Start. I spin around in my seat quickly when an eerie chill, a chill as if someone is watching me, creeps up my spine, but I’m met with empty seats.
“I’m losing my mind.” I put the car in reverse and drive the fuck out of there.
Mondays.
I’M MAKING A SANDWICH IN the kitchen when “Tequila Sunrise” by Cypress Hill comes blaring through the sound dock. I roll my eyes and pull out my phone, scrolling through my Spotify playlist. Fucking Nate, adding his music to my song list. I shove my phone back into my pocket, giving up and going back to my sandwich. Slamming ham onto my bread, I squirt on some mayonnaise and then add tomatoes, relish, and cheese. The catchy beat catches me off guard, and I start bobbing my head to the beat. I judged a little too soon; this song is actually pretty good.
Taking a massive bite out of my sandwich, my eyes come up to the entry to the kitchen when I see Nate, Bishop, Cash, Brantley, and Hunter standing there watching me. It used to be intimidating, having them in my personal space almost all the time—although this isn’t all of the Kings. But now it hardly itches on my skin.
“What?” I ask, chewing my sandwich.
Bishop shakes his head. “Nothing. Where’s your brother?”
“Upstairs.” I swallow. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Daemon about the shadows. Truthfully, I’m a little scared. Because once I ask him, there’s no going back. What if his answer changes my view on him? I don’t want that. There’re many things I want answers to in my life, many things I would sacrifice to get those answers, but Daemon isn’t one of them. I feel a strong sense of overprotectiveness when it comes to him, which makes me think… “Am I the younger twin or is he?” Thinking out loud always helps.
Brantley and Cash walk into the kitchen, taking a seat on the bar stools. “You’re the older one,” Cash answers when he sees no one else is.
“Knew it.” I grin, taking another bite.
“Why?” Bishop asks, leaning against the wall.
“Just wondering.”
“You’re wondering why you feel so protective of him.” Bishop takes the words out of my thoughts, pushing off the wall and coming into the kitchen. He pulls open the fridge and takes out a water, twisting the cap off. “He’s dangerous, Madison.”
I roll my eyes. “If you truly believe that, then why would you let him around me?”
“Well we tried to stop that,” Nate interjects. “But good fucking job we did.”
“And I said he’s dangerous,” Bishop finishes. “I didn’t say he was dangerous to you.”
“But the first night you were here, you didn’t like him. You almost wanted to kill him.”
Bishop laughs, placing the water on the counter. “Almost? There’s no such thing as almost when it comes to me, Madison. I don’t make mistakes; I make moves. If I do something, you bet your ass I thought about every single thing that had to do with it. I’m not unhinged. I’m calculated. I know exactly what I’m doing when I’m doing it, and you wanna know why that makes me the worst kind of monster?” he asks, though he really doesn’t want me to answer, so I stay silent—for once. “Because I’ve thought about the act over and over again in my head, and every time I asked myself if it was the right thing to do?” He inches closer to me, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s always a yes. So no, Madison.” He leans against the counter. “I don’t ‘almost’ kill anyone. If I want them dead, they will be dead. No matter what.”
The word dead coming out so close to Daemon’s name makes my stomach churn. I place my sandwich down, suddenly losing my appetite.
“Prince Charming obviously.” I brush Bishop off.
Brantley laughs. “That’s cute. But no, more
