“Yes,” I confirmed. “Something. You’re the one who decided to go rogue,” I accused. “So what happens while you’re ignoring us is none of your business.”
“None of my business?” His laugh was chilling, sending fingers of ice over my skin. “You are my business. Tell me who you were with or I’ll find out myself… and I think you’re better off giving me the name without the details, don’t you?”
I shook my head, refusing to answer. “Tell me where Danny is.”
He surged forward. Someone in the room gasped, but I held firm, my chin raised as he stared down at me, using his presence to intimidate me without even an inch of him touching me. I was in agony all of a sudden. He was a part of me and his fury was scorching me from the inside out, even though he hadn’t lifted a finger to harm me. Knowing his pain was so much worse.
“Who were you with?” he asked again, too softly.
If he had been anyone else, the whisper would have been as gentle as a caress, but the softer Silas’s voice sounded, the more prominent his menace became. It was a chilling contradiction, made even more frightening than if he had been yelling and screaming.
“What if it was one of them?” I whispered back, pointing briefly over my shoulder, where I could feel Quillan, Noah and Cabe lingering, prepared to jump in if Silas lost control completely.
He jolted back a step, his hands tightening into fists, his serrated gaze rising over my shoulder for an extended moment.
“What are they talking about?” I heard Yas asking quietly, pulling Silas’s attention straight back to me.
“Which one?” He was gritting his teeth.
“Me.” Cabe stepped up to my side, his expression unusually serious. “And I get that we need to talk about this, but maybe not here and maybe not right now.”
“Outside,” Silas growled.
Cabe sighed, giving me an apologetic look before turning and walking out of the room. I followed, and it seemed that everyone else followed as well, which I thought kind of defeated the purpose of going outside at all… until Silas’s fist crashed into Cabe’s face, and Cabe tackled Silas’s midsection, forcing them both to fall back against one of the decorative wooden railings bordering the small platform that the house was built upon. The railing splintered and their momentum sent them over, plummeting them into the water below. Trepidation held me transfixed; I had to force myself out of the stupor before I could run to the spot where they had disappeared. I grabbed the splintered railing, gazing off the edge as I waited for them to surface. I had no idea how deep the water was, or whether there had been rocks below that might have injured them. Noah was by my side in an instant, pulling me back. I could hear Quillan talking with the others, trying to calm everyone down.
“Just let them work it out.” He sounded calm, but Yas was panicking, saying that Silas was dangerous and out of control.
“This is exactly what I was talking about,” I heard her seethe quietly, as though afraid that Silas would hear her.
The panic inside me surged as I searched the surface of the water, waiting. It clawed at my chest until I felt like I would choke on it, and then it hit me with a sickening clarity that the panic wasn’t entirely mine. Without a second’s hesitation, I wrenched away from Noah and dove into the water. The cold rushed over me in a shock that suspended my limbs for a moment, but I quickly fought through the sensation, allowing the horrible pull of emotion to draw me down. I saw Silas first, his hysteria wrapping cold arms around me and drawing me to where he hovered.
I couldn’t feel Cabe at all.
I pulled on Silas’s shirt. He moved in the water enough for me to see that he had been trying to pull Cabe up. He had been unsuccessful, because there was a piece of metal speared through Cabe’s stomach, rising up into the water in an accusing barb.