Amber.
His arm was beside her head, notched against the outside of the building entrance, his eyes intent on hers. I realised, then, that she was crying.
As though feeling my stare, her tear-filled gaze swung in my direction and her whole body immediately tensed up. She was clenching her fists, her eyes having narrowed to slits, spitting out some kind of venomous emotion that I didn’t particularly care to define… though I was pretty sure it was loathing.
“Uh oh,” Poison muttered, grabbing my arm and attempting to drag me backwards. “This is about to get Jersey Shore real quick.”
“What are you talking about?” I whispered, digging my heels in.
“Amber’s father was Dominic Kingsling, Seph.”
That was all Poison needed to say. I understood the rest: Kingsling had died, and I had been there to witness it. I was shocked enough that Poison had managed to drag me back a short distance, but Amber was already striding toward me, literally pushing people out of her way to reach me. I dug my heels in again—not out of stubbornness, but because it wasn’t fair to run away. I may not have killed Kingsling, but there was no doubt in my mind that he had died because of me. Because he had almost killed me, and Silas had bloodied many a pavement for much less. I deserved whatever piece of mind Amber was about to give me.
“Oh god,” Clarin groaned. “Seph is wearing her ‘Blame me for all the troubles of the world’ expression again. She’s about to die a martyr. Stop her, Poison.”
“I tried dragging her away already. Just throw her over your shoulder like a heterosexual and let’s haul-ass out of here, nothing I say will make a difference right now.”
“Don’t you dare,” I warned Clarin, holding up a finger in his direction, since I could see out of the corner of my eye that he had taken a step toward me.
He grumbled something in response, but all of my attention was now centered on the rapidly approaching girl, my brain running through self-defence scenarios—as one’s mind was wont to do when faced with an angry cheerleader.
“Amber, I’m sor—”
My head whipped back with a crack before the sentence was even out of my mouth, and I was so shocked, I didn’t even respond. I just let her hit me. The others must have been shocked as well, because nobody moved so much as an inch as she landed two more punches, and then everyone seemed to snap out of their stupor. Clarin grabbed me just as I started to raise my own arms to protect my face—since Amber didn’t seem to be interested in hitting anything else. He tossed me over his shoulder and Poison darted forward, her arms springing out the way a scary clown jumps out of a joke wind-up box. She struck as Clarin hoisted me up, so I missed the actual blow, but by the time I had managed to twist around, Amber was sprawled on the ground. I could tell that Poison would go further, so I struggled out of Clarin’s arms, grabbing my other friend and jerking her back.
“Enough!” I managed, tugging on her once more.
Poison allowed me to drag her back, and we both looked down at Amber on the ground. I gently pushed Poison behind me and reached out a hand to Amber, intending to help her up.
“Amber… I’m really sorry about your—”
“Don’t!” she yelled, scrambling back to her feet and shoving a finger in my chest. “This is all your fault, bitch! He was with you that night! He told me he was going to get you, and he never came back! The human police found his body in a ditch halfway to Seattle, so what’d you do to him, huh? What the hell did you do to my dad?”
Weston had dumped Kingsling’s body into a ditch? That was news to me. But more importantly… what could I possibly say?
“I had no idea…” I attempted to avoid any lies, but I was dancing on a shady line.
“Oh I’m sure you didn’t,” Amber sneered. “Just like you had no idea about Aiden and his pair. Everyone knows you were locked in a room alone with him right before he died!” Amber was screaming now, her eyes going wide and her body vibrating with so much emotion that I hastened a step backward, bumping into Clarin, who still hovered behind me.
She continued, “And what about that man you killed in Seattle with your Atmá power? My dad showed me the video! You don’t even deserve to have an Atmá power: you just use it to kill our own people!” Her wide eyes took on a feverish gleam as I cringed, desperately wanting to rush forward and slap a hand over her mouth. “You blew up a van and almost cut him in half with a car door! And two more men died in your house, along with your own father—and it just so happened to be during the one trip you took back to visit your dear daddy, didn’t it, Seraph? BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!” She tossed out her arms and turned to address the crowd that seemed to have tripled in size, no longer happy to simply scream things at my unresponsive face. “Because you killed seven more people, just three months ago, and I have photos to prove it!”