Matthew jumped in. “All right, guys, that’s enough. Fighting and casting blame isn’t helping anyone.”
“It makes us feel better,” Ash muttered, closing her eyes.
Kat lowered her chin as she sat back down, this time on the edge of the coffee table. She blinked rapidly as she folded her hands over her knees, squeezing so tightly that her knuckles bleached white.
“Right now, we need to get along,” Matthew went on. “All of us.”
No one spoke, and I thought the likelihood of everyone getting along was somewhere between not going to happen and hell no.
Then Dawson spoke. “I’m going after Beth.”
All of us turned to him, everyone struck silent, and then voices rose. Only Kat remained quiet as she stared at him. I spoke up, moving toward him. “Absolutely not, Dawson—no way.”
“It’s too dangerous.” Dee was standing, too, her hands clasped together as if she were pleading with him. “You’ll get captured, and I won’t survive that. Not again.”
Dawson’s lips tipped up a little at the corners. “I have to get her back. Sorry.”
“He’s insane,” Ash whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Freaking insane.”
My brother shrugged as Matthew leaned forward. “Dawson, I know, we all know, that Beth means a lot to you, but there’s no way you can get her. Not until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Raw anger flashed in Dawson’s eyes, turning them forest green, and it was the first show of emotion I’d seen from him, and it was hot, powerful anger. “I know what I’m dealing with. And I know what they are doing to her.”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. Prowling forward, I stopped in front of my brother, prepared to keep him standing there forever if need be. “I cannot allow you to do that. I know you don’t want to hear that, but no way.”
Dawson didn’t back down. “You don’t have a say over it. You never did.”
“I’m not trying to control you, Dawson. It’s never been about that, but you just got back from hell. We just got you back.”
“I’m still in hell,” he replied, his eyes meeting mine. There. I almost saw a part of my brother in his stare, the one who left to go to the movies and never returned. “And if you get in my way, I will drag you down with me.”
And that small fragment of Dawson was gone.
“Dawson…”
A wind blew through the living room, fluffing the curtains and flipping the pages of all of the books and magazines in the room. Kat was suddenly standing next to me, her small hand on my arm.
“All right,” she said. “The alien testosterone right now is a little too much, and I really don’t want to have an alien brawl in my house on top of the broken window and the dead body that came through it. But if you two don’t knock it off, I’ll kick both of your asses.”
I looked at her, my brows raised, and I wasn’t the only one staring at her.
“What?” Her cheeks flushed pink.
A wry smiled tugged at the corners of my lips. “Simmer down, Kitten, before I have to get you a ball of yarn to play with.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t start with me, jerk-face.”
I smirked and then focused on my brother. My chest lurched. There was another emotion playing across his mouth. Amusement. He watched Kat with a look of amusement, and damn… A knot formed in the back of my throat.
Dawson’s gaze moved from her to me, and his expression went blank, eyes shuttered. He was as impenetrable as thick glacial ice. He turned and stalked out of the room. The door slammed shut behind him.
And I knew in that moment that Dawson hadn’t just changed. He’d become…he’d become me, and like me, he would do anything to get Bethany back.
He would risk all of us.
Dawson was currently upstairs, sequestered in his bedroom by his own doing. At least he wasn’t out roaming around in the cold, so that was good news, right?
Hell. You knew shit was bad when that was considered good news.
Appetite slaughtered, I pushed the rest of my turkey sandwich and the plate away from me.
Dee had barely touched her sandwich, and I knew without even going upstairs and checking that the food for Dawson was still where I’d left it, sitting on the desk in his bedroom.
Sitting back from the table, Dee lifted her gaze to mine. “Kat…she tried to talk to me when I left her house earlier.”
My gut fisted.
“I’m not ready to go there with her,” she continued as she picked at the edge of her sandwich. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to do it.”
“You will be.”
Dee shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, Daemon.”
I sat forward, resting my elbows on the table. “You’ve forgiven me, haven’t you?”
Anger tightened the lines around her mouth, and I thought that might not have been a wise statement. “I haven’t really forgiven you. Let’s be clear about that. You lied to me, and you let Blake go.”
So not touching the whole Blake issue right now. “But you’re talking to me.”