Baer cleared his throat. “Maybe they don’t, and this was the plan all along. We’re going to have to be careful about who we let in from here on out.”
Grey’s anger and frustration swelled like a wave in his chest. It was all he could do to hold it back and not scream.
“It’s a good thing that guy was such a horrible shot,” Wiley said. “But I have to feel sorry for him. When he came out of whatever it was possessing him, he seemed so bewildered. He had no idea why he was even here. Now he’s going to jail for something that’s not even his fault.”
Someone touched his arm and he turned toward them, noting Lucien’s cologne. “Sorry I slammed you so hard onto the floor. Was instinct.”
“To protect the blind guy?” Grey knew irritation laced his voice, but he couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, Grey, to protect my friend from the man with a gun. What else was I going to do?”
“Get down yourself?”
He chuckled. “I did. Squished you right into the floor.”
His humor did nothing to appease Grey’s wrath. It was too powerful, filling his body as if his very blood thrummed with it. He turned to storm out, but his shins hit the coffee table. Cursing, he ignored the pain and moved around the table to where he knew the back door was. Nobody said a word as he left, and not even their thoughts could get through the fury pounding in his head.
He stalked into his apartment, shaking with rage, and stood in the middle of the living room. His breaths came hard and fast. He closed his hands into fists, then opened them and swiped everything off the coffee table. Something shattered. Caught in the grip of anger, he turned and knocked a lamp off the small table near the television, relishing the sound of it breaking.
Before he knew it, he’d turned the entire room upside down. With the floor littered with debris, every step was a challenge and he growled as he tripped and went to his knees. Something sharp cut right through his jeans and sliced into his flesh. He’d broken something else and didn’t even know what.
He didn’t fucking care.
Getting to his feet, he limped into the bathroom and peeled off his jeans, wincing when something caught. He pulled a piece of what felt like glass out and sat on the toilet lid to hold a wad of toilet paper to his knee. He’d let his temper get the best of him, but it still beat in his heart and he didn’t know how to make it stop.
He’d never felt so helpless in his entire life, and he didn’t know how he was going to get used to his new reality. He’d always been self-sufficient, always taken care of himself. Even as a child at home he’d kept to himself—his parents had never been particularly demonstrative. They’d each been caught up in their careers, and he’d always felt like an afterthought to them.
So, he’d done his own thing. Studied on his own and later, he’d set out and left them behind. He’d forged a career doing what he loved the most and had been successful in it. In fact, he’d been successful in nearly everything he’d done.
This new reality needed to be faced like another challenge. Tearing up his place had solved nothing. Now he just had an obstacle course of a mess on his hands.
But he wasn’t going to do anything about it that night. Instead, he fumbled for the first aid kit and put a Band-Aid on his wound. He felt around, examining his work, and sighed. The bandage wasn’t big enough to cover the cut. Whatever. A little blood on his sheets wouldn’t hurt anything.
When Grey crawled into his bed, the anger had eased somewhat, giving way to even blacker thoughts. Would he be any help to the rest of the Weavers? The fuller the circle became, the more powerful they grew, but what the hell good was he when he couldn’t even recognize an enthralled man?
Yeah, he was spending a lot of time feeling sorry for himself, but he was also supposed to play a part in this battle. He was an integral part of the Circle.
Just what the hell was he supposed to do?Chapter 6Grey was tired of the dark.
It was almost ironic. After so many years of locking himself away in dimly lit rooms to type piles and piles of words into one computer after another, he found himself longing to see the sun. To watch the glittering, sparkling light dance and peek between the leaves as they fluttered in the breeze. He wanted to sit on the patio and watch the light bounce off the pool water and gild Ruby’s dark coat as she lay stretched out in the grass.