Surviving Demon Island Part 21

He'd had to. A long time ago. Now it was her turn.

And that part he could could help her with. help her with.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It was all her fault.

Because she was arrogant, thinking this was some kind of game. She'd been so excited, wanting to take the lead with Jake like she'd been the one to personally discover his new weapon. And then she'd gone off on Derek like she was Gina, queen b.i.t.c.h of the jungle, large and in charge.

Only this wasn't Hollywood, and it wasn't a game. The monsters were real. They could all be killed.

Correction!someone had had been killed. been killed.

Jake. And it was her fault he was dead. Her responsibility. She'd taken him under her wing, but instead of protecting the kid, she'd let her overconfidence and giant ego blind her to the reality that she had no idea what she was doing.

She was an actress who dabbled in extreme sports, martial arts, and weaponry. She thought she could easily step in and manage demon hunting. Right. She didn't have a clue what she was doing.

G.o.d, what a mess she'd made. She dropped her head in her hands and wished she could crawl into a hole and pretend today had never happened. If only she hadn't encouraged Jake to build the weapon. If she'd left him alone She startled at the knock on the door. Wasn't everyone in bed by now? Shay had already come by. So had Olivia, and Dalton and Mandy. She'd sent them all away. The last thing she wanted to do was talk this out. Nor did she want anyone's sympathy.

She wanted to feel awful, deserved a lot worse than a twisted stomach and shaky limbs.

'Go away.'

Whoever it was turned the k.n.o.b and walked in. She whirled to find Derek closing the door behind him.

'I don't want company.'

'I know. But you're getting it anyway. And you should lock your door.'

'Why?'

He tilted his head to the side and arched a dark brow as he approached. 'What if I'd been a demon?'

'They knock?'

'You know what I mean.'

Shrugging, she started to head past him, intent on grabbing water from the minifridge. 'I guess I would have been dead.'

He slipped his fingers around her wrist, stopping her from moving away.

'You've been crying.'

Dammit. He wasn't supposed to notice that. With a quick turn, she shot him a 'no s.h.i.+t' look. 'Well, Derek, one of my team members was brutally murdered today. Forgive me if that got to me just a little.'

Now he looked even more uncomfortable than she felt.

'Hey. I'm sorry. I didn't mean you weren't supposed to cry.' Jamming a hand through his hair, he added, 'Dammit, Gina, I'm not very good at this sensitivity s.h.i.+t.'

'I noticed.' She smiled. She didn't want to, but she did. She extricated her wrist from his hold and grabbed the bottle of water, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and res.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the cap.

'You can't blame yourself for what happened with Jake.'

This was a conversation she didn't want to have. 'Who do you think I should blame, then?'

'The demons, Gina. They're cunning and vicious. You're new to this game. h.e.l.l, even those of us who've been fighting them for years still lose. You can't predict them. They show no mercy.'

She'd witnessed that firsthand today. 'I hadn't expected them to be merciful, Derek. But I should have known better.'

'How would you have known?'

'I don't know.' She fiddled with the cap on the bottle, finally putting it back, needing something stronger than water. But even alcohol wouldn't dull her senses enough tonight. 'I shouldn't have let him build that machine.'

'He still might have been killed, weapon or not.' Derek sat on the chair next to her bed and stretched his legs out. 'They'd have figured out eventually that Jake was a threat to them.'

'So I expedited his death, then.' Great. That made her feel so much better.

'Do you really want to make this about you?'

She sat on the bed and gripped the edge of the mattress. 'It is about me. And the mistakes I made.'

'You're wrong. You're a good warrior. All of you are good warriors. It could have happened to any of us. It could have happened on my team today. Lou didn't even get the hot-spot warning on those demons that appeared and grabbed Jake until they were already out. It was instantaneous, and that has never happened before.'

'Really?'

'Yeah. It was a portal blast of some sort. Like an express elevator, if you will. From the way Lou explained it, one minute there was no new demon activity, the next they were right there, killing Jake. It was so fast Lou didn't even have time to warn you.'

She leaned forward and clasped her hands together. 'And a sudden appearance like that, one without a heat warning, had never happened before.'

'No. The demons appear fast, of course, but never without a heat signature, the increased temperature warning that registers on Lou's program. This was so fast it didn't even log on his scale. He's looking into it now, to see if they've developed some new method of appearing, one that doesn't project a thermal signal.'

That, at least, offered her some comfort.

'If you're going to be a demon hunter, if you're going to fight alongside us, you have to get used to people dying. You have to learn to deal with it.'

'How do you you deal with it?' deal with it?'

She could see the lines etched alongside his eyes as he blinked, trying to mask the pain. Memories of people he'd lost, maybe?

But just as quickly as it had been there, it disappeared, replaced by a shrug of indifference. 'I don't let myself care about anybody.'

Ouch. Talk about listening to her own inner voice. Except hearing it from Derek sounded heartless. And she wasn't heartless. She wished she was!then she wouldn't be hurting so bad inside.

And Derek did care, no matter what he said. He was as good at trying to hide his feelings as she was.

'I can't do that anymore. I can't pretend I don't care.'

He frowned. 'I didn't say you shouldn't care. But you're going to have to toughen up. You can't do this job and fall apart every time you lose someone on the team. It'll tear you up.'

It already had. She knew caring was a huge mistake, knew getting involved with these people was going to screw her up. Where had the hard Gina gone, the one who never got involved, never got emotional, never developed ties? When had she gotten so wrapped up in these people?

'Think out loud.'

She looked up at him. 'Huh?'

'Your mind is processing. It helps to do it out loud.'

'I don't want to.' She didn't want him there. She didn't want anyone there.

'You just want to wallow in your misery all by yourself. Feel sorry for yourself. Blame yourself.'

'Actually, yeah, I do. So if you wouldn't mind leaving'

But he didn't. Instead, he climbed onto the bed behind her, stretching his long legs out on either side of hers.

'What are you doing?'

His warm hands reached for her shoulders, digging into the tension that had knotted there.

'Ma.s.saging your shoulders.'

She tightened, trying to shrug him off. 'Don't.'

His chest brushed her back, his heartbeat strong and rhythmic. Relaxing.

Dammit, she didn't want to relax. She s.h.i.+fted, trying to look around.

'Stop, Gina,' he said, his voice soothing.

'Why are you doing this?'

'Because I've been where you are. Beating yourself up isn't going to bring Jake back. It's not your fault.'

He continued to dig into the tight muscles of her shoulders, pulling her back against his chest. Though she struggled at first, it was clear he wasn't going to let her up, so she finally gave in and rested against him, letting his fingers work their magic.

Blissfully silent, he didn't speak, just melted away her tension with his magical fingers. Gina closed her eyes and for a few moments, everything was okay.

'Let it go,' he finally whispered in her ear. 'A good hunter mourns a loss, then lets it go. You can't dwell. It'll eat you up inside.'

She shuddered a sigh. 'I know you're right. The logical part of me, anyway.'

'I talked to Dalton and he filled me in on what happened, step by step. I'd have done everything you did.'

She tilted her head back and looked at him. 'Honestly?'

'Honestly. I wouldn't have done anything different. You set Jake up so he'd be protected, you had him covered well. I would have been shocked as s.h.i.+t, just as you were, when that other demon showed up and killed him. And I'd have blamed myself, too.'

'You would?'

'For a few minutes, yeah. But then I would have realized it wasn't my fault. They came out of nowhere in that portal blast.' He squeezed her shoulders. 'Now let it go.'

'You're right. I guess. I feel horrible about this, Derek. He was just a kid.' d.a.m.n tears. She swiped them away.

'I know, babe.' He wrapped his arms around her. 'There are times I just want to walk away from all this. Times I feel like we're never going to make any headway, that the demons are going to win no matter what we do.'

'What keeps you going?'

'Nic.'

She s.h.i.+fted in his arms so she was cradled sideways, al lowing her to see his face. 'Your brother? Why?'

'Because they took him. Because a part of me holds out hope, stupid as it is, that someday I might be able to find him.'

'You think he's still alive, that he's still' She couldn't say the word.

'Human? I don't know. Probably not. But the thought of it drives me. You have to have hope, ya know?'

No, she didn't know about hope. After her mother had disappeared and they'd wrenched her away from her home and dumped her into foster care, she'd given up on hoping she'd ever see her again. And now to find out the demons had taken her and made her a vile baby-making machinewhat kind of hope could she have knowing that?

She shuddered.

Derek tipped her chin up. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing.'

'Secrets,' he said, his gaze boring into hers. 'Dark demons.'

'What?'

'We hold all this s.h.i.+t inside and never share it with anyone. It's like a cancer eating away at us.'

'Do you ever share your feelings and emotions with anyone?'

The corners of his mouth tilted in a wry smile. 'I never used to.'

Touche. 'I never had family, Derek. I never had people to share my feelings with. I lost my mother when I was a child. She was the only family I had. You have no idea what I went through after that.' She pushed back from him. 'I don't do this opening up' thing well.'

The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened as he frowned and jammed his fingers through his hair. 'Do you think it's easy for me? For any of us? We're all fighting our pasts. My mother went off the f.u.c.king deep end after Nic disappeared. She lied to me about him, then went crazy trying to hide us from my dad. We moved around constantly until she died and I joined the Navy. I had no friends, no relations.h.i.+ps, no other family to talk to. No one to confide in about this demon I saw taking my little brother out of his bed. h.e.l.l, for the longest time I thought I was crazy, too. Not quite what I'd call a stable family life.'

'You're right. I'm sorry. I have no right to complain.'

'That's not what I meant at all. Of course you have a right. You have every right. All of us do. I'm just trying to get you to open up, to share the pain with me. You're not all alone in this. You're not the only one this has happened to.'

She turned her head to look out the window. Moonlight filtered through the trees. 'I can't share that with anyone.'

'Why not? Because it'll show you as less than the tough, b.a.l.l.sy, fearless woman you portray on the screen? Well, guess what, Gina!your cover is blown. I already know you're nothing but a big, toasted marshmallow.'