“Just spit it out already before I lose my mind,” I snapped, and she flinched. Her throat bobbed, her breathing got all uneven, and then she blurted it out in one breath, “It was Marcus,”
I froze. Damon froze. We both turned to her like synchronized robots, and I swear the air in the room shifted.
“What?!” we said at the same time, mine coming out as a high-pitched screech, his deep and sharp enough to cut glass. My brain just stopped working for a full two seconds. No way. There was no way I had heard her correctly.
Damon’s face hardened instantly, like the name alone was a trigger that ripped him out of the present and shoved him straight into kill mode.
“Hold up,” he said slowly, with each word dripping in disbelief and fury. “Marcus. As in Marcus, the pathetic waste of oxygen you
