Part 21 (1/2)

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.'