Page 15 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

NEVER

“No way,” Angie breathed. Her honey brown eyes snapped between me and Matty. “Never? Like, the Never?”

Matty pressed his index finger to his lips, then pointed to the door. Her expression turned from excited to guarded in a blink, and she closed it quietly behind her.

I watched her move, trying to take in everything about her at once. She was about an inch shorter than me, with warm brown hair that fell to the middle of her back. The family resemblance was undeniable, but my brain was in full-on struggle bus mode.

My little brother is a dad?

I could barely wrap my head around the fact that he was in his forties. Now this?

“No one else knows who she is, Ang. I would like to keep it that way,” Matty said quietly. “At least for now,” he added, turning his attention to me.

“I mean, yeah. That makes total sense,” I muttered. What the hell else was I supposed to say?

“But… I thought she was your older sister.”

Matty and I shared a look. “I am, I guess. Technically,” I said .

She shrugged her backpack off and set it down by the door. “You get how that doesn’t make sense, right?”

“What if I told you I was trapped in another realm where time doesn’t move the same as it does here?”

Angie cast me a skeptical look that quickly turned to acceptance. “Sure. Why not? Demons are real. Shifters and witches and magic are all real. A timey-wimey realm isn’t that much of a stretch when you think about it.”

I arched a brow. She was surprisingly cool about it, but I would get to that in a second. “You know about Doctor Who?”

A beaming smile broke across her face, and all at once I was transported back in time. Matty used to smile like that when he was younger. “Hell, um, I mean, heck yeah! Dad loves the classics.”

I turned my focus to my brother. “The black and white version?” That didn’t sound like him.

He shook his head solemnly. “She’s talking about the version we used to watch.”

And she called it a classic? Oof.

I was just going to let that go. “So, you know about shifters?”

“Yeah. Obviously,” she scoffed. “Aunt Lily is, like, Boss Bitch of the Shifters across the park.”

“Ang,” Matty said, the warning clear in his voice.

She rolled her eyes and huffed out an exasperated breath. In that moment, she was so much like my brother—the teenage version of him, anyway—that I had to hold my breath against the pinch in my chest.

Twenty-six fucking years. I’d missed so much.

“Calling her a Boss B is a compliment, Dad.”

“You know the rules.”

She ground her teeth, then she turned to me. “Was he like this when he was my age?”

I rubbed my lips together to smother the smile trying to break through. “It’s probably best if I don’t answer that question.”

“Aunt Never and I have some things we need to talk about.” Matty pointed to the kitchen table. “Homework first. Then dinner. The recipe is on the fridge.”

“Hey, it’s your night to cook.” She folded her arms over her chest.

He shook his head. “Not tonight, Ang. Please.”

She let her arms fall to her sides, her expression shifting from annoyed to concerned. “Yeah. Okay.” She snagged her backpack off the floor, hauled it over to the table, and then hustled back over and gave him a big hug. “Sorry.”

He hugged her back. “No need to apologize, kiddo.”

“I’d be happy to help you cook, if that’s okay,” I offered. I couldn’t remember a single moment in my past when I’d felt like an outsider in my brother’s life, but I sure as hell felt it now, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Unless your mom…”

Matty closed his eyes and shook his head.

“She died a couple of years ago,” Angie said quietly before burying her head in his broad chest.

“Oh,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” How many times had I apologized since I’d gotten back?

And how many more times would I say those words before some of the guilt began to ease?

He gave her a quick squeeze before releasing his hold on her. “Go on. Maybe we can renegotiate who gets to cook dinner later.”

When she was seated at the kitchen table with her books and notebooks spread out in front of her, Matty and I sat back down on the couch.

“Angie, huh?” I asked quietly.

He offered me a tired smirk. “Angela Never Hinkins. ”

It was my turn to swallow and blink back tears. My little brother named his daughter after me?

“It’s a beautiful name.”

“I figured I would spare her from Moira, since you hated it so much.” He dropped me a wink, and I let out a watery laugh.

“Angie suits her.”

We were both watching her when she turned her head, looking every inch the irritated teenager. “You know I can hear you.”

“Pretend like you can’t,” Matty fired back.

She lifted her chin for a second like she was going to argue, then turned her attention back to her homework. It took some serious effort not to laugh.

“She’s a pistol,” he said.

“I see that.”

“She got the attitude from her mom.”

I snorted a laugh. “Sure.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he leaned back and propped his ankle on his knee. “It’s so strange seeing you looking exactly like you did back then.”

“Imagine how I feel.”

He tipped his head to the side. “Good point. This must be…”

“Surreal,” I finished for him. It also felt like I read the first chapter of a book then jumped to the middle, and now I had no clue what the fuck was happening. “When did this all start? With the storms and the demons?”

He leaned his head back on the couch. “About five years ago, give or take.”

“And it’s getting worse?”

“Every day it seems like, but it’s really been ramping up in the last three years or so.” He went quiet for a moment before adding, “Fiona, Angie’s mom, was killed in a demon attack.”

“Right in front of him,” Angie added solemnly .

He pointed to the table. “What did I say about homework?”

She glared at him, then turned to me. “He never talks about her.”

“Enough, Angie,” he barked, and we both flinched.

He closed his eyes, balled his hands into fists in his lap, and took a few deep breaths.

“I’m sorry.” Then he leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees as he looked at his daughter.

“It’s been a long day. There was another attack this afternoon, and that’s where I found your aunt. ”

“Was anyone hurt?” she asked, her tone decidedly less judgmental.

“A few bumps and bruises. Nothing serious. Thanks to Never.” He turned to me. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“Mom taught me some stuff, but most of what you saw was just plain old brutal experience.”

He sucked air through his teeth. “Lily did say you were a badass in your own right.”

“That’s pretty high praise coming from a tiger, but you’re no slouch yourself. I saw you out there.” Though, where I’d seen a fearless hero, he’d actually been a commander of sorts trying to keep his people safe, and a dad fighting like hell to survive. “Where did you learn those moves?”

His gaze kept drifting back to his daughter.

She looked like she was engrossed in what she was reading, but I had a feeling she was hanging on every word we said.

“Lily taught me a lot in those early days. There weren’t as many demons roaming around back then, and even in college she refused to take me out hunting on school nights.

” His lips lifted in a wistful smile. “She was fond of telling me that if something wouldn’t fly with you, it wouldn’t fly with her. ”

Damn. My heart swelled with love for both of them, all three of them, really. I might have just met Angie, but there was already a place for her in there. Which only reinforced the fact that I needed to get all of them the hell out of this realm.

Was there a part of me that felt like a monster for focusing on my family? Maybe. But once they were safely in the Nassa and I returned to the Alius, things would slowly go back to normal. At least, that was the assumption.

The question was: should I tell him the truth?

I’d already told him about his blood, but that was before I knew about Angie. Had he put those pieces together yet?

“What I was saying earlier, about leaving?—”

He cut me off with a shake of his head. “I can’t, Never. Everyone in my life has left, except Lily. I’m not putting my daughter through that if I can help it.”

I tried not to let the hurt show. It wasn’t like I’d left him willingly.

I leaned forward. “You get that she has it too, right?” And that she would be damned to spend eternity in the Alius eventually, just like me. And him.

“Sonofabitch,” he breathed. It looked like someone had just kicked him in the gut.

“Is she your only?—”

He nodded. That was something.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.” He laid his head back on the couch.

It did present a problem. I could barely flash Leo from one island to the next and that was in the Nassa.

Flashing from the Alius to the human realm had been easy enough, but I’d been amped with power.

I had no idea how spectacularly I could fuck things up if I tried to flash with two people in tow.

And that was assuming I succeeded in hitting the Nassa.

I sucked at hitting a big ass pirate ship in the water. Another realm that was steeped in mystery? I didn’t even want to know how badly the odds were stacked against me .

But there was someone who could flash from this realm to the Nassa safely even with two people along for the ride. “How safe is the park when there isn’t a storm?”

“It’s not. The park is off-limits,” he said firmly.

I narrowed my eyes. “That wasn’t my question, Matty.”

“It’s just Matt now. And that’s my answer.”

“I can handle myself. Just give me an idea.” His responding stare was an impressive attempt at intimidation that I had no doubt worked on most of the other humans around him. Luckily, it didn’t have a cowing effect on me. “You’ve really mastered the disapproving dad glare, haven’t you?”

A snicker from the table had me rubbing the back of my hand over my lips to hide my smile.

“This isn’t a game, Never. The park is dangerous.”

It was sweet that he was looking out for me, but my brother had no idea what I was capable of. Even I didn’t really know.

“Alright. I won’t go,” I lied.

One eyebrow winged up. “How is it you haven’t gotten any better at lying in all these years?”

Because it hadn’t been years for me. It’d been months. A fact I thought I was handling exceptionally well. “Do you have a bathroom?” I asked innocently.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s a shared bathroom.” He hooked a thumb toward the front door. “Down the hall on the left.”

Even better.

“Thanks.” I pulled myself up off the couch and headed for the door.

“Are you coming back?” he called after me.

I turned to look over my shoulder with a snarky retort on my lips. Those words shriveled when I saw the look on his face. He’d lost almost everyone in his life, including his wife.

“As soon as I can,” I said. I wasn’t about to lie to him about that .

If he was bold enough to ask if I was going to the park, I would tell him.

And if he tried to stop me, well, we would have ourselves a little come-to-Jesus about it.

He might be in his forties with a whole different kind of life experience, but in my head and in my heart, he would always be my kid brother.

He watched me go without a word. Just in case he got a wild hair to follow me out the door, I did hit the bathroom. I washed my hands, then sniffed the water before ducking my head and drinking straight from the faucet.

Fuck, I was thirsty. And hungry. Also tired, irritated, confused, worried, and all tangled up inside about what I was getting ready to do.

I splashed cool water on my face, then took a minute to stare at myself in the mirror.

The red ends in my hair had disappeared a couple of weeks after Hook’s magic worked its way through my body, leaving me with my natural, dark brown.

I’d always hated it when I was younger, but now it didn’t bother me so much.

Hook said it set off my eyes, and that man was fascinated by them. He loved the blue, claiming it reminded him of the sea. As I watched, with memories of my broody pirate infiltrating my thoughts, a gentle amber glow began to shine around my irises.

Damn him.

We were in different realms, and he still had a powerful effect on me.

How was that fair?

“Let’s just hope he’s happy to see me,” I said to my tortured reflection.