Page 57 of Broken Obsession

“Huh?”

“It’s his touchstone.”

“I have it!” Noon quickly clicked on his multi-slate, and a second later, the theme song began to play.

Ares loosened a breath, but the pinched sensation in his lungs didn’t dissipate entirely, and the figure threatening to undo his reality didn’t waver. “She doesn’t like it when I linger too long.”

“What was that?” Eden leaned in, unable to catch his whispered words. “What is he saying?”

“Nonsense,” Zar stated. “Don’t listen to him. What the hell happened before he called me?”

“We, uh,” he cleared his throat, “we were about to have sex when my friend walked in on us.”

“First time?”

“What?”

“I’m asking if you’ve been fucked by Creation before, or if this was going to be the first time?”

“Oh. Yeah, that. First time. Not for a lack of trying on my part.”

“He was too hyperfixated,” Zar concluded. “The sudden interruption fractured his stability.”

“I don’t understand anything you just said.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine! I don’t know what to do! He just keeps staring at my fridge like there’s a ghost or something!”

“There is. Sort of.” A beat started playing through the speaker from Zar’s end. “Creation. Four things you can touch. I promise you Mother isn’t one of them.”

“She’s angry, Bal,” Ares said. “She’s really, really angry.”

He took a step toward the shadow.

Maybe he could placate her. If he didn’t, she’d put him in the pit again, and then he wouldn’t be there for Bal when he was revived.

He had to be there.

Balthazar was counting on him.

Chapter 12:

“Hey, wait!” Eden grabbed onto Ares’ arm when he moved for the empty corner in the kitchen.

“Let him,” Zar ordered. “He’s not schizophrenic, and he isn’t hallucinating. His mind’s been split between too many realities. Sometimes he struggles to hold onto what’s real.”

“That makes no kind of sense.” Not a hallucination? Eden couldn’t see anything, and if nothing was there, yet Ares saw something…wasn’t that the very definition of a hallucination?

Maybe this Zar guy was off his rocker as well.

That was a problem for later, right now, there was a Black Hart in his kitchen experiencing a psychotic break. And he had a gun.

That had somehow turned into a bracelet.

What the actual fuck.

Ares slipped from Eden’s grasp and extended an arm toward the empty corner, his fingers appearing to stroke the air, right around the height where a woman’s cheek might be.