Page 32 of Tear Me Down (Descent to Darkness Trilogy #2)

I hold up my middle finger to him.

“He’s not my stalker anymore, asshole.”

“Oh, fuck off with that. You don’t think he’s watching the store surveillance?”

“Oh, I’m sure he is, but I’m okay with it now,” I taunt.

He rolls his eyes before glancing around to see everyone staring, and then walks up next to me—I’m assuming to prove to the witnesses around that he’s not going to hurt me.

“Look, I'm sorry. I know you'd rather be working or with your girlfriend than watching me.

I'm sure Damien can have someone else follow me around.”

“I don’t mind watching over you. What I mind is disobeying a direct order to satisfy you.”

“I told you, I'm going to tell him myself tonight. Whatever he’s doing doesn’t need to be interrupted just because I throw up. That’s ridiculous.”

“Regardless, he still said to call,” he says so matter-of-factly.

“Look, I get it. You don’t work for me. Hell, you probably don’t even like me, but even you agreed with how stressed Damien is.

I'm fine. If I think I'm not, I'll bring it to your attention, but for something that minor, there’s no need to bother him. I'm not in pain, I don’t have a fever, and I haven’t eaten or drank anything that wasn’t checked.

He’s going to drive himself mad with all of this worry.

So fine, do you want to call? Then call.

I don’t want to put a wedge between you two, I just want to try and spare him more anxiety.

” I concede. Zeke huffs and looks up at the ceiling as he rolls his shoulders back .

“I understand that, and I agree with you, which is why I haven’t called. I’ve just never lied to him before. He’s big on honesty, you know.” He reaches back and kneads his shoulder, as if this actually stresses him out.

“I know, but I promise I'll explain it to him when I talk to him tonight. Hey, if he gets too angry, we can just point out that he said I have authority, and technically you were just obeying an order.”

He looks at me dumbfounded as we dead stop in the middle of the isle.

“You think that’d go over well?” he sarcastically says.

“No, no I don’t.” We walk in silence as I get a couple more things. But when I grab a case of water bottles, Zeke takes them from my hands and puts them in the cart himself. Probably only doing it because he’s right, and Damien’s watching the cameras. “How’d you meet Damien anyway?”

“I met him the same night I met Tay.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, at the time I had planned on joining the police academy. So, I was working out a lot and training. One night, I was walking home from the gym when I saw her in trouble in an alley. A guy was touching her and grabbing her roughly, and she was yelling for help, so I ran over to stop him.” He laughs wholeheartedly and shakes his head.

“I got the shit beat out of me, but he left her alone.”

“Oh my God, that’s so sweet.”

“Would’ve been sweeter if I had won.” We chuckle as we continue forward, although his is more awkward than mine.

“He knocked me out and ran, and she had to call the police and an ambulance. I woke up in the hospital to find D there waiting for me. He told me that if I really wanted to help people, to give him a call, then he programed his number in my phone and left. Cocky son of a bitch.” That makes me giggle with just as much warmth as Zeke shows, because yes, Damien is very cocky.

“Tay came by later to thank me, and we hit it off from there. She actually gave me the courage to call him.”

“That’s amazing.” I look over to him and notice the soft smile on his face, clearly thinking about Tay and that night he met her. “I can tell she means a lot to you.”

“Yeah, she does.” He nods his head casually. “Now, obviously I'm way better at fighting than I was that first night.”

“Oh, totally. Why else would you be here?”

“Exactly.” We continue to chuckle, and when my phone vibrates in my pocket, I pull it out to see a text from Damien.

Damien

You two look awfully chatty .

I playfully roll my eyes, because of course he’s watching us, and show Zeke the text before replying. He shakes his head again and takes a step towards the middle of the aisle to make a point.

Me

Don’t worry, baby. We’re talking about you and Tay.

Damien

Damn right

I shake my head and turn my attention back to Zeke.

“So how is she with all of this? I don’t remember any of the other ladies saying anything about her,” I say, genuinely curious.

“She does okay with it. I try to keep her as far away from it as I can, though.”

“Yeah, I caught on to that with your shitty comment,” I side-eye him.

“Hey, I apologized for that,” he spits out quickly and points his finger at me.

“It’s no offense to you and Damien, I just couldn’t handle it if what happened to you, happened to her.

I'm not Damien. I can kill people, but that's after he tells me where to go. I can't do half the shit he does.” His voice trails off with an emotional response I haven’t seen from him yet, making me believe we’re actually getting somewhere.

“Maybe not, but he has your back, you know? He doesn’t want anything to happen to Tay either.”

“I know,” he looks around the aisles, seemingly avoiding eye contact with me.

“Does she have family? Friends?” I try to steer the conversation.

“Her mom lives in Texas, and she has work friends, but she says she doesn’t like to hang with them outside of the office. The poor girl is a bit of a loner.”

“Well, in it or not, maybe you should introduce her to some of the other ladies, you know? They’d understand how she feels.

She could talk to them. It’s hard. You don’t get used to the possibility of the person you love dying.

” I look back to him and watch as he nods again, obviously considering it.

“Bring her to the house one day. I promise to buy everything prepackaged.” Thankfully, that makes him laugh.

“Or bring her tonight. We’ll all be there, and it’s a public setting. ”

“Alright, I'll think about it.”

“See, there’s the spirit.” I nudge him playfully and we keep walking, stepping along in a less hostile silence until he speaks up again .

“I like you just fine, by the way.” I look at him, noticing his indifferent expression and taking it as a win. “I think you're good for D.” I’m not sure why my chest inflates the way it does at that statement, but it definitely adds to the fullness in my heart.

“I like you too, though I haven’t decided if you’re good for him or not.” We laugh, and I’m thankful that he caught on to my joke. “So, since you don’t completely hate me anymore…”

“Jesus.” He scoffs and rolls his eyes, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Tell me about yourself. You know, since we’re obviously going to be spending sooo much time together.” He playfully rolls his eyes at me again. “Do you have any friends outside of ‘work’? Any siblings? Special hobbies?”

He chuckles again, seemingly starting to loosen up.

“Damn you’re nosey, how does D handle it? Normally I'm way more patient than he is.”

“Well, he loves me enough to put up with me, I suppose.”

“Yeah, that must be it,” he replies jokingly. “No, I don’t have any other friends, my special hobby is killing people, and I don’t know if I have any siblings.”

I look around the aisle, making sure no one heard about his ‘hobby,’ and then look back at him, caught off guard by his reply.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I was adopted.”

Well, I suddenly feel really stupid.

“Oh, I'm sorry. That was a dumb question to ask.”

“No, it's a normal question, it just doesn't pertain to me.”

“You don’t know any of your real family?

” I ask, genuinely curious. That’s a pretty intrusive question, but I had to ask.

I didn’t have a choice on whether or not I knew my parents, and I’ve heard some stories of adopted children meeting their biological families.

Some of them are good, some are bad, but I’m starting to wonder more about him.

What makes him Zeke . He shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head a little, clearly not really caring one way or another about the topic.

“My parents are my real family. I don't think of them any other way, but no, I don't know anyone from my birth family. I was curious at one point, I even wanted to find them, but then I realized there wasn’t any point. It wouldn't change anything.”

I can see his point, especially with how close I am to the Andersons. I look at them as my real family, so I understand how he feels.

“That’s true. How old were you when you got adopted? ”

“I was one of the lucky ones. I was only a couple of weeks old when I was adopted. My birth mom was apparently a druggie. I was dropped off at the hospital here in town—in nothing but a basket and papers from a hospital in Tennessee, go figure. After a few days, I successfully detoxed from whatever drugs I was born with in my veins, and they put me in the system. It only took about a day before my parents fostered me, and then they officially adopted me a couple of weeks later.”

“Do you like your parents?”

“Oh, I love my parents. They’re the best. I got seriously lucky with them.”

A pang of jealousy punches me in the gut, but I shove it away quickly, knowing how childish that seems.

“No foster or adopted siblings?”

“Nope. One time when I was thirteen they convinced my parents to foster for a little while, and just when she was about to be adopted, they gave her back to her parents. It broke my mom’s heart. Emily was only five then, so it was really hard for them to let her go.”

“Aw, that’s so sad.”

“Yeah, plus my mom is really sensitive.” He chuckles. “She was distraught for weeks and then they never fostered again.”

“Well shit, I wouldn’t either.” We laugh and fall into another comfortable silence before he speaks up again.

“So, we’re really doing this party tonight?”

“Fuck yeah! It’s going to be so much fun!” I boast, probably a little too loudly for a grocery store. He grimaces and shakes his head lightly, clearly getting tired of my antics and not fully on board with the idea.

“I don’t know, the mercs seem uptight as hell,” he whines.

“Well, that’s the point. To loosen them up so you guys get to know them.”

He shrugs and we walk up to the registers, knowing that he doesn’t really have a choice.