"I don't have to answer that Derek."
"Why not? It's a simple enough question. Are you or aren't you?" He crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at me, a smug smile tugging at the corner of his lip; his green eyes gleaming. He had me, and he knew it. Shit.
"I'm not," I lied, hoping to lure him into the kind of childish bickering session we used to get lost in when we were kids. His response: a cocked eyebrow and the slight baring of teeth that meant he was losing patience with me.
I should have known he would consider himself above a conversation that had the potential to degrade into a flurry of "I know you are but what am I's." Still, it was my duty as Chloe's bodyguard to at least try for non-violence before I hit him with a knock-back.
Mirroring my brother's posture, I crossed my arms over my chest and spread my legs in a wide, sturdy stance. I would never be able to muster the kind of menace that Derek has in his pinky finger, but I could shoot for imposing, at least.
"She doesn't want to see you," I warned him in a firm, no nonsense voice that he disregarded with a sneering eye roll before attempting to shoulder me out of the way. To be honest, I would have gladly stepped aside, but Chloe had been adamant: she didn't want to see him, and I didn't relish waking up tomorrow morning with a face-full of dead weasel should I fail her, so I stood my ground. Bumped him back when it was clear he wasn't about to take no for an answer.
"Simon," his voice was a low, threatening growl that I was beginning to take very seriously. "I'll ask you one more time, are you ready to move for me, or am I going to have to move you myself?"
"I'm not moving Derek," I said, lowering my arms to my sides. Readying a knock-back. "She wants you to stay away until-" I stopped talking. He wasn't listening to me anyway. A soft bang had his attention riveted to the door I blocked. I listened, but the only sound I could make out from the room on the other side was a soft rustling.
Derek heard more. His body language shifted abruptly from quietly threatening to battle ready. A muscle ticked in his jaw and his fists clenched compulsively.
"Hey," I said, hastily dropping my defiant pose to lay a hand on his taught shoulder. "What are you so worried about? That she crawled out the bathroom window and ran off? She wouldn't do that to you Derek. You know that. She just needs a little more time."
He stared at me long enough that I actually started to believe the sympathetic brother approach had calmed him down enough to see reason.
Then his fist connected with my jaw.
"Time's up," he growled, stepping over my prone body to wrench the door from it's hinges.
A feminine shriek accompanied me into the blackness of unconsciousness.