Julian and Annabelle remained silent, unmoving, but he could feel their sadness and loss even through his own grief. Julian swore loudly, turning away he slammed his fist down on one of the metal shelves. It crumpled beneath the blow, spilling its contents across the floor. Before Chris could even blink, he lifted up one of the cases and heaved it across the room as if it weighed no more than a feather. Glass and materials shattered across the room. Chris wrapped his arms around himself as he took a step away from the cans that rolled toward him. Julian bellowed in rage before lifting another shelf and heaving it across the room.
Fresh agony swamped Chris, but this time it was so fierce, so intense that it knocked him to his knees. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see as his vision blurred and his head pounded with the torment pulsing through him in never ending waves that nearly caused him to pass out. He bowed down; his forehead nearly touched the floor as his heart exploded, shattering into a million pieces, destroying everything that was good and right inside of him. Burning away the humanity that had been in him, and leaving only scattered pieces of nothing that were quickly buried by a rage so intense that Chris feared his head would explode. The blood in his ears was a loud rush that blocked out nearly all other sound.
Rage and a thirst for vengeance, for destruction and brutality, swamped him. Chris couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think through it. Both of the emotions were so intense that physical pain twisted through him as he struggled to breathe, and tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Julian stop,” Annabelle whispered pleadingly.
Julian froze, his shoulders heaved as he stared at the back wall. His hands were fisted at his sides, his body shook but he seemed to have regained some control over himself again. “Devon cannot know about this, not yet. Not until we can contain him in some way. I promised her he would not die, and I am going to keep that promise,” Julian said softly, his voice choked with emotion.
“How are we going to do that?” Annabelle whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Chris gasped for breath, he tried to find his voice, tried to rise up against the tidal wave of emotions crashing over him. He was afraid that if he couldn’t get control he would be forever buried beneath the debris of Devon’s rage and grief. Forever caught up within the whirlpool that now controlled the vampire. For Chris was keenly aware of the fact that there was nothing left of the man within Devon. The man had been destroyed by Cassie’s death; the monster inside him had finally burst free of its cage to take Devon’s place.