Chapter 13 #2
‘Haven’t seen you in a while,’ Tia says, thumb worrying at her moonstone pendant. A hand slides a gloss stick out from her back jeans pocket. ‘Want some?’
‘Um, sure, thanks. And yeah, not feeling great lately,’ I croak back, my throat suddenly dry under Tia’s careful gaze. Before I can reach out to grab the gloss, Tia uncaps it and rests her palm against my chin.
Instinctively, I jerk back.
Tia slides her other hand to cup my jaw, her touch gentle.
‘Hold still,’ she murmurs. Cold fingers, artificial strawberry, sticky balm. I don’t dare breathe, for fear I’d make a sound that could only be classed as embarrassing.
Tia is bent over to keep her eyes level with my lips, and when she looks up, it’s through long lashes.
Sweat pricks my palms. I wipe it off on my hoodie. ‘Is it done?’
Tia runs a thumb along the bottom of my lip, and the touch reawakens the beast in my chest, hammering and pounding away at its cage, demanding to be let out as I suppress it all with as neutral an expression as I can manage.
Tia’s finger comes away with a streak of pink. ‘Done.’
I follow her on-stage, the stage lights blinding us and wreathing our spectators in darkness.
Tia starts the presentation off with a quick introduction, but as she speaks, something rings shrill and insistent in my ear. The lights do a hazy tango over the journalists and the world begins to shift, first a small quake of reality, then all at once.
‘I have to go,’ I rasp. ‘Sorry, I think I ate something bad.’ Then I’m stumbling out of the room, heading straight for our penthouse, and I spend the last dregs of my energy collapsing into bed.
TIA
Had 2 go. Thx 4 all xoxo.
I trace the chicken scrawl, so horribly written that Raven clearly wrote it with her non-dominant hand, or she’s borderline illiterate. It’s signed off with a heart and, more notably, tucked under a very familiar dagger.
It’s a regular throwing dagger with a thin glinting blade and a fox head carved into the base of the steel handle.
It’s weighted but still light overall. I turn it over slowly in my palm.
The metal is clean but scratched, indicative of at least a year of use .
. . I wonder, morbidly, how much blood it’s seen.
Another thought twists in my chest as I test its tip against the pad of my finger. This is both a symbol of my betrayal of the Sentinels, and the only souvenir of four nights with my enemy.
Why would you leave this for me? A taunt, or a gift?
I slip the note and dagger under my mattress, and leave for Harper’s room.
It’s completely dark under her door, so I don’t quite expect an answer when I knock.
Nevertheless, a muffled grunt. Good enough.
When I slip in, Harper’s curled up in bed, her blanket bunched around her like a fox’s den.
‘Kit?’ I whisper, and set down the mug of water I brought for her. When she doesn’t move, I shift forward and tuck the blanket over her shoulders, hook a finger to tug her hair out of her mouth.
Harper shifts with a soft groan. Her hand slides over mine and holds on.
I freeze.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,’ I murmur, pushing through the sudden lump in my throat. ‘How are you feeling?’
A non-committal hum. Harper’s eyes flutter open, squinting against the bedside light, and I move to switch it off.
Her grip on me tightens. ‘Stay.’ Then, like she realizes what she’s just said, ‘If . . . If that’s okay.’
It’s so new and strange for Harper to request something of me. Not a demand nor an insult, but almost a plea. So rarely is she willing to give me the high ground like this, the ball in my court.
‘That’s okay.’ I perch on the edge of the bed as Harper turns to face me, her gaze dark and searching through her lashes, as though exploring something – whether deliberately or subconsciously, I have no idea. ‘Do you want anything?’
‘I don’t know.’ Harper’s thumb runs over my knuckles, and something coils at the base of my spine. ‘Talk to me.’
It’s probably the touch that emboldens me, spurs something I’ve been harbouring in my chest for just a little too long, because I blurt, ‘I’ve been wanting to ask. You’re bisexual. Right?’
Harper’s thumb pauses. ‘That is . . . very sudden.’
I can’t explain myself, so I express it differently. I push against her hold, and her hand yields under mine, allowing me to lay it across the bedspread.
My thumb finds a gentle landing on her wrist, travelling up to her fingers.
We’ve touched before, obviously, but always as a means to an end.
Not like this, not revelling in the unfamiliarity of Harper’s skin against mine, like I’m consciously breaking an unspoken rule with every crease explored, my finger dipping into Harper’s palm. ‘How’d you know? That you were bi?’
Harper has short fingers, I learn. Her palm is warm, her fingertips cold. Her callouses are thick and worn. ‘Well, Pirates of the Caribbean, at first. Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, et cetera. I . . . Do you like girls?’
‘Probably?’ When I press my fingertips into Harper’s, she shifts her hands, and our fingers interlock.
On instinct, I jerk away.
Harper tilts her head at me. Curious? Challenging?
My heart slams against my throat. ‘I don’t .
. . I don’t know how it works. I can barely imagine two girls together because I don’t feel like I’ve seen it often enough.
But sometimes I see a girl, and I . . .’ Imagine myself with them.
Imagine myself wanting them. Imagine it so fervently that it leaks into my dreams and it haunts my waking hours.
‘What do you imagine?’ A small smile crooks the corner of Harper’s lips, and it hits me that she’s still hazy from sleep, but somehow she’s already making fun of me and I don’t even know how to retaliate. As usual, I’ve lost the higher ground again. ‘Am I there?’
Yes.
‘No.’ Our fingers are still touching, and I draw my legs in to sit cross-legged across from her.
‘Shame.’ Harper sits up, sways just a little. Her eyes search my face, her hand brushing my cheek as she tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. ‘I think I’d be the perfect fantasy.’
The absurdity of her words is the only thing that snaps me out of the tension a little as I laugh. But I don’t get far from Harper’s gaze, and silence settles between us.
Harper’s eyes search mine, dark and scrutinizing. She’s close enough that I can count her lashes, the smallest mole by her eye.
She shifts closer and leans in. ‘If this is too much, tell me to stop.’
I say nothing. We’re both straining forward, aching for contact. Our lips could brush. My pulse throbs in my throat.
I don’t want to stop.
When Harper smirks, I feel it against my lips, and I implode. I read somewhere that if people could hear the sun, it’d sound like a roar. The desire throbbing in my chest feels like that now, deafeningly burning.
There’s no telling how long we stay that way – barely touching. I’m aware of every twitch, every whisper of warmth from Harper’s body, every rise and fall of our chests. It goes on long enough for a star to birth and grow across galaxies; it goes quicker than the collapse of a universe.
A buzz from Harper’s bedside table shatters the moment. Her eyes dart to her phone’s screen. Instinctively, I follow her gaze, and catch the contact name right before the screen goes black.
MARIA. Who—
Something shifts immediately in Harper’s expression, and the sleep seems to fade from her eyes. She eases back, miraculously sober. ‘I, um . . . I think you should go.’
I recognize Harper’s emotional withdrawal before its chill hits me, and I’m left with nothing but the phantom warmth of her touch burned into my skin. ‘Yeah, okay.’
It comes out shattered.
HARPER
I lie in bed long after Tia’s gone, the text from Maria burning a scar into the dark, my heart heavy, and my head irremediably messy.