Chapter 19
nineteen
Harper
COYOTE, BULL, AND CUPID.
How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? Long enough to know Tristan wasn’t breathing. Long enough to know he never would again.
Adrenaline was fading. Pain increasing. Panic growing louder.
It had been self-defense. Logically, I knew that. If someone found us here and called the police, I could probably prove it. But my fault or not, it would cause a scandal, and Tristan’s family was one of Dad’s biggest investors. He’d never forgive me for this.
Is that why Logan never told him?
I couldn’t let myself spiral over that. Later definitely, but right now, I had to deal with this.
Attempting to push myself up the wall made the pain worse, a sob involuntarily escaping me as liquid fire ran through my veins. My left arm hung limp at my side, ignoring my attempts to move it despite the agony.
Weak. Pathetic. Look what you’ve done.
I couldn’t fix this. Not on my own.
Pain tore through my heart as well. Because the first person I wanted to call for help was Benny. But I could never drag him into this. I’d done enough damage to him.
Using the arm that still worked despite the pain, I called the next person I could think of. Archer.
The longer the ringing tone went on, the more it sounded like a siren warning of my damnation. It rang out. My lungs shrank in my aching chest. I tried again. Again, it rang out. I sobbed. My lungs betrayed me further, as if they hadn’t done that enough. I struggled to draw in a breath.
Don’t panic. Keep it together. Panicking won’t help you.
I tried Archer again. It rang out.
I was lightheaded, my chest jerking with every breath half inhaled, twice exhaled.
Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.
Who else could I call? My mind was blank, shutting down beyond the basics needed to survive.
Don’t pass out. Breathe.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“What color are my eyes?” Archer’s voice from my memories, from another time my life as I knew it had changed and I’d spiraled until he brought me back. I tried to picture Archer’s eyes. Couldn’t. They’d faded with everything beyond the pain and the body in front of me.
But there was another face I could picture. One I’d never forget.
“What color are his eyes?” I asked myself as I closed my own and thought of Benny.
“Brown.” Inhale. “What kind of brown?” I exhaled on every word.
Inhaled again. “They’re… the color of… dark leather.
” Inhale. “Chestnuts.” Exhale. “Hot espresso.” Inhale.
“Chocolate box cakes.” Like ones I used to make with Logan.
Benny’s eyes were the color of comfort. Safety. Warmth. Of the closest thing I’d known to home.
“My favorite scent is…”
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
“Him.” Warm. Grounding. Soft. Vanilla and sandalwood.
As I shivered from the cold, I thought of his warmth. His color. How it felt to have his arms around me.
When I opened my eyes, my cheeks were damp, but I could breathe a little easier. I could think a little clearer.
I tried Archer again. When the call rang out again, I called the only other person I believed could help me. The only other one who seemed reliable. Coyote.
The phone rang. And rang. The line timed out.
Breathe.
I tried again. It rang. And rang.
“Yeah?” a sleepy voice grumbled as the line picked up.
Hope shattered me, the calm facade I was attempting to maintain to deceive myself instantly crumbling.
“Coyote,” I sobbed. “I need you to help me. Please. I can’t get in contact with Archer and I…
I did something bad. It was self-defense.
I wasn’t thinking. I can’t fix this myself. I don’t know what to do!”
“Whoa there, calm down, Little Snake Prince.”
“He tried to hurt me. He hurt my brother. I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to get away, and he wouldn’t let me and now—”
“Okay, stop. Don’t say anything else.”
Panic. “Please. I’ll do anything, please—”
“I said stop.”
I choked on all the words that wanted to spill free.
“Okay. Breathe in deep and just listen for a second. Do not tell me any more details right now. Do not tell anyone any details right now. Don’t call anyone else. Just tell me where you are and explain when I get there. Got it?”
I sobbed, nodding even though he couldn’t see me. “Okay.” I sniffed. “Um… Kingston Street. There’s an alley. I think next to a bridal store.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour. Stay put and stay quiet.”
“Hurry.”
“Okay.”
“Please.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
The line went dead, and all I could do was wait, watching the lifeless body in front of me. I’d never been religious, but I prayed to whoever might be listening that no one found us before Coyote could get here.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Tristan.
By the time the alley was lit by the red glow of taillights, I couldn’t move beyond the intense shivering. The cold, and something worse, had seeped into my bones and locked them up.
I was so tired.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Tristan.
Was it Coyote who had come for me? Was it someone else?
I couldn’t move forward enough to see around the dumpster.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Tristan.
The engine stopped. A car door opened.
“Here, snakey, snakey.” Coyote’s smoky voice. “Where are you?”
I should have tried to put my walls back up. My facade. I didn’t want to be seen like this. So weak and pathetic. So small. But I was too tired.
“Oh, there you are.” Dusty combat boots entered the corner of my vision.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Tristan.
“Oh, shit.” He dropped the playful tone. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off Tristan.
“Harper.” Warm fingers touched my jaw, and I flinched. He pulled them away, moving to kneel in front of me instead, blocking my view of the body. I blinked, meeting stormy eyes that saw too much. I looked away.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened. My clothing was disheveled and filthy. Tristan’s pants were unfastened and halfway down his ass. Still, I hated the concern and pity I’d seen in his eyes. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said in a voice colder than my skin.
“Okay.” His own tone was softer and warmer than I’d ever heard it. “Okay. Can you stand?”
I was silent long enough that he knew the answer without me having to say it.
“I’m going to need to touch you to help you up.”
Pathetic. I nodded once.
Coyote held his hands out to me. I stared at them before shaking my head slightly, still unable to look him in the eyes.
He sighed. “Arms?”
“Left. Can’t move it.”
“Can I see it?”
I nodded.
His fingers were warm as they slowly peeled the fabric of my shirt away from my chest to see the joint.
He sucked in a breath. “Dislocated. I can pop it back in, but we’ll have to take you to Bull to make sure it’s set right.”
“No, just set it and take me home.”
“Nuh-uh. You want my help, then you go to Bull.”
“Please.” I was crying again. I hated myself. I hated him for seeing it. “I just want to go home. I don’t want anyone else to know, Coyote.”
“Look at me.” His voice was firm, but not unkind. “Harper.”
I turned my head to glare at him.
“There is nothing, nothing, that you have to be ashamed of.”
He’s lying.
Coyote’s eyes softened, almost glassing over. “It’s not your fault.”
“You don’t—”
“It isn’t. Trust me. I understand more than you think… and I didn’t believe it either until someone else told me. But it just isn’t.”
His eyes told me more than I’m sure his mouth ever would. I looked away again.
“I’m going to help you sit forward now, okay?”
He moved to the side of me, and my eyes found Tristan again. Locked onto him as Coyote’s arms slowly eased under my legs and back, moving me forward enough to do what he needed to do.
“It’ll hurt worse for a second—”
“Just do it!” I snapped.
“Alright, alright. Keep breathing. Don’t pass out.”
The moment his hands were on my arm, I was groaning in pain, but he didn’t stop and I didn’t want him to.
Not even when the steady force he applied triggered the worst physical pain I’d ever experienced.
I cried out, then felt a pop in my shoulder, the unbearable pain gone in an instant, immediate relief replacing it.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, it’s a bitch.” Coyote huffed as he pulled away. I groaned as I pulled the limb into my side, clutching it like it would fall out of place if I let it go.
Warmth spread over my shoulders and back as the fabric of Coyote’s jacket covered me.
“I’m gonna get you up now.”
More pain throbbed in my hip as he set me on my feet, but I would not let him carry me to the car. I’d been vulnerable enough in front of him.
“I’ll get the door. The car probably has heat or something you can put on.”
He walked ahead of me to open the passenger door of the old sedan.
“Whose car is this?”
Coyote shrugged. “Don’t know. I stole it.”
Perfect. I sighed and got in, trying as much as possible not to contaminate what would be Exhibit A in our trial should anyone find it.
Coyote popped the trunk, and I tried very hard not to think about what he was doing, especially as the car lightly jostled with the extra weight being added in.
You did this.
Then he was getting in on the driver’s side and we were back on the road.
“There weren’t any cameras that I could see. Though I assume that’s not an accident?”
I looked out the window rather than responding. Tristan had probably chosen that specific place knowing there weren’t cameras. Maybe if I hadn’t been crying like a fool, I’d have noticed him before… everything.
You did this.
I never should have joined The Veil.
The car came to a stop out the front of a very average-looking house on the border of Harborview and Deltran.
I’d never been to Bull’s house before. Of all Archer’s group, I’d seen him the least, both of us more like honorary members.
But I knew he was Archer’s cousin, and one of the few people in his family he actually liked.
I had to trust him. I figured Archer would have told me if I couldn’t, like he’d told me he wasn’t sure about a couple of the others.