Chapter Abscission
ABSCISSION
Nolan
THE COTTAGE IS DARK WHEN I enter, the corners in deep shadow. Morpheus caws from the open window when I step inside. Only the barest hint of fading light from the late summer sunset reaches Harper where she sits in the living room.
I know something is wrong before I even see her face. She stares straight ahead toward the chessboard, her expression eerily blank, her posture rigid.
My heart buckles under a sense of dread when I say, “What’s wrong?”
She doesn’t answer.
I let my bag slide from my shoulder, setting it on the floor.
“Did something happen?”
I take a step toward her. There’s a flash of motion, and I react just fast enough to catch a metal object before it hits me in the face.
I briefly glance at it before looking to Harper, who’s returned to her statuesque position.
The only movement she makes is the tightening of her fist where it rests on her knee.
“What is this?” I ask.
It takes her a beat to unlock her jaw and say, “What does it look like?”
Her words are cold, calculated, a scalpel slicing through my skin. Emotionless. Merciless. Indifferent to the distress that’s churning beneath my bones. Just like how I’d use my knife to carve out my trophies. Now it feels like it’s twisting through me.
Memento mori.
Harper still doesn’t move, not even to glance in my direction.
She just waits. I tear my attention away from her to look more closely at the shining object in my hand.
It’s a long silver plate, perforated by holes, some of them plugged by screws.
There are scratches on its surface as though something metallic attempted to tear through it but failed.
And it’s still affixed to a shard of shattered bone.
“It’s a titanium surgical implant,” I finally answer.
“Bingo,” Harper says, slowly turning enough to lay her gaze on me. I was wrong when I thought there was no emotion in her expression. It’s all right there in her eyes. Fury. Rage. She’s ready to kill. “And for an extra point, how about you tell me why you put it in Arthur’s garden?”
I blink at her, my skin ice cold despite the sweat that rises to my palms. “What?”
“You . . . ” She rises. “Tell me . . . ” Turns to face me. There’s a flash of something metallic at her side that she keeps close to her thigh. “How and why you put it in Arthur’s fucking garden.”
There’s a quiet click of a manual safety on the handgun in her grip, a stamp of finality to her words. The raven croaks from the window.
I put my hands up, though she keeps the weapon tight against her thigh. “Harper . . . I have no idea how it got there.”
“Try again.”
“It’s the only answer I have.”
“And you’re the only person who knew. The only one I told.” Harper’s grip flexes on the weapon. Tears shine in her eyes. “Is this your way of getting back at me?”
I take a step closer. She takes one back. It feels like my body is being hollowed out. Like she’s cutting herself out of me, one slice at a time. “Getting back at you for what?”
“Leaving you and your brother behind to die so I could fuck off into a new life would be my guess,” she says.
Every muscle in her body is winding tighter.
Her shoulders shake with rage. “Makes sense as a pretty strong motivator, seeing as how you’ve already killed everyone else who left you on that road. ”
“Harper, I would never hurt you.”
“You came here to kill me.”
“I did,” I admit. It’s like a slap to hear it out loud, even though we both already know it. I’m not sure if it makes the breath of silence between us better or worse. I hold my hands out toward her, a plea for a pause. “I did. You’re right. But that’s not why I’m here now. I know you’re confused—”
“I’m not confused,” she snarls, her voice breaking. She takes another step back, even though I haven’t moved. “I’m very fucking clear—”
“I don’t know how the bone got there, Harper. I really don’t. But it means you’re not safe here.”
She lets out a mirthless breath of a laugh. “I couldn’t agree more. That’s why you’re over there and I’m over here and there’s a fucking gun between us.”
“Please . . . ” I take a step. Her lip trembles.
But her eyes shine with a pure and feral fury and it’s not just directed at me.
I can see it in the way she clears her tears away with a harsh swipe of her hand.
She’s angry at herself. Every time grief flashes across her face, she replaces it with rage.
And that’s what truly scares me. “Harper . . . let’s just sit down and figure this out. ”
I venture another small step, and this time, her leg hits the armchair as she backs away. She knows she’s blocked in.
Harper raises the gun with a shaking hand and points it at my heart.
“The anniversary was today.” Tears stream down her cheeks now, her face a study in torment. She fights to maintain control of herself, but she’s losing. “You knew today was the day Adam died.”
“So did Arthur, and Lukas.”
“But neither of them knew where the bone was. I never even told Arthur what Bryce’s name was, let alone that I still had any of his remains. Only you knew that. And you put it in the garden where you knew the mayor and sheriff would be inspecting.”
I force myself to take one agonizing step backward, hoping the space will somehow help. But deep down, I know it won’t.
Desperation chokes up my throat. My eyes sting. I can feel every thread of us unraveling, and I’m fucking powerless to stop it. “I swear to you, it wasn’t me. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“You know that I saw what you put in your scrapbook when I first took it, Nolan. The photographs. Those pieces of skin. You tortured everyone who was connected to that accident. And what better way to torture me than to fill my heart and then crush it.” Harper falters, as though hearing those words makes them unbearably real.
“You knew it would hurt me more than any blade. It’s the one thing worse than dying. ”
“I know that. I promise you, I would never.” I keep one hand raised as I slide the other into my jacket pocket, every movement careful and slow.
Maybe I could wait until one of the moments where she falters and try to rush her.
Knock the gun from her hand. Pin her down until she’s forced to see that I’m telling the truth.
But I already know she’ll never believe me.
So this is the last thing I can do. And it’s not how I ever expected it to go.
I pull a box from my pocket—the one I’ve stared into countless times over the last two days. I saw joy in her face when I imagined this moment. A whole life mapped out before us. And now I’m grasping at the last filaments of something evaporating before my eyes.
“I love you, Harper. I know we didn’t start off right, like normal people do.
Life hasn’t been fair to you. I certainly wasn’t.
” I hold the box between us with one hand, slowly moving the other closer so I can open it.
Harper’s lips press together as a fresh wave of tears glaze her eyes.
“I am being honest with you. I came here to kill you, and I wish I could take that back. But then I got to know you. I saw how brave you are. How loyal. How smart and funny and resilient. How complex and beautiful—your light and your dark and all the shades in between. And I would never do anything to purposely hurt you.”
A battle flickers across her face—the life she still wants, and the one she’s ready to walk away from. It’s a crack in her armor, a first shimmer of hope.
I open the box. Harper’s lips part on a shuddering inhalation. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Harper.”
Three things happen all at once.
I drop to one knee.
The raven says a single word. “Autumn.”
And the light in Harper’s eyes flares to white-hot rage before it dies.
“Autumn,” the bird croaks again from the windowsill. But just like a moment ago, it sounds different. It’s not Harper’s voice. It’s a much lower register. A man’s voice.
Harper’s grip firms on the gun. Her jaw is set. Determination glares down the muzzle at me. “Get up,” she hisses.
“That wasn’t me. I’m not the only one who knows your name.”
“Get. Up.”
“Please don’t do this. I never trained him to say that, I swear. I’m begging you, Harper,” I say, lowering until I’m on both knees. “Please.”
“Get the fuck up.” Harper’s voice cracks, her eyes shining with violence.
She keeps the gun trained on me as she gives me a wide berth and storms toward the door.
I turn enough to watch through tears as she yanks the door open, then picks up my backpack and tosses it onto the flagstone path.
“Get the fuck out of my house. Don’t make me kill you. ”
“Do it,” I say, lowering my hands to my sides. I shake my head. “I can’t do this life without you.”
“Right. Because I’m yours. Yours to manipulate.
Yours to hurt. Yours to destroy.” She steps back from the open door, giving me plenty of space, the gun never wavering in her grip.
There’s no shake in her shoulders anymore.
She’s decided. Determined. Defiant. “If you cared about me at all, you will get the fuck up and leave, not make me mop your blood off my floor and put your body through a fucking woodchipper.”
Those words unleash the final flicker of pain in her face. And then it’s gone.
I hang my head. How could we fucking end up here? How could everything crumble to this when it feels like we’ve been through so much?
I set the open box on the side table next to me, taking one last glance at the diamond ring that was meant to represent our future.
And then I rise. My steps are slow and measured as I walk to the door.
I pause at the threshold, not bothering to wipe the tears that fall from my lashes. “I just want to love you.”
“You can’t.”