2. Harley
Harley
Three days later, I pick up the small blue duffle bag Nathan insists on giving me.
It weighs almost nothing.
That bothers me.
Everything bothers me, but that bothers me in a way I can’t explain.
Like the bag should be heavier. Like leaving should require more than a few changes of clothes, a toothbrush, some soap, and whatever other basic-human-survival crap Nathan probably stuffed inside when I refused to look.
I don’t know what’s in there. I don’t care.
Looking would make it real, and real things have teeth now.
Everything has teeth now.
The strap digs into my palm as I stand in the doorway of the rooms I’ve been living in for weeks. Living. Hiding. Being kept. Being protected. I still don’t know which word is the truth, and maybe that’s the part that makes my skin feel too tight.
The room is quiet behind me.
Too quiet.
The bed is made because I barely slept in it.
The sheets still smell faintly like detergent and sweat, though I changed them yesterday after another nightmare left me soaked and shaking.
The bathroom light is on because I haven’t been able to handle darkness, and the lamp beside the bed is on because I can’t handle too much shadow either.
I hate that someone might notice. I hate that they already have.
Nathan noticed. Marcus probably noticed too.
All of them probably noticed, with their wolf noses and wolf ears and wolf instincts.
My fingers clench around the duffle strap until the nylon bites. Good. Pain is real. Pain makes sense.
The rooms suddenly and absurdly seem less frightening than returning to the apartment I was abducted from. What the hell is going on with that? That place is mine. It has my stuff, my furniture, my dishes in the sink if nobody cleaned them up, my sheets, my locks. It is my home.
Or it was.
Before Joshua Dobson.
Before claws and blood and men turning into monsters and monsters wearing men’s faces.
Before I learned the world has never been what I thought it was.
My throat tightens. I swallow hard and force my feet to move.
Yes, I was kidnapped and…other stuff. My brain skids away from the rest of it, slamming a door shut before the memories can crawl through. I don’t need to think about his hands. His voice. The way he smiled like hurting me made something inside him purr.
No.
No, no, no.
I tighten my grip on the bag and stare at the hallway.
My apartment is still my home, and now I know to lock and lock and lock my doors.
And windows. I’ll shove furniture in front of them if I have to.
I’ll sleep with every light on. I’ll get a gun.
Or ten guns. Except what the fuck is a gun going to do against something that can turn into a wolf and rip a person apart before they can scream?
My stomach lurches.
Anyway, the psycho who took me is dead.
Dead should mean safe.
Dead should mean over.
Dead apparently doesn’t mean shit.
Because really, nowhere is safe from these shifters. They can find me, Harley has no doubt.
I stop breathing for a second.
I can’t even think in first person anymore? Great. That’s healthy.
I drag in air through my nose and regret it instantly.
The room still carries too many scents, even for my weak human nose.
Clean linen. Soap. Coffee drifting from somewhere deeper in the compound.
Dust warmed by sunlight. And beneath all of it, something wild I’ve started recognizing even when I don’t want to.
Wolf.
The word turns my mouth dry.
But shouldn’t I rather be away from them than in their midst?
My body doesn’t seem to agree. My legs are stiff. My chest hurts. There’s a weird ache under my ribs, like someone has tied a string there and started pulling it deeper into the compound instead of toward the front door.
Some kind of psych thing where I’m getting attached to my keepers. Stockholm Syndrome, that’s it.
The thought helps for half a second. It gives me a label.
Labels make things manageable. Labels mean I’m not losing my mind.
I’m just reacting wrong because trauma rewires people or whatever.
That’s a thing, isn’t it? People get attached to dangerous things.
People pet snarling dogs after they bite.
People go back to abusive assholes because the awful is familiar.
Maybe that’s all this is.
Maybe Nathan’s kindness is just another cage.
“Are you sure about this?”
I squawk and spin around so fast the duffle bag smacks my thigh and I crack the back of my head on the door frame. Pain bursts bright behind my eyes.
“Shit!” I slap a hand over my racing heart and glare at Nathan. “Jesus Christ, yes I’m sure! Otherwise one of you will kill me just from sneaking up on me like that!”
Nathan stands a few feet away, hands raised, like I’m something skittish he doesn’t want to spook.
My heart hammers against my ribs, each beat so hard it feels like a fist punching from the inside. Heat crawls up my neck, followed by cold sweat. I hate how fast my body betrays me. I hate that Nathan can probably hear every stupid little malfunction.
He really looks like he wants to laugh, his eyes bright and lips twitching at the edges.
That should piss me off. It does piss me off.
But under the irritation, something smaller and more dangerous twists in my chest. Regret.
A fucked-up little twinge of it, sharp as a splinter.
I’m not going to have Nathan around anymore.
No more careful knocks. No more cups of coffee left outside my door when I refuse to come out.
No more patient voice telling me I don’t have to talk if I don’t want to.
What the fuck, Harley? Really?
I examine the emotion for a second, because apparently I hate myself, and find I don’t feel anything for Nathan more than some weird companion-type thing. Something I can kill if I step on it fast enough. Something that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
I let it go.
“Sorry.” Nathan’s smile fades like he senses the silent murder of our potential friendship. The guy seems to slump a bit, and that bright spark in his eyes vanishes. “I am sorry, Harley. We’ve taken care of a few things for you—”
I open my mouth to argue, because of course they have. Of course they went into my life and touched things. Of course they handled problems I didn’t ask them to handle.
Nathan shakes his head before I can get a word out. “Never mind. Just… Just go, and be safe, and happy, and if you need anything—”
“I’ll take care of it myself,” I finish.
The words come out fast, hard, and too sharp. I need them sharp. I need them to cut whatever softness is trying to grow between us. I don’t want to hear more of Nathan’s too-honest sounding words. Nathan will shatter my conceptions of shifters, and that would be very dangerous for me.
Monsters are easier. Enemies are easier.
People who bring duffle bags and apologize with hurt in their eyes are a problem I am not equipped to survive.
Nathan’s jaw tightens. “Who’s driving me?” I ask, because I need to move this along before I do something stupid like thank him.
“It was going to be me, but Marcus and I have to meet some friends who are trying to find a couple of missing people.”
I wish he wouldn’t share anything like that with me. Missing people. Friends. Concern. Plans. It makes him sound normal. It makes this place sound less like a den full of predators and more like a home full of people trying to hold too many disasters together with both hands.
It just makes Nathan that much more human.
“But that’s not your problem, sorry,” Nathan continues. “I didn’t think you’d be comfortable with another one of our kind in the car with you, so we decided you can just take it. We’ll have someone pick it up next weekend.”
I’m not going to argue even though I don’t particularly want to take the car. Borrowing something from them feels like a hook under my skin. One more tie. One more reason they can come find me later.
But I want to go home.
Don’t I?
My fingers ache from holding the duffle. My head throbs where I hit it. My pulse won’t settle.
I scowl and hold out my hand. “Okay, I’ll leave the keys in it if you have a spare.”
Nathan holds up two sets. “We do. It’s the little blue truck out front.” He offers one of the key rings to me. “Have a safe drive, and if you need anything—”
“Y’all’ve done enough,” I spit out.
Only the anger isn’t in my words.
Instead, I sound grateful.
Worse, I sound like I might break.
My damned eyes start burning. My hand shakes as I swipe the keys from Nathan’s palm, and I turn before he can see too much. Before he can smell too much. Before I can say something that makes this hurt more.
I stride as quickly as I can without actually running for the front door.
My heart slams so hard against my chest that it hurts, and breathing seems almost impossible as my lungs cramp with the need for air. Part of me wants to stop. Turn around. Ask about the man I saw lying in that bed, hooked up to machines and IVs. The one who looked more dead than alive. Val.
The name slips through me like a spark.
I don’t know him. So why does just thinking his name make that string under my ribs pull tighter?
What would it hurt to ask now, when I’m leaving?
A lot, apparently, because I can’t make my mouth work. I’m afraid of the fact that I even want to ask. Afraid of what it means. Afraid that whatever broke inside me when Joshua took me didn’t just leave cracks.
Maybe it left openings.
Maybe something has already crawled in.
What the hell is happening to me?
Nathan calls my name behind me. At least I think he does. Maybe I imagine it.
The door is right there, the steel cold beneath my fingertips. I grab the knob and twist.
Cool, crisp air stings my skin. Bright morning sunlight assaults my eyes. I dive out the door like the building is on fire, not even caring if I shut it behind me.
The truck is a blurry dark shape in front of me.