Chapter 23 #2
And if they don’t? If they are all cowardly, I will do it for them. I will torture him until he’s incapable of hurting anyone ever again. I’ll scrape his tongue from the bottom of his mouth. I’ll cut his cock clean off his body and feed it to the sirens.
“Elliot?”
I startle, spinning around so fast I almost lose my balance.
I am rage in human flesh, but I am also inexperienced. I’ve never hunted someone. I’ve never planned revenge. I’ve never broken into a house with the intent of harming someone.
Looking at Harrison now, I know the same isn’t true for him.
He’s a twisted, vicious monster, and I only wonder how I didn’t see it before. That unnatural gleam in his eye. Excitement, almost.
Does he know why I’m here?
How could he not?
“Sorry I’ve been out so long,” he says. He leans on the wall opposite me. He’s come from the kitchen, knife in hand, spinning it lazily.
I assumed he would be asleep. I assumed he wouldn’t know I was here until I was standing over him. Until I was snapping these cuffs over his wrists.
They’re the ones Secora has worn her entire life. I used Mama’s grimoire and ingredients to remove them, along with the two silver pairs. Secora tried to resist. She warned I could be imprisoned for life. I didn’t know how to explain that I didn’t care. That her safety meant so much more than mine.
She’d eventually allowed it. She let me remove the cuffs and replace them with a defunct pair from Mama’s office. For the first time in her life, she has magic.
In a matter of minutes, Harrison won’t.
“I’m making some boar,” he says. I look up from his knife, and he grins. “Late night treat. There’s plenty, if you want some.”
I might believe him, if I didn’t have the cuffs hanging at my side. There’s no way he hasn’t noticed them. There’s no way he thinks this is a friendly visit.
My mouth is dry. It’s been nearly a minute since he said my name, and I’ve yet to speak a word. I can’t. I can’t think about anything except his hands on her body. His hand on her neck when she tried to run. His cock forced between her legs, tearing her deep enough she needed stitches.
Magic pulses through me. It’s sparking from my fingers, through my toes.
I’ve never been more acutely aware of my power than I am right now.
I could kill him, I realize. Forget the town square.
Forget the world knowing his empty heart.
I could end this right now, before he so much as thinks of inflicting more pain.
“Elliot,” he says. He speaks slowly, like I am a dangerous animal.
And maybe I am.
Maybe, I just didn’t realize it until he stripped away logic. No, until he hurt the one person logic doesn’t apply to. Secora Reed has been mine from the moment I saw her all those years ago. She has been mine in every breath, every tortuous, hard-earned smile.
“Why?” the words tear from me. “How could you… She…”
I can’t make the words string together, can’t make my rage make sense. A flicker of fear and recognition cross his eyes. My rage pulses through my entire body as I realize…he thought he got away with it. The council excused him, and so he thought there would be no consequence.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he says. “I know you liked her.”
He knew I loved her. I’d told him a day earlier, after he’d made a snide comment. I’d told him I loved her. That I was going to marry her. That if he had a problem with her, he would be the one I cut out, not her.
He hurt her to punish me, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.
I clench my fists, loosen, clench. There’s more magic pooling beneath my skin than I’ve ever felt, than I know what to do with. I try to control my breaths, because if I act now, I might just kill us both.
“I’d gone to talk to her, to apologize,” he says. “Truly. We got to talking, and I realized you were right. She’s really cool. One thing led to another. She came onto me, man. That doesn’t make it right, but—”
I throw him before he finishes the sentence. He flies down the hallway and crashes against the far wall. He collapses in a heap on the floor, and a hanging portrait of his mother crashes on top of him. Between us, his knife lays on the floor, reflecting the hall’s dim light.
Harrison gapes up at me, staring at me like I’m a stranger. As if I have done something unforgivable. As if I am the one who betrayed him.
The irony of it is too much. I let out something between a laugh and a scream that has Harrison scrambling to his feet.
“Secora wouldn’t touch you if you begged!” I scream. My voice echoes around us, filling this small, dusty house of secrets and lies. His mother reads magic as a living.
I wonder if he inherited any of her skills.
I wonder if he realizes just how powerful I am. Just how much darkness I carry, now that he’s called for it.
“Elliot—”
“She would have been kind!” I scream. I storm down the hallway, kicking the knife back into the kitchen as I pass.
Whatever protection he thought it’d offer, it won’t.
“If you apologized for the years of torment, she would have been kind. You wouldn’t have deserved it, but she would have forgiven you, you fucking miserable asshole! ”
He cowers against the wall, hands shaking, lifted at his chest. He’s ready to strike, but he doesn’t stand a fucking chance. He’s already lost.
He just doesn’t know it yet.
“She’s a Dark One! She’s evil!” he screams. “She was never supposed to live! Don’t you get that? Everything I’ve done is to protect the people I care about. Margot. Our classmates. You. If it weren’t for those cuffs on her wrists, she would have eviscerated me, Elliot!”
“That’s right! If it was a fair fight, she would have killed you. And gods, do I wish it’d been a fair fight. I wish you weren’t such a fucking coward, and I wish she’d killed you! Once people know the truth, they’ll wish the same—”
This time, I’m the one sent backward. I land on the final stairwell, the one leading to his mother’s office. Where it happened. Where he held her down and—
I’m back on my feet. There’s blood on my chest, and I realize a moment delayed that it’s mine. He’s cut through my chest with a form of magic I’ve never even seen.
I’m out of my league, fighting someone better. Someone stronger. Someone far more ruthless.
By every mark of logic, I know I should lose.
And yet, somehow, I know I won’t.
I can’t.
Because the most precious girl in the world is at home in her bed right now. Her face is stained with tears after hours and hours and hours of sobbing. Because he got away with raping her. With torturing her. With hurting her and shattering her and—
“Let’s just talk, Elliot,” Harrison calls. He walks toward me, hands still raised, ready to fight. “I don’t know what Secora told you, but it’s her side of the story. Not mine. Like I told the council, it was consensual. If she regretted it later, that’s on her, all right?”
Even if he weren’t trying to blame Secora, I’d know he was lying. Because for as much as I thought I knew Harrison, I know Secora. I’ve listened to her heartbeat while she falls asleep. I’ve listened to her fears and her hopes and those rare laughs when she forgets to shrink herself.
I know Secora.
I don’t need to hear Harrison’s side, because I know hers. I sat at her side at the healing center while they gave her stitches. I held her when she was too scared to fall asleep that night. I stroked her hair while she sobbed that no one would ever believe her. I told her I believed her.
I told her I’d fight until everyone else did too.
And I failed.
I failed and Harrison got away with it, and Secora isn’t going to get the justice she deserves unless I do something right now.
“Trust me,” Harrison says. He’s still walking toward me, only a few paces away now.
His pale eyes study mine, searching for signs I’m about to lash out.
I’m not. I’m frozen still. Reconciling everything I thought I understood about this ugly world.
“Secora Reed is dangerous, and this is just further proof. If they don’t send her away, which they obviously should, you need to keep your distance.
For real this time. It might feel strange at first, but I promise, it’s for the best.”
He stands before me. Close enough I could grab him. I could wrap both hands around his neck and squeeze until there’s no life left. There might be more satisfaction in that, overpowering him the way he did Secora.
“Is that what you think?” I whisper. I don’t recognize my own voice, and by the way Harrison flinches, he doesn’t either. “You think you’re going to rape my girlfriend, have her sent away, and things will go back to the way they were?”
I’m vibrating again. Not just my hands now. My legs. My lips. My body.
“You think because you fucking tortured her, I’m going to love her less?” I ask. I’m screaming. Loud enough someone could hear us. It doesn’t matter. Even if they do, they won’t get here in time. “You think I’m going to side with you?”
Harrison’s eyes don’t narrow. He keeps his features cool and collected. He is both puppet and puppet master, carefully controlling his reactions. I can see it. The way he thinks he can twist this situation in his favor, so long as he finds the right words.
“You are a pathetic, entitled, worthless shell,” I say, lowering my voice. “The world will be better without you in it.”
He scoffs. Makes a show of rolling his eyes. He’s too exaggerated in his movements, too transparent in trying to distract me. He thinks I won’t notice the way he shifts. The way his hands lift to strike.
He doesn’t understand that’s exactly what I’m hoping for.
Magic flares from his fingertips, but instead of hurling me back to the stairs, it pulls me close.
Our noses are almost touching as Harrison’s power digs through my flesh.
It slices from one shoulder to the next before slicing toward my stomach.
I have no idea how deep he cuts, only that the blood is instant.
It pools over my pale orange clothing, coating everything crimson red.
I scream, knees buckling. But I do not feel the pain. There’s too much adrenaline coursing through me. I’m wholly focused on my movements. Not too fast, but quick enough he doesn’t see it coming.
By the time he realizes, it’s too late. I’ve already got one band around his wrist. He tackles me sideways, and we collapse to the wooden floors. My blood pools around us, but I stay focused.
I wrestle him beneath me. He buries his fingers into the open wound in my side, and I choke out a scream. Louder and louder, ignoring the pain. Thinking only of her. He had her beneath him, just like this.
The second band clasps with a tiny, metal clink. It’s too quiet for me to hear over my screaming and Harrison’s yelling, and yet, I swear I do.
I swear the whole world goes quiet in that moment.
I may be cut open and bleeding, but for the first time in Harrison’s miserable life, he doesn’t have magic.
“Really?” he rasps. He’s working hard to be calm, to act like he’s not a breathing dead man. “Is this your grand plan, Elliot? Make me feel weak? Show me how it feels? Do you want me to beg for mercy like she did? Would that make you feel better?”
I stare down at him. I’m straddling his waist, holding him down by the wrists. If he tried, he could probably shove me off him and make a run for it. But we both know he wouldn’t make it far.
“Did it make you feel better?” I ask. I study the golden bands on his wrists. Imagine him doing the same to Secora. My Secora. “Did you feel like a man when you hurt her?”
“What, are you going to rape me?” he screams. “Will that make us even? Are you going to rape me so you can tell your whore that I suffered like she did?”
He’s screaming so hard he’s spitting, his face a mask of red. My blood, mixed with his fury.
“No,” I say quietly. “Only a monster would rape someone.”
His face relaxes. He tries to hide his relief, tries to replace it with forced nonchalance, like he’s not still chained.
“All right,” he says. Scoffs. “Then will you get off me? We can figure this out. Take these stupid things…”
He trails off. He moves slowly, turning his head with almost comical delay. His eyebrows furrow as he studies the skin of his right wrist. There’s nothing visible, but he must feel it.
I stare at his arm too, at the space just above where I hold him. Where I send my magic through his skin in droves.
“What are you doing?” he asks. It’s a horrified whisper that instantly pitches. “Elliot, what the fuck are you doing?”
His wrist splits open. I’m pulling so violently at the blood in his veins, I’ve broken through his flesh.
Blood sprays from his wrist, and Harrison screams. He thrashes against me, tries to break free, but it’s far, far too late.
I concentrate only on my magic and the weight of his blood.
I pull and pull and pull, coating us so heavily in his blood it’s impossible to know what’s his and what’s mine.
Beneath his shoulder, a pool of blood seeps into the hardwoods. He thrashes until he’s lost too much blood, until he’s barely conscious. Only as he falls still do his blue eyes return to mine.
“Please,” he cries. “Please. I’m sorry. Please, Ell—”
I look away from Harrison as he dies. I stare at his wrist, at the blood running thin, until I am certain his evil has left this world.
“You deserved worse,” I whisper.
I don’t really register what I’ve done until I’ve left the augur house. Until I’ve hit the main streets of Ochre, where weeks ago, Harrison and I debated which classes we’d take at university. Then, all at once, reality sets in.
I just murdered my best friend.
Harrison is dead.
I’m hurt. Badly.
I look down at my chest and my stomach. The cuts are deep. I don’t think it’s enough to kill me, so long as I get to a healing center. But there’s somewhere I need to go first.
Secora deserves to hear this from me. I need to warn her what might happen, but assure her that I’ll never regret killing him. I need to tell her how much I love her—how much I will always love her—and that I only want her to be safe and free and happy.
Keeping a hand on my stomach, I limp toward the Blake house.