6. Harper
CHAPTER SIX
harper
"It’s so pink," Bloom said, her eyes wide as we stared into the mirror side of the one-way glass in my observation room.
My hair was gooped up with pink dye that she’d just finished applying. She’d forgotten to buy gloves, so her hands were crazy pink even though she'd already washed the dye off. "I should've bought the lighter pink. Shit. Do you think it will fade?"
After my nightmares woke me up, I’d gone back to where I belonged, taking my bag with me.
Rhone was going to be pissed that I left the apartment, but I didn’t care.
Even in the observation room, I hadn't managed to fall back asleep.
The memories that haunted me alongside my bloodlust were too much.
I'd forced myself to act like I wasn't dying on the inside when my best friend showed up with the hair color earlier than I expected.
I think she was worried her mate or his Beta were going to try to stop us from dying it. I didn't think either of them were emotionally invested in my hair enough to care.
"Most hair dye fades," I said.
I had to use purple shampoo to keep mine the icy shade of blonde I liked, because of the fading.
Well, I used to.
Now, I could probably just throw more pink hair dye on it.
I still kind of wanted to make it black, though. Black would fit my current persona.
The face of death.
Maybe there was something poetic about it if I looked hard enough.
Rhone stepped into the room suddenly, his expression as pissed off as ever until he took in the chopped strands of my hair dusting the floor. And the incredibly pink dye soaking my now-shorter strands.
We'd gotten some of the dye on my face. There was a big pink stain on the center of my cheek that was a similar shade to Bloom’s hands.
"What the fuck did you do?" Rhone’s resting dickishness turned into pure rage.
"Harper wanted a change," Bloom said, glaring daggers at him. "It was this or black, and this will come out easier."
I wasn't taking it out.
I was done being blonde. I'd changed too much to go back.
Hadn’t changed enough to grow my hair out, though. That was never going to happen. Even in the darkest pits of my deadened soul, I had a short bob.
Rhone let out a slow breath, like he was struggling to maintain control. He stalked toward us, and I eyed him with a small amount of interest.
Crouching in front of me, he stole the fang necklace I'd been holding in my hand the whole time Bloom was struggling to apply the hair dye. I wasn’t sure if fangs could be stained, but I liked them white, so I’d protected them.
I watched him transfer the fangs from the chunky gold chain to a shorter, daintier rose gold one.
He didn't give it back when he was done, eyeing my hair as a glob of dye plopped onto the old shirt Bloom had brought. Rhone seemed to have done something with my old clothes.
"You can have it back afterward," he said.
I nodded.
Another glob followed the previous one to my shirt.
Rhone sat on my bed, stone-faced and overly still and very clearly unhappy as we waited for the dye to work. I probably would've found it awkward if I was feeling anything, but I wasn't.
Bloom played music and told me about the latest drama in our office building. Phyllis was being her usual, bitchy self.
My mind went back to the nightmares that had awoken me hours earlier.
I'd been draining my mom while she screamed, "KILL HER," and strangled Carter with her bare hands.
Steven had gasped "monster" while the light left his eyes, over and over and over and over again.
I'd watched myself attack the human—Davis—at the gathering again and again, feeling nothing but the bloodlust that never left me.
In my dreams, Bloom and Timber didn't stop me from killing Davis. Rhone didn't carry me out of the Gathering while acting as a living straitjacket.
I tore Davis's throat out and drank every ounce of his blood, reveling in the way it felt in my mouth and stomach while his body lay lifelessly on the floor.
Then I attacked someone else.
And someone else.
Until everyone in the room was dead.
The word Steven had called me was accurate.
Monster.
We washed the dye out and dried my hair with a blow-dryer Bloom had brought up with her. She said it would dry lighter, when we first saw the electric pink color of it. The words had sounded like a prayer.
It hadn’t dried lighter.
I blinked at the woman who looked back at me in the mirrored side of the one-way glass
Her face was gaunt. She looked ill.
But her hair was really fucking pink.
Bloom lifted a hand to her mouth, like she was going to be sick. "It wasn’t supposed to be this bright."
"Is it permanent?" Rhone growled.
"I don’t think so? I'm not a hairdresser! We didn't think anyone would let her leave, and she didn't want to go, so—"
"I love it," I said.
The room went deadly silent.
My hair was choppy, falling around my chin. The left side was shorter than the right by probably an inch. We'd missed a few random pieces here and there, and they hung down multiple inches below the rest of it.
But the pink hair, with the cropped t-shirt, and the volleyball shorts...
It looked kind of awesome.
I looked kind of awesome.
You know, minus the pink stains on my forehead, cheek, and neck. And the protruding bones and overall paleness that screamed "I'D BE DEAD IF I WASN'T DRINKING WOLF BLOOD".
"Why is it so quiet in here?" Maverick asked, as he strolled in. His nostrils flared, probably because of the eye-watering chemical scent, and he finally noticed my hair. "Wow. Interesting choice."
Interesting.
That was the perfect word.
I might never be pretty or beautiful or sexy again, but I could be interesting.
I could be really fucking interesting.
Maverick's wince told me Bloom had just done whatever the mental mate bond equivalent of jabbing someone with your elbow was.
"She loves it," Rhone said, his gaze fixed on me.
Maverick cleared his throat. "We have an... event, Sugar."
Rhone had probably just told him to get Bloom out of there so he could make me bite him. I would've put money on it.
She scoffed. "What event?"
"A lunch with your family, probably. It's Friday."
"It's not even 8 AM."
Maverick shrugged in Rhone's direction.
Rhone cut him a look.
I lifted my hand to my hair and turned my head, studying my intensely pink mane before grabbing the hair scissors off the floor.
Bloom immediately plucked them out of my hand.
Rhone covered the space between us in two steps and ripped them out of hers.
"Get out," he told her.
Unlike Maverick, he didn't aim for charm.
Bloom glared at him.
I patted her arm. "It's okay."
Maverick grabbed her by the waist and hauled her out of the room before she could protest any further.
"Look down," Rhone grumbled.
I did. "Don't make the short pieces shorter. I like them."
"I'm just fixing it."
"Do you know how to fix a haircut?"
"It’s not that hard." He trimmed a bunch of the longer bits we'd missed.
"I got it done every month, before," I said.
"I had a hairdresser. Lily. She's incredible.
She has two kids and a dog. We talked about office gossip and drank fancy wine while the bleach worked.
I paid her so much, and it was worth every penny, because I looked forward to it every time.
Even Steven didn't interrupt my hair time. "
Rhone grunted.
My eyes burned. Just a little. "I'm sure it was just a job to her, but we had fun. And if I went back, she would call me a monster."
"Short hair suits you," Rhone said.
I was pretty sure he was incapable of discussing emotions.
"Do you like your hair long?" I asked, eyeing his thick, full bun.
"No."
I waited for an explanation.
He didn't give one.
"Why not?"
Was I actually pushing him?
I was.
Wow.
"It's easier when it's short. I just don't like having other people’s hands in my hair, and got tired of cutting it myself."
Hmm.
I stared at him in the mirror, from where I sat with my head tipped forward.
"You're looking at me weird." His voice was low and grumpy.
"I was trying to imagine you with short hair."
"And?"
"It would make you even sexier," I admitted reluctantly. "You should keep it long."
His snort was so quiet, I almost missed it.
Was that humor?
Could Rhone actually smile and/or laugh?
He tilted my head differently so he could cut some other long bits, and I looked at myself in the mirror.
"Do you think the pink is interesting?"
His silence didn't answer my question.
He clipped a few more pieces before replying. "You're a turned vampire. You're always going to be interesting, whether you like it or not."
"But does the pink look interesting?" I was slightly vain. It didn’t mean I was shallow, I hoped. I’d always cared how I looked, but it was more about feeling like myself than anything else.
He lifted his gaze, meeting mine in the mirror. "Do you want it to?"
I scowled at him.
He looked back at my hair.
Was he trying not to hurt my feelings?
"Don't coddle me. Everyone else does that, and it’s annoying. You were literally scraping someone else's cum out of my body yesterday, so being polite is bullshit for you."
Another beat of silence followed
He didn't look up from my hair when he answered. "I think you look like you're trying to find your fire again. Which is interesting, I guess."
He finished clipping the last long pieces, and brushed loose hairs off my skin. "The water dripping down your neck is pink."
"At least it's not blood this time. You'd have to watch me even closer."
"You're not under observation. You have your shit together as much as a fully-turned vampire can."
"I really don't."
"You need to eat. It's Taco Tuesday in the dining hall all day today. You can go with Bloom, or I'll drag you there myself."
"Even the smell of food makes me sick most of the time."
"Get over it."
He messed my hair up, shaking the strands out to see if there were any more pieces we'd missed.
There were.
Bloom and I were horrible hairdressers. She was mainly good at schedules and paperwork, and I was only skilled at keeping an obnoxious, powerful man from losing the plot entirely. And talking people down when said obnoxious man inevitably pissed them off.