Harrison squeezes harder until I start to thrash. Until I am nothing but a wild animal, fueled by instinct. Magic surges through me, trapped by the golden bands, but not gone. It swells until it feels too big to contain, as if it might explode and kill us all. Just when I’m sure it will, Harrison loosens his grip.
I suck in desperate breaths. It takes everything to stay upright, to not fall at his feet.
“Vile,” he repeats. His hand remains at the base of my neck, mockingly gentle. He’s looking at me—I can feel it—but I don’t dare raise my eyes from the ground.
Margot is gone and tears are leaking down my cheeks and a pathetic sob rips from my throat.
“Stay away from her,” Harrison says. His low voice is an infection, spreading through my body like an incurable disease.
His fingers twitch, as if to tighten again, only to suddenly disappear. Harrison steps away. At first, I think he’s grown bored of me. That, without Margot for an audience, he doesn’t care to torture me. But then, I hear what he clearly already has.
Footsteps. Not Margot’s. Not Mrs. Raekes’.
“What’s going on?”
It’shim.
My entire body tenses.
“Harrison.”
His voice is hard. Loud. Close.
“What are you doing?” Elliot asks.
I don’t want to look.
No, I don’t wanthimto look. To see me, standing here, humiliated and pathetic.
Head still lowered, I peek through the tangled mess of my hair.
Elliot Lyrie stands before us. He is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my entire life, and as an orphan, I’ve met a lot of people. I’ve lived in orphanages and strange homes, switched schools more than once. I’ve seen too many people to harbor a guess. And without a doubt, Elliot is the most stunning of them all.
He has dark hair, thick and wavy, with a single strand that curls over his forehead. His eyes are mostly brown with hints of gold and green and even a bit of blue in the right lighting. He’s taller than Harrison, but leaner. His muscles come from running and playing groundball, not from terrorizing orphans.
Where Margot is wearing yellow today, Elliot and Harrison both wear shades of burnt orange. It looks stupid on Harrison. Too muddled, too dark, with his pale hair and blue eyes. On Elliot, it looks like art, like the colors were created purely for his use.
“Are you okay?” Elliot asks.
Harrison makes a show of rolling his eyes. He shoves his hands in his pockets, scoffing as Elliot comes between us.
“Really, Elliot?” he asks. It’s a condescending yet good-natured response. “We were just talking. Right, Secora?”
My mouth is too dry to answer, not that I would anyway. No one, aside from Margot, will believe that Harrison is a cruel villain. Because while he obviously hates me, he seems to love everyone else. He’s created a picture-perfect golden boy persona, and if I weren’t so intimately familiar with his cruelty, even I would believe it.
“Oh thank the Mother!” Margot calls.
We all startle to look at her. She sprints down the alleyway, halting at Elliot’s side. She’s panting hard, face red from exertion.
“I got Mrs. Raekes,” she says between heavy breaths. She glances over me before glaring at Harrison. “I told her what you did.”
“We were just talking,” Harrison says again. He shifts slightly, the first show of nerves, but then looks at me with an expectant expression. “Right, Secora?”
For reasons I can’t explain, even to myself, I find myself replying, “right.”
Maybe because I want this to be over. Maybe because I can’t stand the way Elliot is looking at me. Like I’m a sad, neglected dog.
“You’resuchan asshole,” Margot says. Turning to Elliot, she adds, “He’s tormenting her.”
