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, IknowSecora. 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 withyou?”
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 inhis 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.
