Page 135 of Bound By Fury

What the fuck?

My heart is beating overly fast, and I cough, choking on my saliva.

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m teetering on a precipice. That I am about to free-fall. Infinitely.

Indignant, I hurry after him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sam calls as I pass them, grabbing my arm to stop me. “What’s going on?”

The words are out of my mouth before I can catch them. “Malachi! His—his tattoos! They were moving! I saw them! They moved with my finger like… like they were following me or something, and I—”

“Wait,” they say, glancing around confusedly. “What are you talking about? What tattoos?”

“What do you mean, what tattoos?”

“Harper, please, maybe you’ve had too much to drink. Let’s get out of here, and we can find something to—”

“No!” I say, pulling away from them, ripping the flask from my bra and shoving it to their chest. “You don’t understand. I’m fine. I’ll go splash some water on my face or something. But I know what I saw!”

“Hey!” Daisy comes to stand beside Sam. “Chill the fuck out!”

I look at them both. Friends. They’re supposed to be my friends, and I’ve done nothing but push them away from the moment I met them. And now they probably think I’m insane, and I deserve it.

But it doesn’t matter, it’s too late now.

I turn on my heel, ignoring the sound of my name as I run toward the exit.

Gone is the little girl with a sketch pad and graphite staining her hands. Gone is the girl who wished on one of those falling stars that she would be able to love this boy forever. In her place is Harper, Zodiac Witch, and I’m gonna kick his fucking ass.

I slam through the doors to the outside, and it’s a torrential downpour. Because of course it is. I turn in a circle, hoping that he hasn’t gone too far already, and find Malachi standing against the brick wall of the building, only half shielded from the rain.

I stomp over to him, blinking through the water streaming down my face. It’s freezing, but he must be on fire because steam rolls off him in waves. His throat bobs up and down as he eyes me.

“Your tattoos!” I say, pointing at his arms. “What—how—” The alcohol is intensifying my feelings, darkening my words. “Who the fuck are you?” I ask, near sobbing. “When did you—why would you—” For some reason on the run over here, I thought my argument was going to be a lot more coherent.

Instead I can’t keep a thought long enough to articulate it. “You watch me,” I say. “And don’t lie and say you’re protecting me or some bullshit like that! Because I know better now. I know there are things going on in the world that are bigger than us. I know that I’m different, that I—but… are you… I know what I saw. I know you’re different, too.”

He’s vibrating in front of me, the muscles in his jaw working, his hands opening and closing as he peels himself off the wall and prowls toward me, the look in his eyes making static accumulate at my fingertips.

The necklace against my throat burns the skin beneath it.

A swirling tempest of emotion engulfs his eyes until they’re all pupil. Widening black threatening to devour me whole. “You’re an idiot,” he says, circling me as he speaks. “Can’t you see what you do to me?

“Can’t you see,” he closes his eyes against some invisible pain, “that you fill me with a need so depraved, so disgusting that it makes me wish you’d never come back here? Can’t you see why I wish we’d never met? Why I wish I’d never laid eyes on you? That I never—that we never—”

“What? That we never what?” I scream over the howling wind. “Just say it! For once in your life, just say what you really mean! How you really feel!”

His auburn lashes are blood red in the rain, his cheeks a deep, painful pink beneath my gaze.

“You really wanna know how I feel?” he laughs bitterly, throwing his hands up. “Fine! Fiona is gone, Harper. She’s not the first. She won’t be the last. You were nearly killed in the hedge maze. How is that not enough for you? What else has to happen to get you to leave?!”

He ticks his next words off on his fingers. “You’re snooping around where you don’t belong, you’re always asking dangerous questions, you’re careless, you’re reckless, you’re impulsive, and you’re too emotional, you have boundary issues, and you never take no for an answer.” His chest heaves as he speaks, and I have to fight to not react to the waver in his voice. To still my own chin.

“I always thought you were magic. I thought you were the answer to every question I had about the world. But now I know different. I see you so much clearer. You don’t have the answers, Harper. And you never have. You aren’t magic. You’re an infuriating,” he steps closer, “insufferable,” his face is mere inches from my own, “mess.”

“You’re wrong,” I growl, baring my teeth at him.

“Am I?” He grins, his eyes darkening. “Or do you have a death wish? Is that it?”