Page 90 of Inextricably Tied

Nervous energy crawls up Harbinger’s spine. Hands wringing together, rocking on her heels, glancing between Flint and the door.

She knows what’s coming. She doesn’t want to go inside.

“It’s ok. Flint, please.” Desperation stretches her voice like taffy, molding it into the words she didn’t say back then. “It’s ok that you touched my skin. It’s ok! I can deal with it.”

Flint shakes his head. There’s a strange quality to it, distinctly not-Flint. It’s his body, his voice, but the way he moves isn’t right.

She recognizes it.

Flint rings the bell again.

“I have to. I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not.” Harbinger wills her hands to reach for him, to pull him back, but they don’t move. “It’s ok. I promise it’s ok.”

Suddenly, Flint turns the knob and pushes into the house. “I have to do it.”

She scrambles to follow, but as soon as she steps inside, he’s gone. She knows she won’t find him, and still, she moves from room to room on the ground floor.

There’s nothing. No trace of him.

Her feet stop in the living room. In the corner is an old recliner, discolored from years of use, a pattern worn into the fabric. Two lines against the leg rest, one on each arm, a patch rubbed raw against the back.

As if someone was just sitting there.

Darkness shifts in the corner of her vision. She can’t look right at it. It’s not supposed to be here. Shadows don’t quite take shape, peering in from a distance. Watching.

Harbin.

Upstairs, the house creaks. Wind batters the walls until they sway. Harbinger clings to the doorframe, staring at the darkened stairwell, afraid to blink. Afraid her feet will take her there again.

Harbin, you’re dreaming.

All the noise cuts off. The house is drowned in silence. Everything is still.

Then Harbinger screams.

Phantom pain rips through her. Her knees hit the carpet, scream echoing until it boils out of her in the real world, sending her shrieking up in bed.

The sharp pain is gone, but the hole inside her throbs, rubbed raw at the reminder — like stitches torn open. One of the Timbers rushes up to the cabin, but Harbin holds up a shaky hand. “Sorry: it was a dream. I’m sorry.”

Aren’s lynx ears twitch. “Should I get Flint and — your other partner?”

Harbinger breathes through her nose, inhaling until it burns. “No, it’s ok. I’m fine.”

His eyes narrow. Still, he steps down from the cabin, ushering away the other Timbers approaching.

She needs air. Fresh, not the stale remnants of her house, so she finds her way out to the lake. It’s so dark she can hardly make out the opposing bank, but on this side, a small fire burns in the center of a loose circle of empty seats. She drops into a chair, fighting not to shiver against the cold.

Before she sees them, she feels them. The buoys of their presence bob to the surface of her mind. Flint comes with a steady gravity of emotions. Certain and strong, never overbearing, a solid rock beneath the waves. What he lets her feel is the tip of the iceberg, but she can make out the massive expanse beneath.

Agony’s harder to pin down. A drifting dreaminess that tickles her senses, déjà vu slipping from her grasp. Feather-light and teasing, a flutter of eyelashes or rustling leaves before it vanishes again, leaving her reaching for something she can’t quite get her hands around.

“Bad dream?”

Flint and Agony cast dark outlines against the sky, wings blocking out starlight next to a pair of incandescent eyes. Feeling swarms Harbinger’s chest, ruffling everything in its path before she tamps it down.

For a moment, it seems normal, as if Agony was always with them. As if they weren’t thrust together through some weird hand dealt by fate. Agony sinks into the chair beside her. Harbinger tears a blade of grass between her fingers. “Believe it or not, my body’s already gotten used to cramming into the same bed.”