I squeezed my eyes shut tight.
“Do you know what Scout said to me when she brought me home from the hospital?”
I shook my head, even though I knew Harper wasn’t looking for an answer.
“She said none of us was ever going to get a happily ever after living here, that it wasn’t possible, and that surely I could see that now.” Harper made a choking sound that flashed video clips of Scout laying on the ground with her hand fluttering around that piece of glass through my head.
Harper sniffed. “She told me that before, back after I found out Jax was waiting to propose until he had enough money or a plan or whatever he thought the perfect future was and I thought it was so stupid, but Scout said he was right to want to get away from here because there weren’t any happy endings in Halo. But when she said it the other night—you know how she talks, like she knows every fucking thing in the world— So when she said it the other night, I screamed at her. Told her to get out, that she didn’t understand, and I hated her. So she went. Then you showed up and I hated you, too. But she was right. If it hadn’t been you killing Jax, it would’ve been him killing you. Or me killing him. Or Scout. Or something awful. Something even worse. Because that’s what it’s like here.”
That’s for damn sure.
“I know she was annoying and screwed up sometimes, Tough. But I loved her.”
I turned around and faced Harper. She was leaning against the doorway, staring down at the floor. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks were red and dry like all the tears had given her a sunburn. She took a shuddering breath and let it out.
“I don’t have her anymore. I don’t have him anymore.” She laughed this broken laugh. “All I’ve got left is you and Jesus, preacher boy, and to be honest, I’m not really that big a fan of you anymore.”
I laughed, probably a lot harder than I should have. I laughed until my eyes were watering. You can only get so low before everything starts to look hilarious.
Harper made a face that was probably supposed to be a smile. “I guess the point is I can’t stay out of this fight anymore. We’re stuck with each other. So now what do we do?”
I didn’t know what to tell her. Not very many days ago I’d thought Harper was hot, but that she would never know how to get up and keep going once life knocked her down. Now I could see how wrong I’d been about that.
“I guess we start with the small questions,” she said. “Have you fed yet today?”
I shook my head, not sure what she was getting at.
“Well, you should. Here.” She swiped her hair off her neck and waited.
I shook my head, hard. I would rather find out firsthand whether vampires could starve to death.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” she said. “You kill me? Trust me, these days that sounds like the best possible thing that could happen to me.”
I’d like to say I didn’t drink off her, but you know the story by now.
We didn’t have sex, at least. Harper was my friend. Had been my friend. I couldn’t ruin what was left of that.
I tried to pay attention while I was drinking because I wasn’t sure she was going to fake-collapse—part of me was still pretty sure that she wanted to commit suicide by vamp—but she must’ve been too used to doing it the right way. Her knees gave out and I had to break the suction on her neck so I could catch her.
The vampire side of my brain latched onto that, psyched as shit to have brought down a living creature. I took a couple steps back, wiping blood off my mouth.
The kill-instinct was satisfied, but something else inside me wasn’t. My brain needed more. It needed to be blackout drunk so it wouldn’t have to think, wouldn’t have to listen to that faulty wiring in my head running through everything wrong I’d ever done, everything I could never atone for.
Now there was a word I hadn’t thought I even knew the meaning of anymore—atone.
Consider this my only shot at that, I thought. Not getting to drink enough anymore. That can be my punishment.
Maybe if I’d never tried Scout’s crow-magic blood trick, the separation between how much normal blood affected me and how much more I needed it to affect me wouldn’t have been so far apart. Maybe it would’ve been easier to live with.
Or maybe it was Desty’s blood. Finn had said he couldn’t get enough to be satisfied anymore—that he’d drained three groupies since drinking off her and even that wasn’t enough.
Destroyer blood, like Rian had said. Took it out of your girlfriend’s hide.
But it ended up being Tiffani and Jax’s voice yelling the loudest in my head: Alkie. The way you die is the way you stay.
It was just me again. It was always me. Why I ever bothered trying to find something else to blame my shit on, I don’t know.
Harper found some gauze and rubbing alcohol, but by the time she was done wiping her neck down, the blood charm on her bellybutton ring had already healed up the bite wounds. She tossed the bloody gauze in the trash.
“The next time you see Logan, you’re going to need to offer him something in return for drinking off me. Money would probably be best since you’re not anybody’s protector yet.”
I gave her a thumbs-up. If me and the world survived long enough to run into Logan, I would deal with that then.
Harper snorted. “I can’t believe that after everything you still manage to
