Page 113 of Fool Me Twice

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he said, banging on the window when he realized Cane was pulling out into the street, heading back toward the center of Slatehollow. Toward the Cursebreaker Headquarters. “I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK!”

“Well you don’t exactly have a choice,” Cane said, reaching out to turn the radio on. He cranked up the volume until Hart felt like the music had fingers, reaching inside him to twist at his organs.

He kept screaming to be heard over it.

He kept hitting the door. Kept trying to claw at Cane. Begging to be let go, then getting pissed at being ignored.

He tried pleading, promising things in return.

Then there were fleeting moments of clarity when he’d frown at the position he was in, trying desperately to figure out how he’d got there, before the haze descended all over again with a stabbing pain to his head that felt like it would never leave.

By the time Cane parked in front of the headquarters, Hart’s voice was hoarse from screaming. His body felt fatigued and worn out.

Cane turned off the music and Hart tried getting him to let him go once again, but Cane didn’t even look his way. He got out of the truck and came to Hart’s side, opening the door and picking Hart up again like he weighed nothing.

Hart thrashed against him, distantly aware of the bystanders watching the spectacle of him being carried inside. There was a tiny ember of shame inside him at the idea of people seeing him like that, but then Cane crossed the threshold of Hart’s former workplace and he realized he didn’t care.

He wanted out.

He fought harder.

Argued louder.

Drowned the sudden presence of other steps and voices around him until he couldn’t anymore.

Cane came to a halt in the middle of the foyer with Hart still on his shoulder.

“We’ve got him,” he heard Ash say. “Put him down before you actually snap a rib.”

Cane huffed but complied, lowering Hart to the floor, where he collapsed on his ass because he was so tired from struggling.

“The fucking wrapping loosened up.” Cane grunted, cradling his torso and grimacing.

“I’ll fix it before we exorcise the demon. Come here,” Ash offered, sending Hart a worried glance before stepping toward Taylor’s desk. “They’re finishing prepping the room, and we need to go over the details with you.”

Hart sat in the middle of the foyer, glaring at nothing at all, his mind turning over like a maelstrom. He came up with about fifty different plans for how to get out of there, each crazier than the last.

He was vibrating. He couldn’t stop himself.

Escaping was compulsory.

He couldn’t think of anything else.

Run. Run. Run.

The thought was pulsing in time with his rapid heartbeat.

“Hart?” Wren said quietly.

Hart snapped his head around to see him crouching beside him. He looked…unwell. Pale. His cursemark stood out starkly against his sickly pallor, highlighting the puffy redness around his eyes.

Hart tried to summon sympathy from within him.

This would have made him sad before. It would have inspired him to move. To act. Now all he felt was numbness, and all he could think about was getting out. That they were trapping him. That they were keeping him here against his will.

“Hart…are you in there?” Wren murmured, searching his eyes as if looking for recognition.

Hart sneered at him. They were the ones who should feel bad. They were the ones who needed to atone!

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