Page 13 of Out of My Flocking Mind

A low rumble came through the line, the sound something between annoyance and incredulous, like he couldn’t quite believe the sound had come from him. “Just stay there.”

“You’re going to come save me?”

“If I don’t, and something happens to you, my sister will never give me a moment of peace again.”

“Ignis can be mean.” I folded my legs, ignoring the few people who did pass as they made sure to not lock eyes with me. Then again, I was a drunken blue-haired girl sitting in the middle of the sidewalk at one in the morning. I guess I wasn’t what others considered good friend material.

“Why do you do this?” he asked after I thought he might have hung up.

“Do what?”

“Drink yourself to this point. Ignis said she tried to get you to go home a few times, but you slipped her grasp. You clearly did it on purpose. Why?” He paused, then asked, his voice softer, “Was it because of what happened?”

“I’m not smart enough for trauma,” I said, not feeling the laugh I hung on the words like a costume. “I just felt like a girl’s night was in order.”

He made a soft sound, one that implied he didn’t believe me. That was fine—who did?

Pain in my head made me wince, and for a moment, I wondered if it was the alcohol. Was this some aneurysm caused by my horrible habits? Maybe my body was giving up the good fight, like the victim in an abusive relationship who had had enough.

Except, as quickly as I’d thought that, I recognized that shooting pain through my temples.

It was like that night.

I gasped, dropping the phone to grab my head for all the good it had done me before.

“Grey?” Harrison’s voice came from the speaker, but it seemed miles away.

Instead, the rushing of that pain was all I heard, at least until that other voice echoed in my skull. “I told you I’d see you again.”

I whined softly, trying not to respond even as that voice whispered to me, “To think you’d go out alone so quickly. How stupid can you be? Or do you have some sort of reckless death wish? Maybe you wanted to meet me again and came out here for that reason?”

I shook my head, unable to utter any words. I wasn’t sure if the alcohol numbed the pain or the pain pushed back the alcohol, but I felt less drunk than I had earlier.

“What should we explore this time? I saw fear from you before, but you have so many layers, so much hidden. Let’s see what else I can find.” After he said that, like a soda can opening, panic bled through me.

This time I saw myself at fifteen, in the back of a car with a handsy boy I’d thought liked me, who I’d gone with thinking it was the start of some beautiful romance. Instead of that, however, I’d found myself parked in the middle of nowhere with Handsy-McGee yanking my skirt off.

Now I could laugh about it, about my own stupidity, about the whole fucking thing, but in the moment? I recalled the fear—no, not just recalled, I felt it beating at me. That helplessness, the way he’d held me down, the disgust he’d looked at me with like I were trash, just a toy for him.

“Even crows can bite.” The voice of the man who had made me slithered to me, beneath the panic, through the shadow’s voice, all of it.

It gave me the moment I needed, and my crow stretched her wings inside me. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough to slam shut that memory, to lock it away.

A cry echoed in my head, one that said the shadow hadn’t guessed me capable of that. To be fair, I wasn’t sure how I did it, either.

I blinked, waking from that horror, to someone crouched before me.

And I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a scream when I found myself face to face with Harrison.

Chapter Four

I couldn’t seem to scrub that memory from my mind. It was worse than the one I’d gone through before, because this one I clearly recalled on my own. I remembered after that, how fucked up I’d felt, the way I’d showered and scrubbed and thrown away the clothing I’d had on. Maybe for someone else it would have been some defining moment, but it almost felt worse that it wasn’t.

Someone touched my shoulder, causing me to jerk away, my eyes peeled wide. I could still feel that memory, the way that asshole had grabbed at me, the sensation of his warm, sour breath on my face.

Harrison pulled his hand away and took a step backward. His expression showed no signs of hurt, as though my overreaction didn’t matter to him, though he still gave me space.

“Sorry,” I muttered, then forced myself to put on that mask I always wore, the one of the jokester who nothing ever affected. “Who would have figured I’d become a germaphobe, huh?”

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