Page 52 of Out of My Flocking Mind

“Wait,” I whispered as Harrison walked toward the hallway that would take him to his room.

He paused, but didn’t speak. Instead, he gave me the chance to gather my thoughts and figure out what I wanted to say.

“If you just want to explain to me how fucked up I am, you’re wasting your breath if you think I don’t already know. I’m well aware of how screwed up I am, but knowing what’s wrong is a lot different from knowing how to fix it. How am I supposed to be different?”

He turned, facing me for a moment before coming over and kneeling in front of me. It was strange to see him like that. Harrison, a man feared by so many, was there before me in such a position. And damn it, my filthy brain rather liked the sight. He set his hands on the tops of my knees and looked up into my face. “People don’t change at all once. Instead, you can only decide in each moment what you want to do, who you want to be, and take it one step at a time.”

“And what does that mean right now?”

“Tell me what’s wrong, and let me help.”

I blew out one long, centering breath, before nodding. “I can feel myself getting closer to needing Kelvin’s bite, and that terrifies me. I’m stuck here, knowing I can’t leave, and that offends every part of my crow. I feel like I’m in the middle of something I can hardly understand, but I’m somehow expected to help. I just feel…” My voice trailed off when I couldn’t come up with something that truly fit, with an explanation that would tell him just how out of sorts I felt.

Harrison didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. He listened to each word, seeming to weigh them, to take them in, to consider them as though they mattered. Finally, he offered just one word. “Overwhelmed?”

And yeah, that fit. “Yeah, that’s it. It’s just all too much.”

“Do you know why it is too much? Because you hold it all yourself, because you try to be everything and do everything yourself. No one is meant to hold so much all on their own.”

“Including you?” I threw back.

He smiled, though it held hints of pain, as though he knew damned well I was right. “Fair enough. So what if we both tried to let someone else help…just a little. Let me help you, and that will ease my burden as well.”

Fear beat at me, as though I stood on a cliff. I didn’t know what help meant, but I knew I had to make a choice. Would I open myself up to this man? Would I trust that I knew him better than what others said? That I understood him well enough to know he wouldn’t turn on me?

I nodded when the words felt too thick in my throat.

Harrison moved his hands from my knees, up to my cheeks. His palms were warm against my skin as he straightened his back, still on his knees but at his full height. It brought his face up to where mine was, and he pressed his forehead against mine.

The brush of his mind to mine was gentle, even it made me jerk away. It didn’t hurt, not like it had before, when I’d gotten attacked. This felt like the difference between someone biting my lip hard and someone coaxing a kiss from me. Harrison coaxed, with soft touches and careful movement, and damn him, but it worked.

He slipped into my mind, the sensation strange and uncomfortable and oddly familiar. It felt warm, like sitting before a roaring fire, but I recalled how many times I’d ended up with red skin because I’d ventured too close. Would this burn me, too?

“Your mind is a mess,” he whispered, his voice in my head. “You really carry too many worries, all of them rushing through you.”

“I don’t do that,” I argued out loud. “Anyone who knows me would say my brain is empty more than it’s got any thoughts in it.”

“That’s what you want people to think, but it isn’t true. I can see it, feel it all. Just try to relax, let it all go.”

As he said that, my mind felt…lighter. It seemed as though he’d removed some of the heavier items, shifting things until it didn’t feel nearly as crushing as it had before. Perhaps it was better to say he shored up the fears inside me, balancing them, making them easier to carry myself. It didn’t feel like it did before, during my attack, where that other mind had forced me to relive whatever he wanted, where he tore through my barriers and my thoughts. That had been someone breaking in and ransacking my house, where Harrison behaved as though I’d invited him in and he was careful to not get mud on the carpets.

It felt as though he hummed, a melody playing inside my head, calming and quiet. Was that him? It was funny, as I didn’t think he had much peace in him, yet he somehow shared what little he had with me. And for the first time—possibly ever—I let him. I gave in, giving my mind over to him.

Still, the sensation of him there in my head was oddly familiar. I tried to work out why, even though it was hard to hold on to any thoughts of my own. I recalled what Ignis had said before, the fact that each Mind had a feeling of their own. It was like any other Spirit, each on its own wavelength, like a DNA to identify them. I knew how Ignis felt because of all the time I’d spent with her—she was like mint, something clean and fresh.

The Mind who had attacked me had reminded me of cinnamon—spicy and almost sweet. It had felt overwhelming at the time of the attack, but looking back, I could best identify it as cinnamon.

“Whatever you are thinking about, don’t. Just sleep.” Harrison’s whispered command in my head was too strong for me to resist, to even want to resist. He made it so the worries, the fears in my head didn’t feel so close, so unbearable.

So I didn’t fight his command. My eyes slid closed as I gave in, as I leaned against him, allowing him to hold me up. He lifted me into his strong arms, and the steady beat of his heart further lured me into that placid place inside me where nothing bothered me, where nothing worried me.

He carried me with such care, as though I were precious to him. Just as he’d slipped into my mind, I also moved through his. I didn’t understand any of it, only got a general, vague sense of mine, but he didn’t resist my presence. It made me recognize that no matter what I thought of him, whether or not I trusted him, he felt some connection to me.

Still, none of that stuck with me. As he settled me into a bed—his bed—with him beside me, only one tiny detail remained in my head, something I couldn’t shake away.

It was the scent of cinnamon from his mind, the same one I’d felt during my attack.

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