Page 78 of Out of My Flocking Mind

“You can resist this,” I said when the silence became too much. The pain had lessened, but I was still fully aware that he was there, inside my mind, and that he could tear me apart from the inside easily.

“But why would I?” Harrison tilted his head but came no closer. “Do you know how hard I work to control myself? All my life, my powers have been enough to affect others even when I try not to, even when I exhaust myself attempting to hold it back. Day in and day out, I have to keep myself from doing what comes natural to me.”

“That’s because you don’t want to hurt people,” I said, trying to break through to him, past the Cloud, past the madness that created.

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. You can’t. You have no idea the pressure on me to resist or the drive inside me to taste the minds of those around me. It is like constantly walking through a buffet and not being allowed to sample anything. You steal—I saw your home, the countless shiny baubles you’d taken to please that other side of you, the crow inside you that demands that. However, me? I’m expected to always resist, to never give in, to be perfect.”

I forced myself to walk closer to him, hoping that by seeing me more clearly, I might shake him back awake. It wasn’t like I suspected this fake distance between us made a bit of difference when it came to his ability to harm me. “It’s not about being perfect. You just know the man you want to be. Ryder tried to tell me that he was better than you, but I told him that was bullshit. You wake up every day and want to do more for those around you. You want to protect others, want to keep them from getting hurt. You are a better man than he could ever be.”

Harrison let out a low groan, as though he loathed that I had to say such a thing. “Will you hate me, then? I don’t think I can resist, so will you hate me later for what I’m about to do?”

“Can’t you resist it?” My voice trembled.

His answer was his expression, one mixed with both excitement and anguish, as though the Cloud fought with his conscious and he was sure the Cloud would win. No, he couldn’t resist. The best I could hope for was Trey to wake up, for Galen or Kelvin to arrive, which meant the most important thing was to survive this.

It meant when he came forward the last few steps that separated us and placed his hands on my cheeks, when the pressure in my mind increased, I forced myself not to fight it. Sure, I tended to much prefer my privacy. My crow pecked at the inside of my skull, hating the idea of anyone taking anything from me—especially my thoughts, my memories. Still, I didn’t fight, didn’t resist it at all. I understood that resisting would only make the damage worse.

And as weird as it sounded, my biggest fear was Harrison when he woke from this drug later, when he saw what he’d done. If I fought this, I’d be dead, but him? He’d have to live with it. That felt like letting Ryder win, and I was too petty a bitch for that.

So I tried to ignore the pain when he slipped deeper into my mind, the touch of him against my thoughts so much more personal than when we’d had sex. It was a whole different level of intimacy that I honestly never fucking wanted. Still, I kept myself relaxed.

The first thought that popped open, the memory that swarmed through me wasn’t one like Ryder had pried from me. He’d wanted the painful ones, the ones I’d hated. Harrison, instead, woke a memory of a family dinner. I couldn’t even recall exactly when it had happened, only that it was before I’d changed.

I saw myself, a few years younger, and my family all around the table at my mom’s house. My siblings were still underaged, looking so young and innocent, but me?

I almost laughed at the troublemaker I appeared. Instead of my now normal blue hair, I’d had the locks dyed a bright red. I think I’d been kicked out of an apartment after a dustup with a neighbor, and my mom had let me spend a few nights there to gather myself.

“I’ve never had a family dinner.” Harrison’s voice made me turn to find him behind me, his gaze locked on the table. “It looks nice.”

At least he sounded a bit less…crazy.

“We did them a lot. Once my brother and sister moved out, they became a little less often, but we still do them at least once a month. Maybe you’ll come with me next time.”

“I doubt your brother would like that.”

“He never likes the men I bring to dinner.” I frowned. “Why this memory?”

“It was easy to access. I know you’re trying to give me space, to not resist, and I’m trying, too. If you were anyone other than you, I would have turned your mind to nothing but sludge already. Only you could get me to hold back, even with the Cloud.”

“That’s oddly terrifying and romantic, which I’m pretty sure is the only type of romantic I’m willing to accept.”

Harrison let out a noise full of pain before clutching his head. I didn’t need to ask why, because someone else suddenly stood in the room as well.

Ryder.

“I can’t believe I underestimated you,” he said, looking my way with an expression that didn’t bother to hide any of his disgust. “I thought that Cloud would be enough to deal with Harrison and you, but imagine my surprise when I figure out that somehow, you got through to him.”

“I don’t want to hurt her,” Harrison said, his voice full of pain. “I don’t want to cause any harm to her.”

“Of course you do—you just resist it. I know you, because we’re so much alike. You want to hurt her, to dig into her thoughts and own them all for yourself. You want to taste every memory of hers, to roll around in her brain. It doesn’t matter how well you think you know a person, there’s no way to get closer, to own them more than to dig into their mind, into every piece of them that they try to hide from the world. You hide from it all you want, you pretend that you’re somehow different, but I know the truth. You see, no matter how little time we spent together, you and I are exactly the same. You just won the lottery, and I lost it. But if anyone understands the darkness inside you, it’s me. You don’t need to hide it, not from me.”

Harrison shook his head, his hands still clutching tightly. Even though he denied it, I could see the truth in his face. He did want to hurt me, at least in this moment. It might have been the Cloud along with the years of self-restraint snapping, but he wanted to crawl through my head, damage be damned.

“You see,” Ryder said, this time to me, “Harrison might act high and mighty, but at the end of the day, he’s a scared little boy. We didn’t spend much time together as kids, but we did a few times. Once, I got to come stay where he was being trained for a weekend. I guess they thought it would be good for him to have me there. It was pretty fucking cruel to make me witness everything I didn’t get access to, but what did they care about me? The thing is, I got to see the real Harrison then. He was nothing but a little boy trying to live up to the expectations of others, knowing he’d never manage it. I knew then that I should have been the one to get the powers, that I could have ruled better. I’m stronger than he is. He’s the same now, too, just a kid trying to pretend to be an adult.”

I went over and shoved Ryder, my helplessness turning to anger. “I told you before and I meant it. You will never be half the man he is!”

Ryder smirked. “I hope you think that when he rips you to pieces. I wish I could have done it, but I’ll enjoy watching it just as much.”

---