Page 77 of Out of My Flocking Mind

“But we aren’t anywhere close to there anymore, and you can’t find me or Ryder.”

Harrison shifted me so I turned, facing him. He stroked his fingers over my cheek, the touch so gentle it made my chest ache. “Bears have a fantastic sense of smell. He was able to track Ryder by scent.” He peered down at me, noting the changed clothing, stared hard at my face—which I must have hit on the dashboard when the truck came to such an abrupt stop. “You were hurt again because of me.”

“Not because of you. I made the choice to come here, to save Trey. I couldn’t let him get killed when I could stop it.”

“Trust me, you are not the only one who will have to deal with that,” Harrison said. “You’ll have to answer that to a few people. I suspect Galen will get here soon, and Kelvin as well. I doubt they will find your penchant for self-sacrifice to be as charming as you think it is.”

I sighed, thinking about facing off against those two after everything else. No doubt they’d be pissed, but what other options did I have?

I turned to find Trey coming closer, easily holding the much smaller Ryder by the back of his neck. They got to just in front of us, and I was really damn happy to have the huge Trey there. Ryder had appeared angry before, but it was nothing compared to his look right now. He stared at the way Harrison touched me, an anger in his expression that was terrifying.

I’d learned that emotion that deep could twist people, could make them do things that would be unimaginable at any other time. In other words? It could push a person to things even I didn’t want to think about.

“This is over,” Harrison said, speaking to Ryder. “I have tried to help you, tried to protect you for my entire life. I ignored when you came after me, when you targeted me, but you have now gone too far. I will not ignore your actions when they endanger those I care for.”

“Please,” Ryder snapped back. “You’re fucking loving this. You love when you get to be the hero, when you get to be the big man over me.”

“You think that because you see the world as you and everyone else against you. You have no idea how to exist in a community, how to interact with others without dominating them. You are fearful of others, and due to that, you go straight to hatred. You want to harm others before they harm you, and you don’t care if they were going to at all.”

Ryder laughed, the sound lacking any genuine sense of sanity. “So what now? You’ll kill me? Let’s not play stupid games like that—you don’t have it in you to do that. You feel too guilty about everything you stole from me. Are you going to take my life, too?” He tossed the question out like a challenge, and no matter how much I knew Ryder deserved exactly that, I also suspected Harrison wouldn’t.

“No,” Harrison said, his voice softer. “But I will have you locked up so you can’t hurt anyone again. You can live your life in isolation, so you don’t have the chance to carry on as you have been.”

I sighed, wanting to tell him he was an idiot, but knowing better than to do so. This was Harrison’s choice, and I understood how he wouldn’t want to be the one to kill his own brother. If I pushed him into it, if I made him do that, he’d only come to resent me for it later. At the end of the day, this had to be his choice.

His wrong fucking choice…

Except, before I could say anything else, a startling fear overcame me, and right on its heels—a pain in my head. I looked toward Ryder, familiar enough with his tricks to identify it immediately. Whatever he’d done must have surprised everyone, because Trey had dropped to his knees and even Harrison stumbled. Ryder took his new freedom to come forward, his hand out. I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to stop what happened as Ryder shoved his palm against Harrison’s face.

At first, I thought maybe he was trying to smother him, until he pulled back and I spotted the familiar clear powder on his palm. Worse, more of it rested on Harrison’s face.

Harrison blinked, stumbling and catching himself on the side of the truck.

“Harrison?” I asked, unsure what to say.

He looked up at me, but his eyes held a strange vacancy, as though he weren’t truly awake.

Ryder started to laugh, moving backward. Trey appeared unconscious in the dirt.

“What did you do?” I asked.

Ryder gestured toward his brother. “What does it look like? You know, in all the time he made Cloud for me, all our attempts, he never took it. Not once. He knew it would increase his power, that it would take away that pesky sense of responsibility he had, but he still never took it. I wonder what the effects will be.”

“Maybe it’ll be that he tears your mind apart, you fucking idiot,” I shouted.

“I doubt that. Look where his eyes are locked. You’re way too interesting for him to take notice of anything else. I’d wanted to fuck you up myself, but maybe this is better. Harrison will sober up sometime tomorrow and he’ll have to live with what he does to you.”

“He would never—” I started to say, but a sudden pain shot through my temples.

It wasn’t the same as when Ryder. In fact, it made Ryder feel like some ham-fisted virgin trying to figure out where a girl’s clit was. Harrison, on the other hand, sliced through any defenses I had with such speed and dexterity that it terrified me. It went to show that no matter how much he tried to hide his power, how much he tried to never scare another person, never do things they wouldn’t want, he was more than capable of it.

I managed to look back at Harrison for a moment before I felt him fully take over my mind.

Fuck. This didn’t look good.

* * * *

The world had disappeared around me so I existed in some void with only Harrison across from me. He stared at me, his expression different from the one I’d grown used to. He seemed distant, not himself.

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