Page 53 of Ghosts of Halloween

But first, Silas should stop touching her. My fingers curl into fists as I watch him paw all over her, suddenly so freaking soft and cutesy, it makes me want to puke. I don’t break them up, though. Because that’s what she needs, and what she needs is more important than what I want.

I hate her but I love her. God, this is fucked up.

She’s calmer, breathing fast but not screaming, burrowed into his body so close, it seems like she wants to crawl under his skin. As he strokes her head and back, murmuring, tension slowly leaves her shoulders, and she melts into him.

The gash on her forearm doesn’t bleed anymore, but the wound is red, her skin and his shirt smeared with blood. She cut horizontally across her wrist, so there’s not much damage. And since she held the knife in her prosthetic palm, maybe her hold was weaker. That’s why the wound is shallow.

Point is, she won’t bleed out.

I release a shaky breath and sit down on the floor, right where I stand, leaning back on my hands as I watch Silas sink to the floor, too, Harlow in his lap. He looks at me over her messy head, and I frown, but my anger bleeds out of me when I see how shaken he is.

Skin and lips pale, eyes huge and dark, Silas stares at me in a way I’ve never seen before. His face is open, vulnerable, and for the first time in my life, I see him scared.

31

Harlow

The pain in my chest becomes an insistent, dull weight, something I think I’ll carry forever now. Unless I can cut it away. Even though my attempt was thwarted, that urge to end it right here, right now, is a constant buzz in the back of my skull.

From the corner of my eye, I see the knife just beyond the threshold. If I could only get my hands on it and run…

But I’m too weak. With that desperate rage, all my strength poured out of me, and now I can only sit limply, Silas’s murmurs like a meaningless background noise. I can’t discern his words. He might be talking nonsense for all I know.

For a moment, I wonder if it’s truly the same man. The way he holds me so tenderly is jarring after what he said just now.

It’s your fault Noah’s dead. It’s your fault we died.

Silas’s words will haunt me forever. So it’s confusing that after saying that to me, after driving that pain so deep in my heart, he feels sorry for me.

But the hard-edged, mocking enemy who wanted to punish me so badly is the same person who guessed I was raped. He’s complicated, and in my current state, I don’t even try to understand him.

I’m wiped out, and yet in pain. It’s a strange, hollow state, someplace between waking and a nightmare. Silas’s voice becomes distorted, his whispers gaining a dreamy quality, and I blink slowly, the room blurring before my eyes.

I am warm, I am lost, and it feels so good to just let go… Which is why it needs to end.

I don’t deserve this.

“Let me go,” I say, trying to get free.

Silas grows silent, his hands on my back stilling, and he clears his throat.

“Harlow, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean…” He exhales, his breath warm on my nape, and shifts under me. “Please, let me make it better.”

“No.” I try to push him away, but his hold only tightens, and next thing I know, my hair wraps around his hand, and he holds it in his fist like it’s a leash.

“You don’t get to tell me no, angel,” he says, voice raspy. “I was taught that if I break something, I have to fix it.”

I laugh bitterly at that, because I was broken long ago and deserved it, as it just turns out. Everything bad, horrible, cruel that happens to me—I deserve it all. The pain inside me solidifies, growing hard and dark. I can’t process the extent of my blame. It hurts so fucking much, the agony pulsing deep with every beat of my heart, and I can’t even feel sorry for myself. I am the villain. I don’t have a right to hurt now. I don’t have a right to tears or hugs, or anything good.

Even my emotional display just now fills me with shame. I killed my brother and his friends. I don’t get to throw tantrums.

“Fix it,” I repeat when my laughter dies on my lips, hollow and meaningless. “Yes, I’ll fix it. Whatever it takes. So tell me.” I shift in his lap, taking his face in my hands, eyes staring into his as I whisper, “How do I set you free?”

Silas shakes his head and his skin, rough with a day’s growth, rubs against my palm. Behind me, Jack releases a frustrated breath, and I don’t look at him, even though everything inside me burns with the craving to see him.

But I can never look at him again. I don’t deserve him.

I can look at Silas, though. He is not exactly good. There is a cruelty inside him, a burning craving for primitive justice, and I crave it, too. I want to desperately undo what I did and make it better, but if that’s impossible… I want to suffer.

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