Page 61 of Cruel Lies

Standing there in front of Nash’s door, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes burning a hole into the fucking thing, was none other than Harper.

A very irate Harper, from the look of it.

And then I watched her swipe a hand across her face, drying tears. The part of me that lingered in the past, in the dream world, broke free and rose to the surface as I wordlessly crossed the room and wrapped my arms around her from behind, silently leading her to the couch.

Her gaze was watery, but as she turned to me, it was like a flashback. I’d seen that look on her face before. Only then, it hadn’t been one of my brothers who’d put it there.

"Are you okay?" I asked, already preparing for the worst. "Did he hurt you? Force you to do something against your will?" My eyes shifted to his door as the sounds of Nash stumbling around his room, banging into things, reached my ears. "Harper, did he hurt you?"

Her whole sad countenance shifted in a heartbeat to disgust. I could feel her recoil, emotionally as well as physically, and regretted my word choice instantly.

"No," she whispered, wincing as something hit the wallbehind that door. "He didn’t hurt me." She stared at her arms, stretched out in front of her, turning them over to show me that there were no visible marks. "Not on the outside, at least."

I didn’t want to care about her feelings. I didn’t want this pit of agony in my stomach that swirled as I thought about all the things he could have said or done to cut her this deep without using his knife, each one worse than the last.

It was like an out-of-body experience, like watching a stranger, as my mouth opened, and I heard myself speak. "What did he do?"

Her hair brushed against my cheek as I held her, both of us sitting sideways on the couch, both staring at his door like we expected him to burst from it at any moment, screaming and swinging that knife of his around, making drunken threats.

"It’s not important, Angel," she muttered, her arms moving to wrap around her like she had done in my dream, in the memory. "I’m just temporary here. I shouldn’t worry about his stupid fucking problems with himself. When the hit on me expires, I’ll be gone, and then Nash won’t have to look at me again."

Silent tears fell from her eyes, and a dilemma rose in my heart.

I could talk to her. Explain Nash a bit, push her in the right direction.

Or I could forget about it and let her go to the office and lie down, pretending this never happened. Hell, she’d probably crawl into Rowan’s bed and seek comfort from that fuckwad.

The part of me I denied, the part that wanted so badly to be the old Angel, prodded at the back of my head like an annoying fly until I finally gave in and sighed. "Here. What do you like to eat? Let’s raid the kitchen for a snack, and you can tell me about what happened."

"I don’t wanna talk about it," she insisted, but when I rose from the couch and reached for her hand, she let me drag heralong into the kitchen and leaned against the counter as I opened cabinet after cabinet looking for snack food.

Nash had a collection of it, but I could never figure out where the fucker hid it.

"Damn Nash, where did he put the junk food?"

Harper chuckled. "Last cabinet on the left, bottom shelf, inside the oversized soup pot."

I’ll be damned."How did you know that?"

Her grin was contagious as I emerged with a bag of cookies, a single bag of microwave popcorn, and a bar of chocolate. "I saw him hiding them yesterday when he thought I wasn’t looking."

"Smart girl." I deposited the snacks on the counter and returned to the fridge, pleased when this time I was able to find a big bottle of the damn water I knew I’d bought more of. "I wonder who’s been drinking my water. I know I grabbed more than this one bottle."

"Ah, sorry, that fancy shit was yours?"

I should have known."Don’t worry about it. We can share this bottle tonight."

Back on the couch, the silence and the awkwardness were back in full swing. Clearly, she wasn’t in the mood to tell me about what had happened between her and Nash, and I knew I shouldn’t want to know. I shouldn’t get involved.

But I had to do something.

So I turned on the TV, found the stupidest chick flick I could, and settled the bowl of popcorn on the cushion between us. The water wedged nicely into the crack of the couch, and I snapped the chocolate bar in half and handed her a piece, then settled in to wait.

For what, I wasn’t sure.

I didn’t need someone else’s problems. I had my own, dammit. And she would be gone in a flash, a blink of an eye, and then things would return to normal.

But a part of me wanted to make sure she didn’t get thewrong idea about Nash. As much as I argued and fought with the fucker, I knew how hard his life had been, especially after the scars. He didn’t deserve to hurt the rest of his life, and if this was the moment in my life I could help him, the deepest part of me, the part that couldn’t stand to see another person hurting, the part I buried and killed over and over as I murdered people, had to do something.

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