Page 78 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
Finn dropped into his chair. He was struggling, but she didn’t know if she cared. “How can I trust you when you know that someone you love is being personally victimized by your mother? You do love Petra, don’t you? She’s one of your best friends? A comrade as a fellow Knight?”
He nodded, but did not form words.
“Then what in seventeen hells iswrongwith you?” she screamed, clutching Axel. “How could you let her suffer like this?”
“I’m scared,” he yelled back, then quieter, “I’msoscared of them.”
A part of her, deep underneath all this rage, understood it. She was scared of his parents too. But she didn’t know if she could forgive it, because if anyone could stand up to them, it was him. “Then how can I expect you to help me if they want to hurt me, or my family?”
Finn got up, moved toward her as though he would touch her, but she held up a hand. “Don’t. Just don’t. I’m going home and I don’t want you to follow me or call me. I mean it.”
She moved toward the door and Thea and Alaric followed. Her heart burned with shame for what she’d just done, but her pride wouldn’t let her turn around and apologize. This wasn’t the way to do this. Yes, she was angry, perhaps even justifiably so, but behaving this way didn’t feel right.Trying to humiliate him and berating him like this wasn’t who she wanted to be.Why couldn’t she just turn around, apologize and talk things out?
Harlow was stuck again, stuck in a place she didn’t want to be but couldn’t see a way out of. She couldn’t seem to retreat, but she could do something right. Before they could follow her out she turned to Alaric, and looked him directly in the eyes, so like Petra’s the way they glowed with feeling. “I fucked that up.”
He exchanged a look with Thea, but didn’t respond. She felt his disapproval, and she knew she’d earned it. She’d earned her own.
“Stay with him,” she pleaded. “Take care of him. I can’t right now, but you can.”
Alaric’s eyes softened and he hugged her. “You are a good woman, Harlow Krane. I am glad you’ll be my sister soon.”
Harlow shrugged. “I’m not that good.” She leaned into the half-hug Thea gave her. “Can you drive us home?”
Her sister took her hand and led her to Alaric’s car. They got in and drove away in silence, heading back into the city. “Do you want to talk about it?” Thea asked.
“No. I said more than I should have back there.”
Thea sighed. “It sounds like whatever you said was true. He admitted it.”
Axel rubbed his face against hers, purring. “But why did I scream at him like that?”
Thea glanced at her, sidelong. “Why did you?”
Harlow shook with unshed tears. “I don’t know. I just… Blew up… It was like all this old anger just exploded out of me. I thought I was doing better…” Her breath came in harsh gasps.
Thea reached out, taking her hand. “Harlow,Harlow. He will forgive you. You’ll talk and work things out.”
She shook her head, so angry and full of shame she couldn’t think straight. “I just want to be alone. Is that okay?”
Harlow saw the worry in Thea’s hunched shoulders and felt even worse, as she murmured, “Of course.” It wasn’t okay with Thea at all.
They stopped at a railroad crossing as the gates were going down. Harlow remembered the reason she’d gone to the city to begin with. She fumbled in her pocket, then handed Thea the slip of paper Petra had given her. “This address is Olivia Sanvier’s safehouse. Petra says that’s where she might take Mark.”
Thea took out her phone and sent a text message. “Alaric will take care of it. If Mark’s there, he’ll find him.”
Harlow nodded. She felt nothing but pain so deep and so close to all her old wounds she nearly went numb. In the past, she would have stopped by the liquor store, bought a bottle of something, or called one of her many connections to find drugs, but now she just wanted to go home and get into her comfortable bed and cry. The overwhelming anger was draining away, the further she got from the house. Confusion and shame coursed through her until her hands ached with the pain of balling them into fists.
Slowly she relaxed her fingers and began to force air deep into her lungs. Maybe Thea was right, and Finn would forgive her if she apologized, or at least admitted that she was wrong. She hugged Axel close, slid her phone out of her pocket, and sent a text message. Just one, because her integrity demanded she do so.I said things I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t your fault I hurt myself. Please give me time to sort myself out.
She watched as the little dots cascaded, waited for his response, but nothing came. He was doing as she asked, giving her time. Loneliness gnawed at her, and after so long being sidelined, it was ravenous. She leaned back in her seat and let it devour her.
ChapterThirty-One
Harlow spent exactly a week moping about what happened with her phone shut off but for the once-daily check-in she promised Selene, before Enzo showed up at her door. He had a pizza and a bag of burgers and parm fries from Gastro Lupo in his arms.
“Since you didn’t answer your phone, I got everything,” he said as he pushed inside her apartment. She looked behind him, half-expecting to see Riley Quinn or her sisters trailing behind, but he was alone.
Axel twined around his legs, purring in greeting as Enzo went to work getting plates out and running tap water into glasses. He peeked into her hutch and fridge, shaking his head. “So. You’re punishing yourself for being shitty to Finn?”
