Page 76 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
“No, of course not. They don’t know, and they never will. Unless you tell them. You or Riley Quinn.”
There was a long silence between them.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Harlow said, finally. “I would never do anything like that to anyone. Not even you.”
Petra wiped a tear, looking away from Harlow. Her mouth was set in an unattractive tight line. It was the first time Harlow had ever seen her look less than stunning. “Well, I’d deserve it if you did.”
Harlow wasn’t sure what to say to that, but she’d been honest. She wouldn’t ever tell a secret like that, not even about her worst enemy. And while she didn’t like Petra, she most certainly wasn’t her worst enemy. Not anymore. “Do you know anything that might help us find Mark?”
Petra sighed and handed Harlow a slip of paper. “Look for him here. This is Olivia’s safe house. She fucks and sucks here pretty often. If she turned Mark, it’s where she’d take him to complete the transition.”
“Thank you,” Harlow said, taking the piece of paper and standing. As she did, she felt it, the pressure of eyes upon her. The feeling that whoever was watching did not have good intentions. Carefully, she scanned the surrounding area with her second sight, something she’d wished she’d done the other times she’d felt this. But she came up empty. She couldn’t find the source of the feeling, though it did not lessen.
“I am sorry, you know?” Petra said softly as Harlow stood.
“For what?”
“The things I did to you in secondary. It makes me sick to think about.”
Harlow sat back down, the breath stolen from her lungs. “It does?”
Petra nodded. “I was always jealous of you and Finn. Before he met you we were close, and then, when he met you and Enzo, we weren’t anymore.”
Harlow had been momentarily distracted by Petra’s confession, but now she felt the presence, closer than before. She tried to appear natural, to continue the conversation as normally as she could, while sending her second sight out further. “We could have all been friends.”
Petra’s face twisted again. “My parents wouldn’t have allowed that. I have to be perfect, and that means being above everyone else.”
Her second sight came up empty again. There was nothing in the park that seemed capable of producing such a feeling, just the usual immortals and humans, and their children. She spoke more harshly than she meant to, frustrated. “So you bullied me?”
Petra’s mouth opened and closed. Her eyes closed. “That’s not why I bullied you. I know you won’t believe me, but that hadnothingto do with you.”
Harlow turned her full attention to Petra now. Whatever the source of the threatening feeling, she couldn’t suss it out. “You’re right. I don’t believe that.”
“There’s nothing I can say that would ever justify the things I did to you, Harlow. No way for me to apologize. But Iamsorry.”
Harlow sat numbly, lost for words. Petra sounded sincere. In fact, she sounded tortured. “If it had nothing to do with me, then why did you do it? I thought it was because you were in love with Finn… But if that wasn’t it, then why?”
Petra stood, walking into the park. Harlow hurried after her, using the opportunity to scan the park further—still nothing. Petra walked quickly until they were standing near the waterfall at the center of the park. The noise was so loud here that Harlow worried if Petra actually said anything she wouldn’t be able to hear her. When Petra turned, she understood from the look on the other woman’s face that was the point.
Petra leaned in, placed her mouth close to Harlow’s ear, and spoke quickly: “Aislin McKay caught me in her pool house with Melisandre Marillier when we were sixth years.”
Harlow’s eyes widened. Suddenly things started to make more sense.
“She threatened to tell my parents if I didn’t do everything she asked. And what she asked was that I follow Finn and watch the two of you.”
“You took the photos of us, didn’t you?”
Petra nodded. “And then, when Finn refused to do what they wanted, Aislin said I had to bully you, make you so miserable Finn would be forced to save you from me. She thought you’d get back together. But it didn’t matter how cruel I was, Harlow. He wouldn’t step in. I hurt you both, and I hated every second of it.”
Harlow understood now why Finn hadn’t stepped in, but it still stung. The three of them were such victims of the McKays’ twisted plotting, it made her ill.
“I’m so sorry, Petra. I’m sure if Finn had known, he would have done something… Helped you somehow.”
Petra laughed, a dry, brittle noise. “He knew, Harlow. I was there the night his parents put the whole awful thing to him about impregnating you. And he knew about Melisandre and his mother… He knew it all. Not about the pictures, I couldn’t bear to tell him that. But he knew the rest. I think he even knew about the reason I bullied you, or at least suspected. He was justthatafraid of them.”
“We were kids,” Harlow said softly. “We were just kids.”
She knew Petra could hear her.
