Page 26 of Harper's Song

After the way I treated her, the way I left her, she owes me nothing. And I got nothing to give her, except making sure the Renegades get nowhere near her.

At first I thought this guy was a Renegade, but up close I recognize him as the lead singer of some mega popular band… Fairy something.

One more reason to think she moved on and that’s why she’s letting him carry her stuff.

She looks tired and sad, though.

She looks like she always does when things begin to overwhelm her and she starts drowning in all the feelings she doesn’t know where to put. And if it goes on too long, she shuts down.

I always tried my best to keep that from happening. To keep her away from that dark place her sensitive soul always seems to pull her into. I did that even before we were together. Tried to show her the good, fun sides of this world as best I could, because she gets lost in the bad so easily.

She’s always seemed to me like this most beautiful flower, too sensitive and shy to fully bloom and show the whole world her beauty. I didn’t mind being the only one to see it. But it’s not something I wanted to keep all to myself either.

She’s on her first tour, damn it, doing what she dreamed and planned of doing for years and years, but never quite summoned the courage to do. She shouldn’t look this sad.

I’m probably to blame for that too.

Or maybe I have it all wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Maybe she’s now decided to give all that to this guy. How can I blame her? I sure spent a lot of our time together leaving her.

It’s hard watching her moving on right in front of my eyes, especially since the beast inside me that knows nothing else but that Harper is mine and will always be mine, is thrashing and raging, convincing me to remove this pierced, tatted-up freak before he can lay even the tip of his bony fingers on her.

Harper’s always been the only one who can tame that beast inside me. Make it see reason. Make it behave. That’s why I’ve done so many stupid things after I left her. Each time I left her. It was just the worst now.

Then suddenly the freak grabbed her so quickly and so viciously and I no longer had any control of my thoughts or my fists. The beast had it all.

And I would’ve killed that guy if she hadn’t commanded me to stop turning his face into spaghetti sauce.

Just the sound of her voice is enough to calm the beast, to make it do as she commands. And her touch is all the peace, contentment and happiness this world can offer.

As for her arms around me, holding me tight in welcome and her soft curves pressed against me. That’s heaven.

“How can you be here?” she asks breathlessly.

“I had to get to you,” I answer, truthfully yet not very informatively and try to kiss her.

Her eyes still look very sad and dejected as she shakes her head and pushes my face away.

“We have to call an ambulance for him,” she says looking down at the man I just beat up. The man who had every intention of raping her. I can’t believe she’s worried about him.

“He’ll be fine,” I say although I have no way of knowing that. “And next time he’ll think twice before attacking a woman in a dark parking lot.”

She turns to me and for a spilt second my whole chest freezes up as I stand there in fear, thinking she might tell me she liked it.

“You’re right, he’s a creep,” she says instead. “But a famous creep and I’ve just spent the whole evening with him. Selfies with us are probably all over the internet right now. When they find him like this, I’m the first person they’ll question.”

I glance at the guy, hating him even more than I did a second ago. They spent the whole evening together?

He’s waking up, trying to sit up and having the hardest time at it. But his eyes, though awash with blood seem clear enough as he fixes them on me. At least there’s enough fear in them to tell me he knows what happened to him.

“I’ll take care of it,” I say and kneel beside him, pulling him up by the front of his very strategically torn t-shirt.

“You fell and messed up your face on the rocks,” I hiss at him. “And if you tell the cops anything different, or even mention Harper having anything to do with your accident, I’ll come back and finish what I started.”

He glances at her, pleadingly. That fucking asshole. A few minutes ago he was choking her and now he wants her help?

“And next time I won’t stop him,” she says in a hard voice that reminds me very much of her father.

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