This was the part of the conversation I was dreading most.
Harlow looked lost in thought before she finally spat out whatever words were tumbling around in that beautiful brain of hers.
“People don’t just disappear from the chase, do they?”
Bale met her eyes, allowing a rare moment of honesty to warm his eyes before he answered her question.
“No, Harlow. Those chosen for the hunt through the maze have never survived.” A beat. “I bury them in the earth.”
Her sharp inhale told me how hard the dawning realization had struck.
Chapter
Eighteen
Harlow was already halfway to the door before I could catch up to her. Corbin was right there with me before I shoved him back.
“I’ve got this,” I snarled at him. The wild look in my eyes forced him to take a step back.
Just as Harlow got to the front door, my hand wrapped around her elbow, gripping it firmly enough to stop her from walking out but not enough to harm her.
“Hold up a damn second!” I spun her around to face me. “Whatever you are thinking, there’s more to it. It’s… complicated.”
Her hand dug into her bag, and she pulled out a book so abruptly that a tube of lip gloss and a random receipt came tumbling out with it. As for the book itself, I instantly recognized it. It had been ages since I had last laid my eyes on it.
Slamming the book into my chest, she spat out her words like venom. “Is that what happened to your family, too? Buried in the corn field like fucked up fertilizer? It’s a little damn convenient that the day of the first fall festival, they all keel over. Don’t you think?” Her voice shook, betraying the sense of misplaced rage and rightful fear.
Fuck, the kitten’s claws are out.
Her accusation cut deeper past my well-crafted defenses than I thought anybody was capable of.
Behind me, I sensed Corbin’s aggravating ability to become more still than the town’s precious fall festival statue.
The urge to let go of my control and unleash the fury that festered from that day was barely contained. The violence always brewed like a storm about to split the sky in half, thanks to the Council never answering for their transgressions. It was nothing short of a monumental miracle that I clutched onto a semblance of restraint.
Before I became this monstrous version of myself, I had never considered taking a life. Even after destroying ninety-eight souls in horrific ways, each one succumbed to death only during the hunt. Never outside of those walls of corn, never outside of this festival of fatalities.
My hand clamped down over Harlow’s, pinning it and the book to my chest. Between ragged breaths, I leaned in until our foreheads nearly touched, and she was unable to avoid looking into my eyes. Our heated breaths mingled in the small space between us.
“Don’t, Harlow. Just. Don’t. If you want to know what happened that day, sit your ass down and shut up. But if you would rather believe that I’d betray those I consider family—those I considermine—then walk out that damn door.”
I ripped my family’s documented demise out from under her hand and tossed it down onto a small bench by the boot mat next to the door. The slap of the book meeting wood cracked loudly in the stifling atmosphere of the room.
We stared at each other in a tense standoff that lasted too many ticks of the clock. The choice remained hers, though.
Eventually, she pulled on her arm, and I immediately released my hold on her and waited. Waited to see if she would run or stay for the hard truths that were due to be exposed.
The pulse in her neck still jumped visibly beneath the surface, but she managed to calmly turn and head over to the far end of the leather sofa. Reluctantly, she took her seat on the edge of the cushion, visibly prepared to bolt if need be. All the while, her eyes never looked away from mine. I wasn’t the only one waiting. She was, too. Those stubborn emeralds waited while she laid down the challenge for me to give the bare truth.
“Good.” It was the closest thing to relief I could muster with the height of emotions still thick in the air.
I paced back and forth in the narrow space betweenthe coffee table and where she sat, trying to grasp the courage to bring up all that had been lost. Painful truths, violent memories, and unexplainable reality.
As I looked for my words, Corbin kept a constant presence behind the sofa. Here and available, but not crowding either of us.
“When I woke up on my cross frame, my family was already dead. Whatever ritualistic magic the Town Council got itself into had already taken root. Their hunger for power and prestige overrode anything else.”
I turned to look at Harlow, who sat rigidly but listening. Despite my best effort to hide the pain from my voice, it wavered under the strain.
