11
Harlow
Adoor slammed. A pebbled piece of plaster dropped from the ceiling, exploding into dust on the worn wood floor below. Harlow’s gaze traced from the doors that lined the hallway ahead—one of which was knobless—to the man who’d crumpled beneath his fist. He couldn’t be much older than twenty, a scrawny twig of an omega that was made of bone, not muscle, but whose smooth-looking skin masked any knobby qualities he might otherwise have had. Auburn hair the color of oxidized desert rock had fallen over his brow, masking one of his eyes. Harlow couldn’t tell their color, not even when the young man rolled onto his back—they were squeezed shut from pain. The omega clutched at his nose, hiding it from view, but didn’t succeed in masking the blood that dripped from the lower quadrants of his face onto the floor.
He smelled of petrichor and jasmine.
A pang gripped Harlow’s heart and held it loosely, threatening to tighten all over again. When he’d mentally prepared himself for what he might find once he determined Evie’s whereabouts, he hadn’t thought to brace himself against a young man so effortlessly beautiful.
But beauty and heartache were no deterrents—as the ringing in Harlow’s eardrums brought on by adrenaline and anger faded, he stepped over the young man in pursuit of his daughter.
At least, he tried.
A hand latched around his ankle, holding him in place. Fingers dug into his skin, their grip weak enough that Harlow would have had no problem breaking free had the squeeze not been followed up by the softest, saddest utterance Harlow had ever heard.
“H,” the omega croaked. In a surprising display of resilience, he lifted himself up onto his elbow and dropped his free hand from his face, exposing his nose. The skin stretched over the bridge had ruptured, leaking blood in rivulets that followed the path carved by the slope of his nostrils. More blood leaked from inside both nostrils, spilling down over a plump upper lip that Harlow’s gaze snapped to, then left just as quickly. “H,stop.”
“If you know my name, then you know why I’m here.” An omega wouldn’t keep Harlow from his duty, no matter how soulful his eyes, or sad his demands. “If you don’t interfere, then I won’t have any reason to hurt you more than I already have. Now tell me—who else is in this apartment? Who else do I have to worry about?”
There were five closed doorways down the hall—five opportunities for trouble. Harlow didn’t expect the truth, especially from a man who was responsible for kidnapping his daughter, but he’d witnessed men fold for less, seen pain turn the minds of the weak.
To his surprise, it wasn’t agony that shaped the omega’s reply, but urgency. “It’s me, my brothers—Shep is sixteen, Jayne is thirty—Evie, and baby Parker. That’s it. We don’t mean her any harm, H. I swear. When I gave you the coordinates—”
“What?” Harlow freed his ankle from captivity and took a step back so he could better look at the young man on the ground. He remained propped up on his elbow, his supporting arm trembling as he rested his weight upon it. There was something particularly delicate about him—something innocent. Perhaps it was the round shape of his eyes.
Blue, Harlow remarked. The kind of blue reminiscent of the coastal water of the Mediterranean—vibrant and clear, full of life and light. They weren’t the eyes of a man who performed vile deeds. They bore no malice and meant no harm.
“The…” The young man stopped to wipe blood from his lip. It smeared across the back of his hand, near his thumb, streaking his pale skin with crimson. “The geographic coordinates I just gave you over the phone. If I’d known at the time that the girl my brother brought home was Evie, I would have told you. It didn’t click. I’m sorry.”
Harlow struggled to process what he’d been told. In high-pressure situations, his mind was a fluid instrument, his thoughts and split-second reactions more valuable than his fists or combat expertise. He’d been trained to keep his cool and maintain his composure under any circumstance—active fire, time-sensitive emergency, even crippling pain—yet in a few short sentences, the young man on the floor had disarmed him.
There was no way he could have known about that call… about the coordinates.
Harlow’s mouth went dry. He stared at the injured creature on the floor, mind thick with partially processed thoughts, until a single, clarifying notion pushed everything else aside. “Kid?”
“Y-Yeah,” the kid—Simon—replied. As if sensing that he was no longer in danger, he sat up in full and dared to touch the tips of his fingers to his broken nose. A moment’s contact was too much—he jerked his head to the side and hissed in pain. Blood splattered down his heather gray graphic t-shirt, knocked from where it had beaded on the underside of his chin. It bloomed dark across the cotton just above the shirt’s text, which simply read {!false}.
Harlow didn’t get it.
“Don’t touch it,” Harlow said. “It’s broken.”
Simon looked up at him, his round eyes wide and startled. Harlow’s heart pulsed in ugly, primal ways that thickened his bog-brain and further slowed his thoughts. What the hell was happening to him?
“You broke my nose?” Simon asked sadly.
“I didn’t know it was you.” Harlow looked down the hall to find Evie peeping out from behind the broken door. When she was discovered, she gasped and shrank back into the room. It seemed like she was in no immediate danger, so he took Simon’s word as the truth and let his guard down. Whatever had happened to make Evie leave was over. He’d found his daughter safe and sound—all that was left to do now was take her home. They’d figure out what would happen next in the days to come.
“Do I… do I need to get a cast?” Simon asked. Tears streamed down his cheeks, the natural result of a fresh break, not weakness or sorrow. “Can you get Jayne? He’ll know what to do. I—”
“It’s okay, Kid.” Harlow dropped into a squat, observing Simon’s nose up close. He’d done good work—the break was clean. The cartilage had remained more or less in place, but it would need to be set regardless. “I can take care of it. We’re going to need a towel and a bag of peas.”
“We only have broccoli,” Simon replied miserably.
Harlow’s throat tightened, and his pulse throbbed in a way it never had before. The melancholy declaration struck him as adorable. The Simon he’d imagined—the pasty, pimply, Mountain Dew chugging kid who lived in his mind’s eye—couldn’t have been further from the truth. The tiny omega wasn’t just gorgeous, he was damned cute. It was a lethal combo. “Broccoli is fine,” Harlow replied. “It just needs to be frozen.”
“Do you want me to get a towel from the bathroom?” Simon asked. He went to stand, but before he could gain any leverage, Harlow planted his hands on his shoulders and kept him seated.
“No. Stay here. Which door is the bathroom?”
