Carnage's expression darkens immediately. “Who the fuck are these guys, Harper?”
“People I trust," she replies evenly, but there's steel beneath her words.
“That's not good enough,” Vatican snaps, rising from his seat. “We don't know them. We don't trust them. For all we know, they could be working for the other side?—”
“They're not.” Harper's voice cuts through the room like a blade. “I trust them with my life, which means you can trust them with yours.”
Pope leans forward, his eyes narrowed. “And why should we believe that?”
“Because I'm vouching for them,” she says, her gaze unwavering. “Because I called in a favor that's going to cost me more than any of you can possibly understand. So either accept the help or don't, but don't you dare question my loyalty.”
The room falls into tense silence. I stare at my best friend, this girl I thought I knew and realize there are entire parts of her life I know nothing about. Entire chapters of her story she's kept locked away in the dark.
Who are you, Harper?
Who were you before you became my friend?
The question burns in my throat, but I can't bring myself to ask. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Omen breaks the silence first. “Fine. But if this goes sideways, it's on you.”
Harper nods once, accepting the weight of that responsibility without hesitation. Then she looks at me, and for just a moment I see the ghost of the girl I know, the one who held me when Ibroke down in Walter House, the one who never gave up on me even when I'd given up on myself.
“It's going to be okay, Tor,” she whispers, but I'm not sure either of us believes it.
Later that night, after everyone else has gone to bed, I find myself standing in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at my reflection like it belongs to a stranger.
My hand drifts to my stomach, resting there as if I can already feel the life growing inside me.
Xaden's child.
A piece of him that I can't escape no matter how hard I try.
He doesn't want it. Doesn't want us. He's probably convinced himself it isn't even his, that I'm lying, manipulating, trying to trap him.
The truth is so much more complicated.
So much more painful.
I hate him.
God, I hate him for what he's done to me, for the way he's twisted my heart into something unrecognizable. But I also... feel something for him that I can't name. Something that terrifies me because it feels too much like love, too much like the kind of devotion that destroys you from the inside out.
How can I love someone who wants to hurt me?
How can I carry his child while planning to destroy everything he's built?
The questions spiral endlessly, driving me to the edge of madness.
I haven't seen him since the library. Since he made me fall apart beneath his hands and then let me go like I meant nothing.
Maddy texted me and said that the hockey team is training all week, that Coach excused them from classes so they can focus on Saturday's game.
Part of me is relieved. The distance gives me space to breathe, to think, to plan without his suffocating presence clouding my judgment.
But another part of me, the part I'm terrified to acknowledge, aches for him.
I’ll miss the weight of his gaze, the heat of his touch, the way he looks at me like I'm both his salvation and his damnation.
