Obsession (Dangerous Love #1)

CHAPTER 24

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A DEMON’S TEARS

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I lifted my gaze to his face, searching for the joke in his eyes, but his expression was serious, too serious.

“Your mom?!” I repeated in astonishment.

He nodded slowly.

I blinked in confusion.

His mom.

I was expecting anything but that. He listened to my opinion of my mother, but he clearly had a different opinion of his maternal figure. Especially since he only said mom, not parents or family.

I suddenly found myself in a big dilemma. Up until now, I partly thought that he didn’t get on with his parents, which is why I didn’t know what to expect from meeting her, and suddenly I was scared.

I also got the impression that he wanted to get rid of the Joshua subject with this meeting, but I couldn’t tell him that after what he’d suggested.

I bit my lip, still a little anxious, and was already imagining scenarios in my head. He watched me intently, a slight scowl on his face as he waited for my response. I took a deep breath before looking at him and nodding slowly.

“I’d love to!” I smiled, slowly swallowing down the lump in my throat and imagining the dozens of flaws his mother would find in me.

There had to be a reason he was staying with his friends, and I was about to find out what it was.

He smiled, but I noticed the struggle behind that smile. It was not a genuine smile, unlike the ones he’d given me before.

“Let’s go then, the rain has just stopped,” he said, looking out of the window.

I didn’t understand why it mattered, but I didn’t ask.

“Wait, I can’t go like this! I need to change,” I gestured towards my clothes and then made my way to my closet.

I had never met the mother of a… boyfriend. Roger didn’t even count as a boyfriend anymore, compared to Harris. For fuck’s sake! I had no idea what to expect or what to wear. He came up to me giggling, clutching my waist and trying to reassure me.

His lips pressed gently against my cheek.

“You’re perfect just the way you are, calm down,” he smiled.

“No, I’m not!”

I continued to get upset and looked around my closet for an outfit more suitable for a moment like this. I clearly didn’t have one. Ripped jeans, graphic t-shirts and leather jackets were not part of a wardrobe that would impress a boyfriend’s mother, were they?

“She’ll love you just the way you are,” Harris whispered, pulling me away from the closet as he gently caressed my cheek.

I let out a light breath as I tried to calm myself. The whole thing took me by surprise. Was Harris doing all this just to make me forget everything that was happening in… my life? I wasn’t exactly comfortable finding myself in another family, while knowing I no longer had one, but this was Harris’ family, and I was really curious, but also extremely scared.

I looked at the contrast between us and realized that we looked very similar. My black jeans and black t-shirt were similar to his, but they obviously looked better on him; they matched his energy, like he was born to wear black.

“Okay!” I capitulated and struggled to smile, schooled by the fact that I was dressed like him and had nothing more suitable, anyway. If she accepted him like that, she could accept me too.

He smiled too.

“Dry your hair first, you’ll catch a cold,” he said, running his fingers through my dripping wet black locks.

I agreed to his suggestion and took out my hairdryer. The hot, strong air ruffled my hair over my face and made it more voluminous. That’s why I didn’t like drying it.

I was still waiting for Harris to say something about my hair color, but he seemed reluctant to open that can of worms. Smart as he was, he probably guessed that the change in my hair color had a lot to do with what I had found out earlier, so he didn’t want to reopen the subject. I loved him for it, but I was still very curious as to what he thought of my appearance without talking about the reasons behind it.

When I was done, I tried to tame it a little by brushing it, then made sure I didn’t have any more stains on my face. I didn’t put any makeup on, my black clothes were enough as I didn’t want to give his mother a bad first impression before I even opened my mouth. As I remembered the first thought I had said to Roberta, I prayed to God for help.

He was quiet, unusually quiet, as he sat on my bed waiting for me to finish getting ready. His face looked thoughtful, and I had the feeling that he regretted his suggestion to meet his family.

“Are you sure you want this, Harris?” I asked, trying to get his attention.

He seemed surprised by my question as he looked at me and was pulled out of his thoughts.

“Yes!” he replied quickly, standing up and grabbing my jacket from the closet.

I wrinkled my nose as he put it over my shoulders. That broke the chain of similarities between our outfits. Suddenly I remembered something: I wasn’t wearing a bra, and my breasts didn’t really look decent enough for the encounter through the tight T-shirt. Out in the cold, they would become even more interesting, as evidenced by Harris’ naughty look, which was fixed on my chest and then lifted to my face with a mischievous smile.

“Don’t even think about it!” I scolded, turning to the closet where I pulled out one of my bras.

I freed myself from his arms and walked to the door to go and change.

“Really?” he complained behind me. “You know every inch of those breasts touched my lips, right? You probably still have the marks to prove it.”

My cheeks caught fire as I paused and remembered what he had done to me that night.

So many things had happened between then and now.

He came at me with that slow, dangerous walk.

First, he took off my jacket, then he grabbed the hem of my T-shirt.

I did not have the strength to stop him, nor a reason.

I let him take it off and my hair ruffled, then Harris gently pushed it off my breasts.

His eyes were filled with wild lust and incredible self-control.

“Just as I thought,” he barely whispered, his fingers tracing over the lines of a small bruise.

“I should tell you that the writing you smeared on my ass still hasn’t come off.”

The smirk on his face could give a weaker woman a stroke.

My angels were rather weak too, as they all fainted in his presence.

He pulled me closer and touched one of my breasts, my head falling back as he leaned down to my neck.

He kissed and sucked as his warm, calloused hand massaged my breast, a barely audible moan escaping him.

“Can you read my mind, baby?”

I blinked in confusion.

“No…”

I felt his smile over my neck.

“That’s too bad, you would have liked my thoughts right now.”

Oh, fuck me sideways . I was already close to the edge when my whole being began to tremble.

“You could…” A moan interrupted my words as his mouth dropped to my breasts, “You could tell me…” I mumbled between short moans.

“It would be the same.”

“You’re a menace!”

His smile imprinted on my skin just before he took another bite, then his tongue soothed the pain. It was a vicious cycle, a constant intertwining of pain and pleasure.

Suddenly he stood up, and I was lucky that one of his arms was supporting me, otherwise I would have fallen on my ass.

Still, I lost my balance.

Harris grabbed my hips and lifted me up, taking a step forward and pinning me against the wall. It felt so cold against my skin that I whimpered, and he savored the sound, absorbing it into a soul-shattering kiss.

Wildness took over him.

My breasts pressed against his chest and I felt the strength of his erection as he pressed himself against me. I pushed myself up until his mouth had access to my chest, and the position drove me insane as I clutched his hair. He made me feel like I weighed no more than 20 pounds.

“Oh, God…” I groaned as his lips captured my nipple.

His teeth dug in, wrenching a short scream out of me as I banged my head against the wall.

“That’s not my name, baby.”

Closing my eyes, I bit my bottom lip and smiled.

“Oh, Harris!” I unleashed my most seductive moan and moved in his arms, and the sound that came out of his throat was more dangerous than that of a beast that had cornered its prey.

***

I sat in the passenger seat and tried to look ahead, to think of something other than what he had done to me, to not look at him as if I wanted to bite every inch of him.

But, damn it, that’s exactly what I wanted.

I hadn’t talked him into giving in, we hadn’t had sex, but what he’d done to me against that wall, with just his fingers and his mouth, was fucking enough.

My skin was still quivering in the most pleasurable way and I felt lucky. I managed to put on a bra, but my breasts were still throbbing from the maddening treatment he’d given me earlier.

Harris didn’t look at me, but the corner of his mouth tilted up, a sign that he knew exactly what was going through my mind.

“We’re going to your mom’s! We’re going to your mom’s,” I repeated, shaking my head.

He started to laugh.

“Is that some kind of arousal killer?”

“It should be, I don’t want to think about how I can talk to her while I can still feel your teeth and lips on me.”

I had expected my sentence to amuse him, as this kind of conversation always amused him, but the tension staining his features was surprising to say the least.

He turned to me and smiled – that fake smile again – without saying anything.

I sensed his discomfort so much that it spread to me too.

I tried to change the subject.

“So, was blonde better?”

I raised my eyebrows, and he immediately looked at me, this time curiously.

“You haven’t said anything about it yet, and I doubt you haven’t noticed.”

He smiled. His genuine smile was so obvious and I admired it so much. It was incredible how a simple smile could change him so much.

The kind of smile you’d happily burn in hell for.

“Oh, believe me, I have noticed, baby.”

“Hmm,” I squinted.

“But I know you did it for a serious reason, so it wasn’t exactly the right time to tell you how much it turns me on to see you like this.”

I pressed my lips together to stifle my laughter, and he gave me a kinky look.

“I think what happened in your room is explanation enough.”

I laughed, and he took my hand in his and pulled it to his lips.

“You’re beautiful in every way. You drove me crazy with blonde hair, you drive me crazy with black hair, and you’ll have the same effect no matter what else you want to change.”

He said this while pressing his lips to my fingers, and I struggled to keep my hormones under control.

“Just so you know, I didn’t dye my hair to stop looking like Amber. Well, that’s not the only reason, it’s actually my natural color.”

“I know,” he smiled.

“How?”

“I’ve read about you, remember? I’ve seen a lot of photos from your competitions. You weren’t blonde in any of them.”

I tried to stop myself from drowning in those memories.

“I dyed my hair blonde so I wouldn’t look like my mother anymore. Now I’m over it, I want to be myself again.”

Harris was still holding my hand, and he squeezed it gently.

“You don’t look like anyone, Katherine. In fact, no one looks like you, I’m pretty sure not even your mother does. You’re the most mesmerizing, amazing, beautiful girl I’ve ever met. You’re one of a kind, baby.”

I couldn’t hold back and moved to kiss him. Somehow he managed to quickly blow any pain I had to pieces, filling the void inside me with happiness, so much so that the pain his secrets left behind no longer mattered.

He slowed down, but not because my kiss caught his attention.

I looked around but couldn’t make out where we were, it was some kind of alley surrounded by trees. It wasn’t raining yet, but the clouds had brought the darkness earlier. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant environment to meet someone, it seemed to foretell something bad. I blocked the dark thoughts and concentrated on the positive ones. Something had to change for the better today.

I started to create scenarios, imagining a gloomy father, maybe a businessman, serious and cold, someone Harris didn’t tolerate much, someone who didn’t show him enough love. And a gentle woman, caught between their hatred and overpowered by her husband. It was already clear that all of Harris’ love went to one parent.

I kept wondering what they looked like. Who did Harris take after? Did he have brothers or sisters?

I was still caught up in the maelstrom of questions when Harris stopped the car.

I looked ahead and everything inside me froze.

I analyzed the area and my lips parted in fear when I saw the huge iron gates in front of us, giving the place an eerie aura, especially when combined with the weather.

He didn’t move after he turned off the engine.

I’d never seen him so exposed, a storm of emotions raging on his face, and I could read the tension, the fear, the helplessness, and most of all, the pain.

I hoped Harris had played a bad joke by bringing me here, because I couldn’t even mentally spell the name of this place without shaking.

“Harris, what are we doing here?” I barely whispered, praying he’d laugh and say it was just a joke, but his face remained unchanged.

“This is where my mother lives.”

I turned my gaze to the iron gates that housed Lake View Cemetery. Any theory I had about his family shattered in seconds, leaving nothing but a cold shiver behind. It was much worse than the harsh father and abused mother I had imagined.

God, much, much worse. I’d thought of almost everything, but not this.

Harris turned around and grabbed a leather jacket from the back seat, then got out of the car and I saw him take a deep breath.

I got out of the car too and felt my knees go weak. I slowly walked towards him and looked at him reluctantly as he put on his jacket and left the zipper open. He caught the black strands that fell over his face and pushed them back, his hands not letting go of his hair as he closed his eyes.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes as I saw him struggling to control his emotions.

“You always talk about her…”

“In the present tense?” he added when I couldn’t say it.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“I haven’t accepted her death yet, and I don’t think I ever will, even though five years have passed.”

The blood in my veins ran cold as I remembered that Iolanda had spoken about her the same way.

“Let’s go,” he said slowly, letting go of his hair and taking my hand in his.

I was so unprepared for what followed and imagined how hard it must have been for him to be here, to expose himself to me like this, to show me the most vulnerable part of himself.

I walked behind him as we passed through the gates, and he held my hand as we stepped slowly between the headstones. The wind was barely noticeable, but it still ruffled my hair and made it stick to my face. We could still see where we were stepping, but the darkness would probably swallow the light in less than an hour. We walked deeper and deeper into the seemingly endless mortuary space. I couldn’t see the car or the gates, or the fence that surrounded the cemetery, but it wasn’t a good time to ask him how much longer we had to walk.

We passed statues of angels, magnificent crypts and plain headstones as I watched Harris intently; he was actively trying to suppress his pain, showing a serious, somewhat hard expression, which would have scared me if I didn’t know what was hiding behind it. I felt his steps slow down, and I looked around, searching for that something I didn’t want to find. Tears rushed out when I saw a white tomb plate, surrounded by fresh white roses, with the name “Samantha Stone” engraved on it.

The pain I felt was indescribable, and I felt the need to fall to my knees and cry, but I stayed by his side. I let go of his hand when we stopped in front of the grave and I have never been so unsure of what to say as I was at that moment.

He leaned down, propped his elbows on his knees, and brought his hands together under his mouth.

“Hi, mom,” he whispered slowly, his voice pulsing with pain as he gently stroked the white plate, engraved with his mother’s name and a few dates. She had died at the age of thirty-two.

Extremely young, too young.

A little further down on the plate was written:

You are now free to fly, mom.

My head fell back, and I closed my eyes as I tried to suppress the tears, then I leaned carefully next to him. I noticed how he slowly calmed down and forced himself to smile a small, pained smile. Muffled thunder sounded above us.

“I want you to meet someone, mom. This is Katherine.”

I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks and I leaned my cheek against his shoulder.

“Katherine, this is my mom.”

He turned to me, and for the first time I saw tears forming in his eyes. A frightening shiver ran down my spine as the drops gathered in the corners of his eyes. I didn’t know what to say as the greeting I had been repeating in my head was not applicable.

I pressed my lips together and stopped trying to hold back my tears. Seeing him like this, realizing what his life really was, hurt me more than I thought it would. He took the hand I had placed on his shoulder, brought it to his lips and kissed my fingers while his gaze remained fixed on the grave.

Some time ago I had imagined what demons looked like when they were suffering, what an overwhelming, heart-shattering image that must be.

Now I had one in front of me.

If fallen angels ever wept at the grave of those they had lost, I was sure they looked like Harris did at that moment.

It was impossible to look at him without feeling his pain, the void in his soul. It was impossible not to be swallowed up by what his face expressed, by the anguish in his eyes. Sobbing was unnecessary, a few tears were enough to show everything.

“What happened?” I finally asked, although I wasn’t sure if he could speak.

Harris took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly as he searched for words.

“She was diagnosed with leukemia seven years ago.”

I squeezed his hand reassuringly.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“She didn’t tell me. She preferred to hide it from me until she couldn’t,” he continued, and I wondered why he was only talking about himself. Where was his father?

“My mother… was… a woman full of light and kindness,” I sensed how much it hurt him to speak of her in the past tense, “Even when the illness took over and she was forced to tell me, she smiled.”

I let out a bitter whimper; he could no longer hold back the tears that ran down his cheeks one after the other.

“After two years of fighting, she left me!” he cried, then lifted his head and sighed deeply “I wasn’t always like this, Katherine. I used to be a good kid; I liked art and music; I took after her. I did everything I could to see my mother happy. She was my sunshine, my reason for living in a world where no one else loved me.”

He gritted his teeth, his face contorted in pain, his breathing heavy from the memories.

“What about your father?” I asked cautiously.

The look of pain on his face quickly turned to hatred.

“I don’t have one!” he declared with shocking vehemence.

I bit my lip, continuing to look at him and waiting for him to clarify his statement.

“She was raped three days before her eighteenth birthday.” His gaze drifted to the grave while my breath caught in my throat and I instinctively clutched his hand tighter. “She got pregnant, but her parents didn’t want her to keep the pregnancy. Her father was a prosecutor at the time and he wanted her to abort the bastard she was carrying. He was already ashamed that his daughter had been raped, so he couldn’t let her give birth to that wanker’s son. She refused to have an abortion, she even ran away from home so she wouldn’t have to kill me, even if I was a curse born out of hatred and ridicule.”

He rubbed his temples.

“Harris, don’t say things like that …”

I tried to reassure him, wiping the warm tears from his cheeks, but honestly, I didn’t know what else to say. What else could you say at a time like this? I would have taken all his pain on myself if I could have.

The wind had died down around us, but small raindrops were falling from the sky. He could no longer control his emotions as pain and grief flooded him, his features increasingly obscured by the darkness that wrapped itself around him like a protective cloak, like a faithful ally covering his suffering.

I never thought I would see him like this, so weakened and vulnerable, so unmistakably pained. My family problems seemed insipid at that moment. No, they did not seem, they were.

“She never hid the truth from me; she knew I would find out sooner or later. Nevertheless, she never spoke with pain about her breakdown. Sometimes I had the impression that she loved the motherfucker. She always told me that she didn’t regret that night because that’s how she got me. She kept telling me that I was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a lie in her words. Even I hated myself for who I was, for the fact that my mother had to leave her parents and take the reins at an age when most girls see nothing but boys, fun and popularity. She had to raise her curse alone because her parents just wanted to get rid of me, especially her father, who tried to take me away from her in the beginning and put me in an orphanage. She was supposed to go to college, she couldn’t be left alone to raise her wolf pup, as Johnatan – my grandfather – called me. And I understood him. I was a curse, a damnation that ruled her life. She needed to build a future for herself and not be stuck in her life raising me.”

I closed my eyes and felt my heart breaking inside me. The raindrops stuck to my skin and mixed with my tears as I hugged him and put my cheek against his neck to soothe him.

“Harris, you were a blessing, not a curse. Your mom knew that.”

He snorted bitterly.

“She never wanted to talk about that night, but Johnatan wanted to ruin me by any means necessary, and one day he made me read the statement my mother gave after the rape,” his face contorted into another mask of grief, “Every time I close my eyes, I see her words, written quickly and with shaky hands on that white piece of paper. That paper told of the destruction of her life.”

Harris let out a quiet sob, then looked at me briefly and rolled up his right sleeve. I didn’t understand what he was doing until he showed me the inside of his forearm. I had seen this tattoo before, but it hadn’t caught my attention because there were many lines of words that I could barely make out. It was more scribble than anything else, seemingly written by a shaky hand. But now that I focused more on those lines and narrowed my eyes so I could read Harris’ skin….

There were four of them, they cornered me in an alley. I went out with my friend after school and lost track of time, so I took the shortcut by the wood factory to get home quicker because it was getting really dark outside. I don’t know how long they’d been chasing me, but they attacked me there and covered my eyes and mouth with something. I didn’t see any of them. They picked me up and threw me in the trunk of a car.

I couldn’t read the rest and looked at Harris, puzzled.

“That’s her statement?” I asked, even though I knew it was, feeling my heart pounding because of the shock.

Harris nodded, looking at the words with an indescribable sadness.

“I kept a copy of it after Johnatan made me read it. My mom was pretty shaken up when she wrote it, and she could barely formulate coherent sentences; but he probably made her do it, anyway. I just took out the most important parts and had them tattooed on me.”

“Why?” I asked, my breath catching in my throat as it came out.

He shrugged his shoulder before answering.

“So I don’t forget who I am and how I came to be. So I don’t forget my purpose.”

I shuddered again as his voice, sounding like a criminal threat, washed over me. I couldn’t help myself and lowered my eyes again, continuing to read the words that stretched across many lines, starting at the top of his forearm and ending just above his palm. Harris didn’t stop me as he shifted his arm to give me a better view. His fist was clenched, his whole arm tense, making the already misshapen words even harder to read. His veins were unusually pronounced, a result of the intense training he regularly subjected his body to.

He pulled out his cell phone and turned on the flashlight so I could see better.

They got me out of the car and took me to a room. I heard loud music but couldn’t tell whether I was at a house party or a club. When they took off my blindfold, I found myself in a dark room where I could only make out the vague outlines of three men. I was lying on a couch, and after a few minutes another man came in. He was the one who raped me. The others just watched, but only one touched me. He was drunk and I couldn’t see his face. I could only see that he was a massive man older man. He didn’t say anything, he just laughed while he….

He smelled like alcohol. His breath over my face made me want to vomit. I felt dizzy and the pain his brutality caused almost knocked me out. At one point he wanted me to drink too, he held the bottle to my mouth, but I refused and he poured it over my face and chest.

There was another girl in the room. I didn’t see her, but she was screaming and fighting and begging him to stop.

I don’t know how long it lasted, how many minutes or hours he crushed me under him, but he didn’t stop at one. At some point I lost consciousness. I heard them talking after he finished, but I couldn’t understand their words. My whole body ached, and I thought I was going to die. I thought wanted them to kill me… I can’t remember anything after that. I woke up in the morning and was lying in the same alley they had kidnapped me from the night before.

When I finished reading, I was shaking as though I had just escaped the claws myself.

Harris turned off the flashlight, darkness suddenly swallowing us.

I couldn’t believe that he had that tattooed on his skin so that he could always read it. I had no doubt that he knew it by heart. When he pulled down his sleeve, I raised my eyes to his face, and found it impossible to say anything right. Some words were cramped, scribbled, crossed out or rewritten. I was sure that the original statement looked exactly the same, and I didn’t want to imagine the strength it had taken him to get that tattooed, or the pain he felt. The writing was small, so it wouldn’t attract attention. No one would be curious to read it, and they couldn’t unless Harris showed them his arm up close. It was a tattoo he could always see, but other people couldn’t; it didn’t stand out, because there were others, much more intricate tattoos around it.

“It was more than this. This is just the part I took out. There were more details about him… about the others. They weren’t drunken teenagers out for a night of fucked-up fun. They were mature men, at least he was. She said he was wearing a suit, and he didn’t take it off. He smelled like expensive perfume mixed with alcohol.”

I swallowed the big lump in my throat. It reminded me of Monday night when I’d seen Harris drinking anything but alcohol. It was probably the reason why he didn’t drink; because his mother had been sexually assaulted by a drunk and forced to drink.

“Is he… in prison right now?”

“No. They haven’t caught him yet. They haven’t found out who did it,” Harris replied dryly, and I pressed my lips together.

“I always thought there was more to this story. The hatred with which he took advantage of her, the night-long torture… it was no ordinary rape. She didn’t describe him as a psychopathic serial rapist,” he gritted his teeth, “and her father, being a prosecutor, had a lot of enemies. I always thought he hated me so much because I am the son of one of his enemies, who took revenge on his daughter and ruined her life, but he never admitted it. He only ever spat in my face that he hated me because I was the one who ruined his daughter’s life. When I was ten, my mother decided to move. We couldn’t escape her parents’ hatred, especially his. She, my so-called grandmother, mostly just ignored me. So we came to Seattle. Things started to improve, and we were almost happy, but that happiness didn’t last long because when I was twelve she got sick, and two years later I lost her forever. Since then, my life has changed completely. I have had a lot of behavioral changes, and believe me when I say I am pretty calm now compared to how I was then, especially after I got into Carter’s group.”

I held back on asking who Carter was, because it wasn’t the right time. A small smile crept across his face as memories flooded his mind that were apparently not as painful as the others.

“I was only fourteen, but I was very tall. My mother always said I took after her, and she was right. That was one of the few good things in a long list of bitternesses. Every time I looked into her green eyes, I saw myself, even though her eyes were much more beautiful in color, they were the same shape. Sheu.. um, she always had her long, slightly wavy hair, down over her shoulders, and she wore a sundress even when it was cold outside.”

I watched him smile, mesmerized by it. Was that why he wore the contact lenses? So he wouldn’t be constantly reminded that his mother was… gone?

“She loved flowers and animals, and she always brought home abandoned kittens or dogs. Or birds, lots of birds…” he chuckled, and I smiled “She liked them and also envied them because they could fly. Sometimes, when I was sad, she would make me close my eyes and imagine that I was flying, that I was free, that nobody could harm me and that nothing else mattered. She would say: “ Don’t forget that you are a Harris Hawk; you are above evil, and you won’t let it shoot you down.”

He smiled wider, nostalgia sparkling in his tone as he repeated his mother’s words, and I hugged his arm.

“She spread happiness everywhere she went, and everyone around her thought her the most accomplished of women. She never revealed the true tragedy in her heart. She had started teaching art at our school, and she loved it.”

I smiled with him, grateful that fate was at least kind enough to make him look like the parent he loved.

“She never wanted to talk about him or what had happened, and the suffering I endured from an early age made me develop a tough, vindictive personality, but she always forbade it. Every time I mentioned him, she put her finger on my lips and begged me not to hate him. How could she ask me to do that?”

He gritted his teeth as he ran his fingers through his hair, pushing back the soft curls. Helplessly, I tried to calm him down.

“Before she died, she made me swear that I would never go looking for him, that I would move on with my life and be a good person, as if that was possible for me.” He snorted. “I tried, but when you are alone, wracked with pain and surrounded by people who hate you, you break. I was a minor at the time, and since I had no family to take care of me, I was sent to an orphanage. My grandparents obviously didn’t want me, especially him. I ran away from there. That place was hell, and I preferred to try my luck on the streets and look for food in the garbage. I was homeless for a while, and since I hated begging, I started stealing. I needed something to distract me from the nightmare I was living in. I’d always loved cars, and when I discovered Carter’s racetrack, I spent every day there, watching the races and wishing I belonged, but I was nothing but a poor, unwashed kid – a very tall, well-grown kid – despite my age and malnutrition. They ignored me and sent me away every time until one day I got angry and stole one of their cars.”

He smiled briefly as he remembered that moment, and I fell silent as I listened to him, glad that at least he was no longer crying. I wiped the water from my face, then hugged his arm again and snuggled up to him in the position that was already numbing my feet.

I was shivering pretty badly and freezing because of the slow, cold rain that made my clothes stick to my skin, but I couldn’t even think of interrupting him because it seemed like he didn’t even notice the rain.

“My bad luck, or good luck, was that I stole one of Carter’s cars. He’s the leader of our group. He organizes our races, gives us the cars and gets the police off our backs every time we screw up. I’d never driven before, and experiencing it for the first time in a car with a lot of horsepower under the hood wasn’t such a good idea, but at that moment I felt alive again. I could feel the speed pulsing through me and my heart seemingly started beating again. I knew then that cars and racing would become my life.”

I smiled a little and imagined Harris as a 14-year-old boy sitting behind the wheel for the first time.

“I drove around town like a maniac until I ran out of gas and they caught me,” he chuckled nostalgically, “I thought I was dead, but Carter saw something in me. I really wanted to be part of his group, and he promised me that if I won a race, I would be welcome and get to keep his car. He treated me like a son back then.”

A moment of silence followed, during which he just smiled.

“I lost the race, of course. I was agitated, scared, and I had no idea what to do. I crashed into a wall after the first hundred feet.” This time he laughed at the top of his lungs, which made me laugh too. “I wrecked his car, but instead of breaking my neck, he promised to teach me everything I needed to know to become the best. He made me wash everyone’s cars so he would let me practice on them. Carter promised to teach me, but I had to drive the car I was taught in. Little by little I became part of the group, an important part and Carter’s right hand. I was ambitious and addicted to speed, so I quickly became one of the best on the tracks and earned the nickname “Street Demon” the first time I jumped over a train. We used to just ride across the tracks in front of the train, but one night we were out of sync and the train had already passed. I couldn’t bear to lose, so I drove my car straight onto the mobile bridge and jumped over it. That’s how the train jump was created. Later they added the ramp and called it the Demon’s Jump.”

So he had invented that madness. That didn’t shock me, and I smiled at how I was slowly getting to know him.

“Carter is the one you worked for as a bodyguard?”

He looked at me, then nodded.

“Yeah, much later, when I started working out a lot to get bulky and strong, and I started boxing. I was a lot bigger at seventeen than I am now because I was full of steroids. I stopped taking them before my heart burst, but they served their purpose. I was angry all the time and started fights for no reason. One night, Carter’s usual bodyguard couldn’t come with him and I volunteered. He didn’t take anyone else after that.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder, understanding all the choices and decisions he’d made as a teenager who wanted to become stronger than everyone else because it was the only way he felt safe.

“I started doing drugs and stopped going to school for a while.”

“Sophomore year?” I guessed, remembering what Kristen had told me on the first day of school.

He nodded and looked at me curiously, to which I just shrugged.

“Information about you travels fast at school.”

That made him laugh, and I was glad.

“I was truly broken and rabid back them. I developed a passion for tattoos and started tattooing my skin myself, then I met Jay, who was a wet back then.”

I shuddered when I heard that word. I knew exactly what it meant. Wet was the term for those who used PCP excessively – I had been a wet, among other things.

“I helped him diminish his addiction and switch to lighter drugs. Fate had not been kind to him either. He didn’t know his parents and lived his whole life in an orphanage. V and Ty came to live with us soon after. Jay brought V with him, as they grew up together in the system, and Ty was a kid like me who wanted to escape the world and invest his life in something else. His mother died when he was young and his father abused him repeatedly. He was a drunk who used his son as a punching bag. Ty was and is extremely intelligent, but his father didn’t like that. This guy should be at MIT right now, not in a garage installing speed programs for illegal race cars.”

I took a deep breath and realized that these guys’ joy was nowhere near as great as it seemed. They were runaways who had each other’s backs, and racing and illegality made them happy.

I knew first hand how much that kind of forbidden freedom helped when you wanted to forget everything and become someone else.

“We got the garage and moved in together, but I had started to take too much advantage of my new life, and I’m glad you didn’t meet me then.”

I frowned, disagreeing with his words. I wished I had met Harris when he was just a kid, to be with him and reassure him like no one else did.

I wondered what our relationship would have been like if we had met then. I could have sworn there would have been an explosion.

“Something woke me up!” I winced as his tone turned serious again.

He reached under the collar of his T-shirt and pulled out the pendant he always wore around his neck.

“This was my mother’s,” he whispered, looking at it, “she always told me that everything has a beginning and an end and that you always have to be aware of that. If you’re going through a hard time, you have to wait and hope that it will end and that you’ll be happy one day. The same applies vice versa: If you are happy and have achieved something, you must not forget that this too has an end. You have to wait, live your life and know when to stop if you’ve gone too far. I never understood her words and never paid them any mind, up until the point where I went too far. I had forgotten who I was and what my goal was. My life was on that track. I threw myself into the middle of chaos to cleanse my aching soul. I had changed so much that when I looked at myself in the mirror, I no longer saw her, I saw the fucker who had abused her. Sin feels good, like an aphrodisiac, it makes you forget everything, but when it’s over, the pain comes back all the stronger. I never took advantage of a girl. If I liked one and knew she would be mine, I preferred to let her come to me. The obsession with the tattoo was also a protection for her in a way. That’s why I do it, so every asshole knows she’s mine and they should be afraid to go near her. People got it wrong because they thought I was marking my possessions with it. No, it’s my way of keeping my girlfriend from experiencing the same thing my mother did. And even though I never cared about any of them as much as I should have, I still wanted to protect them. Maybe there was a bit of possessiveness involved, you could call me a territorial male, but above all it served as reassurance that they were protected. There’s a lot in the S: jealousy, possessiveness, but above all protection.”

I blinked in shock. I was thinking exactly the same thing as everyone else about the tattoo. But it seemed as if the trauma of his childhood washed over him in the most painful and exaggerated way. Given the tattoo’s new meaning, it no longer seemed so obsessive.

“I made a name for myself, not just with my driving, but with my wild, impulsive behavior. Especially after…” he paused suddenly, biting his lips and closing his eyes as if he’d said something he didn’t mean to.

“After what?” I asked, and he let out a deep sigh.

“After I killed the guy who raped V.”

I made no sound, suddenly feeling paralyzed, and he looked at me as he added:

“Joshua’s brother.”

I hadn’t expected him to go back to that subject, not after everything he’d told me. I licked my lips, and he looked up at the sky, where the light was still fighting the darkness the same way I was fighting my love for Harris.

We were both losing.

“Tell me,” I begged him, laying my head back on his shoulder, “tell me everything.”

Harris sighed and looked down at his hands.

“V was new among us, Jay had just brought her. Young, innocent, lots of boys were interested in her, and one of them raped her one night.”

I pressed my lips tightly together to keep from reacting. I had known V as a fluorescent waterfall of joy and courage; I never thought she went through something like that.

“It happened at a party. V went alone with a couple of my friends. Jay and I stayed home because we were not interested in the theme of the party. They were having an LGBT celebration, and while I’m not homophobic, I didn’t feel like going to a party where some guy would try to pick me up, and that was a mistake.”

I frowned, trying to make the connection.

“It has to do with the colored dust, doesn’t it?”

Harris nodded.

“They were all covered in it, with the LGBT flag, and V was no exception.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered as I realized it, and Harris looked at me, his face contorted with pain.

“She’d become like a sister to me, but she was Jay’s girlfriend, so I had no right to her, at least that idiot thought I didn’t.”

He gritted his teeth and looked to the floor.

“She called us after it happened. No one rescued her. I remember she could barely speak, and I did not understand what had happened until we got there. She was covered in all sorts of colors, but a lot of violet. Her clothes were torn and her skin was covered in powder. When I found him, he was still at the party, drunk out of his mind and covered in the same colors, but also a lot of violet.” I clung tighter to his arm as I got colder and colder, but not because of the temperature or the rain.

“I managed to get him out of there without anyone noticing anything strange. I took care of him on my own; Jay wasn’t prepared for something like that. I knew Marcus wouldn’t live to see the morning. After the first punch, I couldn’t stop. He struggled against me, he was older, but I was stronger. It lasted a long time… even after he stopped breathing. I was fueled by V’s image, scared and broken, but not just her.”

“You remembered your mom?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“You have no idea how. Somewhere along the way, I guess I forgot that I was punching Marcus. I thought I had my… father in my hands. I disfigured his face with my bare hands. The autopsy said he was hit by a rock or a hard object, but it was really just my fists and the rage I had inside me.”

He looked at his hands, at the wounds that the same kind of anger had inflicted on him, and then he looked at me.

“I have no regrets. I’d do that to any fucking rapist in the world.”

The situation had changed radically.

From criminal, Harris had become a savior, an avenger. Maybe a better person would have said that he had no right to take someone’s life under any circumstances, but I wasn’t that person.

Sometimes people really were so rotten and vile that it was better to kill them.

I didn’t care about this Marcus. Whether he had been a good guy before he became a rapist, whether he had a family or people who loved him, I couldn’t muster the strength to care.

A rapist rarely had just one victim, and although I didn’t know if V had been the first of them, others would have surely followed.

I exhaled slowly and placed my palm on his wounds. The blood had dried, and it felt harsh.

“They didn’t get you with that?”

“No. Some witnesses said he went with me, but it didn’t matter. No one knew he’d raped V because he didn’t tell anyone, and neither did we. I said I only took him home because he was too drunk to do it himself. Joshua was the only one who knew what he’d done.”

“He was there?”

Harris clenched his fists under my palms.

“He was guarding the door.”

I understood and wished I had Joshua in front of me at that moment. I probably would have killed him myself. He was standing at the door, why V had been raped.

“I should have figured it out as soon as that photographer mentioned the colored dust.”

“Now I understand the basis of his plan, but I still don’t understand what he wanted to do to me. Why did he go to such lengths to get Adam, and why the photos?”

Harris rubbed his face.

“First, because he’s a psychopath, he had a detailed plan to torture me. He studied you and probably figured out that you would only have allowed Adam to photograph you like that because he’s a friend of yours. What he intended to do with those pictures, I don’t even want to think about right now. I’ll find out soon before I give him the same ending his brother had.”

I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. I couldn’t fight for Joshua either – if I ever did – not after I found out what a psychopath he really was and what he wanted revenge for. I wasn’t stupid enough not to realize that his plan ultimately involved rape.

“If you do it now, Shane will know you did it.”

“I don’t care.” From the way he said it, I realized that he really didn’t care. He was determined to end it.

“And Olsen? What was his role in all this?”

Harris rubbed his face again.

“To confuse me, I guess. To send me on a ghost hunt, because by the time I finally put it all together, it was too late. Olsen had been the Wallards’ accountant at one point. After his father died, the business went to shit and they were drowning in debt and Olsen was nowhere to be found. No matter how much I tortured him, he wouldn’t tell me anything. He wouldn’t tell me what Joshua had on him, but Ty did some digging and found out he had an ex-wife and a thirteen-year-old kid in town. I am guessing Joshua threatened them to get an ally who he used as the perfect trap for me.”

My heart sank in an inexplicable way.

“He was trying to protect his family,” I whispered.

Harris turned and cupped my cheek with his palm.

“He was a crook, a thief, and a drunk. His wife left him for a reason, but it doesn’t matter. He could have been the best man in the world and I still wouldn’t have cared. I will never care if someone attacks you.”

He was serious, then he sighed.

“And it hurts that I didn’t do it sooner, that I… forgot.”

“Forgot?” I repeated, confused, and he nodded.

“Joshua threatened to do it. That night, he swore that he would wait for the day someone would come into my life. I didn’t pay any attention to him then, he was just an angry kid, and he never came near me after that. He didn’t tell the police either, even though he found me next to Marcus’ body. Now I realized that he just let me forget while he patiently waited. He was waiting for… you. He knew it from the first night when I lost my shit as soon as he mentioned you. It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.”

“I see no blood on your hands for this.”

He listened carefully to what I said.

“Why?” he whispered.

“Because… sometimes when you kill a monster, you save a lot of other lives. You killed a rapist. I’m glad you did. I don’t give a shit that he left behind a vengeful, psychopathic brother. We’ll take care of him, too.”

Harris looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, the way he’d looked at me when he learned I’d protected him from Shane. He leaned his head against mine, as if he was high on my essence and my words.

“We’ll take care of it, baby. He’s going to regret not moving on with his life and coming after you.”

I couldn’t disagree, I didn’t have the strength.

He clenched his fist around the pendant again, then pulled it out and twirled it between his fingers.

“She never wore it. Only once, but around her wrist. She kept it in a black velvet box. Sometimes she would stare at it for hours, as if she was afraid to hang it around her neck. She wouldn’t allow me to wear it either, but she never explained why. It was very important to her, and when I went to my old house, I found it under her pillow, on the bed where she died. I could never bring myself to sell the house. It holds so many bad memories, but also the most beautiful ones. That house is the only place where she still lives.”

I smiled and pressed my head further against his shoulder.

“I haven’t taken it off since I found it. I don’t know what it meant to her, but this necklace has helped me remember who I am and what my purpose is. I promised my mom that I would never go looking for the scumbag who ruined her life, but I know that sooner or later our paths will cross. The end will come. Neither of us deserves to walk this earth. He’s a devil, and I’m the demon he created. I don’t even want to think about him being out there somewhere, free, ruining other girls like he did my mom. He’ll die in my hands, even though I know I’ll die with him… that’s all I want.”

I immediately embraced him as I trembled.

“Harris, stop judging yourself because of your past. It’s not your fault. Your mom loved you and I’m sure she still does, no matter where she is now.”

He sighed bitterly.

“Maybe that’s true, but you know what really matters at the end of the day? That she’s not here with me.”

My eyes grew moist again, and I blinked a few times to stop it. He looked at me urgently, and I wished it was completely dark so he wouldn’t see me crying next to him.

Even though my face was already wet from the rain, he found the tears with his fingertips.

“Please, don’t cry.”

The plea in his voice clung to me like lead. I swallowed as his finger still tenderly stroked my cheek.

“Since my mom’s death, I have been a shadow walking the earth. My only goal was to destroy myself and others in the process. I felt nothing and loved no one. Until you.”

My own heart threatened to burst out of my chest when I heard that. I didn’t know if he had just said what I thought he did, or if I had just misunderstood.

He looked at me for what felt like an eternity until the darkness swallowed us whole.

He pulled me completely into his arms and electricity flared in my temples.

This place was very important to him, the only place where a demon could let his tears flow.

The fact that he revealed his feelings for me here was something I could not easily bear. He continued to stroke my cheek as his warm breath brushed against my lips.

“I have never hated myself as much as I have in the last few days when I realized the danger I put you in. I have fought myself, tortured myself to the limits of my being to resist you, to stay away from you and keep you safe, but I have never felt a greater power than the one you have over me. I have never felt happiness as profound as the one you bring me, greater pain than the one I felt on the days you avoided me, a more catastrophic attraction or a sweeter torment.”

I closed my eyes and he pressed his forehead against mine.

“I have fallen in love with you.”

Time stood still.

For a few seconds, hours or perhaps centuries.

It did not matter. All that mattered was his voice so close to my lips, uttering the most powerful words in the world.

“I don’t need more than one look at you to know it. I have been waiting for you, waiting for the day my heart would really start beating again, and that day came when I saw you for the first time.”

His fingers slowly brushed through my wet hair, and I lifted my head to look at him, but I couldn’t see anything, and it was driving me crazy. I blinked my water-coated eyelashes, then felt him lean down and instinctively closed my eyes.

His whisper slipped through my lips.

“I love you, Katherine!”

I didn’t need to see him. God, not at all, because I felt him. I felt him with every cell in my body, with every drop of blood and every beat of my heart.

Something told me he’d been waiting for this moment, waiting for the deep darkness to tell me this, because it was just so…. Harris to confess his love to me in this way.

Those words poured over me and into me, filling me to the brim with strength and unimaginable happiness.

His lips pressed against mine and my soul exploded as I clung to his neck and we both stood up so we could hug each other tighter.

The kiss was gentle, but so strong and full of promises that I hadn’t dared to dream of a few hours before.

“Y-you… love me,” I whispered as our lips parted.

It wasn’t a question, and I had said it more for myself.

“Yes,” I felt his smile on my lips.

“Why?” I stuttered in confusion and asked the most ridiculous question you could ask at a time like this.

My reaction was over the top, but I never expected to hear those words from Harris, especially not so soon.

“Why are you breathing?”

His question caught me off guard, and I frowned. I hadn’t asked that. What kind of analogy was he getting at? I was a little too overwhelmed to think logically.

“To live,” I said the first thing that came to mind, and he smiled as his lips hovered over my cheek.

“That’s exactly why I fell in love with you, to live again.”

I swallowed before he kissed me again. Gently and slowly, his lips barely touching mine.

I was done for. I felt done, not knowing if the darkness had fully settled or if I had gone blind with shock and happiness.

For the moment, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the universe that had opened up at my feet.