Chapter Twelve

"I should go see Ignis soon," I said as I sat in the living room of Harrison's house. I had stretched out on the couch, my heels up on the table. Harrison used to try to get me not to sit like this, but I must have worn him down enough that he no longer cared.

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I'm used to seeing her every week. It's part of my routine."

"Her powers don't work well on you, do they? How can she make you feel better, then?"

"Well, no, they don't really work. At least, I don't think they do. She says she doesn't really feel emotions from me, but I'm not sure if she can affect my moods or not. Still, talking to her makes me feel better."

Harrison closed the book that had been open in his lap, looking across at me. "I am capable of doing anything she does—typically better."

"Are you being jealous?" I lifted my eyebrow, amused by the thought.

"It isn't jealousy." He paused, then let out a rush of air. "Even if it were, why would you leave where you are safe in order to have Ignis help you, when I could do so here? If you have a headache, if you have anxiety, if you need sleep, I can help with any of that. I dislike that you still don't trust me."

I nearly told him I did trust him, but I knew better than to utter that. The fact was… I didn't, not fully. Even if I didn't think he was the monster others seemed to think, I also knew he wasn't entirely honest with me. "It's not like that," I said, the words true but softer than the full truth. "I just don't like the idea of letting anyone dig through my brain. I went through that already—remember? Turns out, it is not my kink."

"What you went through was the equivalent of a mental vivisection. That is not what I am suggesting. Even if I didn't use my powers, you could still speak to me. We have spent weeks together at this point and you say so little to me. You still talk to me as though we are strangers, even after everything we have been through. You are the first person I have allowed into my home, who can stand being near me, and yet you keep up these walls."

I dropped my head back so I stared up at the high ceilings instead of at him. "You're no better. Last I checked, you aren't telling me shit about your life. You don't tell me who you met with the other day, you don't tell me anything unless you've got no choice. So you'd better be careful because you might topple right off your high horse up there."

"What do you want to know? What piece of information would make you feel better around me? If I tell you about my childhood, will you trust me? If I tell you the weight placed on me by my position in my clan, will that allow you to rely on me?"

And the fact was, he wasn't wrong. There was no one specific piece of information that would suddenly make it so that I believed in him. People were too complicated, too deep for me to take one little bit of background as the end all to them.

"Exactly," he said, then sighed and got to his feet. "Nothing I could tell you would fix this. You look at me with distrust, and there's no way that one little story will get you to let go of that. I doubt it is even about me, at the end of the day. I saw how you acted around Kelvin, heard you rejected Galen's offer to become his mate. You refuse to allow anyone close. Even Ignis, who you claim to miss, you do not tell the truth to. Perhaps I need to simply recognize that there is a line between you and everyone else, and to stop trying to force a relationship that won't ever occur."

Fuck, the boy could guilt trip better than my mom. I actually felt bad about it, all of a sudden. Looking back, logically, he hadn't fucked me over. Instead, he'd helped me, again and again. Even still, even with that, something about him just made me untrusting.

Or maybe it wasn't him at all—maybe it was just about me.

I thought back over the past years—fuck, over my whole life. Had there really been a single person I'd let close to me? Someone I didn't hide from? I didn't push away?

Even with my own family, who I loved endlessly, I never let myself relax. I still played a part, still hid away everything painful and real inside me. Suddenly, my future felt much longer than it had been before. Was this what I was forced to expect for the rest of my life? This same isolation? The loneliness?

"Wait," I whispered as Harrison walked toward the hallway that would take him to his room.

He paused, but didn't speak. Instead, he gave me the chance to gather my thoughts and figure out what I wanted to say.

"If you just want to explain to me how fucked up I am, you're wasting your breath if you think I don't already know. I'm well aware of how screwed up I am, but knowing what's wrong is a lot different from knowing how to fix it. How am I supposed to be different?"

He turned, facing me for a moment before coming over and kneeling in front of me. It was strange to see him like that. Harrison, a man feared by so many, was there before me in such a position. And damn it, my filthy brain rather liked the sight. He set his hands on the tops of my knees and looked up into my face. "People don't change at all once. Instead, you can only decide in each moment what you want to do, who you want to be, and take it one step at a time."

"And what does that mean right now?"

"Tell me what's wrong, and let me help."

I blew out one long, centering breath, before nodding. "I can feel myself getting closer to needing Kelvin's bite, and that terrifies me. I'm stuck here, knowing I can't leave, and that offends every part of my crow. I feel like I'm in the middle of something I can hardly understand, but I'm somehow expected to help. I just feel…" My voice trailed off when I couldn't come up with something that truly fit, with an explanation that would tell him just how out of sorts I felt.

Harrison didn't flinch, didn't pull away. He listened to each word, seeming to weigh them, to take them in, to consider them as though they mattered. Finally, he offered just one word. "Overwhelmed?"

And yeah, that fit. "Yeah, that's it. It's just all too much."

"Do you know why it is too much? Because you hold it all yourself, because you try to be everything and do everything yourself. No one is meant to hold so much all on their own."

"Including you?" I threw back.

He smiled, though it held hints of pain, as though he knew damned well I was right. "Fair enough. So what if we both tried to let someone else help…just a little. Let me help you, and that will ease my burden as well."

Fear beat at me, as though I stood on a cliff. I didn't know what help meant, but I knew I had to make a choice. Would I open myself up to this man? Would I trust that I knew him better than what others said? That I understood him well enough to know he wouldn't turn on me?

I nodded when the words felt too thick in my throat.

Harrison moved his hands from my knees, up to my cheeks. His palms were warm against my skin as he straightened his back, still on his knees but at his full height. It brought his face up to where mine was, and he pressed his forehead against mine.

The brush of his mind to mine was gentle, even it made me jerk away. It didn't hurt, not like it had before, when I'd gotten attacked. This felt like the difference between someone biting my lip hard and someone coaxing a kiss from me. Harrison coaxed, with soft touches and careful movement, and damn him, but it worked.

He slipped into my mind, the sensation strange and uncomfortable and oddly familiar. It felt warm, like sitting before a roaring fire, but I recalled how many times I'd ended up with red skin because I'd ventured too close. Would this burn me, too?

"Your mind is a mess," he whispered, his voice in my head. " You really carry too many worries, all of them rushing through you."

"I don't do that," I argued out loud. "Anyone who knows me would say my brain is empty more than it's got any thoughts in it."

"That's what you want people to think, but it isn't true. I can see it, feel it all. Just try to relax, let it all go."

As he said that, my mind felt…lighter. It seemed as though he'd removed some of the heavier items, shifting things until it didn't feel nearly as crushing as it had before. Perhaps it was better to say he shored up the fears inside me, balancing them, making them easier to carry myself. It didn't feel like it did before, during my attack, where that other mind had forced me to relive whatever he wanted, where he tore through my barriers and my thoughts. That had been someone breaking in and ransacking my house, where Harrison behaved as though I'd invited him in and he was careful to not get mud on the carpets.

It felt as though he hummed, a melody playing inside my head, calming and quiet. Was that him? It was funny, as I didn't think he had much peace in him, yet he somehow shared what little he had with me. And for the first time—possibly ever—I let him. I gave in, giving my mind over to him.

Still, the sensation of him there in my head was oddly familiar. I tried to work out why, even though it was hard to hold on to any thoughts of my own. I recalled what Ignis had said before, the fact that each Mind had a feeling of their own. It was like any other Spirit, each on its own wavelength, like a DNA to identify them. I knew how Ignis felt because of all the time I'd spent with her—she was like mint, something clean and fresh.

The Mind who had attacked me had reminded me of cinnamon—spicy and almost sweet. It had felt overwhelming at the time of the attack, but looking back, I could best identify it as cinnamon.

"Whatever you are thinking about, don't. Just sleep." Harrison's whispered command in my head was too strong for me to resist, to even want to resist. He made it so the worries, the fears in my head didn't feel so close, so unbearable.

So I didn't fight his command. My eyes slid closed as I gave in, as I leaned against him, allowing him to hold me up. He lifted me into his strong arms, and the steady beat of his heart further lured me into that placid place inside me where nothing bothered me, where nothing worried me.

He carried me with such care, as though I were precious to him. Just as he'd slipped into my mind, I also moved through his. I didn't understand any of it, only got a general, vague sense of mine, but he didn't resist my presence. It made me recognize that no matter what I thought of him, whether or not I trusted him, he felt some connection to me.

Still, none of that stuck with me. As he settled me into a bed—his bed—with him beside me, only one tiny detail remained in my head, something I couldn't shake away.

It was the scent of cinnamon from his mind, the same one I'd felt during my attack.

* * * *

I guided the car along the road with absolutely no idea where I was headed.

Okay, so maybe running away wasn't the best idea. Still, when I'd woken beside Harrison, the tension inside me had reached a breaking point. Staring at his sleeping face while the memory of how his power had felt like it was mocking me had become too much. Before I'd thought too much about it, I'd swiped the keys to his car and taken off, unable to stay there another fucking minute.

The power felt exactly the same. Or, maybe it was better to say it felt like the same power, just used differently. It had been rough the first time, gentle this time, but I couldn't ignore that they still felt like the same power.

The cinnamon I'd tasted from my attacker was the same I'd felt with Harrison.

I came to a stop sign, still not sure where to go. Left? Right? To Galen? To Kelvin? Maybe I just needed to take off east, to drive until this stupid car and the few credit cards I'd swiped ran out. Maybe it all had become too much and I just needed to nope out of it all.

I rested my forehead against the steering wheel when my body refused to move, to pick a direction. Every damned time I thought I got a handle on the mess that my life was, I ended up losing it all.

It seemed my lot in life, but fuck was I sick of it.

A horn blared from behind me, making me jerk myself upright and drive forward. I pulled off the road, just beside a park, then grabbed my phone. My fingers moved almost on their own, hitting the button for the only person I thought could really understand what I was going through, who might have any real advice.

Ignis answered on the third ring. "You calling me at three in the morning is a bad sign. Please tell me I don't have to bail you out."

"No bail needed, at least not yet."

"Small miracles, huh?" She yawned, and I could almost picture her sitting up in bed. I really didn't deserve a friend that good. "So, what's going on?"

"You said before that all Minds have power that feels different, right?"

"Yep, that's right. It's like a fingerprint. It can't be faked or changed."

"Can two Minds have power similar enough that they're confused for each other?"

"Not really. They can feel similar, sure, but it'll always feel different enough to know. Though, if someone waits long enough, they might not remember what a power felt like, if years have passed." She paused for a moment, her voice shifting as though she realized this might be a more serious question than she'd expected. "Why?"

"No reason," I lied. Somehow, trying to tell Ignis that I thought my attacker might be her brother didn't seem like something that would go over all that well. I could already hear Ignis defending her brother, not because she didn't care, but because she'd never believe he could do that.

Then again, we were all blind in our own way when it came to those around us. Hadn't I thought the same thing when Beth had said plenty about Harrison? Yet here I was, doubting him just as she had.

"Where are you?" Her tone suggested she knew damn well I wasn't where I was supposed to be, though that was usually a pretty easy guess to make.

"Just out for a little drive."

"Meaning you stole Harrison's car, right?"

"Well, I mean, if you want to get super specific, sure."

"Which means you're out without anyone making sure you don't get attacked? Of course you are—why does that not shock me?" She paused, the sound of a long, slow breath telling me that she'd had to pull her temper back under control. I wasn't sure if it was a sign of her maturity or just her professional training in dealing with fucked-up people, but when she spoke again, she was calm. "Why did you run away from Harrison? You must have run away, because if he knew you had left, he would have called me already. What happened?"

"How do you know you can trust someone? People talk about it like it's so simple, so easy, but how do you know? In my experience, even the people I thought I could trust, they just needed the right reason to betray me. They're never what you think they are, never what they pretend to be."

"You can't ever be sure. I mean, I can sense people's emotions and even I get fooled."

"So, what's the point of trying, then? If even you can't do a damn thing about it, then what hopes do any of us regular folks have?"

"You think life is about coming up with the right answer, but that's not it. It's about the journey, the process. You might find out at the end that you picked wrong, but that's not as important as the path to get there."

"Sounds like some psychobabble to me."

"Well, that is my job. Come on—why don't you come over to my place? Then Harrison won't need to have a heart attack once he realizes you're gone. We'll talk about whatever's bothering you."

The desire to drive off again hit me, the temptation to just nope the fuck out of this entire mess. However, cutting and running wasn't an option, so I nodded. "Okay. I'm over by Lucky Park—I'll get to your place in like, twenty minutes."

"I'll put on some coffee—looks like we'll have an early morning."

I put Ignis on speaker, then tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. I slid the car into drive, then pulled from the side onto the dark road. "I'll pick up donuts, too."

Ignis laughed, but before I could understand her next words, a sudden pain raced through my temples. It was familiar, the same feeling I'd gotten during the other attacks. This time I recognized it better, and fear swamped me.

"Grey?" Ignis' voice came from a million miles away, like we were both drowning and the water distorted her voice. It became more frantic as I hit the brakes of the car. I could see nothing, the pain in my head taking every bit of attention, but the last thing I wanted was to come to later finding out I'd run over some kid.

Though, if a kid is out at this hour, they probably had it coming.

The crunch of metal shook me back to my right mind, the pain letting up just enough for me to pull the parking brake, then open the door. I stumbled out of the car, gripping my head as though I could hold it together with my hands alone.

"You were so careful up until now." The voice floated through the darkness, reverberating somehow between something physical and something in my head. Still, I recognized it as the one I'd heard during the attacks.

I wanted to bury my face in my hands and pretend anything else was true, but I couldn't. I'd survived too much already to give in now. Instead, I lifted my head toward that voice, peering through the darkness to find the person behind it standing there.

Blond, wavy hair, blue eyes, and a face I would never forget.

Harrison stood above me, his lips twisted into a smirk he had somehow hidden from me. How could I have been this horribly wrong?