Desolation [h.s]

Chapter 6

"Jesus, you're so stubborn," he mumbles, his fingers rubbing against the sharp curve of his jaw. Raising an accusing brow at him, I move towards him and his eyes attentively follow my movements.

"I'm the stubborn one? If I remember correctly, you're the one who brought it up this morning in the first place. You're the one who keeps dragging this on. It's unnecessary if you ask me." My voice begins to rise in volume once again, all of my patience running thin at his ignorant words. Harry rolls his eyes at me, his weight shifting between his legs as he recrosses his arms.

His expression doesn't change as his eyes bore into mine. The room goes quiet for the first time today and I bite the inside of my lip at his challenging look. Silently, I watch as a smug smile creeps onto Harry's face, taking home on his lips. I think he's done speaking but when he opens his mouth, my heart sinks at his next words.

"Maybe Dolion was right when he paired me up with you," Harry starts and the way his eyes darken significantly as his words leave his mouth makes my body turn stiff in my spot. "Maybe you aren't good enough to do this on your own. Definitely seems to be a pattern of you making mistakes considering your last mission, right?"

That was it. That was the tipping point of the scale Harry was threatening this entire time and boy did he tip it.

Before my mind even catches up with what my body's doing, all I see is red as my legs carry me over to where Harry's standing, a cocky look painted across his features.

In the blink of an eye, my hand flies up to the side of Harry's face but just as it's about to collide with his cheek, a tight grip stops it, long fingers curling around my wrist. The coldness of the rings bite into my skin as I look up at Harry who tilts his head as his eyes flicker between where his hand almost engulfs my entire wrist to where I'm looking up at him with wide eyes.

"What do you think you're doing, darling?" he whispers, his voice holding the right amount of huskiness that sends a shiver down my spine. Swallowing thickly, his fingers tighten their hold around me, the tips digging into my skin.

Tilting my chin up, I eye him before finding it in myself to speak. "Don't speak to me like that."

Despite my words coming out in a volume that matches Harry's, there's aggressiveness behind them. I try to keep my face passive, not letting Harry see how his words affected me, but the way his grin only grows makes it harder to repress my boiling emotions.

"Like what?" he taunts. "Like you're someone who can't do their job?"

Fine. Two can play that game.

"I feel sorry for you," I say in a borderline menacing voice. Harry's features turn into confusion as he stares down at me. The atmosphere in the room takes a turn, the tension so thick you could almost see it floating in the air like a cloud of smoke surrounding us.

"Why's that?"

"Because," our hands start to lower from where Harry was still holding them suspended in the air, instead they dangle loosely in between us, neither him nor I making a move to disconnect them. I take a small step closer to the point where I'm almost at direct eye contact with him, my head tilting back just the tiniest bit.

"You feel the need to constantly put me down because you're trying to hide the fact that you're just as clueless as I am in this case." The corner of my mouth twitches upwards as I feel his fingers tighten around my wrist, my words digging into that inflated ego just the way I wanted to.

"No matter how much you deny it, you have no clue what you're doing. And if I'm being honest," I take a pause between my words as Harry's nose flares and his breathing starts to get labored, a clear sign that I was hitting a sore spot, "you're doing a shit job at hiding it."