(some of you have been asking, so just a note, I dedicate chapters to active commenters. thank you for reading xx)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"DON'T TOUCH HER."
Evelyn snaps her head in Harry's direction so fast she pops her neck. He's still looking at the ground, facing them so that the top of his head is all she sees. She doubts she even heard the words at all, or maybe it had been someone else. The only other people around are the beasts and Quincy, but he's being pinned down and he most certainly wouldn't stick up for her.
Micah smacks his lips, placing a finger behind his ear as he continues to stand far too close to her. "I'm sorry, did the little mouse squeak? What did you say?"
The arrogance!
She's surprised he hasn't drowned in his ego yet.
Harry repeats himself, his voice hoarse yet still manages to sound threatening. In fact, he surprised everyone so much with his words that the tone of his voice startles the two experiments keeping him on his knees. They both have taken an unintentional step back, blinking at their boss in hopes of being told what to do.
"Ah, so I heard correctly." Micah takes a step towards Harry, and Evelyn considers the distance safe and reaches for her dagger. "It's no fair that you get to have her, you know. I've got a wonderful set up where she could be the lady she truly is. Fighting is no sport for a woman. Too easy for them to hurt themselves."
"Then it's a good thing I know what I'm doing," Evelyn grumbles, throwing the dagger just as the words leave her lips. Micah spins around, but the gap between them is too small for him to have time to stop the dagger from burrowing into his shoulder. She had aimed for his neck, and she would've hit dead on the mark had he not turned around.
The same time Micah yells out, Harry takes a deep breath and yanks his hands in either direction, snapping the wire. He'll have to pick out some spikes later, and he'll have nasty bruises, but he doesn't seem to care about the aftermath. He grips the ends of one half of the wire, looping it around Micah's throat. Micah staggers back, his good arm reaching back to hit Harry, but Harry easily deflects the blows.
He looks at Evelyn, and Evelyn wonders if he considers them a great duo like she's beginning to.
She shakes the thought away as quickly as it surfaces.
"Well played," Micah says a bit breathlessly, blood dripping down his neck and seeping through his shoulder. "I'll admit I hadn't expected a decent fight."
Micah's beasts stand around with their shoulders hunched, but they don't dare make a move. Harry catches one inching forward and pulls tighter on the wire around Micah's neck, making Micah gasp and curse under his breath.
"Stay back!" he yells at his little army, his red eyes an impossible dark shade. If the sun hadn't been directly on them, Evelyn might've said they were black.
"You're going to leave," Harry tells him. "You're going to leave me alone or I swear I'll take this opportunity to slice your head clean off."
Micah, still the ever so pompous one, quirks a brow. "And if I call your bluff?"
Harry pulls on the wire.
"Okay, okay!" Micah growls, and Evelyn can only compare it to the sound a hungry lion makes. "I'll go on my way."
"Call your men off," Harry demands, not yet releasing Micah.
Micah growls again, but waves his men away. They hesitate before stalking back the way they came, the two holding Quincy reluctantly letting him go. Quincy scrambles backwards, probably wishing he still had a weapon.
"Are you satisfied?" Micah hisses.
Harry scans the area, and when he considers it safe, he pushes Micah away. Micah yanks the dagger out of his shoulder, hardly even flinching, and tosses it back Evelyn's way. She takes a step back and it lands at her feet. He stares at her a long moment, taking in her appearance and locking it away in his memory. He doesn't look away until Harry steps in front of her, then his usual haughty smirk spreads across his face.
"I won't have to chase you," he says to Harry, backstepping towards the fence where his men wait. "You'll find your way to me soon enough."
Harry clenches his jaw, glaring at Micah as he turns around and jogs away. He doesn't stop glaring until they're well out of sight.
Then he starts to walk off.
Evelyn gapes at him, stunned for a moment before gathering her wits and quickening her pace to keep up. "So you can talk?" she asks, still for some reason unable to fathom it.
He shrugs.
She grabs his forearm before she can stop herself, halting both of them. She instantly retracts her hand, but he meets her gaze. "Don't go mute again," she says, rather exhausted. "I need answers and if you can provide them... I guess now isn't the time for questions. But do you at least have an actual name?"
He purses his lips. "Harry is fine."
"Didn't you have a name, though?"
"One that I don't care to remember," he replies coolly, beginning to walk off again. There's definitely an entire history he isn't hinting at. She hopes she can ween it out of him someday. "We need to leave."
Evelyn ignores the fact that he said "we." She has nowhere else to go at the moment, and if he can keep her and Robbie safe, then she supposes there's no other option. She needs to play smart, and after all Harry's done, it would be totally stupid to try and make it on her own, especially with no set destination.
"And where exactly are we supposed to go?" she questions instead.
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. He stops to look at her again, clearing his throat before speaking, words apparently still foreign to him. "You don't have to come if you don't want to. I know... trusting isn't exactly your strong suit."
"You know, I think I got clearer answers from you when all you did was nod and shake your head." Evelyn crosses her arms over her chest. "If you don't want me to come, I won't."
"I didn't say that."
"Good, because I'm coming anyways. I promised Delia that Robbie would be safe and since I don't have a plan..." She trails off, letting him fill the sentence however he wishes. Also, the mentioning of Delia causes an unexpected pang in her chest.
"Wait!"
They both turn to see Quincy pointing at them, his gun back in his hands.
He's aiming at Harry.
"You brought those bastards here," he hisses, eyes narrowing.
"He also saved your ass the last time I checked," Evelyn hisses back. "But don't worry. We won't be a problem to you anymore."
"You can't just leave," he retorts. "Not after you killed half my crew!"
"They were dead already. In the head, anyways."
"You need to watch your tongue, you little brat."
"I haven't gone insane enough to pick up on the habit."
Harry steps between the two. "Enough. We're leaving, and that's the end of the story."
Evelyn gives Quincy a triumphant look to which he returns with a glower. Then he grumbles, "I could shoot both of you."
"You could, but it'd be stupid," Harry says nonchalantly, as if they were conversing about betting on a football game.
"And why's that?"
"Because unless it's a deadly shot, I'll kill you faster than the bullet will kill me. If you keep talking about shooting either of us, I'll go ahead and get it over with." Harry glares at Quincy, making Quincy take multiple steps back and lower the gun.
"We're locking down the place," he says. "You've got an hour to get out of here or else you will be forced to stay."
Harry shrugs, beginning to walk off once more and Evelyn strides after him. She notices his hands are still bloody, and it's obvious those spikes dug deeper than he's letting on, but by the indifferent expression on his face, you would've never known he'd been injured.
"You should get your hands cleaned up," she notes.
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask if you were fine, I said you should get cleaned up. You really should bandage your wrists too. That wire cut pretty deep."
He sighs, but doesn't argue and Evelyn goes with him to the clinic. On the way down the hall, she knocks on the kid room and snags Robbie and Sasha, explaining the situation minus the numerous deaths and bloodshed. Sasha pales at the sight of Harry's hands, and Robbie asks him how he got so strong because he'd like to be that tough one day. Harry shakes his head in amusement at the kid, but there's an odd look in his eyes. He doesn't reply, and Robbie doesn't push the subject further.
Nive isn't screaming anymore, and instead is lying in total peace with an infant in her arms. Sasha runs over to her immediately, but Robbie hangs back with a finger in Evelyn's belt loop as if he's a child in the mall trying not to get lost. While Harry reluctantly allows Tracy to bandage up his wrists, Robbie tugs a little on Evelyn's jeans, clutching Poppy tightly in his other hand and she curls into him.
"Are we leaving?" he whispers, almost like he's afraid.
"Yeah, kid, we are." Evelyn tries to give him a reassuring smile but the gesture is still far too strange for her to make it convincing.
"Where will we go?"
"Wherever Harry's going, I suppose."
"I feel safe with him," he admits. "He's nice."
Evelyn chews the inside of her cheek, still weighing the options. Going solo with only Robbie would be incredibly stupid, but she can't bring herself to trust the beast, even after all he's done. She can't fathom the idea of being dependent and relying on the enemy, though he doesn't appear to be the actual enemy.
She glances over at him, his bored look while Tracy jabbers on about how she never really disliked his kind and he would be such great company for her if he stayed. Very obviously this is her flirting tactic, and it's pretty laughable. Evelyn wonders how Tracy could stand the idea of being with one of them after all they've done, but Delia's words ring quietly in the back of Evelyn's head.
Just because Harry looks like one of them doesn't mean he is one of them.
As if sensing her gaze upon him, their eyes meet and Evelyn clenches her jaw before quickly looking away. Delia may be right, but that doesn't make it any easier for Evelyn to accept it or believe it.
Abruptly, Nive screams which cues the infant to wail at the top of their lungs. Nive hands the infant to the second nurse in the room, then screams some more as she pulls her injured leg to her chest. It's like a slap in the face for Evelyn. With everything that happened in such a short amount of time, she'd forgotten all about the beast that had bitten Nive in the shin a couple of days ago. Nive had seemed fine, though, so it was an easy thing to forget.
Sasha scrambles out of the bed, biting her fingernails as fresh tears well in her eyes. She looks to Evelyn, as does Robbie, but the older girl is still considering what could be wrong. Had the bite gotten infected? Evelyn had cleaned it out with some water when it occurred, but obviously water hadn't helped. It hadn't seemed severe at the time, however, it was very clear just how dire the new situation was.
Harry mutters under his breath, which snaps Evelyn out of her daze. She snaps her head over to him as he yanks his freshly bandaged arms out of Tracy's grasp. He drags a hand down his face, then turns and meets her gaze.
There's a glint in his eyes that makes Evelyn narrow her own.
"What's happening?" she asks accusingly, taking a step towards him. "You know what's going on, don't you?"
"The bite," he murmurs, glancing over at Nive as she clutches her wound and continues crying out. "I can't believe I forgot." He looks to Evelyn again, shaking his head. He leans in close, either to be heard over or drowned out by Nive's screams, she isn't sure. Then he speaks and the question is answered. "We have to... We need to kill her."
Completely thrown off guard, Evelyn staggers back, eyes wide. "What?"
"Bad things will happen if she stays alive," he adds with a panicked expression. "Trust me, she wouldn't want to live."
"You're insane," she breathes, gaping at him. "We just lost someone, and you want to lose another? Be the reason we lose another?"
"Do you remember when I saved you how those experiments didn't look normal?"
"Unfortunately I do--wait, what? Experiments?"
He ignores her. "Do you want Nive to end up like that?"
The confusion she feels is painful. Questions whirl around aimlessly in her mind. There's a quick vision of Nive with an ear missing, the other hanging barely by a thin string of skin. Her eyes are wild and red as blood, fangs sharper than knives stretching just under where her bottom lip would be had it not been torn completely off, her bottom row of teeth exposed. Evelyn shudders and stumbles again as she tries to shake the image away, but it lingers in the back of her mind, haunting.
She looks to Nive who still looks totally human, and who also has stopped screaming. Instead she seems to have been induced with a sedative, one arm limply dangling over the side of the bed. Tracy stands beside her, the syringe in hand. The infant is still crying, and now Sasha and Robbie are too. The second nurse steps out with the baby to calm it, and the room falls eerily silent aside from small sniffles from the two children.
A cackle weaves its way in.
Then the cackle erupts into a maniac laughing fit as Nive shoots upright, the sedative obviously ineffective. Her eyes are practically animalistic as she scans the room. They lock on Sasha and Nive's hysterics increase to a piercing volume, more like shrieking than giggles. She leaps off the bed with her hands outstretched for the fragile girl's throat, but Harry had been paying close attention and had crept closer to the bed. He catches Nive by the hair, throwing her back onto the mattress as he pins her down by the wrists. She gnashes her teeth at him crazily, jerking her body every way possible in attempts to be freed.
"Get them out of here!"
Evelyn jumps out of her daze once more when Harry shouts, and she grabs Sasha and Robbie and hurries for the door. Tracy has it open, rushing out with them, but Evelyn falters before she makes it out the doorway. She peers over her shoulder at Harry. He's still wrestling with Nive, but he has it under control and is watching them. She gives him a look, one full of grief that she hasn't been able to escape.
She has the urge to cry again, but she's thankful when no tears threaten to spill.
His eyes soften, and she finds herself wondering how eyes made to look menacing could make tears lodge in her throat again. "I'm sorry," he says, just loud enough for her to hear. His own grief is thick in his tone, dread and regret and sadness. All the emotions she never thought someone like him could feel. "You should leave."
She nods, lost for words, and slowly backs into the hallway while Tracy pulls the door shut in front of her.