“Because you hate me and you want to kill me?”
Touché. “Not … right now.”
“That doesn’t fill me with confidence.”
I lay my palm on the door and her eyes dart to it before landing back on me with enough fury to set my skin on fire. When I put just a little pressure on the wood, she pushes back. “Why are you being so weird?”
She snorts a sardonic laugh. “You’re the one who’s pushing on my door like the fucking psychopathic serial killer that you are. I have your precious book, don’t forget. If you think you’re going to stop by to kill me, think again.”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I say, my heart scraping my ribs on its way to my guts as her glare intensifies beneath the dark bangs that frame her eyes. I’ve been unraveling my grip on the idea of vengeance, one talon at a time. But it’s obvious Harper would never believe that. And it’s going to be fucking difficult to convince her. Maybe even impossible. She might need my help so badly that she’s willing to go out into the night and dig up bodies with me. But despite what she said when I fucked her, she doesn’t truly trust me.
And in this moment, as I’m standing as an uninvited guest at the doorstep of her home, caught in the corrosive power of her mercury stare, a realization hits me so hard it steals the air from my chest. That as much as I’ve wanted justice for Billy’s murder and the injuries that will haunt me forever, the need for retribution has kept me trapped in the past. If I’d come here wanting to meet Harper and, unfathomably, forgive her, a whole different life might have risen around me. But I’ve been so focused on our history that I might have destroyed the seeds of our future before they even had a chance to grow.
My hand slips from the door, landing back at my side. A thick swallow grinds down my dry throat. “I’m sorry, Harper,” I say, and her brow furrows with wary surprise. “I shouldn’t have—”
Another pained groan comes from the back of the house. And it sounds like a muffled plea for help.
Alarm detonates across Harper’s features. Her eyes are impossibly wide, her full lips parted in a sharp inhale. I’m sure my expression is a mirror of hers. And for a suspended heartbeat, we’re trapped in time, unmoving.
In the next breath, she slams the door in my face as I pivot and take off running down the path that hugs the cottage.
I make it to the back corner of the house just as the kitchen door slams and Harper bursts out onto the patio.
“Harper …” My shocked stare travels from her toes to the top of her head and back down again, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. “What the fuck?”
She’s wearing her gardening gloves and overalls, a black pair this time, and her favorite leather work boots, but they’re covered with makeshift plastic booties fixed to her ankles with duct tape. Her hair is tied in a messy ponytail with a red bow, as though she’s ready to do a musical song-and-dance routine with the ax that’s clutched in her left hand. Her bangs and wisps of stray locks frame her flushed face. But it’s her cropped T-shirt that really grabs my attention.
Craft-A-Corpse! the retro font says over the white fabric that’s stained with splashes of blood. And I am one hundred percent positive that it’s not more of Maya’s Berry Blissful Bloodbath. Especially when another desperate plea for help comes from the other side of the garden wall.
Her eyes dart to the sound. I creep a step toward the gate. Harper catches the motion in her peripheral vision, and in the next blink, she takes off running with me close on her heels. By the time she makes it to the gate, I’m right behind her, and just as she’s passing through it, I wrap an arm around her waist and scoop her up off the ground.
“Well, well, well,” I say against her ear as she thrashes. Her sweet scent of fresh herbs and citrus floods my nostrils. “I am going to hazard a guess that you’ve been up to no good.”
“Let me the fuck down,” she snarls. She scrapes at my arm with one hand, but she’s still wearing her gardening gloves and can’t dig her nails in. With awkward steps, I walk in the direction of the pleas that now come in earnest, keeping her pressed to my body with her feet lifted from the ground. A man’s desperate sobs come from around the corner, the spot near the freshly planted flowers where Harper likes to use her woodchipper.
“I think it’s best we first check out this rather odd sound coming from your back garden, don’t you agree?”
“Not really. No.”
The caw-caw-caw of the raven sounds from the branches of the oak tree. I chuckle against her neck, relishing the way she shudders as I keep her trapped against my ribs. “Are you sure? Because it sounds like your bird has come for cookies. He wouldn’t be ready to say something about ‘murder,’ would he?”
“Let me down.” Harper whacks my shin with the blunt edge of the ax. She’s not delicate about it either, but I guess I should take a little comfort knowing that she chose not to use the sharp side. Small victories, the unhelpfully optimistic voice chimes in my head as I curse. I manage to limp us past the corner of the stone wall before I set her down, her macabre stage coming into view.
A huge man with a thin smattering of ginger hair over a sweaty scalp is lying on his stomach, his ankles and wrists tied to metal stakes that are driven into the earth at sharp angles like tent poles. He’s facing our direction, a dirty cloth stuffed into his mouth and tied at the back of his head. His thick slab of a back is covered in small bleeding wounds that trail rivulets of crimson over his shuddering ribs, leaking into the grass. The scent of piss and boozy sweat lingers on the breeze. A garden tool with a long, silver handle leading to a roller of blood-covered steel spikes lies a short distance away. An even more menacing gas-powered machine that looks like a push mower is also nearby, though I can see from here that the hollow tines at the front are still clean.
With a slow blink, I turn to face Harper, who impatiently waits for me to catch up, one fist planted firmly on her cocked hip, the ax dangling from her other hand like a threat.
“What … is that?” I ask, not taking my eyes from Harper as I nod toward the scene beside us.
“A spike lawn aerator.”
“No. That.”
“A hollow tine lawn aerator.”
I sigh and drag a hand down my face as a devious little glint fires up in her silver eyes.
“That guy,” I say, pointing to the man who thrashes and whines on the grass. “That whole … situation over there.”
Harper gestures to her shirt. “I’m crafting-a-corpse, what does it look like? I’m killing this asshole.”
I look at the guy, then back to Harper, then back to the guy again. The raven drops down to the grass, walking at a safe distance around the man as though he’s sizing up his future buffet options. When I turn my attention back to Harper, she’s chewing on her bottom lip, her brows raised as though she’s waiting for all my next questions so that she can hurry this along. “Why …?” I finally ask.
She shrugs, swinging the ax like a ticking clock. “Pushing over a pregnant nurse was a good start. Threatening hospital staff. Acting like a complete asshole. I’m sure there’s a laundry list of other stupid shit he’s done in his miserable life.” She leans to the side so she can get a better look at him. “Isn’t that right, dickhead?”
The guy shakes his head against the lawn and begs around his gag.
“Sure. That’s super believable.” Harper straightens, rolling her eyes before leveling me with a no-nonsense glare. “Look. I don’t have time to trawl through his entire backstory. But, if it helps—and I must say, I’m genuinely shocked that you of all people would care—I can guarantee he’s a total piece of shit and a waste of the planet’s finite resources. He’ll be put to much better use here,” she declares as she thuds the top of the ax onto the ground.
