Page 31 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

Charlie is considering. I see the gears shifting rapidly in his head. I see his eyes drop over me. Then he nods his chin toward the floor in a silent instruction to get on my knees.

Help Ben. I lower, the cold hardwood digging into my kneecaps—along with something sharper. Fuck, fuck. The glass. I forgot about all the broken vials, but I don’t stand. I just let the pain flare as little jagged fragments rip through my pants. It’s okay.

It’s okay. I concentrate more on the searing of my skin than the sickness in my stomach. I’d rather feel pain than this jumbled, nauseous sensation. I’ve done this so fucking much, so I don’t know why tonight feels any different.

Be a good friend. My heart is a thunderous drumbeat in my ears, timed to my sudden panic.

Be someone he deserves. I look up at Charlie, and his yellow-green eyes, the hue of a snake, are void of emotion.

Soft tendrils of his golden-brown hair swoop over his forehead, and he just stares at me. Waiting. Watching. Seeing what I’ll do.

Unzip his pants , I try to command myself.

I lick my dried lips. My pulse tries to run away from me.

His eye contact is a magnetized intensity, and I can’t break it.

I’m under the power of it, which scares me.

And still, I reach for his zipper. As soon as my hand is midair—he drops to his knees in front of me.

He doesn’t touch me, but the impact of that movement knocks the wind out of my lungs.

What the fuck is he doing? He makes no pained reaction as he kneels on glass too.

Closer to eyelevel now, his gaze searches mine, excavating me like he’s unearthing every time I put myself in this position. Like he knows.

Like he sees .

I feel violently, uncontrollably exposed. After a long minute of just staring at one another, he finally speaks.

“We are crooked things in this world.” His voice is a soft, brutal blow. “Bent, gnarled, twisted things.” It sounds like a line from a poem I don’t know.

Tears well up in my eyes. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means get off your knees.”

“It does not.” I swipe angrily at a traitorous tear.

His jaw twitches. “You might be friends with Ben, but he clearly has feelings for you. And you just tried to blow his brother. I don’t hate him enough to let you.

I’ve never hated him.” His words sink heavy weights inside my stomach, drifting down to the pits of my belly.

He doesn’t even blink when he adds, “You’re very fucked up. ”

Breath catches inside my lungs. Air is thin.

Charlie says, “We’re all fucked up in our own ways. I just can’t tell whether you’ll be the worst thing that ever happened to my brother or the best.”

“I—”

“What the fuck is going on?” Beckett’s smooth voice triggers an alarm in my body, but I am unnaturally frozen when I see him hovering in the doorway. I didn’t even hear him open the freaking door. He’s glancing between me and Charlie with so many corrosive questions in his narrowing eyes.

Both Charlie and I are on our knees, which doesn’t look great. Not that it’s any worse than what I had planned. What I had planned. Oh God. Oh fuck.

I jolt to my feet. My vision blurs with more hot tears. I embarrassed myself for what? For nothing. It all meant nothing.

This was all for nothing.

I ruined…everything.

I run. Swiping my black messenger bag off the floor, I push past Beckett in the doorway and slip out of his grasp as he tries to catch me. “Harriet,” he calls out, then I hear him ask, “Charlie, what the fuck did you do?”

I’m a mess navigating the pathway of tipsy-turvy books. I trip over a stack, and I pull my messenger bag closer to my body. Righting myself, I stumble toward the front door where Eliot and Tom linger inside.

I reach for my leather jacket—just so I can cover my reddened, tear-streaked face from them—but my fingers only catch the fabric of my crop top. Nooo, fuck. I left my jacket in the parlor. There’s no chance I’m backtracking to retrieve it.

“Are you crying?” Eliot asks with darkening eyes. His head whips toward the pathway I just barreled through. “What happened?” He’s about to rush into the danger that he thinks I met and escaped.

I say nothing. I sprint past Eliot and Tom like my feet have caught fire.

Ben is going to know. Charlie is going to tell him . Bile rises and sears my throat as I push out the front door into the warm, muggy night. Rain drizzles on the stone steps. On the stoop, I do my best to inhale a single breath.

I tried to blow his brother.

I’m very fucked up.

I would have done it had Charlie not dropped to his knees.

I would have done it.

I would have.

My heart beats so forcefully, and it takes me a moment to realize the five men casually standing on the sidewalk are the Cobalt brothers’ bodyguards. They’re all turning toward me like I’m a wet, stray cat that just scampered from the building.

Avoiding eye contact, I jog down the steps, and my boots hit the sidewalk.

“Harriet!” Eliot calls after me.

“I’m fine!” I yell into the night air at him. At security. At anyone who cares so they won’t follow me. They don’t need to chase me down. I’m fine. Fine .

I tried to blow Ben’s older brother—when, really, I think I’m falling for Ben. But I’m fine.

I. Am. Fine .

Footsteps thunder behind me, and I pick up my own pace. I’m not slow. I run away from this moment. From my shame. From this life.

I’m going to be one of those girls that they all laugh about years to come. Remember Harriet? Yeah, that crazy chick who tried to blow Charlie in a deal to help Ben. Wild times.

Everything hurts.

“STOP! HARRIET!” Tom’s blown-out voice almost causes me to trip. Tom of all people? I risk a glance over my shoulder. He’s the one running after me at a break-neck speed.

I don’t understand why. I don’t want to stop and find out.

I just want to leave. I want to disappear. I want to have never met Ben Pirrip Cobalt and his four brothers.