Page 14

Harlow

Thursday Evening

Third Floor Showers

“ L ayne, I don’t need to see you naked, close the fucking curtain,” Nurse Drew called out.

“You’re here because we have razors, I assumed you needed to see what we’re doing,” Layne said. From the protests coming from Nurse Drew next I assumed she got a full view of Layne shaving herself, leg hiked up and all.

Her goblin energy was my favorite when it wasn’t aimed at me.

“No, the curtains are high enough I’ll see if you decide to hurt yourself,” Nurse Drew bit out. “Harlow doesn’t want to see your ass anyway.”

“But I do,” I joked and regretted it immediately since Layne threw open the curtain and posed for me before shaking her wet, bare ass.

“It is a nice ass.” Layne laughed as she went back to shaving. “And it wouldn’t take me so long if you’d let me shave last week.”

“You wouldn’t have used it properly last week,” Nurse Drew said in a far kinder voice than I’d heard so far.

That had Layne shutting up for a solid five minutes.

“Done,” I called out, putting the razor and shaving cream on the floor outside of the shower for her to grab. Layne followed suit a few minutes later before Nurse Drew finally left.

The shower curtain was jerked aside and Layne walked in. Apparently, we were sharing showers now.

“You know we don’t have to share, there’s plenty of showers here,” I pointed out with an eye roll.

“I’m done anyway, I just didn’t want to get my towel wet,” she said before a wicked smile curved over her face, then quickly faded. “Plus, I think we need to talk.”

The vulnerability in her voice had my stomach sinking.

“If this is about Crew, Layne. I don’t want him like that. He’s great and I think just flirty in general. I’m not looking for anything more than that with him,” I rushed out.

She looked up with puppy dog eyes.

“Really?”

I nodded. “Of course. I wouldn’t lie. And I think I have my hands full already. Drake, Hiro, and Roman are my mates.”

It was a secret I couldn’t keep from her. Our lives were far too intertwined. That and she’d revealed Crew was hers.

“It’s my fault. I’ve messed around with him, but I’ve never told him how I feel about ‘keeping it casual’. It feels too impossible here to be mates. Plus, who knows what happens after this place. If there is an after for people like me.”

She’d swiftly gone from happy and snarky right down to depressed. Her mind had to be exhausting.

Something I understood.

“What do you mean? It’s four years,” I said. “We’ll figure something out, right? Get an apartment, a job, we’ll have a degree.”

“Sure,” she said halfheartedly. “Except, I can’t function at a daily job. I’m not delusional enough to think that my down days or my outbursts wouldn’t get me fired. Some of us aren’t cut out for that nine-to-five world.”

“Fuck that world. We don’t have to fit into it, that’s not the only option despite what everyone wants us to believe,” I countered. “I’ve had this fight before, it’s not on us to fit in, we find out where we fit and own that shit. I’m not cut out for sitting in an office either and manual labor?” I held up my thin arms. “Noodle arms prevent that. But I think we can figure something out.”

“Vane won’t let us go. We’re his prize patients,” she said bitterly as a tear tracked down her face. Letting her go down this road further would likely end in a downswing, and I didn’t want that.

I’d also hug her if we weren’t both naked omegas huddled in one shower. Life was weird sometimes but we didn’t need to make it even more so.

“Fuck Vane. He can’t legally do that. And second of all, what are you going to do about Crew?” She laughed through her tears and swiped the back of her hand over her face before butting me out of the way of the spray. “You’re lucky you’re crying, or I’d kick you out of my shower.”

She beamed before her gaze went far away.

“We sneak down to the boiler room because he’s obsessed with fire. If you ever can’t find him, you can almost guarantee he’s there. But... we’re both stuck here, that’s a fucking reason to not get together.”

Since I was done anyway, I opened the curtain and wrapped a towel around myself so I wouldn’t freeze.

“Bullshit,” I declared. “You’re just scared. And from both of your reactions at dinner, I’d say it’s mutual. So, woman up and tell him what it is and what you expect out of your mate.”

She shut off the water in her shower and turned with a sly smile. “Is that what you did with Drake?”

I snorted. “It was much less romantic than that. I couldn’t shake the feel of someone else’s hands on me, like my body wasn’t my own. So, I took charge of it, marched up to him, knocked on his door, and told him we were going to fuck. And we did.”

“Tell me he’s at least got a shrimp dick?” Layne pleaded. “Maybe it would make him more bearable.”

“It’s tiny,” I said with a laugh, and she groaned.

“Fuck, he’s huge, isn’t he?”

“Yup,” I agreed. “And surprisingly really fucking good in bed despite being an asshole in general.”

“Yet another reason to hate him.” She huffed.

Layne finally finished drying and covered herself. The woman had zero modesty and it was taking some getting used to. I didn’t care but it triggered my grandma’s voice in my head, yelling about modesty.

She always forced me to cover my body as if I should be ashamed of it. Yet another reason I had to reclaim it in such a big way. For the first time in literally my entire life, I felt like I was my own person.

Yes, I was insane, but I felt like me.

That was huge.

“So, what about Hiro?” she asked. “Roman?”

My eyebrows raised to my hairline at that.

“What about them?” I asked. Heat was creeping into my cheeks, a dead giveaway that I wasn’t as oblivious as I was pretending right now.

Layne rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me flash you again, Harlow. I’m not stupid. Do you think Hiro holds my hand? Do you think Roman has ever come out for anyone but Hiro? No.”

“This is the problem. They’re all so fucking different. I want them all,” I admitted. “We’re all mates but we haven’t said a word about what that means.”

“Didn’t you just tell me fuck society? Claim your men, Harlow, just not mine,” Layne suggested with a shrug like she didn’t put in a quick warning.

I couldn’t argue with her point, though. The only one holding me back from taking what I wanted was me.

I’d already reclaimed my body, now I just had to allow myself to live my fucking life.

It was hard to let go of all those years of being forced into a tiny box, not allowed to do a single thing properly.

Fuck my past, though, I couldn’t let it ruin my future.

Layne shouldn’t either.

“Go get your man, too, then,” I challenged. “Or are you afraid of some feelings, Layne? You know just because you pretend they aren’t real, doesn’t make them go away.”

“You’re my friend, not a therapist,” Layne grumbled as she pulled on the last of her clothes. I didn’t bother saying anything else because the last thing we needed was to fight right now.

Layne was teetering on the precipice of different emotions, and I didn’t want her sent away for a few days on my account.

By the time I’d gotten dressed and we threw our towels in the laundry room, Layne was already out of sight.

The rest of the floor was quiet again when I came out. It was a Thursday just before dinner so it wasn’t all that surprising. Everyone kind of disappeared to recharge after school and sessions that felt redundant and useless. If it was a hard session, this place was like a ghost town.

“Harlow.” My name being called had me freezing. The voice was low and echoing, like a distant whisper.

Glancing around, I expected shadows, a figure, anything. After the ups and downs of my conversation with Layne, it wouldn’t surprise me, but there was nothing there but dingy walls and dusty art, the worn furniture of the common room, and the distant sound of the nurses’ station as Nurse Drew hid in the back room again.

“Who’s there?” I called back, my voice quiet so I didn’t draw attention.

“What’s going on?” The sound of Roman’s voice had me jumping, and I spun around in time to see the elevator close behind him.

“Something’s calling me,” I admitted without thinking.

At this point a strange feeling filled my gut, like I was being yanked upward.

“Harlow,” he demanded, and I turned to him to find his gaze focused on me. “There’s nothing here. I don’t hear it.”

“Harlow.” Again the drawn-out call happened, and my feet were moving before I could stop them. Roman slid into the elevator beside me and raised his eyebrows when I hit the sixth floor. I had a feeling sneaking around wouldn’t be as easy, and I frantically tried to think of something, ignoring the random questions from Roman as I did.

The moment the elevator opened, I started to step off but was yanked back. I looked toward Roman’s face but I wasn’t focused on him, the need to get to the roof was so strong now that I couldn’t think of anything else.

In the back of my mind, I knew something wasn’t right, that this wasn’t normal, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

“You can’t be up here,” a nurse said as she rushed forward, pulling a phone from her pocket.

“Nurse Drew asked me to come up and ask if you wanted to place a coffee order. She’s getting ready to go on break and needs a coffee,” I said without skipping a beat. How the fuck I pulled that out of nowhere without a reason I’d never know, but it worked.

“Oh my goodness, she’s too sweet. Can you tell her to grab me a mocha latte? Susie is down the hall in room seven, go ahead and grab hers, too, I have a patient to deal with down the hall.”

She ran off and disappeared in a room, and I snuck down the hall in the direction of the staircase.

“You know they’ll be angry at you for this,” Roman warned. “I can’t save you from punishment.”

“I don’t need saving, Roman. Go back to our floor, I don’t need help,” I said. It wasn’t harsh, just truthful. My mind was far too focused on reaching… something.

Down deep in my mind, I knew that was a cruel thing to say to a protector like Roman, but it was as if my body was functioning on autopilot. As if I were merely a puppet and someone else was pulling my strings.

Kind of like when I went to the roof that first time.

Roman didn’t follow me any longer, he retreated to the elevator, and I couldn’t blame him.

He had Hiro to protect first and foremost, and he couldn’t exactly do that in trouble.

He’d be putting them both right in Vane’s office.

There were no interruptions as I made my way through the floor, up the stairwell, and pushed open the roof door. It would have been easier if the other floors had access to the fire escape, but I guess they couldn’t monitor us here like they could the elevator.

Not to mention free roaming patients did not need access to the roof in general. That was a liability waiting to happen.

Vane thought his threats were enough to keep me from breaking the rules again. Even the threat of solitary couldn’t cut through the trance, though.

The moment I was outside, the door slammed behind me. The feeling was gone now, and I panicked, turning and trying to pull it open to no avail.

“It won’t work until I allow it.” The woman’s voice had the same familiarity I’d felt at the sight of Helheim, and I knew that I was finally hearing the voice of the woman I saw in the garden.

Hel.

Her tone was strong, yet feminine. It demanded my attention effortlessly.

“Hel?” I questioned as I turned around to face her. She was hauntingly beautiful. Indescribably terrifying, too.

Half of her face was a skeleton, blue runes etched into the bone itself as fire burned within the empty spaces, much like Monty and the other demons.

The other half of her face was beautiful. She had model-like looks and her pale face was accented in the same blue as the demon’s fire and the brief flashes of her realm I’d seen.

As far as aesthetics went, she was killing it. This omega knew she was gorgeous. The dress she wore flowed around her, made of white and silver fabric that billowed as she walked forward. There was no denying she was a goddess, everything about her otherworldly.

“Yes, Harlow,” she answered with a smile that might have been kind on anyone else but the skeletal face shifting made it downright unnerving. “I think we have some things to discuss.”

“Like why I was drawn up here?” I started but she cut me off with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“That was me. How much do you know?” It was frustrating that she was so quick to talk over me, but I had a feeling Hel wasn’t someone I wanted to piss off so I answered.

“That I’m crazy? That demons are real and you’re allowing them to feed here on these patients?” As I said the last part my anger flared and manifested in my tone.

“For a reason,” she said. “The humans are unharmed and don’t remember it. No harm done.”

“That’s a lie, I was warned not to go out at night, and I know from their reactions, other patients know what’s going on,” I argued.

“Watch your tone. Champion or not, I won’t tolerate your attitude,” she warned in an icy voice. I glared back at her, unperturbed, and was met with a sudden laugh. “Yes, I chose well.”

“Chose what?” I asked. “None of what you are saying makes sense. I may need to up my meds.”

The fact I was facing a supposed ruler of a realm I didn’t even think really existed was enough of a testament that I was on a psychotic spiral or something. The demons already didn’t make sense, but this?

“I could see it being difficult to distinguish between reality and your illness, but I assure you, this is no hallucination, Harlow,” she promised. “My demons are real, and the feeding is necessary. We have to keep their power strong so the portal stays closed. Letting them out would be inadvisable.”

“No shit,” I snarked. “I imagine not.”

“Let me be frank, I hate this beating around the bush thing you humans do. I’m Hel, I rule over my realm and the souls sent there. My demons and my gargoyles keep the souls in line. And now it’s time for the gargoyles in Dark Haven to awaken, to ensure the demons stay in line. That’s where you come in.” A shiver ran through me as I remembered the figure on the roof, the gargoyle statue looming over me as I hid from the rain.

“Why me?” I asked. She merely gave me a warning glance this time before continuing.

“Because I chose you, Harlow. You don’t just belong to this world, but mine as well,” she said as if that answered my question at all.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I sighed, sitting down on the roof despite it being covered in a layer of dirt and leaves. “I’m no one. A reject.”

“You’re my chosen champion, Harlow,” she said. The pride in her tone didn’t make sense, hell, none of this did. “Enough of this self-deprecation, get up and act like someone blessed by a goddess.”

“Blessed?” I seethed, standing up and facing off with her like a true idiot. This could mean my end, but I refused for her to sugarcoat my fucking existence. “I spent years homeless and on the run, had a family that could rival the worst demons you could imagine, been tortured and used, and fought for every fucking thing I have ever had.”

“Exactly,” she said in a far gentler tone this time. “I wouldn’t have chosen a weak champion, but one forged from hardship, one with a mind willing to believe the unbelievable. You’ve had my strongest companion by your side most of your life, that was all the intervening I could do.”

“Why? What do you need me for? A champion for what?”

Hel paced the roof and shook her head, refusing to answer. She only stopped next to the gargoyle I’d hidden underneath the night I woke up here.

“Things are going as they’ve been foreseen, Harlow, you just have to open your mind. You’ll never be alone again, you have some that are determined to help. It’s up to you to keep the portal closed, protect your world and mine, I can’t be in both places.”

“How? I’m literally in a prison of sorts,” I pointed out.

“You don’t need to leave to do this job,” she said. “Keep vigilant, Harlow. You’ll find your answers soon enough.”

She was gone then, leaving my head spinning, but before I could even think, the door opened with a squeak and Vane was bursting out in a rage.

“I hope it was worth it, Harlow, you’ll be spending a week in solitary for this stunt.”