“Get in the car,” I say, throwing open the passenger door for Harper.
She sighs and gives me a look. “Are you going to do this every day?”
“I drove you this morning,” I remind her. “How else are you going to get home?”
“I have friends, you know,” she says, but she climbs in.
“Yeah, well, you’re not going to want to miss this.”
I thought about it, about how to do what I’m about to do. Whether to involve Harper. In a way, she’s so fucking innocent. She may have lived a hard, poor life, but she’s never been around the kind of men in my family—until now. Her life is so normal, so simple, so devoid of murder and mutilation. But letting her go again is not an option, so she’s just going to have to learn to live with our kind.
I pull out of her parking spot and up to the front of the lot, right in the walkway, next to Baron’s Tesla. Some kids give me dirty looks as they skirt around the Rover, making their way between cars in the lot now that their usual path is blocked.
Fuck them. They can go around.
“What are you doing?” Harper asks.
“We’re taking a little drive,” I answer.
“What?” she asks, grabbing for the door handle.
“Harper,” I say, catching her other hand. I should have thought about her more and the twins less. I soften my voice, reaching for her face. I grip her chin between my thumb and finger and turn her face to me. “Hey. We’re just going to talk to Baron. You want to be there, don’t you?”
She swallows, her blue eyes searching mine. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. I promise.” I lean in, still holding her gaze, waiting for her to beat my fucking face in like she did last time, or at least tell me I’m full of shit and she’d never believe a promise from my lying lips.
Instead, she leans toward me, and I’m way too fucked by the knowledge that she’s somehow allowing herself to trust me. After what I did, she can still make that decision. She must be a fucking saint. That, or she has the willpower of a god. There’s no way in hell I’d trust a Darling. I don’t trust her for a second, and she’s not even a Darling.
But then, she did worse to me than any of the Darling girls.
I press my lips to hers anyway. I should have known she wasn’t a Darling. Those girls are weak and plain. They’re sheep, too worried about their reputations to put up a real fight. Harper, she’s as manipulative as she is addictive, sly as a fox, poisonous as a snake. I thought it was because she wasn’t raised in that toxic family, that she’d had to be smart to survive growing up like she did, but now I know the truth. It’s in her nature, in her blood.
I can’t help but admire that in her, the determination and strength, her willpower. It means she can feel something for a man she shouldn’t, that she can forgive even me when she sets her mind to it. It’s impressive as fuck.
More than that, I’m relieved I didn’t fall for a Darling, that I can properly hate and destroy them with no remorse, that this is something separate from that.
Duke pulls open her door, and I register the way her whole body goes rigid, the little tremor that goes through her, and the way she instinctively shrinks toward me. It’s that last one that about fucking kills me. I know it’s not a conscious thought on her part, that it was an involuntary response to his nearness. If she had time to think about it, she’d remember that I didn’t protect her, that I can’t be counted on to keep her safe.
“Get in the back,” I say, glaring past Harper at him.
Confusion crosses his face as he stands outside the passenger door, wondering why Harper’s in his spot.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I can sit in the back.”
“Don’t move,” I growl, still glaring at my brother.
He shrugs, still looking confused, and closes the door.
“I don’t mind,” Harper says quietly. “I don’t want them behind me.”
Duke opens the back door, tosses his bag in, and climbs in. “Where we going?”
“Taking a drive,” I say, opening the glove box. “Where’s Baron?”
I set my G19 in Harper’s lap, and she tenses. “What the fuck, Royal? We’re at a school.”
“That’s why I put it on your lap. Don’t wave it around, and you’ll be fine.”