Page 12 of Carte

I looked to the mouth of the hall, trying to figure out if I could get out of this situation without tipping this guy over the edge.

“Harley, is everything all right?” He frowned and leaned towards me.

“I—” I gulped. My breath stuck to my throat, the walls seemed like they were closing in on me.

The man reached up, like he was going to touch me, but then thought better of it. “You look tired,” he muttered, his eyes tracking over my face, down to my mouth, then back up.

It was as if he was touching me, and I shivered in repulsion. “I have to…” I started to say and took a tiny step away.

His eyes cut to my feet, and I stopped. His smile slipped from his face, his shoulder slumped slightly, and he looked at me with his brows pulled low.

“I just want a minute of your time. You owe me that,” he said softly.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say. I just knew I had to get out of there, and fast.

But he was bigger than me, and he bounced from happy-go-round personality to the hurt one in a flash. Here and there like it was nothing.

Then, he smiled again. “You saved my life with Black Saint. You said, ‘Find me where the red light breaks, and I’ll bleed myself into a song for you’.”

Those lyrics were mine, from years ago. From a dark time. Even then, not like this. Not like he was saying them. He made them sound like a promise I personally whispered to him, and not like it was—a line written about relief and grief mixed into one for cutting ties with a place I called home.

I hated those words in his mouth. It felt like he violated them, violated me just by speaking them.. They were mine. He had no right to them. A heat I hadn’t felt so long surged in my belly, a sensation I hadn’t felt since I wrote those lyrics.

He was twisting and turning them how he wanted them, and not how they were meant to be.

“That song isn’t an invitation,” I spat.

I knew I shouldn’t push him. I knew I should back down, smile politely and then get the fuck out of that hallway, but he was marring my perfect goodbye to a vile situation. He was dredging up something I’d buried long ago.

Sure, I performed that song, the fans loved it, but the majority of them understood the sentiment behind it.

Not this creep.

No, he thought I was inviting him to do… I didn’t even know what. But I wasn’t going to hand it to him. I didn’t give it to the man who inspired those words. I sure as hell wasn’t going to surrender it to him.

“But you meant it,” he countered, ignoring my reaction.

He leaned closer, and this time, I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to give this guy even an inch.

“You meant it for me. I know you better than all your managers and producers. I know you even better than that suit they chained you to. Carter, right? That’s his name? No one knows you better than me, Harley. And sure as hell not him!”

My ears started ringing, my vision blurred, and my stomach sank to my knees. “How do you know his name?” I whispered.

Pleasure washed his face. “Because I pay attention, Harley. I watch you. I know you. And I love you. I’m the only one that does.”

It was like he slapped me across the face. “Move,” I breathed. I couldn’t do anything else.

His face went hard. “Harley—”

The door behind him opened, cutting him off, and two girls came out giggling. I was going to seize this moment, and run, but before I had the chance, he moved and a cold palm clamped around my forearm.

“Don’t do it,” he murmured menacingly, smiling and nodding to the girls as they passed us. “Not after everything.”

A tingling sensation surged from my feet. Slow and thick, it filled me up. Bile rose in my throat. After everything that happened. After my parents’ neglect, after bullies in school laughing at me, pointing, then later threatening me. After Derek. After five broken bones, and bruises over my neck. After everything, I was okay. I was always okay. Always pushing onward. But not this time. This time, fear had me in its grip. Terror like I never knew.

I tried to think of what I could do. I did my best to come up with a plan of how to escape, how to get into a crowd, how to find shelter. I couldn’t. All I could feel was his grip on me, and the claws of pure fear tearing me inside.

Before I could scream, swing, or whatever the hell I was going to do, the man’s grip was no longer on my skin. He was no longer by my side.