FATHOMS
Nolan
IT’S NEARLY NOON. AND I’M standing on the street outside Harper’s cottage like a fucking obsessed loser.
I push the sleeves of my charcoal-gray Henley up to my elbows. She likes my forearms. I think. She stares at them a lot. Unless I’m fucking delusional, which … probably tracks. She seems to like these tactical work pants I wear sometimes, too. “Is that part of your uniform?” she’d asked a few nights ago, gesturing to my trousers and work boots.
“I don’t really have a uniform other than a vest and jacket, but … I guess so.”
I still feel the heat beneath my skin from the way her gaze dropped down the length of me a fraction slower than what would be deemed appropriate for a nemesis, unless she was searching for the most painful place to knife me. “Hmm,” was all she’d said before returning to her work. But I still caught the little glance she tossed my way.
I brush away the nonexistent dust from my clothes. Maybe she’ll like what she sees? It shouldn’t matter, but increasingly, it feels like it does.
This is stupid. Leave her alone.
With a frustrated sigh, I turn away as though I’ll actually manage to convince myself to walk back to the Capeside Inn. And then I turn again, facing her house once more.
When she didn’t reply last night to my text about picking her up, and then never showed to excavate Arthur’s victims, I tried to convince myself that she just needed some space to process our mind-blowingly hot sex
from the night before. Well, I thought it was mind-blowing. The best sex I’ve ever had, and I know it’s not just the mushrooms talking. It just felt right with her. Natural. Like our energy fit together, two magnets snapping into place. But maybe she doesn’t feel the same way, and it chews me up.
She still didn’t reply this morning. And when I texted her an hour ago, she didn’t reply to that either.
As the minutes have trudged onward, I’ve become increasingly worried about her. She’s usually so responsive. This isn’t like her. It’s bad enough that she might be avoiding me, though I could understand that, given the circumstances. But what if it’s something worse? What if she’s sick? Hurt and alone? She operates in shadowed circles. What if some of those ghosts have caught up with her? What if Arthur has turned on her? What if she’s— I cut my thoughts off before they can spiral into my darkest fears and march through the gate, not stopping until I’m pounding on her door.
“Harper …” No sound comes from within her cottage. I knock again and press my ear to the door. Still nothing. “Harper.”
I catch a muffled groan that sounds as though it’s coming from the back of the house.
In a heartbeat, I’m striding down the flagstone path that skirts the side of the cottage. I’m nearly at the corner when the front door opens and I halt abruptly at the sound of my name.
“Nolan …?” Harper’s head pokes out the door, her eyes flicking toward the street before landing on me once more. “What are you doing here?”
Relief is a flood that washes through my veins. It’s followed quickly by a
wave of embarrassment.
And then, suspicion.
There’s something wild in her eyes. A sharpness in their silver shards.
She retreats just a little, backing into her lair like a feral creature. She looks like she’s ready to run. What I wouldn’t give to see a wicked smile flash across her face before she bolts away from me with a challenge to catch her.
Maybe she’s wearing those tiny sleep shorts that highlight every curve in her ass and that low-cut tank top that hugs her breasts. The sudden fantasy of chasing her down and fucking her brutally as she screams my name goes straight to my cock.
I clear my throat in the hopes that it might somehow clear my mind too as I walk closer to the door, my steps careful and cautious.
“I was …” What do I say? I was obsessively worrying about you until I finally decided to trespass on your property, which I’ve already done several times, though you don’t know that … ? Fuck, that sounds awful. “I was at the river last night. Alone, despite the fact I don’t know where to dig.
Figured I should stop by to make sure you were coming this evening, seeing as how we’ve got a strict schedule to adhere to.”
“I’ll be there.”
Her assurance is delivered with no biting edge, no roll of her eyes. And that’s what worries me the most. She retreats farther as I near the door, shielding her body behind the slab of wood so that only her face is visible in
the narrow crack of light.
What if she’s naked?
What if she’s naked and not alone?
Jealousy explodes through every cell in my body, incinerating my earlier fantasies into bitter ash.
I do my best to convince myself that whatever she’s hiding is none of my business. That the only reason I care about her well-being is because it has the potential to affect me too. As soon as I’m sure she’s all right, I promise myself to go back to the inn and leave her the fuck alone. “Everything okay?” I manage, my words slow and measured.
“Yep.” She nods emphatically. “Great.”
“Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“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.
The guy’s sniveling pleas grow desperate. He garbles a string of denials, his eyes pinned on me as he begs for help. But he’s looking for hope where it can’t be found. I have numerous mounting concerns about this moment, but every one of them centers on Harper. On her well-being.
As his panic escalates, I look over at her. She doesn’t return my gaze. All her attention is homed in on that man. There’s more than just hatred, or anger, or determination in her face. There’s a very particular brand of fury.
One I’ve seen in my own eyes. The kind that only blooms when the world peels back and you see the abyss of grief and loss and anguish that lurks beneath it. You might claw your way out, riddled with scars. You might hide your deepest, unhealing wounds just to make it through each day. You might survive it. But that’s the worst part. Because you can’t unsee it. You always know hell is there. It’s a creature lurking in the night, ready to rip another piece from you.
You can live in fear of the next bite, or you can bite back.
And Harper Starling is ready for a meal.
I can feel the rage surging from Harper, charging the air around us until she can’t contain it. Jaw clenched, she drops the ax to the grass, marching
past me to the spike aerator. She picks it up and stops at the man’s side.
“Did you know that the nurse you pushed over has been receiving IVF treatment for longer than I’ve been in Cape Carnage?” she snarls to the man as she raises the device to bring it down on his back with a sickening thwack. The spikes lodge into his flesh, his scream leaking around his gag.
But Harper is merciless. She closes her grip around the metal handle and guides the roller from the base of his spine to his shoulder, laying down a fresh row of punctures that weep rivers of crimson. “Seven years. Seven fucking years of injections and tests and God knows whatever else she and her husband had to endure to make that baby. And you nearly took it away, you fucking piece of shit.” Her voice is nothing like I’ve ever heard from her. She struggles to keep it steady beneath her fury and the threat of tears, and somehow, that hint of vulnerability makes her even more terrifying.
“You’re just another shitty tourist who thinks he can waltz into my town and hurt whoever he wants. As long as you’re ‘having a good time,’ nothing else matters, right? So tell me, Mr. McMillan, are you having a good time yet?”
Harper lifts the tool off the man and stares down at him for a long moment, her back and shoulders heaving with deep breaths as she seems to force herself into a calmer state. I’m considering approaching her when she runs her forearm across her eyes, tilts her head side to side, then turns and tosses the aerator on the ground. Blowing a puff of air into her sweaty bangs, she flashes me a brittle smile and walks calmly back in my direction, leaving the injured man to sob and shake alone.
“So,” she says, bending to retrieve her ax. When she straightens, she fixes her hair with a bloody glove, a slight tremor shaking her fingers. She squares her shoulders, tipping her chin up. “As you can see, I’m having a very busy day, but I can assure you I’ll be at the river tonight. You can run along now to do … whatever it is you do here in Cape Carnage.”
I open my mouth to say something, but not a single word lands on my tongue. I’m not exactly sure what to make of this situation. I assess the scene. First there’s Harper, who looks fucking adorable with her cropped shirt that just barely covers the bottoms of her breasts and those baggy overalls, feral but focused determination bright in her eyes. Then there’s the
guy, set up like he’s cosplaying a medieval torture scene at a Renaissance fair that’s taken its commitment to authenticity a little too far. My eyes land next on the raven, who boldly hops close enough to snag a flap of loose skin off the man’s mangled back as he lets out an agonized cry.
Dear God.
I knew Harper was game for some fucked-up shit given the situation with Arthur, but I have clearly underestimated her. And while the fact that she’s into a little torture and murder should give me more reason to return to the idea of seeking vengeance against her, it’s having the opposite effect.
It takes every last shred of my resolve not to grab her and press her to me.
To reassure her that the darkness she nurtures is safe with me. But I can tell she’s not ready. It’s in the way her brows knit as she watches every minuscule movement and facial expression I make.
“You know Sam has been flying drones over your property. He could see you,” I warn as my heart kicks into a new gear at the thought of him being anywhere nearby.
Harper is resolute when she says, “He and his drone operator are busy elsewhere. I made sure of that. It’s fine.”
The man on the ground falls into silence and though I hold on to a momentary hope that he might have died of a heart attack, he’s still breathing, his face now turned away from us. In the privacy afforded by his absent gaze, I take a step toward Harper. She doesn’t budge, and I take another step, pushing my luck at getting a little closer. “What’s going on?
Why are you doing this?”
“Did you miss the part where I told you he’s a waste of skin?” She scours my face with brutal scrutiny, her steely eyes narrowing. “Have you been dipping into Maya’s supply of mushroom-laced blood again?”
“You’re taking a big risk here,” I say, dismissing her joke. “You don’t take big risks.”
She snorts and waves a hand in my direction, nearly grazing my chest.
“You want to kill me and you help me dig up dead bodies at night. So, I beg to differ.”
“You take calculated risks. This seems different.”
“It’s not, actually. Because Arthur has an infallible alibi, one that even Sam can’t spin. That asshole on the ground over there is my best chance to finally convince him that Arthur isn’t La Plume.” When my brows furrow with an unvoiced question, a thread of pain weaves through her eyes.
“Arthur is in the hospital. I went to make him some dinner and found him on the floor of the kitchen with a nasty gash on his forehead. He’s … not doing so well. That’s why I didn’t come last night.”
Fuck. Fuck. I should have thought to go find her. I should have been there. I know how much he means to her. It’s obvious with how much she’s willing to put herself in danger on his behalf. This is the first time I’ve felt guilt in … I don’t even know how long. “Why didn’t you call me?” I ask.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I would have come.”
“Why?”
She watches me like this is a legitimate question. As though she really doesn’t know. Do I even know? Maybe I have for a while now, but I’ve just been refusing to acknowledge it. And now it strikes me with the power of a lightning bolt, spidering through my consciousness to burn my delusions
away.
I’m falling for Harper Starling.
No. I can’t be.
But I am.
I force a thick swallow down my throat. If Harper sees the startling revelation in my eyes, she doesn’t let it show.
“I would have helped,” is all I can manage.
“It’s fine.” She dismisses my assurance with a shake of her head, though a heaviness rests in her features, a weariness germinated from more than just one night of worry and stress. It inhabits the creases that line the space between her brows and the dark circles beneath her eyes. Her lip is swollen from biting it raw. With a metronomic cadence, she tenses and releases a fist around the handle of the ax.
“Something else is bothering you,” I say. “Is it the fact that you’re killing some random guy with garden implements?”
Her face scrunches as though the mere idea of that suggestion is detestable. “Fuck no.”
“Then what’s going on?” Harper looks away. She can’t hold my eyes.
Something is weighing on her with pounds of pressure that she can’t shake off. When she chews at her bottom lip, I can’t resist. I press my thumb to the pulp of flesh and pull it free of her teeth, letting my fingers trace the slope of her cheek. “Talk to me.”
When her eyes meet mine, they shine. Something cracks inside my heart, a fissure beneath the strata of time and anger. A sliver of space that she climbs inside, like roots between fractures in pavement. And her presence in that crevice only grows when she blinks her tears away. They mount a protest at her lash line, refusing to be subdued.
“We don’t talk,” Harper whispers, a dying protest. She backs away from my touch, and it stings more than I thought it would.
I let my hand fall to my side. “We’re talking now.”
“We are not.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“We’re … I don’t know …” Harper looks away again. She’s fighting herself with every moment that passes. A tear finally breaches her lash line.
Her voice is hushed when she says, “I’m losing my best friend.” Her lips tremble as she swipes at her cheek with the edge of her bloody glove. “I’m a shitty caregiver. I missed the symptoms, and now he’s in the hospital when it’s something I should have caught. I’m out of my depth.”
She sniffs and looks down at the ground. Maybe that weight she carries is a little lighter with her confession. If I could, I’d reach out and reel her into me. Let her cry against my chest. “I don’t think most people who have the responsibility of looking after another person get a guidebook. You’re doing the best you can,” I say instead, and her tear-filled eyes snap to mine.
“Why are you voluntarily being nice to me?” she asks. Wariness rolls from her in waves.
“Because … I don’t want to see you upset.”
Her eyes narrow. “But you’ve come here to inflict the maximum amount of suffering on me as possible.”
“Maybe I did,” I admit. “But that’s not why I’m here now.”
“Is this part of your game to get your book back?”
“No, I—”
A roar of sound rushes toward me, my next words cut off as I’m thrown face-first to the ground, the air shoved from my lungs. Sudden pain burns in my shoulder as a heavy block pins me to the lawn. A heartbeat later, the weight is gone, though it leaves behind something lodged deep in my deltoid. But the searing pain barely registers as fear takes over, all of it concentrated only on Harper.
When I look up, the man from the grass is stumbling toward her, ropes trailing after him with steel pegs bouncing in his wake. He has the spike aerator clutched in his hands, swinging it like a mace as Harper backs away from him. Her ax is raised, but he’s got the more powerful weapon. And he’s the one with everything to lose.
I grab one of the ropes, twist it around my fist, and pull.
The man stumbles. But he doesn’t go down. He turns on me and swings the aerator in my direction. I raise my arm to take the hit. He only catches me with a wheel, but the strength of his blow radiates through my elbow in a shock of pain. I swear I can feel it vibrate through the titanium screws. I let out an agonized rasp, but a louder sound drowns me out. One of determination. Harper.
“Get the fuck away from him,” she snarls.
Harper’s ax slices through the air and lands in his neck with a sickening thwack. Blood lashes across my face.
Everything goes quiet. Everything goes still.
The man’s wide blue eyes are fixed to mine as his fingers unfurl from the handle of the aerator. It drops to the ground next to him as he falls to his knees, his other hand rising to graze the ax lodged at the juncture of his shoulder. With a garbled, liquid swallow, he falls flat on his face and dies.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Harper’s eyes coast over me to alight on the source of the pain that now throbs in my shoulder. She reaches out a tentative hand toward me, but stops herself. “Are you okay?”
A thousand images of what could have happened to her fly through my head as I rise.
“No. I am fucking not okay,” I say, barely managing to keep my voice from a yell as I reach behind my shoulder to pull the peg from my flesh. I toss the bloody spike at her feet. “Jesus fucking Christ, Harper.” I drag a trembling hand through my hair. Breaths saw from my chest. I want to grab her by the arms and stare into her eyes and shake her to her senses. Then I want to crush her to me and never let her go. “Don’t you know what could have happened?”
A look of hurt flashes across her face. And then it dissolves into something lightless. Something deadly. Before I have a chance to take a breath and clarify, all her pent-up fury comes pouring from her mouth. “Oh, I fucking get it. Just like I thought. It all comes down to your fucking scrapbook. That’s what everything is about, isn’t it? Including the other night. You’re fucking toying with me. If you can’t put me in your book, you’re going to find every possible way to make me suffer until you finally get it back. And then, all bets are off.”
“That is one-hundred-fucking-percent not what this is about.”
“You told me yourself that you fucking hate me. Two nights ago. As you were fucking me, remember?”
“And you asked me to fuck you like I hated you—”
“That’s the difference between us. You actually do hate me.”
I blink, momentarily thrown off by her words. Judging by the shaken expression that fleets across her face before she subdues it, she is too. “I do
not.”
“I don’t believe you, Nolan.”
“Then I guess we’re not that different after all, are we?” I snarl as I crowd her space and stare down at her. “Because you’re determined to believe what you want to, no matter what contrary evidence is staring you in the fucking face.”
She eats the remaining distance, leaving only a thread of space between us. “That’s exactly the kind of shit an enemy would do. Use their opponent’s own words against them. And they certainly wouldn’t say ‘thank you for saving my life.’”
For the briefest moment, her gaze drops to my lips. She’s so close that her chest touches mine with every heaving breath. I want to crash into her,
to claim those plump lips. To claim all of her. But she shoves past me with a derisive snort, stopping beside the dead man to press a boot to the back of his head as she works the ax free of his neck. When it finally releases, she notches it over her shoulder, and with a final, cutting glare, she marches away.
“You’re fucking welcome,” she yells as she reaches the garden gate.
Middle finger tossed over her shoulder, she disappears. The image of the ribbon bouncing in her ponytail as blood drips from the ax to spatter her shirt with drips of crimson burns through my mind long after the back door of the cottage slams shut.
I look to the body on the ground as the raven swoops down from the garden wall to survey his next meal. “Pretty murder bird,” he says.
But it’s only Harper’s voice I hear.
