Page 66 of Inextricably Tied

“No.”

Agony shrugs. “For the best. Not sure I could give you an honest answer.”

“We know next to nothing about you.” Flint follows Agony’s gaze toward the ceiling. “What you’re capable of. If you can circumvent Harbinger’s abilities. Place false emotions and thoughts in her head. Put up a wall to hide the truth.”

“You want the truth?”

Flint’s hands lift, like he doesn’t expect it to come either way. Agony reclines in the chair.

“Harbinger wants you to fuck her brains out. Decide what you want and take it. Push her body to the brink until she begs you to stop.” His knees fall open, draped over the chair. “Quit worrying if it’s too much, too vulgar for you to want. You have this idea of what it means to be good; you’re either valiant, or you’re villainous. Chivalrous or corrupt. But it’s not like that.”

Raw heat flares in Flint’s eyes. It stokes the coals deep in Agony’s stomach, not a leftover flare of Harbinger’s arousal. Flint’s mouth forms around the words. “What’s it like, then?”

“You can make her choke on your dick and hold her after. Make her work for it and then take it away.” Agony leans forward into his knees, grin melting as slow as butter. “You can be as mean as she’s begging you to be, Jas. Promise she’ll think you’re a saint.”

Flint doesn’t look away. Doesn’t blink. Agony aches to be free of these cuffs, to snap across the room and find out how Flint’s mouth tastes when it’s not trying to be good. His voice rumbles through Agony.

“You sure seem to think you know what you’re talking about.”

“I could show you a thing or two.”

Flint keeps Agony pinned under his gaze. “That requires trust.”

Agony exhales, sinking back in his chair. “That it does.”

TWENTY-THREE

Harbinger

You were never happy here. Not like you are now.

Harbinger knows it’s true. No matter how many good moments she had at the Convent, the comfort she found with the others, it wasn’t enough to drown out everything that happened.

“You could leave, too,” she murmurs. “Come with me.”

Omen’s lips quirk behind his joint. Poe doesn’t look up. Guilt sticks Harbinger as sharply as embarrassment.

“You could.”

“Yes,” Poe agrees, “technically, we could.”

“What does that mean? ‘Technically’?”

“It means we’re not fit for the real world!” Omen nudges her with his foot, but there’s austerity in his tone. “We were here a while before you came along. No matter what we did, the Diviners always had the biggest problem with you.”

Harbinger remembers her first day at the Convent. Glowering to hide her fear as she stood at the dorm entrance, a lanky preteen who recoiled whenever someone got close. She still looked almost human at that point, circles darkening under her eyes, but she couldn’t stop staring at two of the others her age. Patterned like skeletons, watching her and whispering.

Poe and Omen knew every secret tunnel of the Convent. The ways to tilt their heads and smile when a Diviner grew suspicious. We barely remember anything before the Convent, Poe and Omen told her. Harbinger said that was sad. They thought the same thing about her.

“I would help you,” Harbinger says now. Omen shakes his head as he laughs. Poe cringes.

“No offense to your nomadic lifestyle, but I don’t want to live in various motel rooms with you and your boyfriends. It’s not for me.” It takes a moment for her eyes to widen toward Harbinger’s glare. “Totally appreciate the offer, though!”

Giggles spill from all three of them, encouraged by glimpses at each other, the same rolling laughter that got them into trouble in the back of classrooms. Harbinger takes another hit from the joint, coughing until Omen pats her back and takes it from her.

“You know they do it on purpose, The Diviners.” Harbinger’s voice seems to echo. “They don’t teach us about the rest of the world. They keep us helpless so we’ll stay. They make the Convent the only place we can survive.”

“Well, it’s working.” Poe aligns her garment before she stops, fingers curling into the fabric. “You remember what you said? How it’s strange the Oracle never seems to ‘bless’ anyone with a happy family? I met my first one this year. Talking about her parents, how excited she was to write them, and the Diviners were already doing it. Telling her she’d be very busy with her lessons, that she should focus on her gift, that keeping attachments to her ‘old life’ could keep her from being able to pierce the Veil. I took over after they left. Made sure she got plenty of stationary to write her letters, but I could see it starting.” Poe waves a weak hand in front of her eyes. “The doubt.”