Wonderland | H.S.

Chapter Fifteen

ten months in the works... but they're finally back

Purple.

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No Perspective | Cozen Lake

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It happened quickly.

Too quickly. Quickly enough, the White Rabbit couldn't keep up, not that he was ever good with time. But no one, it seems, excelled in the art of time management.

Never enough; too much.

That was Harry and Presley's thing. Dreadfully ominous in what the saying proposed, and yet, they never sought to change it. They didn't think there was too little time or too much of it; they simply went through life. They went from hating each other to not, and a heart captivated by another has never been so readily misled as to pay attention to something as tedious as time.

Now, they have no choice.

Rain droplets fall down Presley Symmes' cheeks, creeping closer to the brink of her jaw before toppling off and onto the shore. Her eyes are large. Water's pooling on the whites, though perhaps the rainfall is her tears ready to spill over.

It was too quick.

A word rests on her tongue, but she can't speak. She can merely watch as Levi's widened eyes slowly inch downward. There's a bullet in his chest, she thinks to herself. No, there's not, she thinks to herself again. But there is—a crimson stain on Levi's purple shirt, marking his shaking hands.

Her lips part as she takes a step away, suddenly closer to him. Because Levi—the same Levi she was just talking to—currently has a bullet in his chest, and she doesn't know why. She shakes her head, arms extended by her sides as her lip trembles from the pooling blood. No, she's seen blood before.

Blood on her cheek after her mom slapped her. She was fourteen. She forgot to take the trash out. Another time, when Auggie slipped climbing a tree, landing a three-inch gash against his forehead. Last week. She saw blood last week—her blood, Harry's—

Harry.

Presley Symmes' eyes snap to Harry—her Harry. She knows it's her Harry because the other Harry wouldn't have shot Levi in cold blood. She knows it's her Harry because his curls hang in front of his face, the coil wholly erased by the rain, but he does nothing to push them away. Her Harry is stubborn. Her Harry is holding a gun, the barrel still crisp with the weight of Levi's life, and he's frozen.

Just like that night. The only difference?

Harry didn't accidentally shoot Levi. He wanted to kill him. The second he read those letters, he walked straight to Cade's truck (the blonde always leaving it unlocked), ripped the gun right out of the backseat, and walked straight to Cozen Lake. He didn't think, not even for a second, but that's what Pretty Boy did best.

Levi knew this, you see. Levi knew once Harry read those letters, the oxygen-free to him wouldn't last much longer. He knew this when he broke into Presley and Harry's room when they went hiking. He didn't know how long he had, but he knew someone would come. Eventually. He had a gut feeling. And if they didn't show, he'd go back to the motel room he rented and wait for tomorrow.

Harry read the Epilogue first.

Harry Styles remembered who Presley Symmes was when he read the word Red: the first word of Levi's Epilogue.

All it took was One Word, and immediately, Pretty Boy's heart recalled the notion of love.

As stubborn as a hangnail, Harry didn't finish the Epilogue. He didn't care enough. He lost too much time already. He needed to get to Red.