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Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven:

Hope

I awoke the next morning terrified, my breaths ripping in and out of my lungs. Before I opened my eyes, I heard the blast of the gun again and watched the bullet enter Harry’s skull. Dead. I opened my eyes and the image was gone - I was not holding him at gunpoint; he was crouched beside the bed, one hand on my left shoulder, a smile on his lips. The room smelled of fresh air and coffee.

            “Bad dream again?” Harry asked. The nightmares had been coming every time I slept for months now, but only recently had Harry started appearing in them, and every time I was forced to kill him in horrible ways. I nodded and breathed out, but the pressure was still there.

            “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

            “No. There was no screaming this time,” his eyes fixed on mine. “If there’s something on your mind Hope, I want you to tell me.”

            I didn’t have an answer, so instead I just shrugged. To deny it would only mean lying to him again, and he didn’t deserve that. Harry’s mouth twitched and spread out into a grin as he pushed his hair out of his eyes. They sparkled in the light seeping in through the balcony windows – a patient green.

            Pull yourself together, I told myself, and then I smiled too. It felt smothering, but at least I felt strong. “Why are you grinning at me like that?” I asked curiously, pushing the bed covers back. I got out of bed and plodded across to the kitchen, pouring cereal into a bowl. Harry followed close behind.

            “Just thinking about how I can do this now,” he pressed his hand to the small of my back and pulled me against him, pushing my hair behind my ears with his fingers. I felt the heat from his hand spread across my skin, and for a few minutes we kissed, with the sound of birds and morning all around us.

“Apart from the nightmare, how did you sleep?” he asked eventually, idly stroking my spine with his fingers.

      “Okay. You don’t have to sleep on that tiny thing you know,” I addressed the sofa with a wave of my hand. Blankets were crumpled on the floor beside it from when they had fallen off him in the night. “We have a king sized bed for a reason.”

Harry smiled. I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head against his chest, enveloped by his arms. Neither of us broke the silence.

            “I should go get ready,” he said after a while, sounding reluctant. “But I’m finding it hard to think of anything worth letting go of you for.”

            “Personal hygiene,” I suggested, “and laws that require you to wear more than your underwear in public.” Harry laughed, winking at me before disappearing into the bathroom. I could still see him through the crack in the doorway. The buzz of the razor hummed and he angled his head to see the corner of his jaw. I felt the fear start to drain away; replaced with a warm feeling, but then I remembered Delilah.

           

After breakfast I told Harry I was going to fetch an extra pillow from the reception, but instead I planned to find her. There was so much that I wanted to say, but it would have been too dangerous to say it all last night, when Harry could have heard at any moment.

            When I reached the bottom floor, I knocked on the door that she came through last night and waited for the sound of footsteps, but they didn’t come. I knocked again, and let a few more minutes pass before I decided she must have been somewhere else. My hand slipped into my bag and felt for the gun that Jared gave to me before I left for California. My fingers brushed over the handle, and I felt my throat tighten. The image of him showing me how to hide it from airport security flashed through my mind, immediately followed by Harry, lifeless on the ground. My hand withdrew and I pulled the zip shut, turning down the hallway towards the main desk.