The Merciless (h.s.)

Chapter Seventeen

Arabella

My heart is pounding with a force of lightning against my ribcage. It's almost impossible to grasp onto a full breath of air in this slowly combusting car. This phenomenon seems to happen every unfortunate time I am inside of it.

My eyes stare straight at the tinted windshield, but I have no concept of what lies behind it. It's like I'm staring at the thick pane of glass itself, too afraid to recognize the path this car is headed on. I sink into the expensive black leather, having no other choice than to succumb to whatever horrifying fate I have sealed for myself.

Surprisingly, the car isn't going very fast. In fact, I think for the very first time I've been in this car, Harry is driving the tauntingly low speed limit of twenty five miles per hour. On a good day, that would make me feel at ease. But right now, I wish more than anything that Harry would just step on it instead of slowly taunting me with whatever he has planned looming ahead.

I sit frozen in the passenger seat, my hands twisting together so tightly that they ache. The city lights flash by in a blur even in the dull daylight, but I can't focus on anything except the way Harry's jaw is clenched, and how his bruised hands grip the steering wheel like he's holding himself back from ripping something apart.

Harry hasn't said a word since he snatched me off the side of the road. Not one word. The silence between us is heavier than anything he could have thought of screaming at me. I would prefer to know what he's thinking, to get even the smallest glimpse of what he has planned for me. 

When Harry suddenly jerks the wheel and turns sharply off the main road, a harsh gasp gets caught at the heap of my throat. I grab onto the door handle to steady myself. The SUV rumbles over uneven pavement as he pulls into a slim dark alleyway, the glow from the city swallowed up by shadows. Combined with his intense tints, it practically feels like night time.

The car stops, engine idling to a low rumble.

My throat goes dry. I don't make a move at first. I physically can't. The alley is eerily quiet, like the city noise can't reach us here. I glance around, half-hoping someone might walk by and save me, but I know better than that.

Harry's hand twitches against the wheel, and when he turns those burning emerald eyes on me again, my body lurches to obey an order I haven't even heard yet. His gaze slices into me like a machete, as if he's barely able to keep himself from snapping.

A loose curl hangs over his eyes that are steeped in absinthe, and deep minty breaths swim past his rosy lips. His jaw is sharp as a knife, locked in place. He has the face of a breathtaking portrait ripped right out of the frame, and put on the neck of a body crafted by the devil himself. It's hard to stay level headed when something so breathtaking is staring at you like the dirt at the bottom of his feet.

Finally, he sucks a sharp breath through his teeth as words begin to form at the tip of his tongue.

"You know..." Harry breathes out after holding in his breath for a few seconds. "I just can't even wrap my head around this..."

Every time I blatantly disregard what Harry instructs me to do, he comes back within another hauntingly soft tone that equally ponders and petrifies me simultaneously. He sounds almost like a disappointed parent. Like my childish behavior has forced him to take whatever route awaits for me.

"You had one job and that was to stay. in. my. flat. What could have possibly been so hard about that?" His voice is thick and raspy, somehow an undertone of softness laced in his frustraded words, and I cant help but note the way he purposely spaces them out so that maybe I might understand him better.