Volume VIII: Inherited Dysfunction

*29. Return to Arms

If you’re good at something, you don’t usually forget how to do it. And that’s perfectly logical. I was good at surviving. As was Harley it would seem. She was also adept at storytelling, and the art of deception. Better than I could have imagined.

Another seemingly routine day, closing the bar. Relic and Edward were off chatting about things of minimal importance, as usual. Harley was approving of their relationship, as long as it didn’t cross into romantic lines. She knew the truth, and had to keep reminding herself of it every time she watched Edward saunter out with her daughter under his arm. It was getting dangerously close to the breaking point and she’d need to intervene soon.

I was there alone with her one night wiping tables, trying to avoid her glare. She waited until I had just put a few glasses on the bar and turned around to get more, jumping the counter on me. She threw a towel around my neck and pulled abruptly, slamming me back against the counter. I stared up at her, confused and bewildered, as she kept a hand pressing my throat against the cool countertop.

“Who are you working for?” Her voice was almost a growl, her eyes narrow and accusatory. I coughed and tried to pull up from the bar, but she kept a vice grip on me.

“You come around trying to be everyone’s friend when you’re related to the enemy. Your entire family line is full of murderous lunatics and you claim to be far from it. You could be daughter to Toryn Ransom herself with how similar you look to her, and you wouldn’t even know it. Saint shared a lot of important information with you, and I know you already had a head full of blackmail material as is. So again, who are you working for?”

I coughed a few more times, pushing her hand up enough to answer.

“Myself. Working to survive.”

She let go and I tried to straighten out, coughing and gasping. As I turned around, she had a gun leveled at my face. Point blank, there was no escaping it.

“So how are you going to survive this?” Her voice was sarcastic, but still rational. I tried to slow the facts and figures down in my mind, calculate all possible outcomes.

“By working with you.”

She clicked the safety back on quietly. “Clever girl. In case you’re feeling eager, killing me will not make anything easier. You are still breathing because Angyl Hunter, and now I, Harley Morrow, allows it. You will help me keep my children safe. You will not break Colt’s heart, despite the cost. We will not bleed for you. But you will bleed for us.”

I nodded my consent quietly, understanding her objective. She needed to feel me out, to gauge my place in the plan. She knew that I held a dangerous amount of knowledge, but I served a more important purpose right now. So keeping me alive would be top priority.

If only she’d felt that way about herself.

I remember the bang, but the shot froze every fiber of my being. I wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive for a good ten seconds, as Harley’s frame slipped from view. I don’t remember breathing or thinking further than the sound. I just stared wide-eyed into the darkness of the bar, devoid of visitors, realizing only after a solid two minutes that I had just witnessed the murder of Harley Morrow. A legend. A martyr.

And behind her, red handed, holding the smoking gun?

Irish.

I looked down to find myself splattered with blood, blinking and confused. Irish put the gun on the bar quietly, her eyes locked to mine. This was her white flag. She had completed her mission; there was no more reason to fight.

“Why?” I muttered.

“I wanted something to call my own. I couldn’t let her just come back from the dead and take back everything I’d worked so hard for. I suffered for this, nearly died for this. For you. And I will enjoy peace before the Reaper sees fit to steal me.”