She’s backing up, hands raised, and I can hear her now—a steady stream of creative profanity that would make a sailor blush. “Stay the fuck away from me, you asshole. I ain’t going anywhere with you!”
“The hell you aren’t.” Silas moves in fast.
She tries to run again, but he’s faster. He catches her at the edge of the grass, right in front of the bronze statue of the school’s founder—some stern-faced man from the 1950s who’s been frozen mid-stride for sixty years.
The tackle looks almost gentle, the way Silas wrapshis arms around her from behind and takes them both down to the ground in a controlled fall. But she’s fighting like a wildcat, twisting and bucking and screaming.
“Get OFF me! I’ll fucking kill you! Let me GO?—”
“Harper, stop.” Silas’s voice is firm but not angry. He’s got her arms pinned, rolling her onto her stomach with professional efficiency. Like he’s done this before. “You’re not running. It’s over.”
I reach them just as he’s hauling her to her feet. She’s still struggling and cursing, face flushed, eyes wild, and grass in her hair.
“What the hell, Silas!” I’m breathless, heart pounding for entirely different reasons now. “Have you lost your mind? You can’t just?—”
He looks at me over her head, and his expression stops me cold.
It’s not anger. It’s not even frustration.
It’s exhaustion. Deep, bone-weary exhaustion.
And underneath that: regret.
“I see you’ve already met your new stepsister,” he says.
The words hit me like a physical blow.
My new?—
Stepsister.
I look at Harper—because of course her name is Harper, and it fits her perfectly—and watch as the same realization dawns on her face.
Her eyes go wide. Then wider.
She looks from Silas to me and back again.
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” she says.
And despite everything—despite the tackle and the chase and the wallet still in her pocket and the fact that my life just got exponentially more complicated—I find myself thinking completely inappropriate thoughts.
Her lips tasted like grape Tootsie Pops, and I already want to kiss her again. My fingers find my tie—still crooked from when she pulled it.
I should fix it.
I always fix it. Immediately.
But I don’t.
I’m so screwed.
FIVE
HARPER
So,Hot Boy Scout is my new stepbrother, and now I’m sitting side by side with him at the dining room table, with Silas and a grinning Helen opposite us.
The cat’s stashed upstairs in the closet. If she pees on the carpet in there, all the better. At least Sox has the right idea—hide until this nightmare is over. I left her with water and my hoodie to sleep on. The little monster seems to like fabric that smells like me.