The Devouring Gray(39)

My name is Stephen Saunders, and if you’re anyone else, you should stop reading this right now.

Yeah, sisters, that means you. June, I know about the flask in your backpack. And, Daria, I know you caused that dent in Dad’s car. Think very carefully about whether you want that information shared with our parents before you keep reading.

Not that you guys really care what I do enough to even find this journal. Honestly, in this family, no one really pays attention to you before you do your ritual.

Less than three weeks left until I turn sixteen. I can’t wait.

“Hey,” she said sharply. “I think I found something real.”

And she began to read aloud.





Consequences came more quickly than Harper was expecting. Later that evening, a few hours after Violet had left, her phone buzzed in her skirt pocket.

She already knew on some level what would be waiting for her before she saw the screen.

It’s me. Where are you? We need to talk—in person.

At first she was frightened. But that fear was quickly chased away by anger. So she ignored Justin’s text for the rest of the night, contemplating her best course of action.

Only now was he paying her attention. Now that she was useful again. Now that she mattered.

She’d waited three years for him to reach out to her. He could wait a few hours for her to text him back.

When Harper woke up the next morning to start her training, she had made her decision. She and Justin Hawthorne did need to talk. But they would do it on her turf, on her terms, because for the first time in years, she finally had the upper hand.

After school, she told him. At the lake’s edge. Don’t bother me before that.

It felt good to tell him what to do. It felt better when he actually listened to her.

Yet when Justin’s tall, agile form came into view at the edge of the water, Harper realized that all her mental preparation hadn’t stopped her from wanting to throw up. Or turn invisible. Or melt.

Of course, she did none of these things.

Instead she rested her hand on the dormant German shepherd guardian beside her, for strength, and waited for him to come to her.

Harper had chosen the statue garden outside her father’s workshop for a reason. She felt safer surrounded by the crumbling stone remnants of her ancestors’ power: a reminder that the Carlisles mattered, too.

Besides, she knew the guardians tended to make people uneasy. And she wanted Justin Hawthorne on edge.

But as he drew closer, he didn’t look rattled at all. Just tall and tan and annoyingly at home, even though he was in the middle of Carlisle territory.

Even though Harper had done her very best to look decidedly unwelcoming.

“I see you’ve convinced Violet that she needs your help more than she needs ours,” Justin said, pausing between a half-crumbled raccoon and a crouching stone cougar, fangs bared. “I guess we deserve it.”

Harper willed the cougar to come to life and sink its teeth into Justin’s throat. Unfortunately, nothing happened.

There was the slightest twinge of hurt in his voice. He was incredibly gifted at pretending to be wounded.

“Yes, you do.” Harper was proud of how sharply the words came out. “Talk to her if you have questions. It was her call, not mine.”

“Violet’s new here. She doesn’t understand how things work.” Justin tugged at the neckline of his T-shirt. Harper’s gaze, heedless of her attempts to keep it elsewhere, lingered on the part of his shoulder where fabric met skin.

“I know,” she said, yanking her gaze up until it met his. “That’s why I warned her about you.”

Justin stepped forward. The branches behind him framed his head, like a twisted crown. “You don’t know what’s at stake here, Harper.”

Her name in his mouth was a knife in her gut. And Harper was sick of letting him wound her. “I didn’t tell Violet not to trust you. I just told her the truth. It’s not my fault what you did doesn’t line up with how you want everyone to see you.”

Justin fiddled with the medallion tied around his wrist, which shone crimson in the late afternoon sunlight. “I know that I’m not who Four Paths thinks I am. I can never be that person. But I never wanted to ignore you. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Justin was the perfect picture of guilt. Too perfect. The longer Harper looked at him, the less she believed it. And the more she wanted to rip the lie away from the corner of his downturned mouth.

Three years ago, after a week of the Hawthornes ignoring her, she’d shown up at their house. No one came when she rang the doorbell, not even when she saw Justin’s face peering down from his bedroom window. She’d made eye contact with him for a moment—and then he’d pulled the curtains shut.

Harper had stumbled home in a haze of painkillers and tears, faced with the crippling knowledge that from then on, she could count on no one but herself.

That hurt welled up all over again as she watched Justin’s head droop forward.

“Really?” she said. “Because you’ve seemed just fine these last three years.”

“I’m trying to apologize—”

“No, you’re not.” Harper’s voice had started to shake. She had listened to this for long enough. “Stop pretending to be sorry. You’re only here because I took away something you wanted. But guess what? I couldn’t do anything about it when you cut me out of your life. And you can’t do anything about it if Violet doesn’t want your help. You made your choice. Now she’s making hers. Respect it.”