Harley

_______________________________________

My mind, as always, was battling itself.

The door had just snapped shut behind our cold host the first time, breathing a painful echo of the sound to bounce through the room until uncomfortable silence swallowed it whole. A side of my head was shying away, wincingly, the memory of that all consuming monster breaking all the barriers that caged my fears, reminding me of my close call. The other side was glancing ever so often at the other presence in the room, whose saddened gaze spilled shame onto the floor and seemed to beg forgiveness without saying a word, two scared of my looming grudge. Desperately looking over and half opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something but words failed him every time.

I blinked at the plaster wall feeling a hazy weight over my eyelids. Who knew, through all his reputation, I'd find out how he really was.

Childish.

And yet, just hours ago, I had feared him with everything in me.

My chest caught, and a shaky voice cut the silence.

"I'm so-"

"Save it,"

We looked at eachother, him blinking, myself not. Opening and closing his mouth he tried to recover for a split second, floundering, searching again for the right words to say. He couldn't find any, it seemed.

"You couldn't do anything, yeah? Just forget it ever happened."

"I can't just…" He lowered his eyebrows in confusion. "That was awful, you guys could have died- you could have died or I could've hurt someone, I-"

"Why do you care so much, all of a sudden?"

A pause. He fumbled with the bedsheet absentmindedly, only reaching up to flick a string of hair glowing inside out from a distant window's light.

"What?"

"You care about people other than yourself, now, why?"

"I don't think I ever didn't care,"

His voice carried a whine almost, like a toddler trying to convince his parents he didn't do something that he obviously had. I almost smiled. "I mean…"

"Well, something changed," 

It was obvious. And it didn't make sense.

"I got cursed," Leon stared at his hands and sighed. "Then ditched, and then I met you and I kinda blamed you at first cause I didn't really know what was happening to me… But I realized it doesn't have anything to do with you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for dragging you into all this,"

My gaze hit the floor, not finding the willpower to say anything. But I could feel him searching for an answer.

"I know I almost hurt you but It won't happen again,"

I swallowed hard, trying to ignore the flashbacks sending electric shocks singeing my thoughts.

"Christ," A dry laugh found its way out from my mouth, and reaching head to the ceiling I pressed my palms into my eyes, The strain of my eyes holding on even after they were closed. "You sound just like my dad,"

The air was stiff. Through the cracks between my fingers I watched him melt in pity, sadness, whatever it was that was going on inside his head splintering the surface of his skin.

He knew.

I tried to bury it away, but there was nothing left to hide anymore. My jacket sleeve had a tear from the running, caught onto a candle stand bolted to the wall and split through. It slipped when I raised my arms, sliding over scars and only hidden again when I pulled it up, frantically, from his prying look.

We were frozen in time, moving only by the rising and falling of our breaths and the waiting. 

Waiting.

"You…"

I found myself wincing back, biting my lip, hoping the conversation that was coming wouldn't take too long. Maybe, just maybe he'd pretend not to see it.

But that wasn't the kind of person he was.

"Did you- did you do that to yourself?"

Silence.

"That's not the answer, man… How could you do-" 

Stop staring at me.

"Harley?"

"Harley? Harley what? It's none of your business, what do you care? Why do you say my name so goddamn much, huh?"

My heart was in my throat, words surging out faster with every shaky breath that rattled my lungs and twinge of pain running up from my balled up fists. "You like the sound of it? Do you? You like getting up in my business too?"

He stared, blinking in stunned silence.

I was off the box, and not quite sure when I'd slid down from my seated position and now stood dangerously close, a defensive stance held, clutching my arm. Just one foot away, and I could reach out--- 

My muscles seized. He recoiled, and my hands found themselves clenching his shirt.

"If you were smart," I hissed, face inches away holding him in place with everything I had. He didn’t blink, eyes the shape of the moon, clenched teeth popping the sides of his jaw outward. 

"You'd forget you saw that," I gave a shove but didn't let go. "Alright?"

A swallow. A hoarse voice.

"A-alright,"

That was when the door flew open, and Jenna made her presence known. 

***

“So here’s the deal,”

We were seated around awkwardly, Jenna on the foot of the bed and me on the floor, back against the wall, all quietly chewing on stale white bread and pre packaged apple slices. I picked at it, Leon ate ravenously. Jenna ate normally, slowly even, and pretended not to notice whatever had occurred just moments before. 

    “I don’t know what to do with either of you,” She sighed, brushing crumbs off her hands and staring defeatedly at the wall, then glancing at the two of us. Leon took in a sharp inhale, snatching another slice from the tossed open bag sprawled out on the covers haphazardly. 

    “I can’t go home,” 

    “I’ve realized that much,”

    “Me neither,” I pressed my head against the wall and stared at the ceiling, the arched white blanket of it that loomed far over my head, like a blank nothingness I might slip and fall into. “Going back would be…”

    “So,” Jenna interrupted, breaking off my trail of lost thought with a sharpness that made me close my eyes and smile, glad I didn’t have to think of anything else to say. “I’ve decided I might as well let you two know my situation,”

    “Situation?”

    A pause.

    “Look,” she continued, a tone in her voice unrecognizable. Shaky. Unsure. “It runs deeper than this curse. I… I need help,”

    Help, from us? What good could we do?

    “Something came up that I can’t deal with alone. I thought I knew what to do, but I didn’t. I thought Leon was the one who invited her, the hidden Lamia. But he wasn’t. I’m running out of time-”

    “Wait,”

    “Hm?”

    “Invited her?”

    I opened my eyes. “Who’s her?”

    “This is going to be a long story,” She muttered, and lifting her shoulders as if to prepare herself, Leon and I both leaned forward. 

    “You know of Lamia, and now the Maledictus. You know where they come from, but why had you not known of them before? The Lamia, at least, have order. They are calculated, only planning attacks that can be easily played off with non supernatural explanations, and each order has a leader who plans and dictates all this. In the beginning there were thirty six. Their offspring, or the ones they turned, became their orders. The orders grew, and split. Eventually there were thousands of orders each branching from the originals, almost every city in the world having one or two. Deadwood has one, and she is their queen. Her name is Theresa Miraverano, and she is directly from the line of Ophelius, the 27th original.

    “Miraverano is smarter than most. She’s kept her order hidden for the past hundred years or so, scheming. She’s been lying in wait for a time that she can finally reach her power over our town, and shut out it’s lights for good. This is called a fallen city. In the world today, there are only five. No one has seen or heard from those cities since.”

    “How can you just lose a city?”

    “They have ways. Ways of making it all seem normal when really those who try to interact with it are under a sort of enchantment, a hallucinogen that leads them to believe that everything is normal when it is, in fact, not. They have lures, and baits, and ways to keep Anthropos, humans, away from their borders. Away from their sick, dark ways.”

    A shiver ran through the room. 

    “She’s going to start small, an attack on the children and young people first before moving on to those who are harder targets. The order will attack Deadwood public high, and unfortunately, most of you won’t survive.”

    The fallen.

    “Can we stop it?”

    My voice rattled in my chest, stretching out my aching lungs and departing in a sigh of burning fear. I clutched my chest. Blinked. Swimming in the silence that fell over us and seemed to last years. 

    “There is no guarantee,” Jenna said finally, looking away.  “But it’s possible. That’s where you two come in.”

_______________________________________