I was adrift, cast aside by the murmuring waves and the thrashing riptide. I thought of Ben, of the blood leaving his body, and I thought that this must be how it feels: the ebb of life, draining slowly away, leaving your fingertips cold and your heart numb.
Harper knew. Of course he did; I’d loved him because of his sweetness, but he was intelligent, too, and more perceptive than I gave him credit for. Harper knew, and my world was crumbling around me.
“Cals, look – I know there’s something going on with you and that guy.”
One sentence, and my world was irrevocably changed.
“There isn’t,” I said, but my shoulders were too stiff, and the words sounded false to my own ears. I sighed. “I… I don’t know what it is.”
I’d almost been ready to admit to myself that my feelings for Cyrus were more than my feeli
My heart, too full, slowly emptied, turning barren and freezing over. No matter how sensible and right choosing Harper would be, it was undeniable that hearing about Cyrus being with another woman hurt.As I’d said to him, under the small grove of trees by the diner, this had become a choice. Now, Cyrus was slipping onto the losing side.I didn’t want to appear too disappointed. Not in front of Harp; not in front of anyone. It was, after all, my fault that things had even come this far.“I know you’re not that sort of girl,” Harper was saying. My brain faded in and out, catching glimpses of his words. I could see them in my mind’s eye, hazy as a late summer’s evening, but they did little to warm my icy heart.“You wouldn’t do something like this unless he tricked you,” he continued. “I know his type – ruth
“So,” Grace said, popping her bubble gum between words as she spoke, “you’re telling me that you love Harper – love him, but you aren’t, you know, in love with him anymore – but you like Cyrus. But,” she added, pursing her lips around the remnants of the pink bubble, “Harper saw Cyrus in town with another girl.”I nodded, leaning heavily against the counter. The diner had been busy all morning, but as the sun had come out business had petered off, leaving Grace and I alone on the floor, with only Giles in the kitchen.“Yeah,” I groaned. “I’ve basically been cheating on Harper. Now he says he still wants me back.” I paused. “Well, I can’t really even say basically. We… we kissed. Kind of. The intent was there.”“And last night you kissed Harper?” Grace raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow
The sun was dipping low in the sky as I drove back to my Dads’ house. The diner had stayed quiet after the arrival of the Town Trio, and though I could have left early, I’d waited until the end of my shift to leave. I didn’t want to face the world awaiting me outside.Harper was expecting me to return to our house soon, but despite our kiss and his sweet forgiveness, I still felt as though something was lacking between us. Our relationship had been irrevocably changed by Cyrus’s arrival, if not by Cyrus himself. He had brought light to flaws and shortcomings that I had brushed under the carpet for too long, and, confused as I was, going back to Harper now felt wrong.But I didn’t want to go back to my Dads’ house either. There was nowhere I wholly belonged, now; there was nowhere all of my secrets were laid bare. Not one person knew the full truth of my lived experience, and it was exhausting. 
The door opened a crack. As I leant forwards, the sharp nose and hard jaw began to soften. The nose, though perfectly straight, looked less hard-angled as my eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight. It was a face composed of balance: a soft, sensually curved upper lip beneath high, arched cheekbones. It was a face that I knew.“Cyrus?” I said, booting open the door and pulling myself up to my full height beside him.“Hi,” he smiled. His eyes, like shadowed pools on a clear day, searched mine tentatively. I gave nothing away.“You hit my car?”His chest puffed up, affronted. “Of course not. Look – it’s utterly unscathed.”“That’s wonderful,” I scowled. The blade in my hand felt hot and conspicuous. As discreetly as I could, I slipped it up and under the sleeve of my jacket.
The last vestiges of my morality slipped away as I leant into the kiss. His lips were warm and soft, and my whole being centred around his touch. His hands, firm and strong, moved to my waist and gripped me. I clutched at the back of his neck, drawing myself up and pressing against him.The storm waged out at sea, but even as the choppy waves brushed against my coastal shore I felt calm. The sun was shining, even as fat raindrops obscured its rays.Heat rose in my chest, making my heart thump against my ribcage. It tore its way free, finding its way into Cyrus’s hands and presenting itself to him. It was his, now.The feeling of his body against mine tasted forbidden, dark and dangerous, and my lips parted, desperate to drink all of him in. The whisper of a groan fell from his mouth to mine, and it was then that I knew, with no shadows clouding the truth. He was mine, too.His tousled hair was
I stared at the tyre tracks carved into the ground. There were two sets – proof of my encounter with Cyrus – yet the entire event felt utterly fabricated.Despite his strange behaviour, I felt waves of calm wash over me. If meeting Cyrus had been the beginning of the end of my relationship with Harper, then today’s kiss had been the cement that sealed our joined fates. I was no longer dancing in a grey area; I had stepped out into the sunlight, no matter how shadowed and dappled the greener grass may be.I stumbled back to my car, leaning heavily on the bonnet. My neck ached, and in the silence of my abrupt loneliness, I realised how bizarre my afternoon had been. With the blood pounding against my temples, I slithered into the driver’s seat. In my haste I’d left the door open, and as my strength left me I was grateful for my earlier hurriedness.I wilted against the seat, closing my e
“An ‘accident’?” Paps repeated, his eyebrows raising. His fingers jerked into air quotes around the word accident, and I couldn’t help but smile at him.I’d driven straight back to my Dads’ house. I needed to speak to Harper as soon as I could, but a mysterious accident just outside of Seafall felt too important to put off investigating. Besides, I told myself, it was safer for Harper if I focused on finding and eliminating the vampires. If the accident at Blackwood Castle was a clue, then telling my Dads about it was a priority. For now, my questions about Cyrus and his sudden upheaval would have to remain unanswered. Regardless of his behaviour, my choice was made. I could find out where it was, exactly, that he stood in due course.They’d both eyed my bruise with mild suspicion, but neither of them commented on it. They’d also avoided asking why I’d been driving towards
As the car hurtled back towards Seafall, I wanted to bang against the windows, to smash the glass and throw myself out of the vehicle. I wanted to sprint, to feel the pull of my muscles and the stretch of my lungs.I didn’t want to be trapped inside a car, unmoving save for the steady rise and fall of my chest, stuck with questions I had no answers to. The world flashed by outside, and I wished I could blur with it.Not Veronica. This was no accident, and this was final. Veronica, limp and bloodied, her soft, delicately rounded body torn apart, was dead. There were no second chances, and I’d wasted my first.“I don’t see why she’d have gone to the castle,” Paps muttered. He shook his head, and then turned to stare out at the careening trees and verges. Perhaps he wished the same as I did.Veronica worked full time at Waypavers, but it would make sense that she’d fini