Page 141 of Bound By Fury

“What?” I scream before I even see who was knocking.

“Well, they weren’t lying. You really have lost the fucking plot.” Missy stands there with her arms crossed over her chest and her face twisted into a scowl. I look down at my oversized T-shirt and ruffle shorts. There’s a mysterious stain on my collar, and the drawstrings at my waist hang unevenly.

“What the fuck do you want?” I ask, turning and walking deeper into the room. She can follow me or not, I don’t care.

“We just wanted to check on you,” Daisy says, peeking her head around the corner.

Sam steps into the doorway as well, a dangerous look on their face. “We’re coming in,” they say, shoving past Missy and trudging through my mess.

“Watch it!” Missy snaps, but she follows Daisy and Sam, closing the door behind them and leaning against it. Her eyes roam around my room invasively. If I weren’t so utterly and completely done with this shit-stain school, maybe I’d feel embarrassed. Instead I turn to her and sneer, “Take a good fucking look, because I’m leaving. Today.”

I yank the containers out from the dust-bunny dark beneath my bed and start grabbing things at random, tossing them into the bins without care. Clothes and trash and art supplies and shoes, it doesn’t matter.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks, jerking their head to the side, trying to catch my eyes. I avoid them, bending down to stack a pile of books and put them on the desk.

“I’ve decided I want to go home,” I say. “It’s nothing personal.”

I want to tell them. I really do. I want to tell them everything. But the universe has made it clear, I must do this alone. Why else would it take away the only other person willing and able to help me?

Besides, it’s what’s best for them. I have to protect them. From the hunters and from me.

“What do you mean, it’s nothing personal?” Daisy asks. “Of course it’s personal. We’ve tried and tried to be there for you, to get you to open up. We’ve done everything short of fucking begging you to let us in, but instead of telling us what the hell is going on, you’re running away!”

My hand stills on the zipper of the bag I’ve thrown a few sets of spare clothes into. “Are you serious?” I scoff. “As if my personal business is something you can yank out of me? Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t tell you for a reason? You sit here and act like you’re some kind of psychic, but you’re not, Daisy.” The words taste like trash coming out of my mouth, and I nearly choke on them. “You’re an emotionally repressed lesbian with mommy issues and an unhealthy reliance on a superficial understanding of the occult. You think you can help me? You can’t! No one can!”

“Hey!” Sam yells, moving to stand in front of Daisy. “You can’t talk to us like that! What is wrong with you?!”

The manic laugh that bursts from my chest isn’t funny. It’s scary, even to my own ears. What’s wrong with me? Everything!

Behind them Daisy’s eyes are round and brimming with tears. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Harper,” she says. “I’m more powerful than you’d ever believe. You think you’re the only one with secrets, but you’re not. This school is full of them. I know it, you know it, everybody fucking knows it. This school—Earnest—you’re not the only one here with something to hide.”

My eyes track from one wall to the next, her words rattling around inside my mind. Maureen said the same thing. And I’ve seen it myself. Ghosts that haunt the halls, red glowing eyes in the woods, boys with daggered smiles, a dead girl’s secrets tucked in every corner.

I look at my friends.

Shadow-darkened eyes and brittle hair and too-pale skin.

This school is eating us alive.

But that doesn’t mean I should pull them into this. If they get hurt, it will be my fault. And I can’t live with that.

Still, her words are curious. I level her with a look. “What are you trying to say to me?” I ask.

“You first.”

“Ha!” I scoff. “Fuck off.”

“Harper,” Daisy starts, then pauses.

My pulse is thudding against my neck.

“I really am psychic,” she finally sighs. I glance between Sam and Missy; neither seem phased by this information.

“Yeah, we all know you think you’re psychic.” I roll my eyes. “Stop wasting my time.”

“I’m a tongji, Harper.”

I turn toward her. Slowly. My mind clambering over every peculiarity, every hint that she was something more. “What the fuck is a tongji?” I ask.