Page 91 of Silent Heart

Chapter 36 – Harley

The blankets were warm and snuggly. Reality flickered, but sleep tugged hard, trying to pull me back under its control.

“Harley.”

I sat bolt upright, my heart jumped against my ribs, and my loud inhale filled the room.

“Sorry, I didn’t know how else to wake you.” Luka chuckled.

Hand flattened against my chest, I gasped desperately for air. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Ssshhh,” Luka hissed. “I don’t want to wake the kid up. The walls aren’t as thick as you’d think in these buildings.”

Scrubbing my hands over my face, I let out a strangled growl. “How in the hell are you here?”

Each student had a key card, but after curfew, the doors were locked and only the attendant could open them. Every wing on every floor had a similar keycard access, and our rooms had a real, metal key. Granted there would be duplicates somewhere, but how Luka just let himself into our room was beyond me.

“Is that really the question you want to be asking?” Through the dark, I could hear Luka rummaging around through my drawers. “Or wouldn’t you rather knowwhyI am here?”

“I’m giving you ten seconds to explain before I call the cops,” I snapped.

Luka wandered back, dropping a sweater, leggings, and woolly socks on my bed. “Kolya is having an episode.”

“Oh,” I breathed. I pushed my fingers through my hair, combing it off my face. I did not want to give names to the swirling emotions in my chest. “I suppose that doesn’t warrant calling the authorities, but that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I need you,” Luka said simply.

“I don’t see what I can do—” I began.

“My brother needs you,” Luka added. “He’s bad, Harley.”

I grabbed for the sweater, a huff of protest leaving my lungs. It might be a weakness, but there was no way in hell I was staying here now that I knew. He must have had some episodes while we’d been apart, but this…. Knowing he was having one, and that he was nearby enough for Luka to ask this of me, it was different.

“Damn you, Luka,” I hissed.

That only made him laugh. “I already am, sweetheart.”

In five minutes, I followed Luka’s lithe figure as he ambled down the back stairs. I still couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten access to the dorm, but wondering about that wasn’t a big enough distraction. I was too focused on my gnawing insides.

I was voluntarily going to see Kolya again.

My heart shivered, barely strong enough to pump the blood through the chambers to be re-oxygenized.

Only when I was in Luka’s vintage car—a ridiculously nice piece of American muscle from the decades before—did I speak again.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do with Kolya.”

Luka pursed his lips. The car roared to life, the vibration zinging through my bones. “My brother doesn’t talk much, doesn’t tell us things.”

I snorted. That was the understatement of the year.

“But from your reaction upstairs, I reasoned that you’ve seen him during one of his blackout spells.” Luka inflected the statement in such a way as could be a question.

I harrumphed. “He blacked out and ended up on my side of the lake. Walked the whole way in that state to…find me.”

Luka snorted incredulously. “The bastard probably swam there, sweetheart.”

I glared at him, an objection on the tip of my tongue.

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