can’t escape

”No. Harmony. Hah-moan-eee. Like song.” These people never listened, the number of ‘huhs?’ that squawked from the phone were beginning to add up like tally marks scored into his self-control. Eventually they would leave it weak enough to fall apart and then it wouldn’t just be curses tumbling out as he slammed the phone down. ”Lófaszt!” He resisted throwing the phone across the room this time at least. Its screen had cracked doing that yesterday. Like the plane, it had taken the brunt of his frustration.

Viktor tossed it back on the bed instead, dragged fingers momentarily creased with the red lines of where the edges of the phone had dug into them as he’d waited for the man to check the records on his motel register over his closed eyelids. That had been the eighth call, the list Eniko had helped him to put together shrinking along with his hope that Harmony hadn’t found someone else to fly her half way across the world. A man to exchange the trip for …

The bile rushed up the back of his throat. He swallowed it back, turning to grab the bottle of water from the top of the tiny, chipped table he’d spread the maps out on. Viktor twisted the top off, taking convulsive gulps like the water would wash the image of her with some kurafi - putting his hands on her, the blood staining her skin, that look on her face. Like it had every other time, that image clung like oil, it had ingrained itself in his brain, refusing to let go.

He blinked it away, tried to at least. It had been five days. Long enough for Harmony to be well away from here, carrying herself on that wave of anger and hurt – he might’ve been dumb Viktor, not seeing what had been right in front of him, but he knew there’d been hurt underscoring her anger at his demanding questions. She had cried, before he’d even throw her on the bed like he was no better than one of them, she had been upset. Because of him.

Faszom!

Alex might have been the one to say it first – you should go after her – but he’d already intended to track her down. It wasn’t like he had let her go in the first place, she’d known where to hurt him to put him down long enough to get out of there. Stupidly he’d believed she would come back when the pain had started to fade for both of them, but this was days.

There were black crosses scattered over the map, motels and hotels cut from the list as each had denied that she was there. If she wasn’t, then how was he going to find her in all of this? Viktor laced his hands on top of his head, staring down at the spread of maps. Mystic Falls on top of the state, the entire country. Aliz might’ve told him not to bother trying to pick up her trail, but he hadn’t given her the chance to. The others had helped, all in their own way – because Harmony was pack. And more.

Spiralling paths taken in the car, driving down the roads in this town, and the next, and the next, like she would appear in front of him again, like she had in Buda. Never appearing though. Each day the hope faded further. Yesterday he had bolted from the car with Tazi hollering after him, grabbing a woman’s shoulder to spin her around. Finding a stranger instead, he’d stepped away, not even babbling an apology, although Tazi had done when he’d caught up to him. The search hadn’t lasted long after that. Harmony wouldn’t have made it that easy. She might have been … whatever she was – telling him the whole truth wasn’t half as important as tearing at him – but she had bigger claws than he did. Those wounds she had torn into him with the insults she’d thrown at him remained, the snap and bite of an animal scared as much as it was monstrous.

He turned, cursing under his breath again before he thumped his fist against the wall. A summons for his younger brother that didn’t require him digging amongst the tangled sheets of the unmade bed to dig his phone back out. ”Tíz perc és újra kimegyünk. Készülj fel.” Viktor twisted back, bending over the table to dig out the map of Virginia, further afield than they’d been going, they probably wouldn’t be back until after dark – another rush of bile up his throat. There’d been no further sign of hunters at the motel, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t felt that itch between his shoulder blades every time they went out, his gaze trying to pick them out as much as her.

His head was still down, tracing the lines of the roads Harmony might’ve used to get out of there with a fingertip, when the door opened. ”Ten minutes gone? Ez gyors volt.” Fast when everything else since Harmony had walked away from him had been agonisingly slow.

When Alex’s voice didn’t come, he looked up and felt like that wound in his side had torn itself back open, gutting him in an instant. Viktor let out his breath in a rush, straightening up as she just stared at him. Back, like he hadn’t allowed himself to really hope she would be. Not strutting in with those razor sharp words fired at him, standing there, just looking. Lying. He didn’t need to breath it in to know that she was now. ”If you didn’t run, you wouldn’t forget,” he said stiffly. She had torn out of the room like he was one of them though, leaving him to try and crawl behind, begging for her to stay.

Jaw clenched, he glanced at the wall between the rooms as Harmony finally stepped in and headed for the bathroom. He wondered if Alex had heard her, if his brother would run in here or be crossing his fingers and hoping that they would talk it through and fix this. Talk, like they had ever really done that instead of fighting it out. Her birthday. They had done it then, when he had bought the cake, and the necklace he was carrying in his pocket, just in case.

His chest was tight as he took a slow step around the table, a physical blockade between the bathroom and the bag she could snatch up to go again. Viktor crossed his arms over his chest, covering that wound she had left in his side and in his heart. ”Wouldn’t go without you. Not leaving pack again. Learned lesson, lots of lessons.” Some carved into his flesh, others stamped there by his own regrets or his family’s quiet words of advance. ”Why you really come back?” It wasn’t like she felt bad for the puppy she had kicked away from her and left behind. He had been the one forcing her to stay, the hülye she couldn’t wait to be rid of, after all. The one who had felt the loss of her like a part of him had been torn away by that thumb she’d jabbed into him after she had healed that wound in the first place.

Tagged: HARMONY * Word Count: 1217
Translate: Bullshit / Son of a bitch / Fuck / Ten minutes and we go out again. Get ready / That was fast / Idiot

The truth had always spilled out hot, torn from him with the claws he didn’t think Harmony physically possessed. A lack of them in whatever she was, hadn’t stopped her from tearing at him, pushing, ripping, until he lost his temper and held nothing back from her. At the end it had slipped from him almost bloody, choked out in the doorway she’d strode back through now, but it hadn’t been enough to stop her then. Harmony had left him and, grieving the loss of her, Viktor had believed it had been for good.

This seemed too easy now. Her walking back in, throwing that excuse back to him like she needed him to be sure that it was only for a moment. A carrot dangled in front of a stubborn donkey’s nose to get him to chase after her. Had she not trusted that he would anyway or was this just her way of tormenting him again?

Harmony could tear the room trying to get past him again, could tear him apart, but this time he wasn’t letting her go again. That hmph rolled from her, twisting his lips, but he clamped them shut against the anger that wanted to spill out, the hurt that would drown it out in an instant. Carefully chosen words stopped her instead. He hadn’t run the minute she’d been gone, he would’ve waited years for her. A truth stamped between her eyes he hoped.

Viktor’s chin lifted an inch, his shoulders stiffening at the question she huffed back at him. Open his mouth for once, not just in those moments she tore those words out of him. ”Don’t judge,” he said with a shrug, his voice as glib as if he was just telling her the time. ”Don’t wait to tell. Lots of things should’ve known before.” Things he hadn’t done when the beating had stripped away all of his shields and Harmony had been the one there protecting him before he’d practically shoved her away, accusing her of compelling him to be there. Only she wasn’t a vampire and from everything he’d found on his phone – in those searches he couldn’t tell the others about without revealing everything he’d come to know about Harmony, the things that were hers to tell – they were the only things that could do that.

She was turning away from him at that – preparing to leave? He took a step closer, his frown already carving lines deep into a face that had been full of them for days. ”Because you’ve been a part of it since start.” It hadn’t taken saving each other to make that happen. Harmony had come with him to look for somewhere for his family to live, the way they’d grown close only cementing his certainty that she was a part of them further. ”Walking away makes no different. You wanted out?” There was the curl of a question at that, a rush of nausea that left Viktor trying to swallow it down. If she had wanted to leave the pack, why would she be back now?

He'd thought everything she’d thrown back at him as she’d torn out of this room had been a lie. Words born on a wave of hurt that he’d caused. If he could take it back, would she?

As she disappeared into the bathroom he trailed closer, into that space between the bed and the dresser, close enough to see the flush in her cheeks and that glass like glitter in her eyes. The hurt hadn’t vanished, she’d just buried it enough that he hadn’t immediately seen it. Now it twisted in him the same way her thumb had in that wound in his side. Viktor swallowed, his lips pinching as he shook his head again. ”You didn’t think I follow?” His expression cracked, wry humour working its way across his throat as he stepped towards her. Viktor swept his hand back in the direction of the table, the maps spread out, all those little crosses marking out where he’d failed to find her. ”Every day looking for you. We search everywhere in this town, far out too. Never find any sign, but not give up.” Five more minutes and they’d have been out there looking. He wouldn’t have had this chance.

Two more steps and he was only a foot away. His gaze fixed on hers, his arms unfurling to hang at his sides. Close enough to touch now, to hold on tight if she tried to leave. There was no wound in his side for Harmony to use against him now – just the one bored straight through his heart. ”You no answer. Why, Harmony? Why come back? Not for this…” He plucked the bottle from her hand, glancing down at it before he tossed it onto the bed behind him. ”You come back for me? Because you care for me and want to hear me say sorry?” He’d do it, the word was already crawling up his throat, ready to tumble out like it could erase all the wounds he had left with his accusations.

Tagged: HARMONY * Word Count: 850

”Not blame, ask if you do to me.” And that had been the problem. Answering him truthfully, simply – if she was capable of doing it at all without scoffing the way she had as he’d tried to explain that he’d learned not to wait to open his mouth about how he felt – was beyond her. It was always this, mock and argue, keep him at a distance with those words that burned under his skin the same way the wolfsbane had.

Viktor’s lips pressed into a thin bloodless line, his head dropping an inch. Alex had made him feel like it had been a wrench for Harmony to walk away from them, from him. She’d been scared by what had happened, the same way he had been, and instead of pulling her in, he’d pushed at her the same way she had him. Asking for a truth that wasn’t one – oh that part had been made clear at least, you couldn’t talk someone into loving you and, despite the words not spitting out of his mouth in any of his tirades, it was that. For making his heart sting and those doubts swim into his head, he’d ripped back at her, hard enough that she wasn’t even turning to look at him now.

Lips still clamped together, he shook his head. She wouldn’t see it, turned away as she was, so he couldn’t see how his words landed on her this time. ”Wouldn’t have crawled after if I wanted you gone. Just wanted to talk, Harmony.” And for them that had been a dirty word. Those small moments when they’d done just that lost in that potent sea of emotions at the end, all of it smothered by the reeking blanket of fear.

He puffed out a curse under his breath as she turned away to get the shampoo she hadn’t just returned to get – oh, he was sure of that. Not wanting her to breeze right past him as she strolled back out with the bottle, Viktor moved closer. Last time Harmony had known exactly how to get past him but now the hole on the outside had healed, only the one inside his chest remaining, and she couldn’t jab a finger there.

Harmony’s did what her hands couldn’t this time. The silver trail of them rolled down her cheeks as she looked past him to where the map was spread on the table. Ready to look for her again when she’d been coming right back here, to him. Relief had gone to war with frustration in his gut as she’d breezed straight through the door, like her absence hadn’t been tying him in agonising knots, filling his head with images of the hunters taking her from the side of the road, their bullets shattering her skull the way they had Jaina’s.

Tenneessee, Arizona. States he’d only seen on maps. Places that might as well have been on the other side of the world for all the consideration he’d given them. Viktor’s lip curled, the query as to when she’d realised her shampoo wasn’t there freezing his expression as Harmony still tried to crack a verbal hand across his cheek. ”Hülyeség. You say not possible. No lie now.” That was her way of pushing him away, bullshit, as he’d called it, to be torn away if he wanted her to know.

Enough.

Last time he’d laid hands on her. Throwing her onto the bed, caging her in with his body and words until she’d run instead of letting him see what had been laid open in that alleyway. Harmony was frowning, but he wasn’t letting any of the lies remain there in a bubble, separating them this time. The shampoo came easily enough out of her hand, bouncing on the bed as she spluttered. Viktor’s chin came up an inch as she stepped in, his shoulders braced like he was expecting another physical fight, or he was holding himself back this time. Harmony would push until he laid hands on her anyway, but maybe he could talk first.

One finger came up between them like he could hold her accusations off with it. ”Never, I never blame you,” he warned, but Harmony was already throwing her truth at him, the arrows of it lodging deep in his chest, as she’d known they would. Colour leached from his face, except for two bright spots on his cheekbones, lips thinning as he pressed them together to hold back the snarl. He’d fought for his family until nagyanya had ordered him to fly, had mourned each of them he’d left behind like a limb that had been torn from his body, had been hollowed out by it all until Harmony had started to fill those ragged hollows back up. ”She wrong,” he said hoarsely. ”Not all. Them maybe, don’t deserve, don’t see you.” They hadn’t seen those glimpses of Harmony between the plates of armour she held around herself.

There’d been an excitement when he’d first turned, a relief that he was like his family. Magic would not have been so bad, none of them had ever looked down on Alex for who he was, but he’d revelled in the run, in the pack. He’d never regretted it the same way Harmony seemed to now, being a siren something she might’ve torn out of her with her fists the same way she pulled her shirt tight around herself now. Shaking his head, Viktor lifted his hands, bracketing her face to swipe his thumbs over her cheeks, chasing away the tears he’d wrung out of her. ”You control with me. None of this that.” The certainty of it had come after he’d Alex had told him not to give up. He hadn’t done everything Harmony had asked of him the way the men had, it maybe would’ve been easier if he had.

”Wrong. I admit. Should not have said what I did. You save me. I’m here because of you, what you can do. Want you, not because of that. For you, Harmony. You might not want, but too late. You’re pack, mine.” Would she fight that too? Trying to tear those tethers away with hands that weren’t claws. Those were his and he’d cut her deeply when all that he should’ve said was thank you. He lowered his head, still braced for the blow that might come, pressing his mouth against hers in a hard kiss, possessive and fierce all at once.

Tagged: HARMONY * Word Count: 1080
Translate: Bullshit

This was the Harmony she’d fought over and over again to keep him from seeing. The one who’d been left torn apart and vulnerable by the emotional grenade her mother had planted in her heart. Soft like a spring rain, her big blue eyes misty with it as he brushed his thumbs across the silvery trails her tears had left on her cheeks. Maybe others had been forced to look past what she had presented them, but how many would have chosen to anyway, not caring about anything but the effect Harmony could have on them.

Viktor was sure she wouldn’t have let him if he tried to cup that soft, tender, scarred part of her in the same way. Maybe she wasn’t ready to let him do it, maybe she would never be, but he had never been afraid to go out into the wilderness that clustered thick around their village. The wild was nothing more than the things you hadn’t learned about yet. You had to give yourself over to it, you had to learn and get back up with it took the mistakes you made and knocked you on your ass. Aliz had taught him that, although he imagined his sister wouldn’t have wanted that lesson applied here. Harmony was the wilderness that had torn at him once, but he’d got back up and he was right back out there, risking the prickle of briars, the threat of things he still didn’t know because he wanted to be with her.

His English wasn’t good enough to explain everything that had happened, wasn’t good enough to make every aspect of his apology clear, but she was letting him show her in the way that had always worked for them. Give. The word was a silent plea in his head as he kissed her. Harmony didn’t push him away, didn’t tear at him again. She did give as he had asked, the plea answered by the tangle of her fingers in his shirt. Her grip anchoring them the same way their lips did. Viktor speared his fingers into her hair, his thumbs still gentle on her cheeks, circling at her temples.

If she tried to pull away and leave again, all of this ending up too much for her, then it wouldn’t be alone this time. Közösen. Together. His heart in her hands the same way his shirt was now and there was no throwing that aside.

Szeretlek. She… Harmony hadn’t tossed it aside, she cradled it instead, had it growing until he could feel the love she’d just professed for him filling him up from the inside out. His brow was furrowing, but he lingered in that kiss that punctuated her words, letting it burn its way up through his throat. Drawing back just far enough to open his eyes and look at hers, his lips parted. ”I need …” He wanted to laugh the word out, whispering it back so many times it became a song, but now she was stopping him. But…

The single word argument hadn’t made it off of his lips before Harmony was explaining. As though anything she told him now was going to make a difference. Viktor swallowed hard, biting down on the desire to tell her that she’d told him all he needed to know. She hadn’t told him everything she wanted him to know. Mutely, he nodded, his hands remaining there, bracketing her face, his fingertips gently tracing the shell of her ear. ”Snakes not always venomous,” he whispered, not wanting to disturb the story, but not wanting her to feel ashamed of the abilities she’d inherited. Making a soft sound, he closed the gap again, brushing his lips against her forehead. Never venomous to him.

Gently this time, Harmony drew his hands from her. Viktor didn’t draw back, he let Harmony guide this as she needed to, taking comfort in the warmth of her fingers around his wrists. The truths weren’t getting any easier, only tearing at that spot in his heart where he would’ve done anything to protect her. ”Bassza meg.” A curse hissing out, but not aimed at her, felt for her instead. His heart felt like it was being squeezed in his chest, compressed by the grip of what he felt for her as she sucked in a breath. He hadn’t been gentle in trying to figure out the truth that night. Attacked. He twisted his wrists, his fingers brushing her wrists in turn, trying to find a grip. ”You couldn’t help,” he said softly, but firmly. There was no condemnation in his voice. That panic had gripped him when the village was attacked, that sense that you couldn’t escape, the one that left you doing anything to make sure you could get out of there.

There wasn’t much to smile about in the confession, but the mention of his stubbornness had that sad smile appearing on Harmony’s lips. Like they were still connected by that last kiss, Viktor smiled, almost wryly. ”Stubborn, never want to let go.” Not of the few things he had left, not of the people he loved. He couldn’t have named the day that he realised he was in love with Harmony, but it was written in his bones now. His hands wrapped around her wrists, squeezed in emphasis. ”You save me.” Not from some attempt to even the scales either. By then it had been love for both of them.

On the night she’d left Harmony had turned him into a shell of a different sort. Hollowed out by the abandonment and filled with pain. A pit reopened in the pit of his stomach now, a vacuum that started to draw his brows together and had his heart aching. ”Attention?” he parroted, feeling stupid as he shook his head. ”Never thought anything different. You push then and I push back ‘til we...” Heat rushed to his face at the memory. Pale skin, still damp from the shower and smelling like the shampoo she had left behind.

He didn’t want to move, but he let go of her right arm and curled his hand in towards his stomach, curling his fingers in like he was grabbing something. ”Pulling,” Viktor breathed, closing his eyes and swaying for a moment as he felt it again. Sweat prickled at the base of his spine as he felt it – a doubling of the need that had already been there, swelling until he felt the press of it and the desire to free it. ”And if you not want to break? If attraction already there?” If this was just a glaze on what had already sunk deep enough that none of this could touch what he felt.

Certainty filled him as he studied her face – the limits of Harmony’s abilities still spilling out of her. He knew her features, had glared at them in anger at times, studied the softer lines of them as she’d slept next to him, traced them with fingers and his lips, trying to impart some tenderness on her when she would let him. ”Gyönyörű.” Viktor’s head dipped slightly, so they were more eye to eye, reassurance pressed into place as she squeezed his wrists.

Maybe that beauty was what the men had seen that first day, already trailing Harmony before she’d started to try and get herself out of it. Viktor was already shaking his head, pushing away the apology that seemed to be coming for the confusion that had to be as much on his part as hers. Not hunters, but it didn’t matter, they had been hurting her... Police. Rendőrség. Just as bad, nagyapa and nagyanya had told enough stories about the authorities in Russia and Hungary (corrupt, all of them), that he almost spat now. ”Sssh, szivem. Not pathetic. Hard to tell. To change the way you see.” That he saw her, not that it did. His smile brightened slightly and he tugged her in with the hand that was still entwined with his. ”I saw men that would hurt, men not to trust. No harm in stopping them.” They were men who had brought such things on themselves. Maybe others hadn’t, but every time he had seen her use her abilities it had been on people looking to hurt him or others.

The lines of his face, his smile, softened as Harmony looked up into his eyes. The sheen of tears was still there in hers and he would’ve tugged her down onto the bed and whispered reassurances to her until certainty filled her the same way. Harmony seemed to be waiting on the brink for him to snap though, to take back the promise he’d made that she was pack, to push her out of the room and his heart. Never. He made a chchchchch sound of disagreement as she practically half opened the door to let him do it. The frown was back, reflecting the ache in his chest that wasn’t so warm this time. ”Monster … no. Was wrong. Monster’s do on purpose, they kill and slaughter and don’t care. That’s not you.”

He did pull her in now, his hand on the back of her neck. Viktor pressed his lips to her forehead, then her cheekbone, finally Harmony’s lips – forcing himself to pull away after a moment to be able to look her in the eye. ”Maybe questions later but, now, don’t go. Not taking back anything. Shouldn’t have let leave the last time.” Not that she’d given him a choice in it. ”Want you here, in pack, in heart. I say now I know … I love you. Szeretlek. Я тебя люблю. I love you.” Deeply enough to repeat it in every language he knew, even if the Russian made his throat ache. Nagyanya had stuck to Hungarian most of the time, but for nagyapa she’d murmured those words in Russian, the one hold over of all she’d left behind.

Tagged: HARMONY * Word Count: 1658
Translate: Fuck / Beautiful / My heart