Across from her, Harry’s eyes glittered dangerously. He looked tired but wild, like there was something lurking under his skin that only revealed itself in the dark.
It was at that moment that she realized how little she knew him.
“I remember waking up on that day, the day of your birthday,” Harry said, still cast in darkness. “I remember seeing the tattoo for the first time. I was terrified and angry, but I wondered…what if? What if we didn’t deny the bond?”
Lifelong enemies Allie and Harry are devastated when they learn they are soulmates, so they form a pact to never act on their bond. Unfortunately, fate has other plans for them.
[read on ao3 here]
“Do you want to know your fate?”
Allie watched the old man place a crystal ball on the table in front of him. The bauble was unassuming and slightly dirty. Honestly, Allie wouldn’t have been surprised if it were made of plastic. It, like everything else in the cluttered store, looked cheap and fake. But then again, what did she know about the world of psychics? That’s why she was here, after all: she wanted answers about her future.
It was the day before Allie’s thirteenth birthday, and she was at a fortuneteller’s shop. Her friend Becca had insisted they come here to celebrate her impending soulmate reveal. Perhaps, Becca said, they could get a little insight into who she would be paired with.
Allie’s world revolved around soulmates. When two people were ideally matched, an unbreakable soul bond tied the pair together. And two rules applied to all soulmates:
First, the bond was manifested in a tattoo. Everybody had their partner’s name written on their body somewhere. These tattoos didn’t require needles or ink; they showed up on their own, as if by magic.
Second, the tattooed names didn’t appear until the thirteenth birthday of the younger person in each couple. On that day, both soulmates would wake up to find themselves marked with their other half’s name.
Assuming Allie’s soulmate was older than she was, there was only one day left until she learned who she was bonded to.
Allie gazed at the crystal ball. Behind the fortuneteller, a pink neon sign buzzed an electric tune. The lights cast a dim glow throughout the small store.
The psychic seemed over-the-top to her, not that she would ever tell Becca that. The man sitting across from her seemed more like a crackpot than a sage. His greasy hair hung in his face, so long that it nearly obscured his eyes. He reeked of licorice and burnt lavender. But they had already paid the man his fee, so they might as well hear what predictions he could conjure up for them.
“Do you want to know your fate?” he repeated. “Once you learn it, you can’t go back.”
“Yes,” Allie said. “I’m ready.”
The fortuneteller muttered a few unintelligible words and stared deeply into the crystal ball. “Hmm...it’s foggy, but some images are starting to come into focus. Ah, yes. I can see it now.”
To Allie, the crystal ball looked exactly as it did before.
“I see money stained with blood. Tears and white bedsheets. Two bodies, submerged in water. A cellphone is ringing, but no one is picking up.”
“Okay,” Allie tried to figure out how to respond to this prophecy. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but she certainly hadn’t thought he would list such unpleasant images. “But what does that mean?”
“These images foretell rejection and denial. You will learn who your soulmate is tomorrow, but you will be unhappy when you learn who you have been paired with. This bond will confuse you and bring you unhappiness. Yes, I definitely sense rejection and denial.”
Allie was stunned. “Do you see anything else? Like, happiness and love, maybe?”
“I cannot see specifics,” he responded with contempt. “That is not how my gift works.”
Of course the fraud fortuneteller wouldn’t be able to see specifics. She had shelled out good money for him to ruin her day. She protested, “But—”
The man cut her off with a dismissive wave. “Do not disrespect my craft. Just because you demand answers of me doesn’t mean that I’ll give them to you. I only see what the universe shows me.”
Allie glanced back at the crystal ball, which was still maddeningly clear. There were no bloodied dollar bills, no ringing cellphones. The fortuneteller could have invented any story he wanted. He could have reported that he had seen her in a happy relationship and with a successful career. And yet he deliberately chose to give her a bad fortune.
“You must see something good in the crystal ball, right?” Becca murmured. She had been quietly listening in on the conversation between Allie and the psychic for the last fifteen minutes, mostly content to observe. “I mean, it can’t all be bad.”
“Actually, it can,” the man snapped. “I do not control your future. I merely pass on the messages that the universe sends me.”
“So you’re saying that rejection is my fate, and there’s nothing I can do to change that?” Allie said.
The man nodded eagerly, as if glad that she was finally catching on. “Precisely.”
“And why should I believe that?” Allie usually wasn’t so confrontational, especially with adults, but this fortuneteller was an exception. What did he know about her soulmate? Nothing.
The man scrutinized her frowning face. His lips went thin with irritation. “I think we are done here. I’ve told you what I saw. It’s not my problem if you don’t like the truth.”
Allie nearly scoffed. He read tea leaves and tarot cards for a living. He probably got pleasure out of ruining his customers’ days. Staring into a crystal ball and mumbling about dark visions wasn’t the truth, it was a cruel joke.
At least, she hoped it was a joke. There was a part of her (a part she tried to ignore) that worried that his predictions might come to pass. She pictured the images the man had mentioned—blood, tears, bodies in water—and she saw death. She shivered at the thought.
“Thanks for the crystal ball reading,” Becca cut in before Allie could offend the fortuneteller even more. “Well, we should probably go. My mom’s waiting for us outside.”
The fortuneteller wasn’t even listening. His attention had strayed to a stained, crumpled box of cigarettes that sat by his side. He picked one cigarette from the pack and sparked it with a pink lighter from his pocket.
Allie felt anger on her tongue, ready to be sharpened into spiteful words, but she could see that Becca was anxious to leave. She smothered her fury for her friend’s sake. “Yeah, thanks for the fortune.”
She stood up and walked out of the store with Becca. As the wooden door swung shut behind her, she turned around to give the fortuneteller one last glance. Thick smoke swirled around his head. His eyes were closed as if he had already forgotten that they were there.
What did a man like that know about her fate?
+
The next day, Allie woke up at five in the morning. She was too giddy to go back to sleep. Despite how horribly the visit to the fortuneteller had gone, she was still excited by the potential of finding out who she was bonded to. She’d been waiting her entire life to see her soulmate’s name tattooed on her.
She checked her wrists, a common spot for soulmate marks. They were blank. Her arms and legs, too, were bare. In fact, every visible inch of skin was unmarked.
Don’t worry, she reminded herself. It’s probably just hidden under some clothing.
She lifted the edge of her pajama shirt and walked to her mirror to get a closer look at herself. As she scanned over the planes of her stomach and saw more blank skin, she felt growing disappointment. It seemed that she hadn’t gotten her tattoo after all. Her soulmate was probably younger than she was, which meant she would have to wait until his thirteenth birthday to find out who he was.
But then she spotted a scribble of black near her waist. The writing was scrawled across her left hipbone in messy, boyish letters. She bent down to get a closer look at the words.
Harry Bingham.
She gasped.
Harry Bingham? No, it wasn’t possible. Harry had been her sister’s sworn enemy since preschool, which meant that by default, she and Harry were also enemies. Almost every time they had a conversation (a misfortune she did her best to avoid), he was arrogant and entitled and cruel.
“No, no, no,” Allie said to herself. “This can’t be real.”
She paced her room, trying to rationalize why she was paired with Harry. She and Harry were nothing alike. It should have been impossible for them to be soulmates.
Maybe this was some sort of cosmic joke, or the universe’s revenge for the times she’d been a bad person. Or maybe, while she had been sleeping, her sister decided to write Harry’s name on her as a prank. All those explanations were more logical than the thought that she might actually soulmates with Harry Bingham.
“This can’t be real,” she repeated.
But the ink was underneath her skin. As much as she wished that she could blink and watch the tattoo vanish before her eyes, she knew the mark was permanent. It would stay on her body forever, reminding her of the boy she’d been chained to.
When she took her shower later that morning, Allie tried, in a half-crazed stupor, to wash the name from her body. She scrubbed with her loofa until her skin was raw and red. But Harry’s name was still printed on her hipbone.
After the shower, Allie dressed hastily, as if covering the mark would mean that it no longer existed. She even considered stealing a bottle of concealer from her sister’s room and smearing the makeup over her hip, but she feared that Cassandra would catch her in the act. Her mind was racing for solutions, and yet she was paralyzed by inaction.
She curled up on her covers, her hair still damp. She was too stunned to cry. Instead, she just stared at the walls, trying to decode the mess she had landed in.
By ten, Allie knew she could not hide in her room any longer. She crept downstairs to the kitchen, where her dad was flipping pancakes and humming along to a pop song. Cassandra and her mom were setting the table for breakfast. They had even put out a vase filled with her favorite peonies.
“Morning, birthday girl,” her mom said.
“Morning,” Allie replied, faking a grin. Her lower lip trembled from her anxiety.
“I’m surprised you woke up late,” her dad said. “I remember waking up at the crack of dawn on my thirteenth birthday. I was so anxious I almost got sick. And then it turned out that there wasn’t even a tattoo on me!”
“Sorry, dad, but even my birthday isn’t enough to get me to wake up early.” Lie.
“You ready for breakfast?”
“Of course.” Another lie. Truthfully, she was terrified. She knew her family would use breakfast as an opportunity to spring the dreaded question: do you know who your soulmate is?
Her dad plated the golden pancakes and coated them with pats of butter and gooey, sugary syrup. He brought the food to the table, and they all sat down to eat.
Allie shoved pieces of pancake into her mouth as if she were Joey Chestnut on steroids. She hoped that if her cheeks were stuffed with food, her family would let her eat her breakfast in peace instead of poking her for information.
Across from Allie, Cassandra was only on her second bite of breakfast. She had cut her pancakes into delicate, precise slices and had taken care to ensure the syrup was evenly distributed. Even when taking sips from her orange juice, she was polished.
Perfect Cassandra, Allie thought. She would never be bound to someone as awful as Harry.
“I remember my thirteenth birthday,” Allie’s mom said in between bites of pancake, seemingly clueless to the turmoil tearing her daughter apart. “I woke up and saw your dad’s name on the inside of my arm. But I had no clue who he was! Your generation is lucky to have the internet. You can Google your soulmate’s name and immediately find out who they are. We were in the dark about our soulmates until we met them in person.”
“Unless you knew your soulmate before you turned thirteen,” Cassandra pointed out. “Like, if you were paired up with someone that went to elementary school with you. Then you wouldn’t need the internet to help find them.”
Allie almost choked on her juice. That comment was uncomfortably close to her reality.
“I suppose that’s true,” her mom said. “That’s very rare, though. Your dad and I met when we were twenty-two, and we met earlier than most.”
“Well, I think it’s better not to use the internet to find your soulmate,” Cassandra declared. She said this frequently, especially when she was asked why she didn’t have social media. “I think you should meet your soulmate naturally, as you were supposed to.”
“So, Allie,” her mom turned to look at her. “Do you have any news for us yet?”
Allie went red. This conversation felt intensely wrong. Worse than the “sex talk” her parents had given her when she was eight. Although she had never considered it before, she wondered why her family felt like they were entitled to this information about her body and her future. Their society had bought into the idea that everyone should wear their soulmate tattoos like a badge of honor—but shouldn’t people be allowed to keep this information private?
Allie was ashamed of her mark. She didn’t want to admit that she had been paired with West Ham’s most obnoxious idiot.
“I don’t have a tattoo yet,” Allie lied, desperately hoping that her family would buy her act. “Guess he must be younger than me.”
“Oh,” her mom said, clearly a little surprised. Her mom and her dad shared a look. “Well, that’s okay, honey. I’m sure you’ll find out who he is soon enough. Your thirteenth birthday doesn’t have to be all about finding your soulmate. You’re so young! You can worry about that later. Today’s still going to be a great day. ”
Allie almost laughed. Her parents thought she would be upset because she hadn’t gotten her tattoo. If they knew the truth...
“Yeah,” Allie said, grateful that her family didn’t prod further. And then she told her greatest lie of the morning. “I don’t really care about soulmates, anyway.”
+
After breakfast, while her parents washed the dishes, Allie went back to hiding in her bedroom. She buried her head in the covers of her bed and let her emotions swallow her.
Harry Bingham, she thought again. How on Earth could I have been paired with Harry Bingham? We’re nothing alike.
She startled at the sound of her door swinging open. It was her sister. Cassandra wore a small, close-lipped smile that set Allie’s nerves on fire. Allie realized immediately that despite escaping the breakfast interrogation, she hadn’t escaped her sister.
Cassandra sat down on the bed.
“You know you can knock, right?” Allie asked sharply.
“Sorry,” Cassandra said, entirely unapologetic. “So, who is it?”
It was unlike Cassandra to be so upfront. Usually, she was the more reserved one, always telling Allie to calm down or be more patient.
“It’s nobody. I told you, I didn’t find a tattoo on my body.”
“I know you’re lying,” Cassandra said. “I can hear it in your voice. You can fool mom and dad, but you can’t fool me.”
Anxiety shot through Allie. She thought that her performance at breakfast was Oscar-worthy, but as always, Cassandra saw through her lies. “I don’t want to tell you, okay? It’s none of your business.”
“I told you the second I found out who mine was.” Cassandra emphasized her point by sticking her wrist, which was encircled with blank ink, in Allie’s face.
Allie could feel her panic growing. Her sister had a point, but Allie couldn’t possibly tell her the truth. How could she?
Allie imagined speaking Harry’s name aloud. She pictured her sister’s reaction, her mouth gaping wide and her eyebrows raised in shock. Cassandra would stutter out a kind response. She would try to make her congratulations sound convincing. Yet no matter what was said, they would both know the truth: Cassandra hated Harry, truly hated him. And that would never change.
No, Allie could not tell the truth.
“Just tell me.” Cassandra pushed. “I’m your sister. You can trust me.”
Allie’s eyes filled with stinging tears. “I do trust you, I promise. But I can’t tell you. Please, Cassandra, please just take my word for it. Please.”
Her sister looked bewildered. Allie knew Cassandra had never seen her beg like this before.
“Fine.” Allie could hear the hurt in her sister’s voice. “You have to tell me one day, though. A soulmate’s not the kind of secret you can hide forever.”
Maybe not, Allie thought. But I can try.
+
When Allie arrived at school the next day, she was determined to corner Harry and confront him about the tattoo.
As it turned out, she didn’t need to search for him. While she was walking down the hallway, a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her behind the lockers into a tight nook. It was Harry. Anger blazed in his eyes. He held up a cautious finger to his lips, shushing her. “Don’t say a word.”
Allie nodded. He stared at her suspiciously, as if he was worried that she would start screaming.
“I think you probably know why I wanted to talk. I’m guessing it was your thirteenth birthday yesterday, Pressman. I don’t know what else could explain the tattoo I woke up with. And to think that I thought I would have a soulmate I liked.” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. “You probably prayed every night that you would end up with someone like me, huh?”
He was infuriating. She couldn’t believe that he had the audacity to think that she would ever be interested in him.
“You think you’re so special, don’t you?” Allie said. “Harry, you’re pretty much the last person I’d want to be bonded to.”
“Believe me, the feeling is mutual. You think I want to be part of your shitty family?”
That was one step too far. She was half considering throwing a punch at him. She could do it if she wanted; in this nook, they were hidden from the eyes of their teachers and classmates.
“You’re an asshole,” she spat.
“Bitch.”
Allie wished she could vaporize him on the spot. How could she have been chained to such a callous jerk?
She thought of clever retorts she could say to him, insults that would permanently puncture his inflated pride. Though Cassandra was usually in the spotlight for her intelligence, no one could beat Allie’s wit. She could trade barbs with the best.
Allie considered those rumors that she had overheard about his parents’ loveless marriage. Yes, that would be a fertile site for insults.
She opened her mouth, prepared to escalate the argument. But she stopped herself before she could say anything.
What good would fighting with Harry do? At the end of the day, she would still have his name written on her hip.
Looking at him, she found that he, too, appeared to be at a loss for words. Though he still wore an angry sneer, his eyes were sad. It seemed that they both came to the same realization: they could hurl nasty words at each other for hours, but it wouldn’t fix their situation. If they wanted to overcome their bond, they’d have to work together.
“We’re stuck with each other until we die, aren’t we?” Harry let out a deep sigh. His furious mask cracked, and Allie glimpsed genuine misery and anxiety on his face.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then, a brilliant thought struck Allie. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “We don’t have to be stuck with each other. There are plenty of soulmates who reject the bond.”
“I guess.” Harry scrutinized her. She could tell he was considering her suggestion. “But how would we make sure that we’ve rejected it permanently? I wouldn’t want you falling in love with me five years from now, Pressman.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “Harry, it’s us. There’s literally no way we’re ever going to be friends, much less…well, you know.”
He nodded. “Okay. So what are you thinking?”
In her mind, a plan started to fall into place. A simple, perfect plan. “We both have to promise that we’ll never speak of this…this bond to anyone else. Ever. We have to keep it a secret until the day we die.”
“Like a pact?” Harry asked.
“Yes, a pact. Except a pact isn’t enough. We have to do more than that. Before we turn twenty, we both have to agree to get our marks covered up.”
Harry seemed much less certain about this suggestion. Covering up soulmate tattoos was technically illegal. Most tattoo artists outright refused to do it, and those who were caught in the act could face up to a year in jail time. Eventually, however, he conceded, “Okay, fine. I can agree to that. But you need to swear on your life that you’re going to get yours covered up, too. This is a two-way street, Pressman. If I’m going to jail, so are you.”
“I swear on my life I’ll...,” Allie paused, considering her words. “You know, I feel like we should have some official pledge or something. For example, I, Allie Pressman, swear on my life that I will never mention that my soulmate is Harry Bingham. I will do everything in my power to keep my tattoo hidden.”
Harry snorted. “Who do you think you are? The queen? Let’s just shake on it and call it a day.”
Allie glared at him. “Just say the damn words, will you?”
“Fine. I, Harry Bingham, swear on my life that I will never mention my soulmate is Allie Pressman. I will do everything I can to keep my tattoo hidden. Yada yada yada, you get the gist. Can I go now?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you were the one who pulled me behind these lockers in the first place.”
“Touché.”
Just like that, it was settled. Their soulmate marks were a secret that they alone would keep. And they would never, ever act on their bond.
+
For two years after that, neither Harry nor Allie spoke about the curse they shared. They didn’t interact in the hallway or the classroom. They both pretended that the other didn’t exist, and they were both happy with this arrangement.
While her classmates celebrated their budding relationships or dreamed of the day they met their other half, Allie fantasized about getting a new, large tattoo to cover up the one on her hip. She was fifteen now; there were only a few more years until she could write Harry off as a memory.
Sometimes, she heard murmurs about him in the hallway. Sometimes, it seemed all of West Ham High School wanted to know his soulmate’s identity. Between his looks and his wealth, Harry was considered an ideal match. But no one was ever able to discover whose name was on his body.
Harry was hardly a factor in her life, much less her soulmate. He was a problem that she had solved, and she was content to let him stay that way.
+
Mid-October during her sophomore year of high school, Allie planned a trip to Manhattan. Her aunt, who lived in Virginia, was having a weekend getaway to the city, and she had invited both Allie and Cassandra to join for the last day of her vacation.
A week before the trip, Allie reminded Cassandra (who was swamped with homework as always) about their aunt’s visit. “Do you want to come?”
“What day are you going?” her sister replied.
“This Sunday.”
Cassandra frowned. “I can’t. I have to study for a math test that day. My grade is on the edge right now, and if I do poorly on the exam, I’ll get a B+ in the class. I can’t risk it. Trust me, I would go if I could.”
Allie understood. She knew her sister wanted to go to Yale, and she had seen the statistics. The admissions rate was around six percent. Even for the best of students, Yale was a reach. Allie was a bit sad—the city was always more fun with Cassandra by her side—but she wasn’t a child anymore, and she didn’t need her sister to accompany her everywhere.
“It’s no problem,” Allie reassured. “Just let me know if there’s anything that you want me to buy for you while I’m down there.”
+
Allie went to the city alone, bringing only her black purse and her cell phone with her. She arrived at Penn Station in the early morning. Aunt Carly, decked out in her characteristic prints and bold colors, was waiting for her.
“Allie!” her aunt hollered. Her obnoxiously bright orange-red lip gloss matched the color of her handbag perfectly. “It’s been so long since I last saw you. You look taller—have you grown?”
Allie gave her aunt a tight hug and laughed. “Since August? No, I don’t think so. Same height as always.”
“Any boys?” Her aunt asked with a wink.
Allie’s chest tightened. She hated that question, truly hated it. “Nope, no one yet. But I’m happy being single.”
Luckily, Aunt Carly dropped the subject, and moved on to talking about a list of all the clothes and books and trinkets the two of them would be splurging on throughout the day. There was no budget, it seemed; Aunt Carly acted as though her pockets were bottomless.
They spent the first part of the day shopping on Fifth Avenue and hopping into trendy boutiques. Aunt Carly bought dozens of clothes with dizzyingly high prices. By the time they went to eat lunch, her aunt had seven large shopping bags in her arms. Allie was more frugal; she had bought one bag’s worth of clothes.
After lunch, they spent their time exploring Manhattan. They meandered through the streets, grabbing snacks in between people watching. Allie loved the vibrancy and anonymity of urban life. Here, she shed the labels that followed her in West Ham.
After ending the day with burgers and fries at the Shake Shack in Grand Central Station, her aunt prepared to board her train back to Virginia. Her tiny frame was dwarfed by the assortment of large bags and suitcases she carried with her.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay walking back to Penn Station?” Aunt Carly asked. “I wish we had arranged a train for you from here. The walk is so far.”
“I’ll be fine,” Allie promised. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Actually, you know what?” Aunt Carly pulled her green wallet out of her purse and grabbed a couple of twenty-dollar bills from its folds. “I just don’t feel comfortable with you walking all that way. Take this money and take a cab. Please, do it for my peace of mind. I would feel much safer if you did.”
“Okay, I will,” Allie said, knowing full well that she was lying. “Have a safe trip home!”
Allie watched as her aunt took her bags and boarded the train. As soon as Carly was out of sight, she pocketed the money for herself. That money could be useful for another day. And, she thought, there was something kind of peaceful about a solitary night walk.
She left Grand Central and pulled up the directions to Penn Station on her phone. It was dark outside, but the way was straightforward enough, so she put away the phone and let herself fully absorb the city. She was mesmerized by the myriad of people who surrounded her. It was truly electric.
Allie peered into clubs where the night was only beginning, and where men and women knocked back liquor like it was water. She walked by a row of cramped food trucks, where the heavy scent of spices soaked in through her lungs and warmed her to the core. Compared to West Ham, New York City might as well have been another planet—a wondrous, delightful alien world.
She must have taken a wrong turn, because she realized she had walked halfway down an alleyway she didn’t recognize. The near-omnipresent city crowd had disappeared. The only sounds were the quiet hum of cars on busy streets and the plinking sound of water dripping from a drainpipe onto the street.
Allie suddenly felt very, very small.
She couldn’t have gone too far from a main street. So she told herself that she shouldn’t be worrying, really. All she had to do was walk through to the other end of the alley. Once she was back on a major road, she could pull out her phone again and check for directions.
Allie walked down the narrow street, thinking, for the first time, that maybe she should have taken that cab after all. In polluted Manhattan, there were no stars to light her way. The drainpipe’s dripping water drummed an eerie rhythm—plink, plink, plink.
Behind her, slow footsteps made squishing sounds on the wet pavement. She glanced over her shoulder quickly. It was a man, tall and blonde, strolling nonchalantly toward her. He seemed to have emerged fully formed from shadow. His eyes traced over her with feigned disinterest, only to light up when he set his sights on her purse and shopping bag.
She picked up her pace. The footsteps behind her sped up to match her strides.
That couldn’t be a coincidence. A host of horrible nightmares burst into her head. Assault, murder, robbery...
She needed to walk faster.
Allie started scurrying down the street.
So did he.
When Allie glanced over her shoulder again, she could see the man closing in on her. Terrified, she broke into a sprint. But just as before, he mirrored her actions, and from the sound of it, he was a faster runner than she.
A cold hand wrapped around her wrist and yanked her back mid-run. Allie tripped and went tumbling to the ground. The palm of her left hand scraped across gritty gravel, tearing her skin open. Blood oozed out from the cut and dribbled onto the street.
Allie stared up at the man with wide, stunned eyes. He whipped out a black glock from the pocket of his oversized jacket. His hands shook as if he had never pointed a killing weapon at another person before. Up close, he looked young, perhaps only one or two years older than her.
Adrenaline jolted through her body, waking her up from her dreamy wandering. The pain of her injury receded as she focused on the weapon in front of her. This could be life or death, she realized. She had taken one wrong turn and ended up against the barrel of a gun.
“Give me your bags,” the man demanded.
“What?”
“Did I fucking stutter?” And indeed, though his hands shook, his voice was calm.
The man jerked his gun in the direction of her purse and shopping bag as if his threat hadn’t been clear enough.
“Okay, okay,” Allie said in rushed breaths.
She took off her bags with her wounded hand and held them out to him. She stifled a cry as her purse’s handle bit into her skin. Her blood smeared over the metal, streaking it with red.
In a swift move, he snatched her belongings from her fingers. It amazed her how deftly he could move while still managing to point his gun at her.
He quickly pulled her wallet out of her purse and rifled through paper bills quickly, including the money that her aunt had given her for a taxi. In the dim light of the alley, she could see her blood glistening on his fingertips, marking up every paper bill he touched.
He shut the wallet with a snap. His eyes darted nervously to each side of the alleyway, presumably checking to ensure no one had seen him rob her.
“Now, close your eyes and count to thirty,” he ordered. For added intimidation, he waved his gun at her again. “And count slowly.”
Allie nearly whimpered with fear, but did as he said. She let her vision go dark. Without her sight, she couldn’t help but imagine his finger on the trigger, ready to kill her. She wasn’t putting up a fight. It would be an easy crime.
“One. Two. Three…” she counted.
But the shot never came. She heard the muffled thunk of fabric meeting heavy plastic, and then the squish of his feet as he sprinted down the alleyway. In seconds, she could no longer hear him at all. The city had swallowed him up. She was alone again.
Allie opened her eyes and slowly rose from the ground. She winced as she plucked jagged pieces of gravel from her hands. She could still feel cold fear curling in her chest, although that emotion was quickly being replaced by the panicked realization that she had just lost her money and her ticket back home.
She was lucky about one thing: he hadn’t asked her to empty her pockets. Her phone was still tucked snuggly in the back pocket of her jeans.
+
Allie dialed Cassandra’s number. It was past midnight, so there was a high likelihood that her sister would already be asleep, especially since she had a test the next day. Her parents, notorious for going to bed early, would certainly already have dozed off.
The line rang and rang, but Cassandra didn’t pick up. Then: Hi, you’ve reached Cassandra Pressman. Leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.
Since her sister’s phone had gone straight to voicemail, she would have to rely on someone else. She went through her contact list one by one, praying that at least one of her friends would pick up. Will, Becca, Gordie, Bean: none of them answered her calls.
The blood on her left hand had started to clot. Her cell was rapidly running out of battery. She needed someone to pick up.
She scrolled through her contacts again, calling people she barely knew. She even called Elle Tomkins, who she had spoken maybe a total of three words to. Over and over, she was met with disappointment when no one picked up.
Allie was quickly running out of options when she came across a person she had tried to push to the corners of her mind. Her finger hovered over his name in her contact list.
Harry Bingham.
It seemed wrong to call him. Wrong, when he was constantly at Cassandra’s throat. Wrong, when they had done everything possible to ignore each other since she turned thirteen.
You know what? Allie thought to herself. Fuck it.
Before she could stop herself, she called him.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” His voice was thick with sleep.
“Hey. It’s Allie.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s the twenty-first century. I have caller I.D. What do you want?”
Ugh. Though his rudeness was no surprise, it still irked her. But at this point, it seemed like he was her only hope, so she tried to suppress her irritation. “Can I ask you a favor? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I have no one else to turn to and I’m scared and I don’t know what else to do.”
“Shit, Allie. Just spit it out.”
“I’m stuck in New York City. A man mugged me and took all my money and my ticket back home. I wouldn’t have called you, except I’ve already tried my family and all my friends. Can you come get me?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. In her head, she pictured him lying in bed, half-asleep and sneering at her. She imagined that he was hovering his finger over the red button on his phone, ready to end the call at any moment. Knowing Harry, he would probably hang up on her and go right back to sleep, and in the morning he’d forget that she’d ever called him.
“Hello?” she said, breaking the silence. “Harry? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m still here.” He sighed. “You’re going to owe me for this, Pressman.”
Relief rushed over her. “So you’ll do it?”
“Yeah, I will. Might be a couple of hours before I can get to you, though. I’m going to have to take an Amtrak or something, because my dad will get pissed if I start racking up miles on my car.” The trains from West Ham to Penn Station took an hour and a half minimum, and since fewer trains ran at night, the next train to the city probably wouldn’t be for a while. “Do you have somewhere safe to stay until then?”
“Um, I was just planning on waiting around at the train station.”
“Jesus Christ.” He cursed under his breath. “You so owe me for this. Alright, walk to the Waterwhite Hotel. It’s only two blocks from the station. Tell the person at the front desk that you’re a friend of the Bingham family. They’ll let you wait in the lobby until I show up.”
A cool rush of relief flooded her. “Harry? Thank you so much.”
“Don’t mention it. Like, seriously. Don’t mention this to anyone.”
+
Harry arrived at the Waterwhite a little over two hours later. His shirt was rumpled and he looked like he desperately needed two shots of espresso. Allie had never seen him look so disheveled. He must have come immediately after she called him.
Allie was waiting for him on a modern, dark blue couch in the hotel lobby. She watched as he walked over to the tall brunette working the reception desk. He smiled and said something to the woman. Her previously bored expression turned happy, and she pointed to where Allie was sitting. Allie could see him thanking her with one of his classic Bingham smiles before walking over to where she was waiting. Even bedraggled, he still somehow managed to charm.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. If he noticed her state of distress—her grimy shoes, her still-bloody hand, her tired red eyes—he did not comment on it.
She nodded. “Thank you, again, Harry. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”
He didn’t respond. They walked to the train station in near silence. The clacking of her shoes on the pavement was the only sound either of them made on the way there.
When they reached Penn Station, Harry paid for her Amtrak ticket back to West Ham in cash. This, too, was a near-wordless exchange. She thanked him. He merely grunted in response.
After waiting for thirty minutes, their train arrived. Unlike most trains out of the city, this one was near empty, occupied only by sleep-deprived workers commuting to their morning shift and a few odd stragglers.
Allie slid into a seat near the front of a car. Rather than sliding into the seat next to her, Harry spread himself out on the row of seats across from her. He rested his back against the window, stretched his legs across the seats, and let his feet dangle into the aisle.
Allie pulled out her phone to check the time. 3:23 a.m. was etched in glowing lights.
The train rolled to a start. Harry closed his eyes and slouched in his seat as if he hoped to resume the sleep he had been enjoying before she had called. When he stretched his arms behind his head, his shirt rose to expose a sliver of skin by his hip.
She could see the start of her name, inked on him in her penmanship. Allie Pressman. She had never seen it before. It pained her to look at it, although there was an almost beautiful quality to the tattoo. Unlike tattoos done by hand, a soulmate mark would never fade or need touch-ups.
He dropped his arms. The tattoo vanished under a cascade of black fabric.
“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” He was looking at her with half-shut eyes. So, he’d caught her staring after all.
Maybe it was sheer curiosity, or maybe her tiredness had made her weak, but she wanted to see those words on his skin.
Without responding, Allie lifted the edge of her top and nudged down one side of her jeans so that his name was fully revealed. The tattoo was the same as always, stark black ink against pale skin. It felt strange to have her mark exposed to the world. No one had ever seen it but her.
Harry followed her lead. He lifted the edge of his shirt, showing his tattoo to her once more. This time, she could see the entirety of her signature, like a claiming brand on a boy who despised her.
They sat in silence, examining each other’s inked skin with fascination.
“It’s weird, isn’t it? Seeing your name on someone else’s body,” she said.
“Yeah, very weird.” Harry tore his eyes away from her skin. Then, with a wry smirk, he said, “Almost as weird as having to cross state lines at three in the morning to pick up your enemy’s little sister.”
“Why did you help me?” she asked, genuinely curious.
He looked surprised at her question. “Allie, I know what you and your sister think of me, but I’m not a bad person. I wasn’t going to leave you stranded in New York.”
Allie didn’t quite know what to say to that. Harry was right—she and Cassandra thought he was all West Ham’s worst traits distilled into one human being. Could it really be that after years of hating him, he was worth redeeming?
The train swayed hypnotically on the tracks. The cabin was quiet except for a man snoring three rows away from them. She and Harry stared at each other silently, truly seeing each other for the first time.
He seemed different in this setting, she noticed. Away from his callous friends and his detached parents, he seemed lost and sad and beautiful and kind.
“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” she finally said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Really? And what exactly do you think of me? I know you don’t like me, so don’t even try to deny it.”
Allie rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t know, Harry. I think you’re richer than I’ll ever be. I think you’re smart but overconfident. If I’m being completely honest, I don’t think about you much at all.”
Harry smiled at her. Had she ever gotten a genuine smile from him before? She didn’t think so. She was used to his cold glares and bitter frowns, so this unfamiliar expression sent a shock of warmth through her.
“Don’t think about me at all, huh?” he said. “I’m hurt. Here I was, thinking I’d been in your dreams since thirteen.”
“Haunting my nightmares, maybe,” she retorted.
“Ouch.” He turned away from her to look out the window.
Guilt flared up in Allie, although she wasn’t quite sure why. “As if you care what I think of you.”
He turned back to face her. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Why would you think I don’t care?” He sounded surprisingly genuine, completely dropping the teasing tone he’d previously used with her.
Allie suddenly felt anxious. She was trapped on a train with Harry Bingham, and he kept subverting her expectations. Without the judgment of West Ham hanging over her head, she didn’t know how to behave around him.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I think that because of a conversation from many years ago, when we both agreed to pretend that there was nothing between us.”
The train’s fluorescent lights flickered out above them. For a moment, they were plunged into the dark. The only light was the blue glow of the city outside, which bounced brilliantly off Allie’s white sneakers.
Across from her, Harry’s eyes glittered dangerously. He looked tired but wild, like there was something lurking under his skin that only revealed itself in the dark.
It was at that moment that she realized how little she knew him.
“I remember waking up on that day, the day of your birthday,” Harry said, still cast in darkness. “I remember seeing the tattoo for the first time. I was terrified and angry, but I wondered…what if? What if we didn’t deny the bond?”
Allie could feel her whole body tense up with renewed stress. She was grateful that the lights had gone out—hopefully, he couldn’t see her blushing.
Why was he divulging this to her?
Harry laughed. The sound was sharp. When he spoke again, his voice was newly guarded. “I never wanted to be bonded with you. I still don’t. But when I look at the ink on my skin, I think of you. Always. So yes, Pressman, I do care what you think of me.”
The train’s lights startled back on. In the full light, Harry studied her for one more moment. His gaze was so intense it felt like it was burning her. She searched for the words to respond to him, but they kept getting stuck on the way to her tongue.
Before she could come up with anything, he pulled a pair of earbuds from his pocket and shoved them in his ears. He closed his eyes, too, blocking out the sight of her. And just like that, he was back to ignoring her.
+
They arrived at the West Ham train station at five in the morning. The sun had not yet risen, and the dark sky was speckled with tiny stars. Just a short train ride had separated her from the everlasting citylight of New York. Her shopping spree and mugging almost felt as if they were figments of her imagination, although her scraped hands and the missing weight of her purse were painful reminders that the past twenty-four hours had been real.
“Need a ride home?” Harry asked.
“If you don’t mind.” She felt guilty for asking so much of him. She hadn’t even expected him to answer her call, and he had ended up coming all the way to New York to get her.
“It’s whatever,” he said. He rubbed his tired eyes and took out the keys to his Maserati.
Harry had parked next to the station. They got into the car like phantoms, sucked of all their energy.
Five minutes later, they turned onto Allie’s street. Harry made sure to pull over three houses before hers. That way, her family wouldn’t hear the purr of his engine or see her coming from his car.
“This is just between you and me, right?” Allie asked. “Just like before?”
Harry jerked his chin in response—a drowsy, clumsy attempt at a nod, she assumed. After a beat, he said, “Right. Just like before.”
There was nothing left for her to say to him. So she just said thanks, and then she exited the car.
He zoomed off the second her door shut behind her. As she watched the silhouette of his Maserati drive out of sight, she was struck once more by what a wild night it had been. She had been saved by her worst enemy. She had sat by him on an old train and in a luxury vehicle. She had shown her mark to him. How out of character—perhaps she had been seized by a bout of insanity after she was mugged.
She was thankful for his help. She was also ready to go back to forgetting that Harry even existed. With any luck, their relationship would return to the exact state it had been in before: nonexistent.
