Page 57 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

The guilt written across Kit’s features was as clear as a confession.

And so, for the third time that evening, I ran away from Kit Thorne.

16

Felix

The duvet was my fortress. My cave. My tomb.

I’d been under here for… God, how long? Hours? Days? The thin shaft of sunlight creeping through the gap in my curtains suggested Sunday morning, but time felt meaningless when the entire world had imploded.

My phone buzzed against the mattress for what felt like the thousandth time. Another missed call from Lily, probably. The notification sound had become a form of torture, each buzz a reminder that the outside world still existed whilst I lay here like some sort of broken hibernating animal.

You’re mine, Felix.

Kit’s voice echoed in my head on repeat, the words burning through my skull like acid. The way he’d said it. So certain. So final. Like it was some cosmic truth I’d been too stupid to understand.

You’re my mate.

I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes until I saw stars. This couldn’t be real. People didn’t just… they didn’t just belong to other people. That wasn’t how the world worked. There had to be some degree of choice!

Images surfaced—Rory and Theo. The way they looked at each other like the rest of us were background noise. The way they moved around each other like two parts of the same machine. Was that what Kit thought we were supposed to be?

No. Absolutely not. It must be a glitch. Someone like Kit wasn’t supposed to end up eternally bound to someone like me.

Kit was… Kit. Built like he could bench press a small car, with those storm-grey eyes that made hardened criminals confess their deepest secrets. He moved through the world with the kind of quiet confidence that came from knowing exactly how dangerous he was. When Kit walked into a room, people noticed. When he spoke, people listened.

And me? I was the person who tripped down stairs, spilled coffee on myself daily, and had once got so flustered during a team meeting that I’d accidentally referred to our secure server as “sexy” instead of “stable.” I was the one who lived on energy drinks and existed primarily in basement lairs surrounded by glowing screens. My idea of exercise was frantically typing to meet a deadline.

We weren’t even in the same league—hell, we weren’t even playing the same sport.

The universe had clearly made some sort of cosmic coding error. Like when you accidentally assigned the wrong data type to a variable and suddenly your elegant algorithm was trying to multiply a string by a floating-point number. The whole system just… broke.

Someone like Kit was meant to be with someone equally formidable. Someone who could match his intensity, his strength, his unwavering competence. Someone who wouldn’t flinch when he looked at them.

Not someone who hyperventilated in crowds and often needed explicit written instructions to understand social cues.

My stomach lurched, and bile rose in my throat.

How was I supposed to face him tomorrow? How was I supposed to walk into Killigrew Street, sit through our Monday meeting, pretend everything was normal whilst knowing that Kit was absolutely determined we were soulmates. That he had been… what? Watching me? Following me? Stealing my clothes?

The hoodie. Jesus Christ, the hoodie.

My face burned with mortification, remembering Kit fumbling through his reassurances that he’d done “nothing weird” with it.

Umm… thanks?!

I’d have to phone in sick tomorrow. Tell Seb I had food poisoning or the flu or something. Another day to sort my thoughts out. Anything to avoid—

The doorbell rang.

I froze under the covers, holding my breath like that might make whoever it was go away.

Silence.

Then it buzzed again, longer this time. More insistent.

I dragged myself out of bed, my legs wobbly from lying horizontal for so long. My reflection in the hallway mirror was horrifying—hair sticking up at impossible angles, yesterday’s clothes wrinkled beyond recognition, eyes red and puffy.