Page 134 of Sorrow & Strangers

“Wanted a snack. You?”

“You should be resting. You were drugged.”

I shrug. “So should you. You fell from Eden.”

He mimics my shrug. “I’m fine. Wanted to work out a bit,” he says, and goes back to searching through the fridge. He grabs a steak and moves aside to make room for me.

I frown, pondering my options before deciding on the leftover pasta.

“Rafe?” I ask, grabbing a fork and pouring myself a glass of water.

“Yeah?” he replies, chewing on a large chunk of cold raw steak.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he says, looking away and wiping the blood from his mouth.

I sit at the table beside him. “You can talk to me.”

Rafe exhales. “I just . . .” He looks down at the steak on his plate, frowning. “You know it’s not . . . meat I’m wanting. Not this kind, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, drawing a rune on my plate to make the pasta hot and fresh again.

“I don’t want . . . beef.”

I quirk a brow, blowing on a forkful of pasta. “Are you telling me you want to eat me?” Demons do occasionally consume people, but most of them manage their diets differently because they enjoy being able to integrate into other societies.

“No!” Rafe says, a note of panic in his voice. “Not you. Or Alice.” He rubs the back of his neck in that nervous way I’ve only seen Luke do. It’s nice to see a similarity between them since they are opposites in almost every way. “You’re an angel to the demon, and Alice is undead.”

I frown. “The demon?”

Rafe nods, still unable to look at me.

“I don’t understand,” I say, placing my hand on his arm, trying to comfort him.

Rafe sighs, sounding a little exasperated. “The demon knows exactly how many people walk past our house every day and imagines what they’d taste like.”

“And by that you mean you know exactly how many people walk past the house every day and imagine what they’d taste like?”

Rafe looks at me, a glimmer of frustration behind his eyes. “Isn’t that what I said?”

I squeeze his arm. “Rafe, you know this is normal, right?”

Rafe tugs his arm free, and I can tell he’s shutting down. “I’m Fallen. There is no normal anymore.”

“Well, there are records⁠—”

“Summer,” he warns.

I shrug. “Okay, well, there is the normal you make for yourself.”

“Which textbook did you get that from?” he asks, giving me an unimpressed look.

I shake my head. “Not a textbook. That I know from experience.” I wish it weren’t true, but it is. I’ve always had to create my own normal, and it often falls apart around me.

“That’s worse,” Rafe says. His words are sharp, and while they echo my thoughts, it somehow hurts more to hear them out loud and from him. “Normal isn’t a luxury you or I have ever had.”

I wince and look down at my hands braced on the table. “Right.”