Page 138 of Sorrow & Strangers

I nod and pick at the edge of my bandage. “I should have known you weren’t ready for that.” The beast claws at the boundaries of my mind, wanting to be free again. It craves it, and so do I. The more I lean into the darkness, the harder it is to push it back into the cage where I have contained it for decades.

Rafe shrugs. “I’m not ready for a lot of things, Summer. It’s whatever.” I get the sense that he’s not just talking about my injury. We both know he’s talking about going back to classes. We’ve only discussed it in passing, but he knows that every day he gets better, chances increase that I’ll open the subject as a very real discussion.

“We can train, Rafe. This is how I have spent my whole life. I can help you,” I say, taking his hand.

Rafe frowns. “Train? What do you mean?”

“I can teach you how to not succumb to others’ darkness.” I’ve been trying not to succumb to my own for my whole life. It will take the same internal tools.

“You can?”

“I can,” I say, squeezing his hand.

“How?”

“My darkness has been looking to escape my entire life. I know how to repress it.”

“That’s not healthy, Summer,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes filled with concern.

“No, but perhaps we could microdose it. To make it easier.”

“How do you microdose being a demon?”

“Not being a demon. Your urges. We can get you to a place where you control them when they push forward.”

Rafe rubs the back of his neck anxiously. “The demon wanted to make you act on it. It wanted to revel in that part of you and make you lose yourself to it.” He hesitates. “Until your soul became mine.”

I squeeze his hand, pulling his attention back to me. “The demon is you, Rafe.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not my voice, the one I hear.”

“It’s easier for you to give it a voice than to accept that it is your new instincts,” I say gently.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

I drop his hand and slip past him into his room. “Can we try something?” I ask, sitting on his bed. This may be a bad idea, but he looks so defeated, and it’s breaking my heart. He needs to know he’s not a monster.

“Okay,” Rafe says, sitting down next to me.

“All right, try to resist,” I say, turning to face him.

“You want to provoke the demon again?” Rafe asks, looking at me like I am crazy.

“Let’s just see how we go. Okay?”

Rafe nods, but his hands are fisted tight. I know he is anxious about doing this, but I need him to see that he can do this, that it won’t always be this hard. He looked so comfortable in his own skin this morning. I can’t allow him to lose that already, thanks to my dumb mistake. I don’t want him to believe that the rest of his existence will be as uncomfortable and painful as it was when he was an angel.

I close my eyes, and my darkness rushes to greet me. It swirls in an eager flurry, but it’s too much. I only need a tiny drop of it so I concentrate and push it down. It feels foreign now, like I’m locking away a huge part of myself. It’s smothering and claustrophobic, but it’s for Rafe.

Once I have it under control, I coax the smallest drop out. Even that feels consuming, and when I open my eyes, I can see that Rafe is already feeling the effects of it. His eyes are black and his fangs have elongated. I watch him, letting the droplet of darkness levitate through me. I’m enjoying the feeling, basking in it, but Rafe, not so much. His jeans rip beneath his claws, and a bead of sweat trails down his face.

I take a deep breath and say, “Breathe, Rafe.”

Rafe tries, but he is struggling to draw in a calming breath.

“Breathe,” I say again, inhaling deeply for him to copy.

Rafe sucks in a breath, and I can hear it shudder out between his lips when he exhales. I nod, keeping the drop of darkness hovering near the surface so he can feel it.