Page 259 of Sorrow & Strangers

Oh, that must be why Summer mentioned Inanna’s Day earlier. Fuck.

Anna slowly pulls back, finally noticing my hold on Mira. “Oh! You’ve met my new roommate!”

“Roommate?” I ask, my claws digging deeper into Mira, my gaze never leaving her. I am truly terrified she will disappear again, but she doesn’t even try to pull away. Thankfully, phoenixes are immune to all poisons and venoms, especially demonic. I didn’t know that my claws are poisonous until after Paradis—thanks for the heads up there, Sum! Better late than never.

Anna nods, and Mira rips her arm from my hold, my fingers curling into a fist at the loss of her warmth.

“Rafe, this is Mira. Mira, this is my boyfriend, Rafe!” Anna cheerily introduces. The title sounds discordant, rankling with its wrongness. It’s even worse with Mira present to hear it.

“Nice to meet you.” Mira’s smile is brittle, and the embers in her eyes that I so love have been extinguished. She looks away, and I immediately mourn the loss of her attention. “See you at home, Anna.”

Mine! Chase. Chase! Chase!

Mira turns and hurries away.

“I forgot I have to meet with Professor Chase for something. I’ll be right back,” I say, taking precious moments to disentangle from Annabeth. She smiles at me, giving me another kiss before bouncing away, leaving me free to pursue Mira.

She’s not even made it to a table in the canteen before I give in to the demon’s need to chase her down through the halls of the school. She won’t be getting away this time.

“Mira, stop,” I snap, following after her, tracking her flame-colored hair like a beacon. “I will catch you. You know I will.”

She stops reluctantly and turns to face me. Her eyes are still dark and desolate, with no flames to be found, all her fire completely extinguished. The sight makes my stomach churn with unease.

She waits for me to close the distance, and the other students filter into their various lunch spots, leaving us thankfully alone by the time I finally reach her.

“Are you all right?” I ask, cupping her cheeks, that familiar heat flooding me, soothing me.

Surprise is clear on her face at my touch, but she doesn’t pull away. “You didn’t . . .” Hurt flickers like dull embers in her eyes. “Why didn’t you . . . ?”

“Are you all right?” I ask again. “Did someone hurt you?”

Did someone keep you from replying to me? Someone keep you from me? Decimate, devour. Again, the demon and I are in agreement. Any who kept her from me will find I’m ready to let out the most feral side of me.

She winces, but the embers start to smolder. “You.”

The word is laden with venom, enough for me to drop my hands from her face. I knew it. It was because of me. That’s why she blew me off. I hurt her. I was too rough, too demonic, too me. “Is that why you never responded?”

I don’t know why I ask. Of course it is. She just said I hurt her. What more do I need? More torture of what would never be? More of how I’m not what someone needs in their life? I’m too different, too abnormal, too angry, too sad, too intense, too much.

“Respond to what?” she hisses. “Nothing?”

Wait what? Nothing? I pat my pockets for my phone, pulling it out and finding the text thread of unanswered messages I’d sent over the past four months. They started as innocuously as possible, but there was anger, confessions, and even vulnerabilities in the messages I’d sent over the last four months. It became hopeless and more of a journal for myself.

She grabs my phone, scrolling through them, and I struggle not to flush knowing what I had written. “Rafe . . . I never received these . . . any of them.”

“Isn’t this the number you gave me?” I ask, pulling up the picture I took of the note from Paradis, comparing it to the number I’d sent all the texts to.

“No, that is supposed to be a six,” she says. Her eyes grow distant, like she’s having to reconsider everything she’s thought for the past months. So am I.

I tuck my phone away. So she never blew me off. I was just texting the wrong number. If Mira weren’t standing in front of me right now, I’d be a bit embarrassed about the recipient of all those texts reading them. She wanted to see me, and she was upset that I hadn’t reached out. She also really needs to learn when to stop the loop on the number six when she writes it, because it clearly looks like an eight. I move in closer and brush some of her hair over her shoulder. “Back to what I asked. Are you all right?”

“I thought you’d . . .” She blinks and clears her throat. “You didn’t forget about me?”

I chuckle at the absurdity of that question, and I need to fucking touch her. Pressing my forehead to hers, I savor the way my horns warm at even that slight contact with her. Grab them, Mira. “I thought you blew me off, or something happened and you got hurt.”

And I hurt you, like you said.

She shakes her head, staring up at me, her eyes sparking again. Far better than the extinguished embers of a moment ago.