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She felt Zoey first, but it was Mira who found her.
*
Rumi had always heard the Honmoon. It crooned to her, the hum of a lilting lullaby. She had assumed that other Hunters knew it, too, but Celine had cocked her head in puzzlement when she’d asked. Rumi didn’t ask her again.
*
Mira was fifteen and angry, and the most beautiful creature Rumi had ever seen, sporting the hack-job dyed hair from a drugstore box and the scrounged ball cap she’d shoved it under. Even with bags weighing down her eyes and an attitude that could scrape paint off walls, Rumi could feel her soul, shining like a molten star. Her dark eyes were locked on Celine, brows turned down skeptically. Rumi hovered in the doorway, desperately trying to check herself, her fingers tugging through her hair in an attempt to keep it together.
She was from the nice part of town. Rumi could sense Celine’s hesitation, weighing the pros of her professional voice training vs the cons of almost-certainly over-involved, litigious parents. It was easier if Hunters didn’t have families, or had already experienced the supernatural. The shock of learning that demons were real, that souls’ safety depended on their voices, could be too much for a new Hunter. Celine had to choose carefully, Rumi knew that –
Mira opened her mouth, her dry, cracked lips shaping around a low note, like the warble of a blackbird in the brush. Rumi’s heart clenched painfully in response and she was humming back, meeting her in a harmony that felt as natural as breathing.
“Rumi!” Celine’s voice cracked across her like a whip.
“Celine,” Rumi said, so much ache in her voice that Celine drew back, a beat of emotion flickering across her face.
Celine’s hand closed into a fist, centered over her heart. She gave a terse nod. “Very well.”
*
They had to find Zoey, in the end. Rumi’s lifestyle, not constrained even before she met Mira, was suddenly greased by the extra capital of an early-access trust fund.
The haunted skepticism still lurked around Mira’s eyes, but she was starting to thaw, and it was so hard in those early days to temper Rumi’s unfettered optimism. They just needed their third, and her soul was so bright, a clarion horn, that Rumi didn’t sense the bruising until it was almost too late.
They found her at something called a transitional age youth shelter in Los Angeles. Rumi and Mira were seventeen by then, but this girl was younger. Her fingernails were blackened, but her cheeks were still peach soft. She was addicted to benzos, and her clothes were in tatters and hung off her painfully thin frame.
Mira cornered her while Rumi paced, fingers furiously shoving through her hair. She’d seen the demons. Rumi just had to convince her that there was a way out.
“What do you want?” Zoey quivered, and Mira’s gaze cut over to Rumi, doubt clouding them.
Rumi looked away, heart clenching. She knew this was the right girl. Her soul was practically quivering like a plucked string. “Look,” Rumi said, spying a stack of worn notebooks. She picked one up carefully, but Zoey lurched forward all the same.
“Hey, those are private – “
Scribbles and strikethroughs littered the page, but Rumi’s foot began tapping as she picked out a rhythm, humming the words under her breath. She passed the notebook to Mira.
“Yeah?” Mira said, then her eyebrows arched, her lips mouthing Zoey’s lyrics.
“Who are you?” Zoey said, looking between the two of them, something like hope blooming in her face.
*
Rumi was careful, so careful, but it was hard. She became so attuned to their two souls, she could feel it in the morning when they woke up. It was hard not to anticipate their moods; she always knew when to set Mira’s cup of coffee out before the girl stumbled out of bed. She could feel when Zoey’s anxiety would spike and would tuck herself over the girl like a living blanket. The bright smiles, the quiet sighs of happiness, sustained her even as she kept herself apart. It was necessary. She could tell them after. She could be with them after.
It was easier to ignore Zoey’s interest. Her love was tangled up with her pain, and she would say anything. Her gaze would just track the way Rumi’s hips flexed in her performance outfits, and she’d bite her lip, flush coloring her cheeks and the tip of her nose, and look away.
Mira was harder. Mira would catch her chin in her fingers, sometimes, before they stumbled off to bed. She’d search Rumi’s expression, searching for something. That liquid, silk thing would flow between them for a split second before Rumi would catch it, shove it deep down and school her features into vague, polite confusion. Mira would sigh and roll her eyes, kissing her cheek before shoving Rumi off towards her bedroom.
In the dark, Rumi would trace the sticky lipgloss imprint of those lips on her skin, her body buzzing with impatience and on fire for both of them.
Wait, she told herself. Wait for the Honmoon. For the smooth skin Celine had always promised her.
*
Even under demonic power, their two souls burned bright, twin stars with a gravitational force that drew her forward.
The Honmoon was gone. Her partners hated her. Her skin crawled and her shame burned.
But she wouldn’t stay away. They’d either survive, together, or die, together.
Rumi stepped out into the light.