Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Rain came down like knives.

Rumi ducked under a swipe of claws, boots sliding on wet concrete as her blade carved clean through a demon’s jaw. It hit the ground shrieking, black blood splattering her leggings and steaming in the cold. Another one lunged. She met it with a kick to the chest and a quick, efficient slice. Gone.

“One, two, three—” she panted, counting bodies out of habit more than fear. “Mira, you good?”

“Busy!” Mira snapped.

She was a blur of pink and fire, polearm spinning in tight arcs that cut through anything stupid enough to get close. A demon leaped from a shattered billboard—she pivoted, dragged the blade up its spine, and sent it crashing into a parked car hard enough to set the alarm wailing.

“Bet you I clear more than you,” Mira called, breathless but cocky.

Rumi snorted, ducking another lunge. “You wish. I’m already—”

A claw scraped her shoulder. She slashed back on reflex, severing the arm and the head in one stroke. The street stank of sulfur and smoke. Wings snapped overhead, shadows flickering across the puddles like broken film.

Rumi straightened, chest heaving, and took a second to scan the alley. Demons. Flames. Shattered glass.

Something was missing.

“Where’s Zoey?” she shouted.

The only answer was the distant echo of sirens and the hiss of rain.

Mira’s head snapped up. “She was right behind—” Her gaze swept the chaos, sharp, practiced. Then it snagged on something crumpled near a toppled streetlight. Her face went white. “Rumi.”

Rumi followed her line of sight and felt her stomach drop.

Zoey was on her knees, hunched over like she was bowing to some invisible crowd. Her skin-kal blade lay a few feet away, abandoned. For a second, it almost looked like she was just catching her breath.

Then Rumi saw the dark stain spreading across her midsection.

“Zoey!” They said her name at the same time, voices overlapping in panic.

Rumi sprinted first, cutting down a demon that tried to intercept her, blade passing so close to her own thigh she felt the wind of it. Mira cleared the rest, blade whirling, until the nearest demons were nothing but smoking piles on the pavement.

Zoey swayed as they reached her. She lifted her head, eyes unfocused. Somehow, she still tried to smile. “You guys took… long enough,” she slurred.

Rumi dropped to a crouch. Up close, the wound was worse—ragged, deep, like something had ripped through instead of just slashed. Blood soaked through Zoey’s top, warm and slick against Rumi’s hands as she reached for her.

“That’s not—” Rumi’s voice cracked. “Zoey, that’s not a scratch.”

Zoey glanced down like she was only noticing it now. “Oh.” A crooked grin tugged at her mouth. “Worst. Encore. Ever. I was thinking confetti, not—” She cut off with a sharp breath as pain hit.

Her shoulders sagged. Her weight tilted, and Rumi lunged forward to catch her before she hit the ground. Zoey’s head lolled against her shoulder, skin clammy, breath shallow.

“Fuck,” Mira hissed, dropping to her knees on Zoey’s other side. “Move your hands.” She shoved Rumi’s fingers aside and pressed down hard on the wound. Blood oozed between her fingers instantly. “Shit. Shit.”

Zoey jerked, gasping. “Ow, okay, ow, ow—”

“Don’t talk,” Mira snapped, voice shaking. “Just—just breathe, okay? In and out, that’s it. You’re fine.” The words sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Zoey blinked slow, lashes heavy. Her hand fumbled until it found Rumi’s wrist, grip weak. “We got them, right? Demons, done? Please tell me this still counts as cardio, I am not redoing rehearsal tomorrow—”

Rumi swallowed against the tightness in her chest. “Yeah. Yeah, we got them. You did great. Now stay awake.”

“Perfect… ending. Next time… can we fight, like, puppies or something?” Zoey mumbled. She tried to laugh again, but it came out as a wet, broken cough.

Her fingers twitched like she was trying to tap out a beat on Rumi’s wrist, the way she did in rehearsal when her brain was going too fast, but the rhythm fell apart halfway through.

Her eyes rolled back, lids fluttering shut.

“Zoey!” Mira’s voice pitched up into something raw. She shook her gently with her free hand. “Hey. No. No, no—Zoey, open your eyes. Come on, don’t do this.”

Her grip slipped on the blood, fingers skidding uselessly across Zoey’s skin. She cursed under her breath, dragged her hands back to the wound, pressing harder than before like pressure alone could bully Zoey’s heart into beating.

Rumi felt the world narrow to the blood seeping over Mira’s fingers, to the way Zoey’s chest barely moved. The alley suddenly felt too quiet, the distant sirens too far away.

“Mira,” she said softly, reaching to touch Zoey’s face. Her skin was turning cold, lips losing color. “She’s passed out.”

“Help me keep pressure on,” Mira said, fast, not looking at her. “We get her in the car, we can be at a hospital in ten minutes, maybe less if we run lights—”

“No.” The word shot out of Rumi before she could stop it.

Mira’s head snapped toward her, eyes wild and shining. “What do you mean no?”

“We can’t take her to a hospital.” Rumi could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. “You know what they’d ask. How she got this. Why we were here. They’ll find everything we’ve been hiding.”

“I don’t care!” Mira’s voice broke on the last word. “She is dying, Rumi. I’m not watching her bleed out in a damn alley because of PR and some secret—”

“It’s not just PR!” Rumi snapped, louder than she meant to. The sound bounced off the wet brick and broken glass. “We show up with a stab wound like this, they call the cops. They start asking why an idol has a wound that looks like a monster chewed through her. They test her blood, Mira. They test ours. Huntr/x doesn’t survive that. We don’t survive that.”

Mira stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Who cares about Huntr/x if Zoey is dead?” Her hands pressed harder on the wound, knuckles white, as if she could physically hold the life inside Zoey’s body by force. “You think I’m going to stand over her grave and say, ‘Well at least the brand is intact’?”

Zoey’s breath rattled, a thin, broken sound. Blood seeped between Mira’s fingers, warmer than the rain, slicking her palms.

Rumi’s chest squeezed. She wanted to say something that made sense, something reasonable and tactical and safe. That’s what she was good at—backup plans, exit strategies, cleaning up the mess so the world stayed blissfully unaware of what really hunted its streets.

But there was no version of this where they walked into a brightly lit ER and walked back out as the same people.

“Mira, listen to me,” Rumi tried again, forcing her voice to stay steady. “We don’t have a handler. We don’t have lawyers running interference. Huntr/x is just us. Three girls killing demons in secret and pretending to be pretty on camera. If this gets out, it’s over. They will dissect us—figuratively or literally, I don’t even know which scares me more.”

“Good,” Mira shot back, eyes blazing. “Let them try. At least she’d be alive to hate them for it.”

Rumi flinched.

Zoey made a small, wet noise that might’ve been a cough. Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open.

“M-Mira…” Rumi said, the name catching.

Mira didn’t look at her. “Talk to me later, Rumi. Right now, help me move her. My car’s two blocks away. I can carry her if you clear the road—”

“She won’t make it two blocks,” Rumi said quietly.

The words hung there, heavy and final.

Mira froze. “Don’t you dare say that.”

“Look at her,” Rumi insisted, voice hoarse. “She’s already gone half-cold. You feel that, right? She’s losing too much, too fast. By the time we get her into the backseat, we’ll be driving a body to a hospital.”

Mira’s breathing turned shallow. She looked down at Zoey as if seeing her for the first time—not as their unshakeable center, not as the girl who joked about dying her hair between battles, but as something terrifyingly fragile.

Zoey’s lips were pale. Her lashes clumped with rain and mascara. Each breath sounded like it had to fight its way out.

“I can’t…” Mira’s voice cracked. “I can’t just do nothing.”

“Neither can I.” Rumi swallowed. Her fingers tingled, that strange heat crawling under her skin again. “There is another way.”

Mira’s head snapped up. “Then why didn’t you start with that?”

“Because once I say it, I can’t take it back.” Rumi’s laugh was short and humorless. “And once we use it, nothing goes back to normal. Not for me. Not for her. Not for us.”

Mira glared at her, rainwater tracking down her face. “Rumi, look at her. Normal is gone. Pick something else.”

Rumi’s denial died on her tongue.

She could feel it now, clearer than ever—the thing she’d spent years shoving down, hiding under layers of choreography, clothes, and carefully curated interviews. It pressed against the inside of her skin, restless, recognizing Zoey’s fading heartbeat like a siren call.

“Mira.” Rumi’s voice was barely audible. “If I tell you this, you don’t get to unknow it. Ever.”

Mira’s hands were slick with Zoey’s blood. Her shoulders shook. “I don’t care.”

“You will,” Rumi said. “Maybe not now. Maybe not tomorrow. But you will.”

“Rumi.” Mira’s eyes burned, fierce and wet. “If you have something that can save her and you choose not to use it, I will never forgive you. That’s what you won’t come back from.”

The words hit harder than any demon.

Rumi stared at her. At Zoey, limp between them. At her own hands, shaking over blood that made something in her pulse respond, eager.

There it was. The line she’d drawn for herself years ago: no using it, no showing it, no letting anyone see what she really was. Being a hunter was risky enough. Being this on top of it? That was asking to be erased.

But Zoey had never drawn lines with her. Zoey had just taken her hand that first night in the practice room, grinned, and said, “Let’s wreck the world a little.”

Rumi inhaled sharply. The rain tasted like metal.

“I can save her,” she said, and the truth of it scraped her throat raw on the way out. “But you have to listen, and you cannot freak out on me. Not right now.”

Mira’s laugh came out choked. “You’re saying that like you just broke the contract or something.”

“Worse,” Rumi said. “The contract doesn’t cover this.”

Mira waited, the silence between them pulsing with sirens, rain, and Zoey’s thin breaths.

Rumi forced the words out. “I’m not—” Her jaw clenched. “I’m not fully human.”

The world seemed to go quiet, except for the rain. Mira looked up slowly, disbelief carving through her exhaustion. “What?”

Mira flinched away from her—just an inch—but her hands stayed on Zoey’s stomach.

“Half-demon,” Rumi said, voice breaking under the confession. “My blood can heal — it can save her. I can use it to heal her. If I share it with her, it’ll close the wound. She’ll live.”

Mira stared at her like she’d just said the sky was breaking. “You—no, that’s—Rumi, what are you even—” Her voice splintered, tumbling over itself. “We don’t have time for some—some supernatural identity crisis, she is literally—”

Zoey made a small, strangled noise.

Mira’s head snapped back down, panic shoving everything else out of the way. “Zoey, hey—hey, stay with us, okay?” Her fingers pressed down harder, almost desperately, knuckles white against all that red. “Rumi,” she threw over her shoulder, “whatever the hell you are, answer the only question that matters: can you fix this or not?”

“Yes,” Rumi said. The word tore out of her before she could think. “If I use my blood on her, it will heal.”

She swallowed. “And if I’m wrong,” she added, voice thinning, “then she dies anyway. I would never gamble with her for anything less than a chance to keep her breathing.”

A car alarm blared somewhere behind them, distant and pointless.

Mira’s next breath shuddered. “You knew this. All this time. And you didn’t—”

“Would it have changed anything?” Rumi cut in, desperate. “Would you have let me stay? Let me debut with you? Share a dorm, a bed, a life—if you’d known what I am?”

Mira’s answer was instant and honest. “I don’t know.” The truth of it hurt more than if she’d said yes or no.

For a heartbeat, Rumi almost folded. She could lie, say she’d try, say there was nothing else left to do.

Then Zoey’s body gave a tiny, involuntary jerk. Her breathing hitched, snagged, and stuttered in her chest.

Mira squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, there was still shock there, still betrayal—but something heavier sat on top of it.

Resolve.

“You’re sure your blood can save her?” she asked, voice hoarse.

“Yes.”

“Can it kill her?”

“No.”

Mira looked at her, really looked at her, as if trying to reconcile the girl she’d trained with and fought beside with the thing Rumi had just claimed to be. Her hands never lifted from Zoey; her thumbs trembled against the soaked fabric.

Finally, she nodded once.

“Do it,” Mira said. “Whatever you are, whatever this is—we can scream about it later. Just… don’t let her die.”

Rumi exhaled, like something inside her had been waiting for that permission.

“Okay,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone. “Okay.”

She shifted closer, kneeling in the blood-warm puddle without flinching. Her pulse roared in her ears. The part of her that wasn’t human stretched awake, recognizing what was coming.

“Hold her steady,” Rumi said. “And no matter what happens, don’t pull me away.”

Mira’s jaw clenched. “If you hurt her—”

“I won’t,” Rumi lied, because she didn’t actually know. “Just trust me. One more time.”

Mira’s throat worked. “Fine,” she rasped. “One more time.” Her fingers adjusted, bracketing the wound, ready to move when Rumi said so. “Just—keep her breathing, Rumi. Please.”

Mira pressed her hands around the wound, ready.

Rumi raised her right hand. Her nails lengthened, blackening at the tips, the change quick and subtle but undeniably wrong. A low hum started in her ears, like someone had turned the city up too loud. Every heartbeat in the alley—theirs, hers, Zoey’s failing one—throbbed against her skin, too bright, too close.

For a second, she stared at her own hand.

Purple lines were crawling up her wrist, blooming from beneath the skin like ink dropped in water. They traced the veins, curling into sharp, angular patterns across the back of her hand, up her forearm, glowing faintly in the rain-slick light.

Mira sucked in a breath, instinctively shifting, pulling Zoey just a fraction closer to her own body, like she could shield her from whatever Rumi was becoming. Her eyes were huge, fear sparking bright—then Zoey’s chest hitched again, a rough, scraping inhale, and Mira forced herself to go still.

“Rumi,” she whispered, voice thin. “If this is what saves her, just—do it.”

She should have shoved the power back down. She should have hidden it.

Instead, she dragged her claws across her own palm.

Pain flared bright and sharp. Dark blood welled up immediately, thicker than human blood, catching the light with an unnatural sheen.

Rumi didn’t give herself time to think.

She pressed her bleeding palm directly to Zoey’s wound and let the truth of what she was finally, fully, happen.

Heat roared out of her hand, ripping a ragged gasp from her throat as something old and wild surged toward the wound, hungry and eager and glad to be used. The purple patterns on her skin flared hotter, brighter, racing up her arm toward her shoulder like they were being dragged into the contact point.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then Zoey’s torn skin pulled inward, like the wound was inhaling. Rumi felt it—felt the edges of the gash drag against her palm from the inside, like invisible hooks stitching into her. The blood under her hand went from hot to scalding.

Her vision blew white.

Pain knifed across her own stomach, sharp and sudden enough to knock the air from her lungs. She choked, her free hand flying to her midsection. Under her shirt, something tore—skin splitting open in the exact same line carved through Zoey a moment ago.

When the same wound tore open across Rumi’s stomach, Mira’s denial snapped. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a story. It was real and it was hurting her.

“Rumi?” Mira’s voice came from far away, shocked and high. “What are you—your shirt—your arm—”

Rumi forced her eyes open.

Zoey’s wound was closing, muscle knitting together in jerky, unnatural pulls, Rumi’s dark blood threading through it like liquid sutures. The flow of red slowed. Then stopped.

At the same time, warmth soaked Rumi’s own fingers at her stomach. She glanced down and saw it: a matching gash slashed across her abdomen, blood pouring out in a hot rush—her blood, not Zoey’s.

Of course, she thought dimly. Demons never give anything for free.

The pain should have flattened her. Instead, it burned, then… shifted. The edges of the fresh wound on her began to glow faintly, veins around it pulsing with dark-gold light. The torn skin crawled, dragging itself back together in fast, frantic stitches, leaving behind a thin, raised line that tingled like a live wire.

Across from her, Zoey’s stomach finished sealing, the last trace of the gash smoothing into angry pink.

Zoey sucked in a sharp breath, chest heaving once like she’d been yanked back from underwater. Her fingers spasmed around Rumi’s wrist, then went slack again—but her breathing evened out, no longer hitching on every inhale.

Rumi sagged, shaking, the phantom echo of the pain still buzzing under her ribs. The patterns along her arm were still there, faintly luminescent, slowly dimming like cooling embers.

Mira stared between them, eyes huge. “Her wound…” She swallowed. “It’s gone. And you—you were bleeding. And your arm—those marks—what the hell was that?”

Rumi pressed a trembling hand over the new, faint scar on her stomach, feeling it thrum in time with Zoey’s slow, steady breaths. She didn’t meet Mira’s eyes.

“I healed her,” she said, voice raw.

It didn’t feel like enough of an answer. It felt like admitting to far more than she wanted to say out loud.

“Rumi.” Mira’s voice was softer now, but no less shaken. “How long have you—”

“Not now,” Rumi whispered, almost a plea. She stared down at Zoey instead, at the rise and fall of her chest. “Please, Mira. I can’t—”

The shame sat heavy in her throat, thick and choking. She could still feel the power humming under her skin, the part of her she’d spent years pretending wasn’t there finally stretched awake and looking around.

If she looked at Mira’s face and saw fear there, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to put it back to sleep again.

Mira closed her mouth, the questions visibly stacking up behind her teeth. She glanced at Zoey, then back at Rumi’s shaking hands.

“Fine,” she said quietly. “Not now. Just… keep her breathing.”

But her eyes lingered on the place where the faint purple trace had been.

Rumi could feel it, even without looking.

Like a spotlight on the part of her she’d always tried hardest to keep in the dark.

Zoey’s weight felt wrong in Rumi’s arms.

Too light. Too limp. Too quiet.

They moved on instinct.

Mira grabbed the keys from the pocket of her torn jacket, fingers slipping once on the metal before she got a grip. Rumi hauled Zoey up, one arm under her knees, the other braced across her back, feeling every shallow rise and fall of her chest against her ribs.

“Stairs or side gate?” Mira snapped as they stumbled out of the alley.

“Side gate,” Rumi said. “Less cameras.”

The city around them looked offensively normal. Traffic rolled by. A couple under an umbrella argued at a crosswalk. Somewhere, one of their own songs bled faintly from a convenience store radio. Rumi focused on putting one foot in front of the other, boots smacking through puddles.

Zoey’s head lolled against her shoulder, damp hair sticking to Rumi’s neck. Every time a car’s headlights swept past, Rumi flinched, angling Zoey closer into her chest, hiding the bloodstains as best she could.

Mira unlocked the car with shaking hands and yanked the back door open. “Lay her across,” she said. “Her head toward the window. If she throws up—”

“She won’t,” Rumi said, too quickly. They eased Zoey onto the backseat. Rumi slid in beside her without thinking, one knee on the floor, one hand clamped around Zoey’s wrist like letting go would undo everything.

Mira threw herself into the driver’s seat, slamming the door. The engine roared to life. She didn’t bother with a seat belt. They peeled away from the curb, tires hissing on wet asphalt.

“Is she… is she still—” Mira couldn’t finish.

Rumi’s fingers pressed against Zoey’s pulse point, the place her skin had turned frighteningly cool in the alley. Now it thrummed against her touch—slow, but steady.

“She’s breathing,” Rumi said. Her voice came out hoarse. “She’s… stable. For now.”

Mira exhaled shakily, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Okay. Okay.”

The city blurred past—neon, rain, reflections. Zoey’s lips moved once, soundless. Rumi leaned close, catching the faintest ghost of breath.

“Zoey?” she whispered.

Nothing.

Rumi’s arm burned where the purple patterns had been brightest, the skin there oversensitive, like a fresh bruise. Under her shirt, the new scar on her stomach tingled with every bump in the road. She kept her eyes on Zoey’s face instead.

Mira didn’t speak again until they were underground.

The private garage beneath their tower loomed up, security gate beeping as it recognized the car. Mira drove in too fast, braked too hard. The engine cut off, plunging them into a silence broken only by the soft tick of cooling metal and Zoey’s breathing.

“Help me,” Rumi said, already reaching for Zoey.

They got her out together this time—Mira taking her shoulders, Rumi her legs. It felt clumsy and wrong; Zoey was usually the first one sprinting into the building, bouncing off the walls, complaining about hairpins.

The service elevator was empty. Mira slapped the button for their floor hard enough to sting her palm. The doors slid shut.

In the cramped space, the smell of blood filled the air. Rumi tried not to look at their reflections in the mirrored panel: two girls smeared with red, arms shaking, eyes blown wide. Zoey limp between them, head tilted back, throat exposed.

Mira’s gaze flicked once to Rumi’s arm, to the faint, cooling violet pattern still ghosting under her skin.

Rumi tucked her arm closer to her body.

The doors dinged open.

“Couch,” Rumi said.

“No, bed,” Mira countered. “Less chance she rolls off.”

They compromised halfway, dragging the thick futon from Zoey’s room into the living area the way they had on movie nights. This time there was no laughing, no arguing over who got the middle.

They laid Zoey down carefully. Rumi adjusted her head on a pillow, brushing damp hair from her forehead. Mira dashed to the bathroom and came back with towels and a half-crushed first aid kit.

“Her clothes,” Mira muttered. “We need to get this off. She’ll freeze.”

Rumi hesitated for a fraction of a second, old habits flickering—turn away, give privacy, keep things normal. Then she swallowed it down. Nothing about this was normal.

“Scissors,” she said.

Mira fetched them. Together, they cut Zoey’s top away in careful strips, peeling blood-stiff fabric from healing skin. The angry pink line across her stomach looked wrong on her—too harsh against soft flesh—but it was closed. No fresh blood seeped out.

Mira ran a towel under warm water and wiped gently around the area, rinsing away what was left. “No stitches needed,” she whispered. “Nothing.”

Rumi said nothing. Her own stomach throbbed in phantom sympathy.

Once Zoey was cleaned and wrapped in a soft, oversized T-shirt, she looked less like a corpse and more like a very tired girl who’d fallen asleep in the middle of a chaotic night.

It didn’t help much.

Mira sat back on her heels, breathing hard. “Okay,” she said, as if checking boxes. “She’s not bleeding. Her breathing’s steady. She’s warm.” She pressed the back of her hand to Zoey’s cheek. “That’s… that’s good. That’s what doctors check, right?”

Rumi let out a strained huff. “You’re asking the wrong dropout, Mira.”

Mira’s mouth twitched, like she wanted to smile but had forgotten how. The silence that followed was thick and humming. The city lights outside their floor-to-ceiling windows painted the room in shifting colors.

Zoey let out a tiny snore.

The sound knocked some of the tension out of the air. Mira’s shoulders slumped. She looked over at Rumi properly for the first time since they’d left the alley.

“Your shirt,” she said quietly. “You’re still bleeding?”

Rumi glanced down. A dark patch stained the hem of her top, but it had stopped spreading. The scar underneath tugged with every breath.

“I’m fine,” Rumi said. “It closed.”

“Lift it,” Mira said.

“Mira—”

“Lift it.”

The command in her voice brooked no argument. Rumi sighed and obeyed, fingers hooking into the hem of her shirt and dragging it up enough to expose the pale skin of her stomach.

The scar that slashed across it was thin and raised, still a little too red. It matched the one on Zoey almost perfectly.

Mira sucked in a breath. “You—you didn’t have that before.”

“No,” Rumi said. Her own voice sounded distant to her. “I didn’t.”

Mira’s fingers hovered over the scar, close enough that Rumi could feel the warmth of them, but she didn’t quite touch. “How did—”

“I don’t know.” Rumi let the shirt fall back down, suddenly nauseous at the sight of her own skin. “I’ve never— It’s never done that before.”

“The healing?” Mira pressed. “Or the… copying?”

“Any of it.” Rumi dragged a hand down her face. Her arm still buzzed faintly, like the patterns under the skin were pacing. “I usually don’t let it get that far.”

“Usually?” Mira repeated. “How many times have you—”

“Not like this.” Rumi shook her head, hair dripping onto her collar. “Tiny stuff. Scratches. Bruises. On myself. I don’t— I’ve never used it on someone else.”

Mira stared at her for a long moment, like she was deciding which question to pick out of the dozens stacking up in her throat.

“Sit,” she said finally.

Rumi blinked. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Mira said. “You’re shaking. Sit, Rumi.”

Rumi’s legs chose that moment to wobble. She sank down onto the edge of the futon, near Zoey’s feet, one hand braced on the mattress to steady herself. Mira stayed kneeling by Zoey’s side, but she angled her body toward Rumi now, eyes dark and intent.

For the first time since the alley, there was no immediate crisis to hide behind. Zoey snored softly, oblivious.

Mira exhaled. “Start talking.”

Rumi stared at the floor. The wood grain swam a little. “About what?”

“About this.” Mira gestured at her, at Zoey, at the bloodstained towels scattered around them. “About you being half-demon. About glowing purple patterns and healing people by—by sharing injuries like some kind of cursed copy machine.” Her voice shook but didn’t rise. “You dropped that on me in an alley while our best friend was dying. I didn’t have room to process it then. I do now.”

Rumi’s first instinct was to make a joke, something weak and deflecting. Her mouth opened, then closed. Nothing came out except a dry, “Okay.”

She set her elbows on her knees and laced her fingers together so Mira wouldn’t see them tremble.

“My mom was human,” she said. “You know that part.”

Mira’s gaze flicked once to Rumi’s arm, to the faint ghost of violet still veining under the skin.

“My dad’s a demon,” Rumi continued, the word feeling like broken glass in her mouth. “Or was. I don’t know. I’ve never met him. My mom… she got involved with something she was supposed to kill. It killed her instead. Left me behind as the consolation prize.”

Mira’s brows pulled together. “Celine never—”

“Celine hates talking about her,” Rumi cut in, too fast. “You’ve noticed. She adopted me because I was all that was left of her teammate. And because no one else in the Sunlight Sisters wanted to raise the demon’s kid.”

“I had the patterns when I was born,” she continued, not giving Mira time to say anything. “Not glowing, but… there. Faint. Wrong. Mom died in childbirth, so she never got to… I don’t know. Decide what to do with me.” Her laugh came out flat. “Celine did instead. First thing she taught me: hide it. All of it. Long sleeves. No bathhouses. No swimming. No crop tops. If anyone sees, it’s over. For me. For her. For whatever she was trying to keep alive of my mom’s legacy.”

Mira’s eyes flicked, quick, her mind thinking back to the stack of stage outfits—crop tops, backless dresses, things Rumi had always mysteriously managed to avoid wearing. “That’s why you always traded outfits with styling,” she murmured. “Why you sat out when we did that sauna shoot.”

Rumi shrugged, the motion tight. “Patterns get brighter when I’m stressed. Or angry. Or using too much power. Celine trained me to fight and trained me to pretend I wasn’t fighting. She said I could hunt, but I could never be… this.” She gestured vaguely to her own arm. “Never obvious. Never monstrous.”

“And yet,” Mira said quietly, “here we are.”

Rumi flinched at the word, even though Mira hadn’t said it like an accusation. “You think I wanted this?”

“I think you wanted Zoey alive,” Mira said. “And you did what you had to.”

Rumi’s throat worked. “I didn’t know it would—” She broke off, one hand drifting unconsciously to her stomach. “I didn’t know it would copy.”

Mira’s gaze followed the movement. “You really don’t know what that was?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be this freaked out,” Rumi said. “I thought my blood would just… close the wound. Like it does on me.” Her fingers dug into the fabric of her shirt. “I’ve never had it jump to someone else. I didn’t even know it could.”

Mira was quiet for a beat, chewing on that. “But you knew it could heal.”

“I knew it could heal me,” Rumi said. “Celine figured that out early. Kids fall. I’d scrape my knees, and it would be gone the next morning. Faster if I… pushed.” She grimaced. “She made sure I learned how to stop it, too. Said the more obvious it was, the more likely someone would notice. She didn’t want me relying on it. Didn’t want me thinking it made me special. Just… dangerous.”

“Did she ever tell you what it meant?” Mira asked. “Being half-demon. The patterns. The healing. Any of it?”

“Pieces.” Rumi’s mouth twisted. “Enough to scare me into behaving. Not enough to make sense.” She looked up, finally, meeting Mira’s eyes. “I swear to you, Mira, I didn’t hold back some secret manual. I don’t know why my stomach split open when hers healed. I don’t know why the patterns went that far. I don’t know what any of this means.”

Something in her voice—raw, frayed—seemed to cut through the fog in Mira’s expression.

Mira’s shoulders dropped a fraction. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She scrubbed a hand over her face, leaving a faint smear of dried blood across her cheek. “I’m… freaking out. If that wasn’t obvious.”

“Yeah,” Rumi said softly. “Me too.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound Zoey’s soft, uneven snoring and the distant hum of the city beyond the glass.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mira asked at last. This time it wasn’t an accusation, just a tired question that seemed to sag in the air between them.

Rumi stared at the floor for a beat, then forced herself to look up. Mira’s eyes were rimmed red, eyeliner smeared, but they were clear. Waiting.

“Because I like my life,” Rumi said, the honesty scraping on the way out. “Because I like singing and dancing and complaining about choreography and eating midnight ramen and listening to Zoey snore like a chainsaw through the wall.” Her gaze dropped again, to Zoey’s hand resting limp between them on the futon.

She swallowed. The scar on her stomach pulsed once, a dull echo.

“And because,” she added quietly, “I didn’t want to see that look on your face. The one you had in the alley. Like I’d become something you had to fight instead of stand beside.”

Mira flinched, as if she’d been slapped. “Rumi, I—”

“I know you were scared,” Rumi cut in quickly. “You’re allowed to be. I’m scared of me half the time.” She let out a shaky breath. “I don’t… I don’t know everything this side of me can do.”

Her fingers curled loosely around Zoey’s wrist again, needing the anchor of her pulse. “I just know tonight I could either keep pretending I’m normal, or I could keep her breathing.” Her voice thinned. “I picked her.”

Mira’s eyes shone brighter. She dragged a hand down her face, leaving a faint streak of dried blood along her cheekbone. “You really think I’d have chosen the other way?” she whispered.

Rumi didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. The hesitation earlier had been real on both sides.

Mira watched her for a long moment, jaw working. “That look,” she said finally, voice low. “In the alley. That wasn’t— I wasn’t scared of you.”

Rumi made a disbelieving sound in the back of her throat.

“I was scared of losing her,” Mira pressed. “And of realizing there was this entire part of you I didn’t know about. Both at the same time. It was a lot.”

Rumi huffed out something that wasn’t quite a laugh. “That’s a nice way of saying, ‘Hey, surprise, my friend is half the thing I’ve been stabbing since I was twelve.’”

Mira’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t deny it.

Rumi rubbed her thumb over Zoey’s knuckles, tracing the chipped nail polish there. “Celine always said if anyone found out, that would be it,” she murmured. “No team. No dream. Just me and a target on my back. So I learned how to blend. How to shut it down. How to pretend the patterns were just… nothing.”

Mira made a look, “Celine been telling you to hide this? From us? Your teammates? Your friends?" And you listened?”

“Yeah, I listened,” Rumi said. “She’s the reason I’m not dead or dissected in some basement.”

Mira’s jaw tightened. “She’s also the reason I’m finding out my best friend is half-demon because our third almost bled out on the pavement.”

Rumi flinched. “You think I liked lying to you?”

“I think you decided for me,” Mira shot back, then winced at her own volume and glanced at Zoey. Zoey didn’t stir, just snuffled and shifted closer to the pillow. Mira lowered her voice. “You trusted Celine with this, but not us.”

Rumi stared at her hands. “Celine found me before anyone else did. She saw the patterns and didn’t put a blade through my neck. That set the bar pretty high.”

“That’s not fair,” Mira whispered.

“Neither is being born wrong,” Rumi said, too tired to sand the edge off it. “Celine told me if anyone knew, they’d look at me and see a monster first. I didn’t… want that from you. Or Zoey.”

Mira’s mouth opened, then closed. She looked at Zoey—at the soft T-shirt swallowing her frame, the angry pink line on her stomach just visible where the fabric rode up.

“That’s not what I see,” Mira said at last. “I mean, yeah, the glowing demon tattoo situation is freaking me out a little. But when I look at you, I still see the idiot who cried in the practice room because she couldn’t nail a turn and then did it twelve times in a row out of spite.”

Rumi huffed, the sound half a laugh, half a sob. “You’re never letting that go.”

“Never,” Mira agreed. Her gaze flicked to Rumi’s arm again. “And I see the girl who just ripped herself open to keep Zoey breathing.”

Rumi swallowed hard. “You’re… not scared of me?”

“I’m scared,” Mira said honestly. “I’m scared of whatever demon side-effect we just unlocked. I’m scared of what else you don’t know about yourself. I’m scared of what happens if anyone outside this room finds out.”

She shifted closer along the futon, planting herself solidly between Rumi and the door, as if choosing sides. “But I’m not scared of you.”

Rumi’s vision blurred for a second. She blinked hard, looking away. “You say that now. Wait until the patterns start crawling up my face mid-comeback.”

“Then we’ll pretend it’s concept makeup,” Mira said without missing a beat. “Dark era. Demonic chic.”

Despite everything, Rumi snorted. “You’re deranged.”

“Yeah, well,” Mira said. “You chose me as a teammate. That’s on you.”

They fell quiet again. The city lights washed over them in waves—blue, pink, white. Zoey sighed in her sleep, lips moving around a half-formed word.

After a moment, Mira spoke again, softer. “We’re going to have to tell her.”

Rumi’s stomach clenched around the scar. “I know.”

“She’s going to wake up and realize her guts aren’t on the outside anymore,” Mira went on. “She’s not stupid. She’s going to have questions. About why she’s healed. About why you look like you lost a knife fight with a mirror.”

Rumi huffed out a humorless breath. “Yeah. She’s annoying like that.” She hesitated, then glanced sideways at Mira. “You’re… taking this really well, by the way. For someone who just watched their groupmate sprout demon tattoos.”

“Oh, I’m not taking it well,” Mira said immediately. “I’m freaking out so much I think my organs are vibrating. I am absolutely going to have a breakdown later about the fact that you’re half-demon, that I lived with you for years and didn’t notice, that Celine definitely knew and didn’t tell us, and that our band is apparently held together by eldritch blood magic.”

Rumi winced. “That last part is new information to me, too.”

Mira’s mouth tugged up, tired and crooked. “Yeah. We can add it to the list of things to scream about once nobody’s bleeding out on the furniture.”

Some of the tightness in Rumi’s chest eased. The air still felt heavy, but it wasn’t pressing down quite as hard.

“You going to dodge?” Mira asked. “Or are you actually going to tell her the truth?”

Rumi stared at the faint rise and fall of Zoey’s chest. The scar beneath her own shirt throbbed in time with it, a low, insistent ache. “I told you,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to lie anymore.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Rumi’s jaw flexed. “I don’t know what to tell her, Mira. ‘Hey Zoe, fun fact, turns out I’m half the thing we’ve been stabbing since we were teenagers. Also, oops, used my demon blood on you while you were unconscious, hope that’s okay.’” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “She’s going to freak.”

“She’ll freak either way,” Mira said. “You know what she’s like. If you say nothing, she’ll just make up something worse in her head.”

Rumi could picture it too clearly: Zoey sitting up, poking at the healed skin, big eyes bright with a dozen theories and zero brakes between brain and mouth. The image made her chest hurt.

“I’ll tell her,” Rumi said finally. The words felt like stepping off a ledge. “I just… need a second before I rip the rest of my life open.”

Mira nodded slowly. “Okay.” She glanced at the digital clock on the wall; the glowing numbers felt too normal in the quiet. “We’ve got a few hours before managers start wondering why we’ve gone radio silent. We can call in sick. Blame food poisoning or something.”

“Demon poisoning,” Rumi muttered. “Very on brand.”

Mira’s mouth twitched. “We are not telling PR you’re half-demon. They’ll try to make it a concept.”

“Huntr/x: Hellbound era,” Rumi said weakly. “Limited photocard where my arm is on fire.”

Mira snorted, the sound breaking on the way out. For a moment, they both let the joke hang there, fragile and stupid and necessary.

Then Zoey shifted.

It was small—a roll of one shoulder, a wrinkle of her nose—but both of them snapped to attention. Rumi’s hand tightened around her wrist; Mira leaned in, eyes wide.

“Zo?” Mira whispered. “Zoey, can you hear me?”

Zoey’s brows knit, as if she were pushing through a stubborn dream. Her lips parted. “M’turn,” she mumbled, voice sandpaper-rough. “Don’t… hog the center, Rumi…”

Rumi’s throat closed. “She’s dreaming,” she said, half to herself.

“Of course she is,” Mira said. “She almost died, she’s still worried about formations.”

Zoey’s eyes didn’t open, but her hand twitched, fingers curling weakly toward Rumi’s. Rumi caught them without thinking, threading their hands together.

“Hey,” Rumi said, keeping her voice low. “We’re home, Zo. No more demons tonight.”

Zoey made a soft, disgruntled noise, like she was about to argue. Then she sighed and went slack again, breathing steady and even.

Mira sat back, some tight band in her shoulders finally loosening. “Okay,” she said, more to herself than to Rumi. “Okay. She’s okay.”

Rumi nodded, though the word felt too big and too fragile at the same time.

Silence settled over the room, thick but no longer suffocating. The city hummed outside, a low, distant buzz. Inside, the only sounds were Zoey’s breathing and the faint rustle of fabric when one of them shifted.

Mira watched her for a few seconds longer, then blew out a breath. “Go shower,” she said suddenly.

Rumi blinked. “What?”

“You’re covered in blood and demon residue,” Mira said. “If Zoey wakes up and sees you like this, she’s going to think she’s in a crime documentary.”

“I’m fine,” Rumi said. She didn’t loosen her grip on Zoey’s wrist. “I’ll wash later.”

“Rumi.” Mira’s voice sharpened. “You’re leaking on the futon. And you’re shaking. Go. I’ll sit with her.”

Rumi’s body stayed where it was, anchored by the faint, steady thrum beneath her fingers. Every time she thought about standing, something in her chest clenched, like she’d left something vital behind.

“She’ll freak if she wakes up alone,” Rumi said. “She hates that.”

“She won’t be alone.” Mira tapped her own chest. “I’m still here. You trust me to watch her in a fight, but not on a couch?”

“That’s not what I—” Rumi cut herself off, jaw tightening.

The idea of crossing the room, of breaking the line between her hand and Zoey’s pulse, made her skin itch. It wasn’t logical. Zoey was breathing, warm. Rumi’s brain knew that. But her body was buzzing with a low, insistent no.

Mira narrowed her eyes, reading more than Rumi wanted her to. “Is this a demon thing?” she asked quietly. “You can’t… step away?”

“I don’t know,” Rumi snapped, the words coming out too fast. “I don’t know what any of this is. I just—” Her hand tightened around Zoey’s wrist. “It feels wrong to move.”

Mira’s expression softened, just a fraction. “Okay,” she said. “So we treat it like stage fright.”

Rumi frowned. “What?”

“You ever wanted to run offstage before a performance?” Mira went on. “Stomach doing flips, knees jelly, brain screaming? And you went out anyway because the show needed you?”

Rumi hesitated, then gave a small, grudging nod.

“Same thing,” Mira said. “Right now, the show is: Zoey wakes up and doesn’t think she was murdered in a back alley. That means you’re not sitting in a puddle of dried blood when she opens her eyes.” She jerked her chin toward the hall. “Ten minutes. In, out. I’ll scream if anything happens.”

Rumi looked down at Zoey. At the faint crease between her brows, the dried mascara smudged beneath her eyes, the way her fingers twitched every now and then, like she was chasing a beat in her sleep.

Her chest squeezed. The scar under her shirt pulsed once, hard.

“You promise you’ll call me,” Rumi muttered. It wasn’t really a question.

Mira’s answer was immediate. “If she so much as sighs weird, I’ll drag you out of the shower myself.”

“Rude,” Rumi said weakly.

“Accurate,” Mira said.

Rumi’s fingers lingered on Zoey’s wrist for one last second, reluctant, then she forced herself to let go. The moment contact broke, a low fizz of unease crackled through her, like static under her skin.

She stood up too fast. The room tilted. Mira’s hand shot out, gripping her elbow until she steadied.

“See?” Mira said. “You’re not fine.”

Rumi shrugged her off, embarrassed. “I’ve been worse.”

“Yeah,” Mira said. “And I hated you then, too. Bathroom. Now.”

“Bossy,” Rumi muttered, but her feet finally started moving.

She made it to the hallway before glancing back. Mira had already shifted into her place on the futon, sitting close enough to Zoey that their knees almost touched, fingers resting lightly over Zoey’s pulse point like she’d seen Rumi do.

Rumi’s throat tightened. The itch under her skin eased a fraction at the sight.

“Ten minutes,” she said again, mostly to herself.

“Eight,” Mira shot back. “I’m rounding down.”

Despite everything, Rumi’s mouth twitched. She turned away before Mira could see it and slipped into the bathroom.

The door clicked shut. Water roared to life a moment later.

Mira stayed where she was, counting Zoey’s breaths in her head until they matched the sound of the pipes.

Rumi lingered under the water longer than she meant to.

It was too hot, stinging against raw skin, turning the last of the demon ichor and dried blood into pink streaks that spiraled down the drain. She braced her hands on the tile and let the spray drum against the back of her neck until her muscles stopped buzzing with leftover adrenaline and started shaking from plain exhaustion.

When she stepped out, the mirror was fogged over. For a second, she was grateful for it. Then she swiped a shaky hand across the glass.

The scar on her stomach stared back at her.

Thin. Raised. Too red. It cut across her like a second mouth, echoing the one she’d seen on Zoey minutes—hours?—ago. As she watched, it pulsed once, a slow throb that had nothing to do with her own heartbeat.

Rumi yanked her towel a little tighter around her, like that could hide it from herself. She dragged on clean sweats and an old hoodie large enough to swallow her. Long sleeves. Habit. The scar tugged when she bent, a reminder.

By the time she padded back down the hall, the apartment felt different. Quieter. Thicker, somehow.

The living room lights were dimmed low. Zoey lay where they’d left her on the futon, blanket pulled up to her chest, hair fanned over the pillow in a messy halo. Her mouth was slightly open, a soft, uneven snore rasping out every few breaths.

Mira was still on the floor beside her, back against the couch, knees drawn up. Her eyes were half-lidded, the kind of exhausted where blinking took effort. One hand rested on the edge of the futon near Zoey’s arm, like she’d fallen asleep mid-reach and forgotten to finish.

Rumi stopped in the doorway.

The scar under her hoodie gave a dull, answering throb. At the same moment, Zoey shifted, a tiny frown creasing her brow, fingers flexing once in the blanket like she was searching for something to hold.

Rumi’s feet moved before she decided anything. She crossed the room in a few quiet steps, socks whispering over the floor.

Mira’s head tipped up, bleary. “You alive?” she rasped.

“Debatable,” Rumi said. Her voice came out softer than she meant it to. “You should sleep in a real bed. Your spine’s going to mutiny.”

Mira huffed, the sound more air than laugh. “Can’t feel my spine anyway,” she mumbled. She shifted, pushing herself a little closer to Zoey to adjust the blanket around her shoulders.

The motion made something in Rumi’s chest spike. It wasn’t rational—Mira had been here the whole time, guarding Zoey’s side—but the sight of her leaning in, hand hovering over Zoey’s throat, sent a hot, instinctive snap up Rumi’s spine.

“Don’t.” The word came out low and edged before she could catch it.

Mira froze, fingers inches from Zoey’s collarbone. “What?”

Rumi blinked, pulse kicking hard. The urge to physically put herself between them was ridiculous. She forced herself to unclench her jaw. “You’ll wake her,” she said, reaching for something that sounded normal. “You’re heavy-handed when you’re tired.”

Mira squinted at her like she was trying to focus on a blurry image. “I was just fixing the blanket.”

“I’ve got it,” Rumi said quickly. “You should go and shower next. I got her.”

Rumi didn’t wait for Mira to argue. She was already stepping in, fingers sliding under the edge of the blanket to tug it higher, tucking it gently beneath Zoey’s chin.

Up close, Zoey looked even smaller than she had in the alley. Less blood, more freckles. Her lashes stuck together in clumps from half-washed mascara. A faint line cut between her brows, the echo of pain that hadn’t quite let her go.

“I’ve got her,” Rumi repeated, quieter this time. It sounded less like a claim and more like a promise she was making to herself.

Mira watched her, suspicion and bone-deep fatigue warring in her face. “You sure?” she asked. “You just ripped yourself open in the street. Maybe you should be the one lying down.”

“I am lying down,” Rumi said, and then realized she was halfway to doing exactly that.

Her knees folded without consulting her. She sank onto the futon beside Zoey, the mattress dipping under her weight. The movement rocked Zoey slightly; her frown deepened, fingers scrabbling once at empty air.

Before she could think better of it, Rumi slipped an arm under Zoey’s shoulders and eased her closer, letting Zoey’s head tip against her chest. The blanket shifted; Rumi pulled it up around both of them in one smooth motion, like this was something they’d done a hundred times before instead of never.

Her scar burned, then settled into a low, steady ache, like it liked what Rumi was doing. 

Mira’s eyes widened a fraction. “Rumi…”

“I said I’ve got her,” Rumi said, a little sharper than she meant to. Her hand settled at Zoey’s waist, fingers splaying over the soft cotton of the borrowed T-shirt, grounding herself on the solid, living warmth there. “Go shower. You smell like something died on you. Which, technically, it did.”

Mira opened her mouth, clearly about to protest—or ask something, or poke at the way Rumi was now curled around Zoey like a shield. She took a step closer to the futon, hand lifting again, this time more for Rumi than for the blanket.

The scar under Rumi’s hoodie flared, a hot spike that shot straight up her spine. Her tongue moved before her brain caught up.

“Back off,” she said, low.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even particularly forceful. But there was an edge to it she’d never heard in her own voice before—something guttural and protective that made the hairs on the back of Mira’s neck stand up.

Mira froze mid-step.

For a heartbeat, the room went very still. Zoey’s breath hitched once against Rumi’s collarbone, then evened out again, like she’d chosen a side in her sleep and it wasn’t the one currently standing.

Rumi swallowed, forcing her shoulders to unclench. “I mean—” She dragged in a breath that tasted like metal and detergent. “If you get any closer you’re going to trip over us, and I am not explaining a concussion to management on top of everything else.”

Mira stared at her, something like confusion and a tiny prick of hurt flickering through the exhaustion in her eyes. “I was going to ask if you needed water,” she said slowly.

“Oh.” Heat pricked at the tips of Rumi’s ears. The urge to snarl at her to get away had already receded, leaving embarrassment in its place. “I’m fine.”

Mira’s gaze dropped to where Zoey was tucked under Rumi’s arm, fingers still curled in the fabric of her hoodie like they’d grown there. Zoey’s face had smoothed out, that little crease between her brows easing now that she had something solid to anchor to.

“Yeah,” Mira said after a beat. “I can see that.”

There was no accusation in it—just a tired sort of observation that made Rumi want to climb out of her own skin.

Rumi didn’t look up. Her chin rested lightly on top of Zoey’s head, eyes fixed somewhere over the back of the couch. One hand was still splayed over Zoey’s waist, thumb moving in tiny, unconscious strokes against the hem of the T-shirt. Zoey had burrowed closer in her sleep, nose pressed into the hollow of Rumi’s throat like she’d been aiming for that spot on purpose.

Mira scrubbed a hand over her face. “Okay,” she sighed. “I’m… gonna pretend I didn’t just get growled at and go decontaminate. Try not to fuse with her while I’m gone.”

Rumi’s mouth twitched. “No promises,” she muttered.

Mira shook her head, too wrung out to unpack that, and shuffled toward the hallway. The bathroom door clicked shut a moment later, the rush of water starting up like white noise.

The apartment settled.

Without Mira’s presence filling the edge of her vision, the space around Rumi seemed to narrow to just the futon, the blanket, the girl pressed against her. Zoey was warm where she leaned, all loose limbs and slack mouth, breath curling damp against Rumi’s collarbone.

Rumi hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding herself until now. Slowly, she let her shoulders drop, let her weight sink into the mattress. Zoey shifted in response, as if her body refused to tolerate even a sliver of distance, tucking closer until her thigh rested over Rumi’s, knee nudging the inside of her leg.

Heat crawled up Rumi’s neck. She told herself it was leftover shower steam.

Zoey’s fingers were still fisted in her hoodie, knuckles pale against the black fabric. Each exhale brushed the hollow of Rumi’s throat, a soft, unconscious nudge that made the scar under her hoodie throb in answering pulses. She became acutely aware of every place they touched—hip to hip, chest to shoulder, the light press of Zoey’s ribs moving against her.

The room was quiet enough that Rumi could hear it: Zoey’s heartbeat, faint but steady, somewhere under all that contact. If she focused, she could almost pick it out from her own—two rhythms that kept tripping over each other and then falling into step.

Her hand, still resting at Zoey’s waist, tightened fractionally. Zoey’s breath hitched once, then settled, like her body recognized the pressure for what it was and approved.

Rumi stared at the ceiling, jaw clenched, trying not to think about how right it felt. How dangerous that was.

Zoey shifted again, a tiny unconscious wriggle that brought her mouth closer to Rumi’s neck, lips just barely brushing skin before she stilled. Warmth ghosted over Rumi’s pulse point with every exhale. The scar low on her stomach burned, then melted into a slow, liquid heat that pooled under her skin.

She should move. She didn’t.

In the bathroom, the water kept running. On the couch, the throw blanket Mira had abandoned slipped to the floor without anyone noticing.

Zoey’s grip on her hoodie flexed once more, like a sleeping hand checking its anchor, then relaxed. Her leg slid a fraction higher over Rumi’s, caging her in place.

Rumi let it.

Outside, sirens wailed faintly and then faded. Inside, wrapped in the dim light and the soft weight of Zoey pressed along her body, Rumi lay very still and tried not to think about how, for the first time since the alley, the buzzing under her skin had gone quiet.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.

Zoey’s body, unconsciously, answered for her—leaning in, holding on.