Page 252 of Hunters and Prey

When he spoke next, his voice was so low, he barely recognized it.

“I love you. I belong to you, Miri… and I don’t give a shit about the Bridge. Or about Balidor’s wife. Or about any fucking seer here. Or back home. Or anywhere else. This was never about that. This was never about them. It’s about us. It’s about your husband being unable to cope with what he saw happen to you… or even to be honest about it.”

Swallowing, he stared at her face, keeping his distance as his pain worsened.

“I didn’t even know what I was doing,” he muttered angrily, combing his fingers through his hair. “Not until my asshole cousin got in my face. He said every seer in there could tell I was angry at you… that I was the only one too stupid to know it.”

At that, Miri shook her head, wrapping her arms around her tighter.

She cleared her throat.

“You weren’t angry,” she said.

“I was angry,” he said in a growl. “I was hurt. I still fucking am… but I know none of it is your fault. I was mad about you going to meet Brick. Not the drugging. The meet itself, the fact you’d risk that happening again, that you’d risk Nick doing that to you again.”

His throat closed, his voice turning gruff.

“I was mad at you for coming here. I was mad that you fled here when I couldn’t help you. That my cousin and his wife were more of a refuge for you than I could ever be. That you ran away from me when I made everything worse for you back home…”

He trailed, staring at her.

“Miri. This is me. I know this is me. None of it is you. It’s me being a shitty, immature, self-absorbed prick…”

She shook her head, her jaw hard.

He watched her look down over the slope.

Her arms folded and curled back around her torso, even as she raised the fingers of one hand, wiping her eyes. She avoided looking at him. He watched her try to control her light, to pull it back inside her shields, to blank her mind.

He watched her try, but he could tell she wasn’t having any success.

Looking at her, the grief he felt on her light nearly gutted him.

It broke his fucking heart.

“Miri,” he said. “Gaos, ilya… honey. I’m so, so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head, biting her lip.

For a long moment, he only looked at her, and she looked down the slope, that pain coiling off her light, her arms wound around her ribs and chest.

He kept his light open as he stood there, as open as he could.

He honestly didn’t know what else to do.

After another few seconds, she cleared her throat, still not looking at him.

“We should go back in,” she said. “They’re looking for us. Allie…” She stopped on the name, swallowing. “Allie says they’re waiting for us.”

Black looked at her helplessly.

Feeling the avoidance on her light, the confusion, in the end, he only nodded.

“Okay,” he said.

Standing there a beat longer, she took a breath.

He watched her as she gathered up her light, pulling it back into her, pulling herself into a state of calm. Watching her, he remembered that she risked disappearing every time she let herself react emotionally to anything.

Up until when he, Black, got here, she hadn’t had to worry about that.

She’d managed to stay here for months, without anything upsetting her enough to make her want to leave.

She’d found peace here.

The guilt he’d felt before––for everything he’d said, for his irrational anger at her, for everything he’d done to upset her in the last few hours––grew exponentially worse.

When she started walking back towards that tall, cave-like building, he only followed her, feeling like the worst kind of asshole.

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