Page 44 of Hunted in the Shadows
“Maybe you’re right.” I hesitated. “The other night, in the spectral realm—”
Cliff groaned over me. “Spare me the slutty details, please.”
“Keep your shirt on.” I shouldered him, my grin flickering as I pictured Sylvia’s earnest expression peering up at me, her scarlet hair fanned over my shoulder. “Do you believe in soul bonds?”
He stopped in his tracks. “What?”
“A soul bond. Or something to that effect, anyway.” Heat rushed to my face as his bewildered stare bore into me. “Likemaybe… some people are justmadeto find each other on some cosmic level, you know?”
“Holy fuck. You spend two months with a fairy, and now you’re talking like you walked out of a John Hughes movie. Whoareyou?”
Gripping the sturdiest part of the railing, I came to a stop and cast my gaze over the rippling, dark water. “I know it sounds insane—believe me, I know. But I’ve had this tug inside me since I met her. Lately, it’s… It’s hard to ignore.”
“You sure that’s your upstairs brain talking?” Cliff asked, quirking a brow.
I conceded a smirk at that, but my heart was pounding. Sylvia’s face was seared in my mind like a brand—my addiction. As real as the mark she’d carved into my shoulder.
“You, of all people, know how much sleep I’ve lost over what happened,” I said. “Losing my dad. Losingeverything. I mean, why us? Why were we the ones to be burned with all of this?”
I faced him with a hard, pleading look as the memories resurfaced—family photos splintering, beloved kitchen wallpaper curling away under the heat of the roaring flames, Cliff’s unyielding grip on my arm as he peeled me away from the wreckage, from my father’s corpse. I dropped my stare, shuddering.
Sobering up, Cliff followed my gaze to the water, where the idle ripples distorted our vague reflections. I quelled the memory of acrid smoke with the smell of cinnamon and rain—herscent.
“Sometimes I wonder ifsheis the reason,” I said, finally ejecting my point. “Maybe everything I went through—all that loss, all that suffering—it was all leading me toher. Like we were meant to meet even if…”
Even if she’s not like us, our shared silence echoed.
Cliff’s gruff voice softened with a level of concern that toed the line between insulting and comforting. “Jon, I get it. I do. After the fucked up shit we went through…” He shook his head. “But I think the truth is worse than any kind of fate or destiny bullshit. Sometimes, people just suffer.”
“You don’t understand,” I muttered. He couldn’t register that look on Sylvia’s face when she spoke of her lost father. I knew that vacant, mournful stare—because it was like looking at myself. Cliff hadn’t met someone whose soul seemed tailor-made for his.
“I understand more than you think,” he replied quietly. “But this? Withher? You may as well be trying to hold onto a ghost.”
I peeled myself away from the railing and readjusted my grip on the bags slung over my shoulder. I’d been broken for so long. There was no way to explain how badly I wanted to feel whole again—even if grasping at something intangible was the only way to do it.
“Hey—you’re listening to me, right?” Cliff called after me.
I shrugged, forcing my thoughts into the here and now—onto one step in front of the other. “Of course,” I said. “You’re right. It’s only a temporary thing. What else could it be?”
Cliff fell back into stride, eyes narrowing on me.
“But let’s be honest here—you’re clearly jaded because of Gwen,” I added.
He cursed under his breath, jaw feathering. “Can’t believe she retired,” he muttered, taking the bait. “Such bullshit.”
His disdain made me falter, a thread of guilt tugging from my chest as I thought about the daydream I’d woven with Sylvia where I retired and started a new life. Even if I’d callously shut down her suggestion of making it a reality, entertaining the fantasy felt traitorous with Cliff beside me.
“And the fact that she left us in the middle of the night has nothing to do with it?” I prodded.
“Ancient history.”
“Clearly.” I wasn’t cruel enough to remind him of his foul mood and excessive drinking that followed her sudden absence that fateful morning. “Come on, you can't be shocked after howmuch she was pulling away toward the end. There’s no rule about staying in it for life. Maybe this is a good thing.”
“Seriously? She was one of the best in the game. What a waste.”
I scoffed, unable to mask my venom to spare him. “She wasdecentat best.”
“She got the run onyou.”
