Page 120 of Stitches

“The voices? Is it the voices?” I stared up into his masked face.

“Yes. And no.”

“I just want an answer!” I tightened my hold on him.

“Sirena, my love, you already know the answers. You just have to accept them. It’s that simple. Everything is before you. You’re blinding yourself with your doubt. You can love more than one person. You can make it work. It works with three, right? Why can’t it work with more? You are in charge of your destiny.”

“Even the bad stuff?” I sniffled as he squeezed my hands.

“That bad stuff is the monsters’ destiny.” He released my hand and ran his palm along my jaw until he was cradling my face again. “You will do no harm to anyone ever. Even by loving more than one person. More than one watcher. More than me. We are atyourmercy, not the other way around.”

“I want to kill the monsters. How isn’t that harm?”

“Because it’s not harmful to dole out punishment, Sirena. It’s not. It’s retribution. It’s revenge. We reap what we sow. It is never a disservice to coax the life out of someone who would do the same to you. It is with the innocent where harm comes into play. Not the guilty. Not the sinners. They’re the prey. We are the hunters. And the hunters must feast.”

“What do I do? I-I care so much about you. About them.”

“I know,” he answered simply. “Our time will come. Just…don’t avoid me. Don’t stay away because you’re scared. Come to me because you are. I will protect you. I will always protect you.”

He leaned in, his eyes locked on mine from behind his mask. My heart spend up. He was a breath away from my lips when there was a crack behind us in the woods. He snapped his head up, automatically going feral as his lip pulled back in snarl. He was quick to move me behind his body in an effort to protect me, but I’d already seen something—someone—in the darkness.

“There’s someone,” I whispered. “I saw him.”

Another twig snapping. Someone was definitely lurking in the trees. Another snap. Another. Rustling. The woods was so dense it made it impossible to see.

“There’s someone out there,” Mirage husked out.

He wasn’t talking to me though.

Another figure darted through the darkness in pursuit of the sound. Heavy footsteps. More rustling and snapping underbrush.

“You need to get back to the house,” Mirage said, turning to me. He didn’t wait for me to answer. He grabbed my hand and tugged me in the opposite direction of all the noise, pulling me through the night.

When I’d tripped the third time and had fallen, he scooped me into his arms and ran with me the remainder of the way to the edge of the woods.

“Go. I’ll watch,” he said, placing me on my feet.

I backed away from him slowly before turning and running full tilt to the house.

When I looked back, Mirage was nowhere to be seen.

But I expected nothing less.

He was a wild animal after all.

STITCHES

“Where were you?” I got up from my seat on the couch and stared at Sirena covered in snow. There were bits of dead leaves in her hair, making me think she’d been running through the woods.

Her cheeks were red, but they could have been from the cold.

I went to her and helped her out of her jacket.

“Angel, answer me. I went to your room, and you were gone. Church was gone too. Were you with him?”

She shook her head slightly at me.

“You were alone?”

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