Miracle's POV
The seat in front of me slammed back, crushing my knees.
A fresh wave of pain joined the agony already playing in my skull. A sigh, heavy with exhaustion, escaped me.
Of course. It was boys being boys with little regards to other people's feelings.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to set the whole bus on fire.
But I was also so, so tired.
The fight had been bled out of me, left on a dirty bathroom floor. Yet, a stubborn, broken piece of me refused to be completely erased.
I tapped the guy's shoulder. "Hey. Your seat. It's on my legs."
He turned, flashing a smile that was all teeth and no warmth.
"Sorry, darling. Got these long legs, see? This is the only way I fit. You'll manage." He didn't wait for a reply, closing his eyes with a finality that made my teeth grind.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boy beside me—Hardy—tense and lean forward. I could feel the "knight in shining armor" routine brewing in the air around him. It made my stomach turn.
Heroes are liars in polished metal. They save you just so they can be the one to destroy you later.
I shot him a look that could curdle milk. Back. Off.
I tapped the guy again, harder this time.
"What's your name?"
"Ramsey," he said, giving me that empty, seductive smile again. He thought it was working.
"Hi, Ramsey. Listen carefully," I said, my voice dropping to a low, dead calm. "Move your seat. Now. Or I will reach into my bag, take out the serrated hunting knife my uncle gave me, and I will saw through your jugular. Understand me?"
The color drained from his face. The fake smile vanished. He blinked, looked into my completely serious, utterly vacant eyes, and slowly, wordlessly, moved his seat forward.
I sank back, the small victory feeling hollow.
A tremor ran through my hands. See, Steve? I can still make them flinch.
A low whistle came from my left. I turned. Hardy was staring at me, a wide, unabashed grin splitting his face. His hazel eyes sparkled with something that looked an awful lot like… admiration.
"Holy hell," he breathed, his voice a thrilled rumble. "I am so turned on right now. That was the most beautiful, unhinged thing I've ever witnessed." He leaned closer, his scent—clean soap and something wild—washing over me. "Hi. I'm Hardy. Hardy Kendall Lockhart. And I think I'm in love."
I turned my face back to the window, my heart a frantic, trapped bird against my ribs. "Bye, Hardy-ken. Boys like you break girls like me for fun. It will be a cold day in hell before I trust a pretty face again."
He didn't retreat. He just chuckled, the sound vibrating through our shared seat. "Oh, Princess. I'm not pretty. I'm a disaster. And from the look of you, you're a Category Five hurricane. We're not meant for fun. We're meant for wrecking things together."
His words were like a key scraping a rusted lock inside me. I refused to look at him.
·
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, trying to escape into the blur of passing trees.
But my mind was a prison.
The ache in my chest was a living thing, a parasite of sorrow feeding on what was left of me. It branched out, its tendrils squeezing my lungs, making each breath a battle.
I blinked hard, trying to erase the image burned onto the back of my eyelids. A boy with dark hair and a betrayer's smile. But it wouldn't leave. It just morphed, twisting into a memory, sweet and poisonous.
The bus hit a pothole, jolting me back to the present. To the ache. To the boy beside me who was still watching me like I was the most fascinating train wreck he'd ever seen.
A single, hot tear escaped and traced a path through the grime on my cheek. I swiped at it angrily.
A clean, white handkerchief appeared in my line of sight, held by Hardy's hand.
"I find it's better to let them fall," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "Tears are just pain leaving the body. No point in trying to shove it back in."
I stared at the offering. A handkerchief. Who carried handkerchiefs anymore?
"Are you for real?" I muttered, not taking it.
"Not even a little bit," he said, the grin back in his voice. He didn't put it away. He just left it resting on his knee, an offering between us. "But my theatrics are more honest than most people's sincerity. I see a beautiful girl who's clearly just had her soul fed through a woodchipper. I'm not going to pretend I don't see it. Or that I don't want to find the guy who did it and return the favor."
His bluntness was a shock to my system. There was no fake sympathy. No empty platitudes. Just a notice of my damage and a promise of violence on my behalf. It was the first honest thing anyone had said to me in weeks.
I didn't take the handkerchief. But I didn't tell him to fuck off again, either.
**
(Two years ago)
I was hiding. Curled in my favorite corner of the dusty, dying bookstore, my white dress be damned. This was my sanctuary. While the rest of the world was out living, loving, feeling, I was here. My book was my shield against the quiet emptiness of my own life.
I came from a family that breathed love. It was their superpower. But mine was missing. My brother Xavier found his wolf, his strength, his destiny at twelve. I found… nothing.
No primal connection. No power. Just two different colored eyes under a full moon and a head full of nightmares. I was the blank page in a book of epic poems.
The story in my hands was my only proof that a love like that could exist for someone. For me.
I never heard him approach.
"Hi."
The voice was quiet, close, and it didn't belong in my imaginary world. I looked up.
"I had to talk to you," he said. He wasn't classically handsome; his features were too strong, too bold. But he had a smile that felt like a secret just for me, and it made my heart stutter. He looked solid. Real. Reliable in a way nothing in my life felt.
His clothes were simple but nice. And his hands… they were a man's hands.
"I'm Steve Jackson."
"Miracle," I told him.
And just like that, I was found. I had no idea I was being chosen for demolition.