Page 310 of Breathe Like Hell

Did he even notice I’d blocked him?

Would he even care?

Another knock.

No pounding or metal jamming into the lock or angry words.

Just a steady knocking, followed by a pause, then more knocking.

“Masters.” Micah’s voice was muffled. “Please unlock the door.”

“I don’t want to,” I mumbled, quiet enough that he probably couldn’t hear it. Another tear slipped down my cheek. The way I hated myself on these days suffocated me. It was as if every memory I’d ever made was crawling out of the crevices of my brain, just to wreck me all over again.

A strange wispy sound had me sitting up and staring at the door.

There was a piece of paper sliding underneath the crack, pushing onto the tile.

I quietly crawled over to it, my eyes skimming over Micah’s handwriting.

We still haven’t gone to your rock.

My lips rolled together, sadness and love crushing against each other in my chest. My rock. My ocean rock. I’d told Micah once that if I ever grew wings, I’d want to go sit on that biggest rock for a few hours, then get the hell out of here. He’d offered to take me there when I was sad a long time ago, when he was the only one of us with wings, but we never went.

I reached up and unlocked the door, but didn’t turn the handle to open it, both of my hands returning to grip the paper.

Micah slowly opened the door, staring down at me with torment in his eyes.

“Do you want to go?” he asked.

I didn’t contemplate my answer. I just nodded.

“Good. Come here.” Micah knelt and took me into his arms, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I love you.” He kissed my cheek. “I love you.” My other cheek. “I love you.” A small kiss on my nose. “I love you.” His lips brushed my own, his arms wrapping tight around me. “You’re going to be okay.”

“No, I’m not. I’m always going to be like this.”

“That’s not true. You are my miracle girl.”

Whenever he called me that, I couldn’t stop the smile that tried forcing its way across my face. Every single time, it happened. It was unfair.

I buried my face against his chest.

“Repeat what I said,” Micah instructed.

“I don’t know what you said,” I mumbled into his t-shirt.

“I said that you are not always going to be like this. You’re going to be okay. And you are my miracle girl, and I love you so much I can’t even tell you in words.”

I tried to steady myself with an inhale, pressing my palms flat to Micah’s back to feel the solidness of his body, his strength. The same smile from before tugged at the corners of my mouth, subtly brightening the darkness in my brain.

“I’m your miracle girl,” I finally relented.

“And you’re going to be okay.”

“And I will try to be okay someday.”

“You’re twisting my words.” He rubbed up and down my back. “But I’ll accept it for now. Let’s go get in the car.”

I followed him downstairs and out of the house, peeking over at his phone screen to see him texting Mason—Ash. It made my heart squeeze and flutter. Mason was currently doing some demon activities—or something like that—but it seemed he would be done soon. It was unfortunate that my transformation from Angelakia to angel had basically caused the death of any other Thrausian living in this area, so Mason was much busier.