The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches — Chapter no 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

amie was only a step behind Mika as she walked out into the garden, to the back gate, past the sunflowers, and out on the dunes. He followed,J about to protest that it was almost pitch-black out here and one of them would break an ankle, but then she waved a hand in the air and a thousand soft, glowing, firefly-like lights lit the way.

He knew what was coming. When he’d pulled away after the woods, hating himself for it but certain he’d hate himself more if he didn’t, he’d seen her confusion and hurt. She’d hidden it well, but he knew her, knew the widening and narrowing of her inky eyes and the way she held her body depending on how she was feeling.

When she stopped at last, they were on the pebbly beach. The artificial fireflies hovered around their heads, making her face flicker golden, the way it did when she was sitting in front of the firelight in the front room of the house.

He broke the silence, his voice only a fraction louder than the crash of

the waves. “Well?”

“Something’s bothering you,” she said.

He hadn’t expected her to start there. He recalibrated, clenching his fists at his sides because the temptation to touch her was almost irresistible.

“Edward will be here in just a few days.”

She looked unimpressed. “It’s more than that. It’s something else. You weren’t pretending to want me in the woods, but you’ve gone out of your way to avoid me since then. If you don’t want to repeat what happened, just

tell me and I’ll drop it.”

If she only knew.

Jamie was fighting against a pull that felt like a force of nature. It hurt to fight it. He tried to memorize every detail of her standing there, haloed in fireflies and winter starlight, the cold sea wind whipping her hair across her face, where strands of it caught on a mouth he wanted to kiss. He swallowed. God, she was so fucking beautiful.

He took a shaky breath. “It wouldn’t work, you and me.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “Why not?”

“You don’t do serious.” He looked out at the sea, impossibly dark and endless. “And I don’t think I can do anything but serious. Not with you.”

Her smile was gone. He saw her throat work. “You know who I am,” she said. “You know the truth about me. All my usual reasons don’t hold up with you.”

“Except I think you’ll find new reasons,” Jamie said quietly. “You’ve never been enough for anyone before, so I don’t think you’re going to believe that you’re enough for me. As soon as I do something to hurt you, and I will hurt you because you don’t know the half of how fucked up our lives are, you’ll leave.”

“Is that it, then?” Her dark, inky eyes were glossy with tears. “Trust doesn’t come easily to either of us, so we’re not even going to try?”

“There are things you don’t know—”

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Because it’s not just about you,” she guessed, her eyes searching his.

“Because you’re protecting someone, or something.”

“I’m protecting everything.”

For a moment, she said nothing. Then, very quietly: “Okay. I won’t ask again.”

She stepped around him and started to walk back to the dunes, her shoulders too straight, her hands tucked under each arm, her light all but extinguished.

He understood what it must have cost her to accept his poor explanation, to be pretty much told outright that she was once again on the outside, to see once and for all that she was not one of them and would never be, and it

occurred to him, watching her walk away, that none of this was worth it if it meant doing that to her.

She had never been loved. No one had ever chosen her.

But Jamie could choose her now.

He could give her this, even if it meant he never saw her again.

“Wait.”

Mika stopped, but she didn’t turn around.

“We lied to you,” he said.

And then he told her everything.

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