Bluebird

Your hands are shaking.

They usually don't. And they shouldn't today, either. Not after years of facing frantic fans and crude critics, your debut days far behind you now.

Tonight is Huntr/x's ninety-fifth live performance. It will also be your last.

You just don't know it yet.

The whole arena is shaking with you. The chants of the crowd reach into every winding hallway and light-starved corner. There's no escaping them, even if you wanted to.

"You okay?"

Of course she notices. Of course she cares. Mira always shows up when you're least composed, almost as if she has a sixth sense for it. Maybe she does.

"I don't know."

It's as much truth as you are willing to offer tonight. Mira takes it in stride.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asks instead.

("Could you hold me," you imagine yourself saying. "Just for a little while? Please, I want you to.")

You shake your head.

"Okay." Her reply is clipped. Not angry, you don't think.

Hurt, maybe.

You're good at that, aren't you? Hurting her.

She turns to leave, and your shaky hand reaches out to touch her arm. Somehow, you expect her to flinch. To pull her arm out of your grasp and walk away.

But she stays.

Doesn't look at you. Doesn't even acknowledge your existence beyond your hand keeping her in place.

But she stays. The two of you sharing this suspended moment in time.

A guy from the crew finds you, still locked in this strange standstill. He frowns and informs you that you're on in five.

You nod and say a quiet thanks.

Mira doesn't react.

"Are you done now?" she asks once you're alone again.

You let go.

"I'm—"

"Rumi," she says with her back to you still. "I told you not to say it anymore."

"But—"

"You promised you wouldn't."

She walks off and this time you let her.

"I'm sorry," you tell the silent hallway.

Zoey smiles at you when you line up to take the stage. You smile back, small but sure, your hands clasped together in front of you.

Mira is the first to ascend the stairs, her posture regal. Zoey and you trail behind her, watching the stage lights engulf her as her arms rise high in the air, waving to their fans.

Mira's silhouette looks as gorgeous as ever.

You're about to take the stage as well when a shadow flickers across your vision, there and gone again in the blink of an eye. Something splatters across the floor right in front of you, dotting it with little specks of bright red.

Before you, Mira crumbles.

Your feet carry you forward, even as cheers turn into screams. You fall onto your knees next to her unmoving body, pressing down on the small, circular wound sitting in the center of her chest.

It's the cat.

It's the fucking demon cat again.

Or maybe the demon bird, or both. Probably both.

Mira should be used to this still—startling awake in the middle of the night, heart pounding rapidly in her chest. The honmoon had ripped her out of her sleep countless times back when they were active hunters, so what's a little fire alarm at—

THREE in the morning. Oh, fuck all the way off.

She stumbles out of bed, her teeth grinding together so hard she can already feel the headache coming on. It doesn't help that the alarm is attempting to drill twin holes through her eardrums. She grabs her glasses off the nightstand and stomps toward her bedroom door, almost taking it off the hinges with how hard she pulls on the handle.

There is no emotional regulation at three in the morning.

"Rumi! Zoey!" she yells, her voice thundering down the hallway, paving her way as she storms into the living room.

She's always been the slowest to get up. Bobby used to joke that she sleeps like the dead, especially on tour. But as the visual of the group, it's actually quite important for her to get seven goddamn hours of sleep each night. One doesn't look the way she does without lots of quality shut-eye.

That, and a shit ton of expensive beauty products, but that's beside the point.

Her eyes need a moment to adjust to the bright glow of the living room lights, stinging with a dull kind of pain that thankfully subsides again after she blinks a couple of times. A quick scan of her immediate surroundings finds the space empty, but then she hears noises coming from the kitchen; people speaking in low, hushed voices audible even over the shrill beeping.

She really shouldn't be surprised by the sight that greets her, and yet …

First there's Rumi, in her choo choo train pjs, wrangling Derpy away from a singed chair that's fallen over. She can barely fit her arms around his neck, and her patterns pulse a vibrant cerulean from the sheer strength it must take to keep him rooted to the spot.

Then there's a dishevelled-looking Zoey, standing on another chair, trying desperately to reach the smoke detector. She's about three inches too short for the job, even when she rises onto her tiptoes and stretches her body as far as she physically can.

They both freeze when she enters, eyes wide and faces grimacing. The air smells of burnt wood and anxiety.

She spies Sussie sitting on the backrest of the third and final chair, staring her dead in the eye. He chirps.

In her head—distantly, like it's far away—Mira hears a snapping sound.

Her feet pad across the cold kitchen floor as she calmly walks up to Zoey. With a flick of her wrist, she summons her gok-do and rams it up, spearing the smoke detector in one fluid motion.

The alarm stops.

Silence settles over the room, as deadly as it is deafening.