Seraphina’s POV

Dinner passes in a blur of normalcy so complete it almost feels cruel.

Mom stands at the stove stirring pasta while I set the table, the kitchen warm with the scent of garlic and basil, the soft clatter of silverware, the familiar hum of the refrigerator. She asks about school.

Paige tells her Professor Langley assigned too much reading and one girl in our sociology class almost fell asleep face-first into her notes.

She laughs and tells us work was chaos—two people called out, her manager spent the afternoon in a foul mood, and one patient was refusing to take meds.

I nod in the right places. I smile when I’m supposed to. I even laugh once.

But all the while, the memory of Lucas stalks the edges of my mind like a shadow that never fully leaves the room.

A devil sitting on our couch, beneath my roof, and whose heartbeat I felt beneath my palm.

Every now and then I glance toward the doorway leading into the hall, half expecting to find him there leaning against the wall with that unreadable expression, those dark eyes watching everything and giving nothing away.

He doesn’t appear. But I feel him. Or maybe I only feel the idea of him. I can’t tell which is worse.

By the time dinner is over and the dishes are rinsed, dried, and stacked away, I’m desperate for distraction. Something shallow, loud, and bright enough to drown out the dark.

So, when I push open my bedroom door and find Paige already sprawled across my bed in a nest of clothing, it feels like inhaling after being underwater too long.

“There you are,” she says dramatically, kicking one heel in the air. “I was beginning to think you were going to ghost me and spend the night writing love poems to your devil.”

I shut the door behind me and laugh despite myself. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” She points to the pile of clothes arranged around her like a stylist preparing for battle. “Now hurry up. We have to get you ready.”

I look at the mountain of options—skirts, tops, jeans, boots, jackets—most of them mine, some definitely Paige’s.

“You raided my closet.”

“Obviously.” She sits up and tosses a gray crop top at me. “Try this.”

I catch it and hold it against myself. “For the bonfire?”

“Yes. Tragic but hot.”

“It’s freezing outside,” I sigh.

“That’s what flirting and alcohol are for.”

I snort and drop the shirt on the bed.

For the next twenty minutes, my room turns into a battlefield of fabric and bad ideas.

Paige throws outfits at me with increasing intensity, narrating like she’s hosting some chaotic late-night makeover show.

“This one looks mysterious, but like, approachable mysterious.” I laugh.

“That sweater is cute, but if Dean is there, absolutely not. We do not let exes think they still have emotional access.”

At the sound of Dean’s name, something sour twists in my stomach.

I don’t answer.

Paige’s expression softens just slightly, but she doesn’t comment. Instead, she tosses me another pair of jeans and says, “Try these. Trust me.”

Eventually, after a ridiculous number of rejected combinations, I settle on tight black jeans and an off-the-shoulder orange top that clings in the right places without looking like I tried too hard.

Paige steps back to assess me as I emerge from behind the bathroom door.

“There she is,” she says, placing a hand dramatically over her heart. “Hot, tough, and emotionally unavailable. Just how we like her.”

I roll my eyes, but I can’t stop the smile tugging at my lips. I turn toward the mirror. The girl staring back at me looks… different.

Not different enough to be someone else. Just sharpened somehow. The black jeans hug my legs and hips, the orange top leaves one shoulder bare, and the color makes my skin look warmer, my eyes darker. My hair falls loose around my face in soft waves from the quick touch-up Paige insisted on.

For a moment, I just see me. And maybe that’s why confidence stirs low in my chest.

“You always pick the perfect looks,” I tell Paige. “Thanks, Pay. I needed this.”

Her face lights up in a way that makes me think compliments are her native language. “You look insane. The guys at that bonfire are not going to know what hit them.”

I laugh, glancing once more at my reflection.

For the first time, something light breaks through the heaviness in my chest.

“Okay,” I say, turning toward her. “I’m sold.”

Paige throws both hands into the air. “Yes.”

I grab my jacket from the chair, sling an arm around her shoulders, and together we head downstairs.

“Mom, we’re leaving!” I call.

“Be safe!” she shouts back from the living room. “And text me if you’re staying out late.”

“I will!”

Paige leans close as we step outside into the cool night air. “You absolutely will not.”

Her red convertible is already parked at the curb, top down despite the chill. The streetlights catch along the glossy paint, making the whole car look like trouble with wheels.

By the time we climb in, my nerves have loosened enough that the cold feels invigorating instead of sharp.

Paige starts the engine and cranks her playlist so loud the bass rattles through my ribs.

As we pull away from the house, she throws me a grin. “Tonight’s mission?”

“To not think about the devil,” I say.

She points at me. “Exactly.”

Music blares. Wind tears through our hair. We sing badly and loudly, missing half the lyrics and not caring. A few classmates pass us on the road and wave. Paige honks at them like a menace. Somewhere between the second song and the turnoff by the old gas station, I actually start to relax.

The world narrows to speed and cold air and laughter.

No devils, revelations, or impossible questions.

Just tonight.

By the time the trees open up, and the shoreline comes into view, the sky is deep velvet black, and the bonfire is visible from the road—a roaring column of orange and gold against the dark.

Dozens of students crowd the lakeside. Music echoes off the water. Laughter carries on the wind. Red solo cups flash in firelight as people cluster in shifting circles around the blaze.

Paige pulls in with a flourish and kills the engine.

“You ready to party?” she asks.

I straighten my shoulders, take a deep breath, and let the noise wash over me.

“Hell yeah.”

The closer we get to the fire, the warmer the air becomes.

Sparks whirl upward into the night like restless souls trying to escape the flames. The lake beyond the party is black glass, reflecting fractured streaks of orange light. Music pulses from someone’s speaker near a truck bed, mixing with the crackle of the bonfire and the rise and fall of drunken conversations.

Paige grabs both my hands and drags me toward a giant cooler half-buried in the sand and dirt.

“Drinks first. Always.” She digs through the ice, comes up triumphant with two beers, twists the caps off against the side with practiced ease, and hands one to me.

I take a sip.

The cold bitterness is almost shocking after the warmth of the fire.

Around us, more people arrive in clusters—laughing, pushing each other, already tipsy. Someone starts chanting for a drinking game near the other side of the shore. A couple disappears toward the darker edge of the trees. A group of seniors in varsity jackets claim a log like they own the place.

And then I see him.

Dean.

He steps out of a truck with two other guys, one hand shoved into the pocket of his jeans, black hair almost shines in the moonlight.

He spots me at the same moment. Lifts his hand in a half-wave.

My stomach knots instantly.

I look away.

“Ignore him,” Paige says, reading my face with irritating precision. She hooks her arm through mine and steers me in the opposite direction. “Come on. We are not spending one second of your hot-girl bonfire era thinking about that man.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You literally made the face.”

“What face?” I ask.

“The one that says, ‘I’d rather walk into the lake than deal with this.’"

I laugh under my breath because she’s not wrong.

We move through the crowd, pausing for quick conversations with classmates, nodding hello to people I vaguely know from campus, and accepting a marshmallow skewer from somebody I’ve never met. Paige, being Paige, gets swept almost instantly into a new cluster of people near the music. Within minutes she’s already in animated conversation, gesturing wildly as though she’s known them for years.

I hover at the edge of the bonfire, beer in hand, letting the flames warm my face.

For a while, it’s enough.

I watch the fire. Listen to the lake lap gently against the shore. Feel the heat on my skin and the night against my bare shoulder. There is something hypnotic about fire. The way it makes everything look prettier and more dangerous than it really is.

“Hey, Sera.” A voice at my shoulder turns my blood cold.

I turn.

Dean stands there; hands lifted like he’s trying to appear harmless.

Up close, he looks exactly the same as he did last year. Same smug, careless mouth. Same eyes that once made me feel chosen and later made me feel stupid for wanting that.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he says. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine.” I say bluntly.

The answer is clipped enough to end the conversation. Or it should be.

Dean glances around at the crowd. “Can we talk?”

“No.”

His smile strains just slightly. “Come on. Five minutes.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Because last time we talked in private, you twisted every word until I was apologizing for things you did. I remember how your temper flashed when you didn’t get your way. And there’s something in your face right now, I don’t trust.

But Paige is across the fire surrounded by people. The music is too loud. And Dean is still looking at me with the same infuriating confidence, like saying no is just the beginning of a negotiation.

“It’ll just be for a second,” he says, jerking his head toward the tree line. “Too loud out here.”

I should refuse. Every instinct in me says refuse.

But another part of me—the old part, the stupid conditioned part that still tries to keep things calm, easy, manageable—wants to get it over with quickly and return to the fire.

So, I say, “Fine. One minute.”

He smiles like he’s won something.

I hate that.

He leads the way toward the woods lining the shore. Branches scratch at my jacket as I follow him between the trees, the bonfire’s light dimming with every step. Behind us, the music softens. Laughter turns faint. Fire fractures into thin streaks between trunks.

The deeper we go, the colder it gets.

“This is far enough,” I say.

Dean stops and turns to face me.

For a moment neither of us speaks. The woods feel unnaturally still. The lake wind doesn’t reach this far. Even the sounds of the party feel muted, as if we’ve stepped into a pocket of silence carved out from the rest of the world.

“What did you want?” I ask.

He slides his hands into his pockets and studies me in a way I immediately dislike. “I miss you.”

I almost laugh. “That’s why you dragged me into the woods?”

His jaw tightens. “You always do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like everything’s a joke.”

My patience thins. “Dean, whatever this is, I’m not interested.”

He takes a step closer. “I think we should try again.”

“No, Dean.”

“You didn’t even think about it.”

“I don’t have to.”

Something flickers in his expression then. Brief, ugly, and familiar. “You can’t tell me there’s nothing still there.”

“Yeah, I can.”

He reaches for my wrist. I pull back before he can touch me.

His smile vanishes. “You used to like it when I touched you.”

“Not anymore,” I say defiantly.

The silence that follows is tight as a drawn wire.

Then he laughs once, low and humorless. “You really think you’re too good for me now?”

My pulse starts to pound.

“This was a mistake,” I say, turning around. “I’m going back.”

His hand clamps around my arm.

“Dean—let go.” Pain shoots up to my shoulder.

“You led me all the way out here just to reject me?”

“I didn’t lead you anywhere. Let me go.”

His grip tightens. The air changes. A wave of heat rolls off him so sudden and unnatural it stops my breath.

My fear sharpens into something deeper than panic.

I jerk against his hold. “Dean, you’re hurting me.”

He smiles. But it isn’t Dean’s smile anymore. It stretches wrong.

Too slow. Too knowing.

“What if I don’t want to let go?”

The words crawl over my skin. I shove hard against his chest with my free hand. He barely moves. Then his eyes lift to mine and glow.

Red.

A deep, burning crimson like embers buried beneath ash.

I go still.

“Who are you?” My voice comes out thin and breathless.

His fingers slide from my arm to my waist, gripping hard enough to bruise.

“I wore his skin well enough to fool you, didn’t I?”

My stomach drops.

He leans closer, and the heat pouring off him smells faintly of smoke and iron.

“Hell hears things,” he murmurs. “Whispers, rumors, promises. And lately there has been such delicious talk… about a girl carrying something precious.”

My heart slams hard against my ribs.

“A little, seraphim.” he says, the word curling in his mouth like mockery. “Sheltering the devil’s light.”

I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it. But I understand danger.

I wrench backward with everything I have. He catches my throat in one burning hand.

My back hits a tree. Pain explodes through my shoulders.

I gasp, clawing at his wrist as his fingers tighten. Air won’t come. Black spots swarm at the edges of my vision.

He smiles as though he enjoys it.

“I aim to collect,” he whispers.

Then suddenly—He’s gone.