The road hummed beneath us like it was tired of listening. We'd been driving for hours. Maybe days. Neither of us really kept track anymore.
Somewhere between state lines and unmarked crossroads, it hit me—we hadn't touched. Not really. Not since the fight. Not since the blood, the ballroom, and the radio I couldn't hear.
It wasn't for lack of trying.
One night I leaned across the console, trailing my fingers down his arm, trying to spark something. Kaito smiled, said he was tired, and turned the music up just a notch too loud to talk over.
Two nights later, he reached for me after we stopped at a diner that smelled like boiled ham and bad decisions. His hand touched my knee like a question. I moved it off like it was a fly.
We weren't angry. Not anymore. Just… off.
Unplugged. Out of rhythm. Like someone had rewired the stage lights and forgotten the cue sheet.
So when I saw the clearing — an open patch of green just off the gravel road with a single willow tree bending like it was bowing to no one in particular — I tapped the dash.
"Pull over," I said.
Kaito blinked. "What?"
"I need air. And I know you need a break."
He glanced toward the tree. Then back to me. "You want to set up camp here?"
"I want a tiny picnic," I said, smiling just enough. "We still have the mini grill and that half-bag of apples. Don't act like you didn't pack it to feel domestic."
He exhaled through his nose. "You know me too well."
"Not well enough," I said, quiet-like.
He pulled over anyway.
I changed into the only thing I had left that was halfway clean — that god-awful yellow housewife set he liked. Cinched waist, flared skirt, collar so sharp it could slice a lie. I hated it. It made me look like someone's tired casserole-making aunt. But Kaito?
Kaito loved yellow.
Said it reminded him of sunlight on temples and gold coins dropped into wishing wells. I still thought it looked like bad lemonade. But I wore it anyway.
When I stepped out of the van, the way he looked at me — like I'd summoned summer just by existing — made me stop hating it for a moment.
He got the chairs set up under the willow tree, and I popped open the magical cooler we'd picked up two towns ago. It looked like a beat-up tin lunchbox, but it was charmed by a fae vendor with a lisp and a tattoo of Saturn on his tongue. Whatever drink you needed, not wanted — the cooler gave it. Whiskey sours, peach iced tea, mezcal laced with spell-heat, soda pop from memories you didn't know were yours.
I reached in and pulled out a strawberry soda I hadn't tasted since 1961, back when gas was thirty cents and my mama used to let me drink it from the bottle on the porch. Kaito got a lavender lemonade with bourbon in it — of course he did.
We clinked cups without speaking. The fire crackled. The breeze whispered something warm.
"I think we forgot how to be us," I said after a while, tracing a droplet down the curve of my drink.
Kaito looked at me over the rim of his cup. "Then maybe we need to rehearse again," he said. "Start with the easy steps."
"Like not ducking when we reach for each other?"
"Exactly."
We were two cups deep when I finally asked.
"So why didn't you say anything?" I said, poking at the fire with a bent fork. "About being Sonter?"
Kaito didn't flinch. He just sipped slow, eyes following the smoke like it might spell out his next line.
"It didn't feel important," he said.
I snorted. "Didn't feel important? That's like saying thunder don't matter to the storm."
"It's different for us," he replied. "Being Sonter… it's not just about power. It's about boundaries. Contracts. Ritual law. The kind of rules that override other rules. You tell someone you're Sonter, and suddenly everything gets complicated. Every word you say becomes a prophecy, every choice a judgment."
He looked tired as he said it, like he'd lived too many consequences already.
"There's an old tale," he added, leaning back against the tree, "about the first Sonter being born from a chime made out of bone — a sacred sound gifted by a dying spirit who said, 'Keep the balance or drown in the noise.' That's where the oath comes from. Balance over bias. Justice over devotion."
I turned that over in my mind.
"I grew up hearing Sonters were the elite of the elite," I said. "The ones that other enforcers whispered about when things got too big or too messy. Y'all didn't just take oaths — you made the damn scales."
"We didn't make 'em," he said softly. "We just keep 'em from tipping too far."
"Still. You're the reason one religion didn't snuff out another. The reason cults get weeded out before they get loud. You're like forest rangers. But the kind that kick ass and write laws in ghost-blood."
Kaito chuckled. "That's not far off."
"And you were just gonna keep that to yourself?"
He didn't answer right away. Just gave a shrug that felt heavier than anything he'd said.
"Maybe I was scared you'd look at me different," he admitted. "That you'd stop seeing me as Kaito, and start seeing me as the guy who could break a contract with a whistle."
"I mean, I am mad," I said, rising to my feet and gathering the cups and plates. "But not because of what you are. Because you didn't trust me with it."
He stood too, helping me fold the blanket. "I'll earn that trust back. Every day, if I have to."
"You will," I said, brushing my fingers along his. "Just not all in one night."
Before the last ember died, I paused. Looked over at him through the soft shadows.
"My mama said I was born with a veil," I said. "Midwife didn't even cut it right. I had dreams before I had teeth. Used to wake up crying about people I hadn't met yet."
Kaito blinked. He didn't laugh, didn't brush it off.
"I don't always tell people," I continued. "'Cause once you say you're touched — folks either want a miracle or a scapegoat. Nothing in between."
He nodded once, like he understood more than he let on.
"Guess we both got roots that run strange," I said.
"Maybe that's why we found each other," he offered.
"Or maybe we're just the two weirdest people on the same dirt road," I said, smirking.
The cooler vanished back into the van's enchanted drawer. I peeled off that ugly yellow dress — back into something loose and soft — and we climbed into the van's front seats like we were kids again, trying to make curfews we'd already broken.
The stars were out.
Real stars. Not city stars. Not illusion lights or glamored constellations. These were raw, ancient things that blinked like they knew too much.
We didn't talk.
Just sat.
I looked at him sideways, fingers brushing his arm. "You know," I said softly, "I think we've talked enough."
His brow furrowed. "You wanna sleep?"
"No," I said, shifting in my seat and letting my hand move lower. "I want to feel something that ain't a bruise or an apology."
I climbed over, straddled him, and kissed him. His fingers moved with familiar skill, slipping between my legs while I pressed into him, breath catching—
CRASH.
A hatchet slammed into the window.
A masked figure outside laughed — shrill and cracked like a broken cassette.
Kaito sighed. "Really?"
He didn't even move me. Just reached over, snapped his fingers, and let out a sharp whistle.
The van shuddered and expelled a burst of purple force that blasted the wannabe slasher across the clearing.
A group of robed figures emerged from the tree line, scooped up the twitching man, and disappeared without a word.
I slid off Kaito and fixed my shirt.
"Well. That's dead now."
He looked down, hand still in his lap. "I only used my hand."
"Yeah," I muttered. "I noticed."
I climbed into the back, curled up in my blanket, and stared at the wall.
Kaito stayed in the front seat, staring at the place where the slasher vanished.
He didn't turn the radio on.