Page 49 of Bite Back

DELILAH

Sweat drips from my brow, turned icy in the cutting autumn wind. I’ve spent the day looking for Luka. Searching for any clue as to where he might be.

This is the reality of the last few days, the last few weeks.

Time feels like it’s slipping through my fingers.

I spend my evenings roaming the sidewalks, creeping through alleyways, hanging around subway stops.

I’ve marked up a map of the city, crisscrossed it with red marker, stabbed it through with pushpins.

I’ve gone to every location Luka ever took me, everywhere he even mentioned.

Sometimes, in a fit of desperation, I’ve searched random neighborhoods, trawled random streets.

I’m constantly watching, constantly listening, and constantly disappointed.

All the while, thinking about the new woman, wondering how long we have.

I sink onto a metal bench at the edge of Central Park.

The streetlamp overhead flickers in and out, in and out.

The buzzing sets my teeth on edge. An oak stretches overhead, branches forming a canopy of shadow.

The garbage bin a few feet away overflows.

I hold my breath as the stench reaches me.

It smells like how I feel. Like a failure.

I check my phone, scrolling through the messages. There’s a string of texts from Sarah and Kirby about some big shifts with Sarah’s old pack back home. She’s going back for the first time since everything. I dash off a reply.

But nothing from Asher. Again.

He used to message me during the day. Tell me how he’s doing, what he’s doing.

But, he stopped after I told him how it made me feel like a roller coaster careening of the tracks.

That moment of weightless potential. Of hoping it would be news about Luka, finally.

And then everything crashing down, sinking under.

Still, even now, looking at the blank space where I wish a message would be, my heart sinks to my stomach. Will we ever get a real lead? Will we ever move on if we don’t?

What are we without Luka between us? Can I really embrace a happily ever after without closure?

The questions gnaw at me. I hate it. I hate that they stay, picking at the corners of my mind. Hate that I can’t let this go.

Is all I am what happened to me? Is this a quest to purge Luka or an exercise in etching him onto my soul?

I shake my head. No. There’s more to life than this. There’s more to me than this. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

What Luka did will always haunt me. Will shape me for the rest of my existence.

Which is why I need to do this. Not to show him, but to show myself.

My gaze hooks on a bodega across the street. Dark green buckets brim with brightly hued flowers. Wait.

Flowers.

We’d checked the florist right away.

But Luka’s mom said the anniversary of Ada’s death was coming up in a couple months. My fingers fly over my phone’s keyboard.

I curl my fingers tight around the device. It probably won’t work out. It probably will be another dead end. Luka won’t have gone there at all, or the shop will refuse to give Asher an address, or the address will be for a cemetery or something, not a home address, or—

The phone buzzes.

A small gasp escapes my lips as I read the message, written in all caps.

It’s an address.

The flower shop gave Asher the address.

I shoot back a text to Asher and tilt my head up. Storm clouds skitter across the bruised sky. A single raindrop lands on my cheek and slides down my face.

A storm is coming.