Page 23 of Pretty Little Shadow
"You rescued a teenage girl and set her up with a bunch of shooter games?"Merrily lifted an eyebrow.
"She needed a way to cope," Grayson said defensively. "She picked the games. She also wouldn't let anyone else get near her,and she scared the hell out of every therapist I introduced her to. All things considered, she recovered pretty fucking well."
I shoved a hand through my hair, fighting the apathy that loomed at the back of my mind. "She's fine. Video games are cool. Where do you think she went? I have her phone, so we don't have a way to contact her."
"I don't know. She won't even give me her apartment number. How did you find it?"
"Asked the internet where the Wraith lived. Someone messaged me. Beatrice. Her neighbor, I think."
"You'll need to move her to somewhere more secure," Merrily put in.
"Believe me, I know." I dropped onto one of their barstools, my usual exhaustion slightly easier to deal with even though I hadn't had any coffee yet. Her shadows were doing that for me.
Grayson rested his arms on the countertop, leaning toward me. "You guys are going to have a really hard time with this, but it needs to be said. Rae isn't just going to let you move her. If you try, you'll push her away, just like you did with the phone call."
"It wasn't the phone call," Merrily protested.
"It was whatever he said during the phone call that freaked her out," Grayson agreed.
They both looked at me.
"I told her we could do whatever she wanted for the rest of our lives. That my life revolved around finding my soulmate before, and now that I'd found her, it would revolve around her."
"That's good," Merrily said.
"No. Rae hates making decisions. She also hates people. She really hates it when people rely on her, want something from her, expect things from her, or want her to rely on them."
"That's basically every part of being a person or in a relationship," Mer pointed out.
"Exactly." Grayson nodded. "She doesn't want to be a person. Not after what she went through."
"Then how am I supposed to make her accept that I'm a part of her life now?" I asked.
"I don't know. If you want even a chance, you're going to have to do it her way."
"How do I do that?"
"Take things slow. Wait until she's ready, like you were doing before you knew she was your mate."
"I was taking things slow because Ididn'tthink she was my mate, Darke."
"Will she ever be ready?" Merrily asked.
"She told me she'd burn my brewery down before she went back there, after her last shift as a bartender. She went back for Darius. She'll be ready eventually, but she's not going to play along with your plan. She doesn't know you, and she doesn't trust you. You're going to have to learn how to speak her language if you want that to ever happen."
"How do I speak her language? We get along fine."
Grayson held up his phone. "Rae doesn't do phone calls. She hates them. If you want her to like you, you text her. If she wants to talk, she'll call you or just appear."
"She doesn't have her phone with her, wherever she is. It's in my car."
"Wherever she went, she needs money," Merrily said.
Grayson strode over to a drawer nearby and grabbed his wallet. He glanced at it for a second before tossing it back. "She took one of my credit cards."
"We can use that to figure out what hotel she went to," Mer put in. "I'm assuming she needs somewhere to stay, since she's avoiding her apartment because of Dare."
"We can, if you're going to do things differently." Grayson looked back at me. "You have to realize that you're not just trying to win over your soulmate, Scorch. You're trying to win overRae. She likes you for some reason, and she hates most people. Figure out why she likes you, and use it."
