Danny’s POV
Five nights.
Five nights I've logged into Echo, stood by the stone bridge like some pathetic digital ghost, and watched the spot where Siren should be stay empty. Five nights of checking my messages so obsessively that my fingers know the pattern without my brain's permission.
"Hey, you okay?" "Starting to worry here." "Siren, seriously. Just tell me you're alive."
Nothing. Not a single read receipt. Not a fuck off or a leave me alone or even a cold shoulder I could at least interpret. Just silence — the kind that crawls under your skin and makes a home there.
I replay our last conversation for the hundredth time. The Love Room. The way her voice cracked when she told me about her parents. The way she trusted me with pieces of herself that felt like holding something breakable. The way she asked me to be her first.
I rip off the headset and throw it across the room. It bounces off the wall and lands on a pile of motorcycle parts I've been meaning to sort for three weeks. The clatter is satisfying for about half a second before the silence rushes back in.
My apartment is a disaster. Textbooks stacked on the kitchen counter because I ran out of shelf space. Engine parts spread across the coffee table like some kind of mechanical autopsy. A pizza box from two days ago that I keep meaning to throw away.
Mom left dinner in the fridge with a sticky note on top: "Eat something. Love you. — Mom"
I stare at it for a long moment. Then I close the fridge and pace instead.
Siren trusted me with her real voice, her real pain, her real self — and now she's gone. Like I imagined the whole thing, like five years of friendship and one night of something more just evaporated into pixels.
My phone buzzes. Raf.
"Yo. You coming to the clubhouse tonight? Marcus is running his mouth again."
I answer. "Not tonight."
"Come on, man. He's saying shit about the new territory lines. Someone needs to shut him up, and you know I don't have your diplomatic charm."
"Since when do I have diplomatic charm?"
"Since never, but you've got fists and a short temper. Close enough." A pause. "Seriously though. What's wrong with you lately? You've been somewhere else for weeks."
I lean against the kitchen counter and stare at the ceiling. How do I explain this? Hey Raf, I'm in love with a girl I've never seen. A voice in a video game. Someone who let me hold her in the dark and then disappeared without a trace. Someone who might be dead or married or just done with me, and I have no way to know which.
"Just tired," I say. "Long week."
"Bullshit. You've been weird since before the rooftop thing." A pause. "Wait — is this about that North Side princess? The one who ran from you like you had the plague?"
"Can you even hear yourself?" I snap. "I couldn't care less about her."
"Sure sounds like you care."
"The problem isn't her, Raf. Trust me."
"Then what is the problem?"
I open my mouth. Close it. How do I explain the real problem when I can't even say her name out loud?
"Goodnight, Raf."
"Danny—"
I hang up before he can push harder.
The apartment feels too small. The walls are pressing in, and I can still smell the lingering ghost of Mom's dinner, and everything reminds me of something I'm trying not to think about.
My mind drifts to the rooftop. Nora Ashford.
North Side princess with her designer dress and her ice-cold attitude. The way her jaw tightened when I called her princess. The fire in her eyes when she snapped back at me — real fire, not the polished performance most rich girls give you.
I enjoyed getting under her skin. It was entertaining. A game within a game.
But then I said "rules are optional" — just a throwaway line, something I say all the time — and she looked at me like I'd grown a second head. Like I'd said something impossible. And then she ran.
No explanation. No comeback. No carefully constructed insult delivered with that sharp tongue of hers. Just gone. Disappeared into the crowd like I was something to escape from.
And something about that stings more than it should.
Siren disappeared. Nora ran. Two different women, two different worlds, and both of them wanted nothing to do with me.
Maybe everyone's right about me. Maybe I really am the problem. West Side trash with a chip on his shoulder, too broken to be worth anyone's time. My professors see it. Marcus sees it. Every North Side asshole who's ever looked at my jacket and decided I'm beneath them — they all see it.
Maybe they're not wrong.
I grab my keys and head to Iron Hour. It's almost midnight, late enough that the gym should be empty, late enough that no one will watch me fall apart.
The fluorescent lights hum overhead as I wrap my hands. The heavy bag hangs in the corner, patient and silent, waiting for whatever I need to give it.
I start slow. Jab, jab, cross. Finding the rhythm. Letting muscle memory take over while my brain keeps spinning.
Siren's voice: "I haven't ever done this with someone."
Nora's face: pale, shocked, running.
Jab, jab, cross. Harder now.
My mom working double shifts while I was too young to help. My dad's back disappearing through the front door when I was seven. The way people look at me and decide who I am before I open my mouth.
Hook. Uppercut. The bag swings.
"You're West Side trash," Nora's voice echoes in my memory. Not something she said — but something she thought. I could see it in her eyes at the gym, at the bar, every single time we crossed paths.
And Siren? Siren saw something different. Siren saw me.
But Siren's gone.
I slam my fist into the leather so hard my wrist screams. Pain shoots up my arm, sharp and clarifying. I do it again. And again. Until my knuckles are raw and my shoulders are burning and my lungs are gasping for air.
Two different women. Same result.
Maybe this is just what happens. Maybe people get close enough to see the real me, and then they leave. My father figured that out early. Walked away before I was old enough to remember his face properly. Smart man. Efficient.
Maybe he had the right idea.
I unwrap my hands slowly, watching the blood bloom on the white fabric. My wrist is definitely sprained. I'll deal with it tomorrow.
The gym is silent around me. No Siren waiting in the digital dark. No Nora to fight with under fluorescent lights. Just me and the heavy bag and the growing suspicion that I'm not built for the kind of connection I keep chasing.
I drive home with the windows down, letting the cold air bite my face. Mom's light is off when I get back. Good. I don't want to explain the wrist.
I fall into bed without showering, without eating, without logging back into Echo to check one more time.
Siren’s not coming back.
And I'm going to have to learn how to live with that.