Halo (Halo Hearts #1)

Chapter 1

Kaia

The tour bus smells like citrus cleaner, stale popcorn, and the collective bad decisions of four women who’ve been awake for too many time zones.

Someone—Jules, obviously—has strapped a pair of rhinestone sunglasses onto a plastic skeleton’s face and buckled it into a seatbelt, like it’s part of the group. Mina named him Craig, and he’s wearing a Midnight Halo lanyard like he belongs.

Craig is currently vibing in the aisle, head lolling with every bump in the road like he’s nodding along to our impending doom.

I press my forehead to the window anyway, letting the cold glass steady me.

Outside, dawn bleeds into the sky in thin washes, bruise-purple fading to pale blue, the world rinsed clean and quiet.

Pines flash by, their branches glazed with frost. And even through the sealed bus, I swear I can taste the coast coming: salt and kelp and a sharpness that lives in the back of the throat.

Home.

I haven’t said the word out loud. I don’t plan to.

The bus hums under me like a living thing, the tires singing a low note against the road.

Every few miles, a streetlight flashes past, turning the cabin into a strobe of half-seen faces: Mina curled up in a hoodie too big for her, Remy sprawled across two seats with her boots on the armrest, and Jules…

Jules is upside down in her chair, legs kicked over the back like a gymnast who never learned to sit normally.

Jules catches my eye, grins, and mouths homecoming queen.

I flip her off.

Her laughter is silent but contagious. Mina snorts awake, blinking at us with bleary suspicion.

“Are we fighting?” Mina asks, voice rough with sleep. Her chin-length hair is an explosion of blond and static. She has a face that reads as innocent until you’ve watched her slice a demon in half with a sword and then ask for an iced coffee.

“No,” I say. “Jules is just being… Jules.”

“So that’s a yes then,” Remy murmurs from the shadows of her hood. She has her arm over her eyes, but her voice is sharp, awake.

Jules rolls upright, her bun listing to one side like it survived a storm. “Excuse you, I am being supportive. Our fearless leader is returning to the cradle of her humble origins. We should make a wreath. We should—“

“We should not,“ Blaire cuts in.

Blaire, our manager, sits with the calm, immaculate posture of a woman who has survived everything from demon attacks to fan wars to last-minute wardrobe malfunctions with the same serene expression.

Early forties, perfect hair that’s pulled back into a low ponytail, black coat that somehow always looks crisp, headset around her neck like she’s in permanent command mode.

She scrolls through a tablet with the focus of a general.

Every so often she takes a sip of her iced coffee and mutters little schedule blessings under her breath. And sometimes she reprimands us.

“We’re on a tight schedule,” she continues. “If you attempt to craft anything with the emergency bandage tape again, I will personally throw it into the sea.”

Jules looks wounded. “You wouldn’t.”

Blaire’s eyes flick up. Flat. Unblinking. “Try me.”

Mina’s grin flickers on. “Blaire would do it. She has ocean-throwing energy.”

The corner of Blaire’s mouth twitches, then she dives back into her tablet.

I let their voices wash over me like a tide. It helps. It keeps the sharp edges of my thoughts from cutting too deep.

Because outside the window, the first sign for Harbor’s Edge is coming up in a few miles. I can feel it like a bruise you keep bumping.

The bus shifts lanes. A strip of ocean flashes between the trees—dark, glassy, endless.

Somewhere out there is the breakwater where we used to sit with our shoes off and dare each other to jump.

Somewhere is the beach where I learned how to breathe around heartbreak by pretending it was just cold air…

Jules points at my reflection in the window. “Our fearless leader is staring dramatically into the distance again.”

“I’m not—“ I start.

“You are,” Mina mumbles, voice thick with sleep. “You’re doing the Kaia Thing.”

“What’s the Kaia Thing?” Jules asks immediately, delighted.

Mina cracks one eye. “The intense jaw. The tragic ocean-girl vibe.”

Jules interjects, “The ‘I am fine and definitely not emotionally compromised’ stare!”

“I am not emotionally compromised,” I firmly say.

Jules leans over the seatback, chin on her hands, eyes bright. “That’s exactly what an emotionally compromised person would say.”

I turn my head slightly, just enough to catch her smirk. “Go back to sleep.”

“I don’t sleep,” Jules says. “I recharge by being annoying.”

“That explains so much,” Remy mutters.

Blaire clears her throat softly. It has the same effect as a stage manager tapping a mic: not loud, but everyone feels it.

“Ten minutes until we hit the town limits,” she says. “When we arrive, we do the arena walkthrough, quick safety check, then soundcheck. There’s a closed briefing with Council reps before noon. No one wanders off.”

Jules pouts. “Define ‘wander.’”

“Define ‘off,’” Remy adds, deadpan.

Blaire doesn’t look up. “Define ‘consequences.’”

Mina sits up with a groan, rubbing her face. “Council reps? Already?”

“Already,” Blaire confirms. “There’s been an uptick in demon activity with the Harbor Lights festival approaching. We’ll be briefed soon enough.”

I don’t say anything. I just keep my gaze on the window and let the familiar weight settle in my ribs.

Some people are born with a Spark—an invisible predisposition to feel the world’s energetic current and shape it, instead of just adding to it. Untrained, it leaks out in small ways: lights flickering with moods, weird coincidences, animals going skittish, and dreams that feel half-real.

The Council calls them Resonants—people whose souls hum at the right frequency to move magic instead of merely feeding it. Most never get fully lit. They stay a little strange, a little sensitive, kinda witchy, but manageable.

We’re the ones they trained and turned into a bonfire.

I keep my gaze on the window. The road curves toward the coastline.

Harbor’s Edge is coming.

My fingers slip into the pocket of my jacket before I can stop them.

Paper. Soft, worn. Folded down into a tight square, edges rounded from years of being pressed, unfolded, refolded. A diner receipt, grease-ghosted and faded, like a relic from another life.

On the back, in looping teenage handwriting with too many exclamation marks, it says:

KAIA RHEE’S OFFICIAL “DON’T PANIC” RECEIPT!!!

breathe (yes you have lungs. use them.)

drink water (not energy drinks! water!)

if you forget the words, just smile and point at me. i’ll scream them for you.

if anyone is mean, i will bite them.

after: fries. extra salt. no arguing.

PS: your voice is my favorite sound. don’t tell anyone i said that or i’ll deny it forever!!!!!

Evie’s handwriting.

My thumb rubs over the words like I can erase them by touch. Like I can sand down memory until it stops cutting.

I should have thrown it away years ago.

Jules notices the shift in me the way she notices everything she can turn into a joke.

Her grin softens, just a shade. “You’re really from here,” she says, like it’s a revelation she keeps trying to make feel less heavy.

“I told you that,” I say.

“You told us you’re from ‘a small coastal town,’” Jules replies. “That could mean anything. That could mean, like… a quaint postcard village. Or a cursed fog-port where fishermen disappear.”

Remy adds, “And you say ‘the ocean’ like it’s a person you’re avoiding eye contact with.”

Jules leans forward, elbows on the back of her seat, grin sly. “Also you change the subject every time someone says the words high school.”

“That’s because high school was bad,” I say.

Jules’ eyes brighten. “Was it? Because I am sensing lore.”

Blaire doesn’t look up. “Jules.”

“I’m just curious,” Jules says, all innocent teeth. “Kaia’s like… the team mom. The responsible one. The one who always has extra throat spray and knows where Mina left her charger and—“

”—and who will murder you,“ I finish.

“See?” Jules says, delighted. “Lore.”

Mina giggles, then clamps a hand over her mouth when she realizes how loud it is in the quiet bus. “Jules, don’t poke the bear.”

“I’m not poking,” Jules says. “I’m bonding. It’s team-building.”

Remy shifts, the hood of her sweatshirt shadowing her face. “If this is your idea of bonding, I’m requesting a transfer.”

I roll my eyes at both of them and glance out the window once more. The particular curve of the road. The way the pines thin and the sky opens. The smell of salt rising stronger now, pressing against the window like a hand.

And in the middle of all of it, a quiet, vicious awareness I keep trying to swallow down: Evie is here.

Don’t look her up.

Don’t ask about her.

Don’t make this about you.

Evie is better off not seeing you.

Mina’s gaze flicks to my face, then away, like she’s giving me privacy while still letting me know she’s there. Mina is gentle like that. Quietly. When she wants to be.

“Kaia,” she says softly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I answer automatically.

Remy murmurs, “That’s not a real answer.”

Jules points at Remy like she’s won a prize. “See? Even Remy agrees.”

Remy’s voice stays flat. “I agree that you’re annoying.”

Jules beams. “You love me.”

“I do not,” Remy says, but she doesn’t sound like she means it.

Mina’s eyes stay on me, patient. “You haven’t been back in a long time, right?”

“No,” I say. Then, because honesty is a splinter you can’t ignore forever, I add, “Not since… before.”

Before Midnight Halo. Before Eon. Before the first time I stood onstage and felt the crowd’s love slam into me like a wave, bright and intoxicating and dangerous.

Before I stopped being a girl from Harbor’s Edge and became something people could project onto.

Jules’s voice turns quieter without losing its warmth. “So this is a big deal.”

“It’s a job,” I say, and my tone tries to make it true.

Remy huffs a soft laugh. “Sure.”