Charcoal Tears (12 page)

“Why isn’t she opening her eyes?” The visitor’s words tried to pierce my concentration and draw me out, but I pushed it all back and burrowed deeper into myself.

“She’s trying to imagine it away.”

I didn’t realise it until Cabe spoke, but that was exactly what I was trying to do. My forehead was creased with effort, and I was desperately trying to drive every associated thought from my mind until the truth of it simply didn’t exist anymore. I was trying to lie to myself.

Nothing is happening. Everything is fine.

“How do you know?” the voice asked, niggling me with familiarity again.

“We’ve seen her do it before, sort of,” Noah said, walking back into the room. It must have been his phone ringing before.

“Hmm…” The visitor let it go, and once again, something tugged in my brain.

I opened my eyes and the world swam back into focus. Standing in the middle of the sunken living room was… the stranger from the bar.

“Silas,” I muttered, feeling like a complete and utter idiot.

His eyes whipped up and found mine. The wild fire was there, untamed and threatening to break out and consume everything in its path. “You know who I am?” He was toneless, and it seemed an odd thing to say, considering.

“She’s smart. We’ve mentioned you.” Noah folded his arms and watched my face.

Silas knew exactly who I was, but the others apparently weren’t aware that he had known me almost as long as Quillan. He was hiding it from them. I could have laughed. The door opened and Quillan strode in then, and I actually did laugh. It was so obvious that him and Silas were brothers now.

Twins, even.

I pushed up from my seat, shoving my hands through my hair. “Perfect!” I tossed my arms out like a crazy person, my hair ruffled from my rough treatment of it. “A team of good-guy stalkers to outwit the bad-guy stalkers!”

Cabe laughed, Silas grimaced.
Good
. I was mostly talking about him anyway.

I marched past them all, peeking through doors until I found a bedroom. I shut myself inside, and then just as quickly opened the door again. I stalked to the kitchen, grabbed an apple and an open carton of milk, half a loaf of bread and a tub of peanut butter, and then marched back to the bedroom. It reminded me of Cabe; wonderfully warm and permeated with a light spring scent. I piled my goodies onto his desk, ate for a solid ten minutes, and then pulled off my clothes, stealing one of Cabe’s shirts to wear over my underwear. It fell down to my thighs like a summer nightgown. I burrowed beneath his blankets and tossed a pillow over my head. Within half an hour, I was asleep.

I woke from a dream that left stabbing dread poking through my body, and I dragged myself across the room, hunting through things until my hands found a notebook and a pencil. I retreated back into the warmth of the bed and started sketching, still half-asleep as the lead caressed the page. I drew into wakefulness as the picture formed before me. Five silhouettes lined up in a snapshot, a smaller one in the middle with hair that swept to the side in a lazy imitation of waves.
Me
.

The
me
in the drawing held hands with the two figured on either side, but it didn’t seem like a romantic gesture. There was tenseness in the tendons that pulsed beneath the skin, and the grip was tight-knuckled. Drawing the tension into the lines, I found myself swept-up in a baseless terror. The two figures on the outside had long gun barrels resting over their shoulders, and one of them wore a hood.
Silas
. We faced a building stretching up into the backdrop of the snapshot. It was unfamiliar. With a frown, I closed the notebook and wedged it back where I had found it, tossing the pencil onto the desk.

I left the bedroom and found the apartment to be empty. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where they were. I left the apartment and turned to the only other door on that floor, right at the end of the corridor. I didn’t bother knocking; I simply opened it and walked in.

This apartment was almost identical, but the sunken living room was a tech-centre, with tables pushed up against each other and screens lined up either side, random machines blinking and beeping away. Four sets of eyes found me. Noah and Cabe, my confusing friends; Quillan, my distant safe-keeper; and Silas…

Their jaws were unhinged, and I glanced down.
Crap
. I should have changed my clothes first. My bare legs glared out at me from beneath the hem of Cabe’s shirt, and I knew I was blushing when I looked up again.

“Made yourself comfortable?” Cabe sounded amused.

“Er…”

“Come on, Seph, let’s go watch a movie.” Noah stood and walked to me, tucking my hand into his and drawing me further into the apartment, he turned to one of the doors.

I planted my feet. “I want to help.”

Noah examined my expression, and I could feel the eyes of the others burning into my back.

“You shouldn’t have brought her here,” said a softly clipped voice. Silas.

I bit down on my lip so that I didn’t frown, and Noah still stood there, trying to decide.

“She can help if she puts on pants,” Quillan spoke up, sounding significantly uncomfortable.

I spun around, eyeballing my art teacher. There was colour high in his cheeks, and his words echoed in my head again. My belly twisted, and I resumed my earlier routine of poking through doors until I hit a bedroom. Cabe was openly laughing at me by this time, but I slipped inside, hunted down a pair of boxers, and slipped them on underneath the shirt. I returned to the living room and spread my hands.

“Better?”

The colour in Quillan’s face flamed brighter. Oops. These were his.

“Seph…” Noah was laughing along with Cabe now, and Silas was giving me a funny look.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Wrong room.” I slipped the shorts off where I stood and opened the door again, tossing them inside.

Quillan muttered a curse under his breath and Cabe was losing it. He couldn’t even stand anymore he was laughing so hard. I ignored them all and found another bedroom, pausing just inside the doorway, because someone had appeared behind me. A touch nudged the centre of my back, I fell forward a step, and the door closed behind me. I spun around, flinching at the man who stood framed by the closed door, arms folded tightly over his broad chest.

“I don’t wear boxers, angel,” Silas said.

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, spinning around. I hated when people found out what
Seraph
meant, but my preoccupied anger fizzed out as his words sank in. My steps faltered, and I turned back.

“Thought I’d save you the time.” He was almost smiling, his wild eyes glinting with mingling amusement and annoyance.

I blew out a breath. “Can I borrow pants or not?”

He lifted a brow and moved around me, extracting a pair of stretchy sweatpants that had been folded into one of his drawers with military precision. He held onto them, casting his eyes over me. It seemed that the longer he looked at me, the darker his mood became.

“Well?” I grumbled.

The remaining amusement fled then, and his mouth drew tightly into a scowl. He tossed me the pants and folded his arms again, not bothering to turn around and give me privacy. I rolled my eyes a little, holding onto his shoulder to pull the absurdly long pant-legs up around my ankles. I wasn’t scared of him.

“You don’t want me here, I get it. Whatever your secrets are, I won’t be spilling them. I just want to find this person and make them leave me alone.”

He stepped back and I hopped over to his bed to prevent myself from falling over.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “
Trust me
.” He spun before I could answer and left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. I had the feeling that he wanted to lock me in.

I settled the pants around my hips as I contemplated the closed door. Even though the material was stretchy, I was swimming in them. I had to hold them up as I walked, and Cabe and Noah tried not to smirk at me as I exited the bedroom.

“What can I do?” I asked, sitting on the stairs and bending over to try and fold the ends of the pants up. I deliberately didn’t look at Silas.

“List the people that could possibly be doing this to you,” Quillan said, handing me a piece of paper and a pen.

The rest of them went back to whatever they were doing, and I stared down at the paper, biting the end of the pen. After a few minutes, I looked up. “I don’t really know many people.”

“Told you,” quipped Cabe. “Nobody could hate her, just look at her face.”

I tossed Cabe an annoyed glance, but he only winked in response.

“I’m through.” Silas’s voice boomed, causing us to jump. “Everyone out. I’ve got minutes before this breach trips a mobile intruder alert.”

Nobody spoke as Silas’s fingers flew across his keyboard, and rapid lines of code began to bloom over his console screen. Quillan left the apartment first and Cabe followed him, Noah led me out, and I shuffled to the other apartment in my too-long pants.

“Nothing we can do now,” Cabe said, pushing the soft curls back from his face. “Silas is stealing back control from the hacker. He’ll infiltrate his entire network and figure out exactly where the cameras are. We’re hoping that nobody was there… physically.”

“How did the hacker get control in the first place? I thought Silas had everything based from the computer he left in our house?”

“I don’t know,” Cabe admitted, sharing a glance with Quillan. “We underestimated them.”

I nodded as though we were discussing the weather and drifted toward the piano room. I folded myself onto the stool and started playing through my melodies. It was hard to remember them, and my fingers felt stiff, but it soon came back to me. I shifted down the stool and looked up at Noah. He was sprawled out with his head back against the stairs, his eyes closed. Cabe and Quillan sat together speaking quietly.

Noah’s head picked up and a smile hooked. “More?”

I nodded, and the others looked over. He stood and sat beside me, playing through the notes of another melody.

“That’s how she’s learning?” Quillan asked, astonishment coating his voice.

I flicked him a look, my mimic of Noah’s notes breaking off. “Hey.”

He blinked at me. “You know that’s not normal, don’t you? You’ve never played piano before.”

“How do you know that?”

“Teachers gossip.”

“Well, I’m a quick learner.”

Quillan studied me for a few more moments and then stood, situating himself to hover behind the piano. Cabe followed curiously.

“Play something a little harder,” Quillan instructed Noah. “And only play it once.”

Noah did, and I watched. Once he finished, I tried to mimic him. I hit a few wrong notes, but managed to remember the whole sequence. I pushed him off the stool and he stood, moving back. I replayed it over and over until it flowed together, and then I looked up, beaming.

“Yay,” I said.

They only blinked at me, but I wouldn’t let them ruin this for me. The patterns were relatively easy, and they helped to clear my brain. Maybe it wasn’t normal… but unlike the scratchy feeling that slithered beneath my skin when they touched me… this was natural.

“Do it again,” Quillan said quietly. “Lengthen it.”

Noah sat back down, and I moved over for him. He played a longer sequence this time, and I started to chew on my lip, watching him. I lost the pattern the first time, and asked him to repeat it. He did, and then I nudged him from the stool. I bumbled through the notes, hit the right sequence, and then played it repetitively into smoothness. I joined it with one of the earlier melodies and soon realised that they all went together. I played through right from the first one that he had taught me. When I was finished, I turned and opened my mouth, determined to demand the rest of the song.

Their expressions were completely blank. Noah sat back down on the stool beside me, and the others went back to their activities a little too casually. I could almost see their ears pricking up, listening to me. It took two hours for me to learn the whole song. Noah got up when I nudged him, and the others abandoned all pretence of pretending to ignore me. I took a deep breath and started the song, feeling so happy that I was actually playing the piano. The notes flowed together just how Noah played them, and when I ended the song, I realised that my eyes were closed.

“What the actual hell?” Noah finally blurted.

I spun in my seat, and Cabe slapped a hand over his mouth. “He means well done, sweetheart. You did a good job.”

“Anything else you feel like surprising us with?” Quillan asked, his face breaking into a wide smile. “I could pass some more time.”

“It’s just muscle memory,” I said defensively, standing up from the stool. “So, do you have any books on the Zev… Zeb—”

“Zevghéri,” Noah supplied with a sigh.

“Yeah, them.”

“Us,” he corrected. “And yes, but you can’t read them.”

“Why not?”

“Too soon, little ghost.”

I sighed, hiking Silas’s pants up, because they were almost slipping off my hips. “When can I read them?”

“Maybe next year,” Quillan quipped, moving to the door. “Let’s go make dinner.”

Cabe and Noah shared a look, part amusement, part something else, and then Cabe’s eyes went wide. “Wait!”

Quillan paused, halfway through the doorway, and came back inside. “What?”

Instead of answering him, Cabe looked at me. “Do you have any birthmarks?”

“Cabe!” Quillan barked, his voice cutting through the room and hitting me heavily. I didn’t like the sound of Quillan’s anger.

“You want to know as well,” Cabe rolled his eyes. “Well?” he asked, turning an easy smile on me.

I shrugged, looking at the floor. “Maybe. Why?”

Cabe’s smile faltered, and Noah stepped forward. “You do?”

Oh Christ, not Noah. He tipped my chin, and that overwhelming force slammed into me, pulling the words to my tongue. “Yeah…”

“Show me.” This was Quillan, and he had moved until he stood right behind me. There was determination in his voice. I spun.

“You don’t want to see,
Miro
.”