Charcoal Tears (13 page)

He flinched and seemed to hesitate, but gradually set his jaw. “Show me.”

I shook my head. “I mean it, you don’t want to see.”

Wariness passed over his expression. “Where is it?”

I pointed to a spot toward the top of my rib cage, right in the middle, nestled a few inches below my breasts. His eyes narrowed and drifted to the spot before snapping back to my face, his expression matching my own discomfort.

“You want me to get fired.” He sounded angry.

I didn’t answer him, because it seemed like a silly thing to say. Of course I didn’t want him to get fired.

“Check her.” His voice cut through the room again, resonating, and he turned his back, waiting.

Hands lit on my shoulders, spinning me, and Noah’s fingers curved into the hem of the shirt I wore. His eyes moved to mine, checking for permission. I hesitated, but eventually gave a short nod, holding a little firmer to the pants falling off my hips. He tugged the shirt up and bunched it in a fist against my chest. His eyes found my marks straight away, and Cabe’s head bent, his eyes widening. He reached out, brushing a finger over the lower mark. I peeked down, but I couldn’t see it from my vantage point right now. I remembered thinking that it looked like a weirdly-shaped piece of cut glass, when I was younger. The top mark matched the curve of the lower mark, but had a few extra spikes, until it resembled more of a disfigured star.

Noah dropped the shirt and Cabe straightened. The silence stretched too long.

“Well?” Quillan had apparently turned around. He appeared beside me now.

Cabe surged forward, grabbed my face and fused his lips to mine. The electricity raced through my system stronger than ever before, accompanied by a heady sense of blurred indecision. For a moment, I could have sworn that I blacked out, and he pulled back quickly enough to trick me into thinking the brief kiss hadn’t happened at all. I could see faint lights darting through the air, like the wings of lightning bugs being tossed around in the stronger currents of a breeze. Cabe tore through the room in several long strides and slammed the door behind his exit. Quillan’s eyes were wide, wonder and fear wrestling for prominence over his expression. The wonder was there as his eyes traced the dying sparks in the air, and fear was there when they landed on me.

Noah had his jaw locked, and his fists were clenched. His eyes were glued to mine, his pupils dilated. “Miro,” he said, very slowly, confusing me as he still stared at me while he spoke to Quillan. “Let me see.”

Quillan thrust his arm out and Noah’s eyes left me to glance at something on Quillan’s arm for only a second before snapping back. The storm was rolling in around me again and something about it was pulling me in stronger than before. I stumbled forward and the brilliant blue of his gaze deepened, pressing in.

“
Well
?” Quillan repeated.

Noah didn’t answer; he seemed to have forgotten about him.

“Don’t follow me,” he said.

It took me a moment to comprehend, and then he was gone, too.

“What?” I turned, finding Quillan.

He looked pained. “You’re going to have to show me.” He bit off the sentence on a curse, running his hands through his hair. “They won’t tell me.”

“You swear a lot for a teacher.”

He folded his arms, his voice deepening to a warning growl. “Seraph.”

Without hesitation, I pulled up the hem of my shirt. He glanced at my marks. “Two?”

He went to his knees, his hand rising as if to touch me. He hovered there for a moment, neither coming closer nor drawing away, and I could see the turbulent emotions gathering in his eyes. He didn’t say anything for a long time, and I realised that I was shaking, my teeth chattering, the numbness from Cabe’s sudden kiss only now beginning to recede. Quillan touched one of the marks with the pad of this thumb, barely applying any pressure before he stood and his eyes settled heavily on mine. The intensity was missing, and I found myself strangely grateful. Quillan never touched me like Noah and Cabe did; he never forced his presence on me.

“You’re a miracle,” he muttered.

The door opened and Quillan jerked back several steps, like he had been caught doing something bad. For a moment, I had felt close to him—but with the look he was shooting me now, I couldn’t help feeling that he found me threatening in some way.

7

Rules of Engagement

Cabe stood in the doorway, glaring at Quillan as the other man drew past. “We need to have a meeting,” he said to me. “Can you wait for us?” His voice had softened, and his warm toffee eyes pleaded with me to understand.

All I managed was a nod.

I wasted too much time standing there clutching at the too-big sweatpants and fighting the receding itch of sensation that seemed to be diluting itself in my bloodstream. Cabe hadn’t specified where I should wait. I hiked the pants higher and crept after them, tiptoeing down the hallway to Silas and Quillan’s apartment. I pressed my ear to the door and heard muffled voices within.

“…need ground rules,” Quillan was saying. “It’ll spiral out of control otherwise.”

“This whole thing is a mess. How are two marks possible?” Silas wasn’t happy. I knew that his wild eyes would be burning, and I was pretty glad that I was safe on the other side of a closed door.

“Miro’s right,” Noah cut in. “We need those ground rules, or this will tear us all apart—not to mention her. She’s barely prepared for
one
—”

“This isn’t right!” Silas’s anger was mounting, and I took a shocked step away from the door. My breath was racing and my palms were clammy; I waved my hands in the air, trying to dry the sweat, and stepped back up to the door.

“…to the rules,” Cabe said. “I probably overstepped already.”

“Dangerously, you idiot.” Noah sounded almost as angry as Silas now.

“It was barely a second!”

“Fine,” Quillan’s voice boomed, smothering their arguing. “That’s where we draw the line then. Nobody kisses her, or even touches her more than what is necessary: nothing romantic, and nothing to encourage the bond to form. Got it?”

“What if she’s the one who acts?” Silas’s voice was derisive, like he was making fun of Quillan.

The room grew quiet. I turned away, not wanting to hear anymore. The only part that I really understood was the part where they all agreed not to start anything remotely romantic with me. It sliced right through my chest and left me cowering inside, and I didn’t even know why. I wasn’t in love with all four of them, or even one of them. I certainly didn’t
like
the uncomfortable and unnatural feelings that seized me at their nearness, or the weird blackout caused by Cabe’s kiss.

I immediately wished that I were back in the bar, talking to the one stranger that I felt I could trust… and the crack inside my chest morphed into a chasm.

I closed the door to Noah and Cabe’s apartment with a soft click and cleaned up the mess I had made in Cabe’s bedroom. I returned the food to the kitchen and grabbed a blanket from the living room, retreating back to the piano room with a pencil that I had stolen from Cabe’s desk.

I snagged one of Noah’s notebooks and snuggled into the couch, fitting the blanket around myself and beginning to take my anger out on the page.
Or was that pain ripping through my body
? I sketched until my eyes itched, and then I curled up and went to sleep. It must have been close to midnight by the time Cabe and Noah woke me up to drive me home. The moon was high in the sky, casting a milky film over the road that scrolled beneath us and lending me a calmness that seemed to directly contradict the day I had just had.

“Maybe I should just do what the photographer wants—”

“Not an option,” Noah interrupted me, his knuckles turning white around the steering wheel.

“It’s not just a prank, Noah. I’m not stupid.”

“It’s a silly game,” he insisted. “Nobody even went inside your house. The creep was watching from windows in most of the photos, zooming in to make it look like they were really inside.”

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
.

“Is this someone you know?” I hesitated asking the question, getting the feeling that I was about to step into something much bigger than myself, but not willing to sit and wait in silence.

“We don’t know,” Cabe answered me, his face turned toward the window and his voice strangely subdued. “Please Seph… no more questions tonight.”

My fingers curled into fists on my lap and I blinked down at them, warring with anger and fear. Eventually, it was wariness that won out, and I didn’t speak until Noah pulled up outside my house. I said a quiet goodnight and entered my house, listening for any alien sounds. The curtains were pulled back, causing slithers of ghostly moonlight to transform our rudimentary furniture into blocky silhouettes. I wanted to turn on the lights so that I could be assured that the shadows weren’t moving, that it was simply the brief fluttering of the curtains, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to exist in the darkness, where it would be harder to see me. I crept up to Tariq’s bedroom and tried the door handle, but it was locked. I rapped on it lightly and waited, but there was no answer.

“Tariq?” I called out softly, knocking again. I tried not to cater to the acidic feeling rising in the back of my throat.

He is fine.

He is sleeping.

The door creaked open and my brother’s sleep-mussed hair appeared in the crack, his bleary green eyes trying to focus. “Seph?” he asked, and then he seemed to come awake all of a sudden. “
Seph
!” He pulled me into a hug that crushed my face against his bony chest, and then he held me out again, examining me for damage. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” I patted his hands, encouraging him to release me. “Just wanted to check in on you before I went to sleep. Did you have any trouble with Gerald tonight?”

“No, he had already left by the time I got home. Cabe told me everything. What are you going to do about this guy?”

“What makes you think it’s a guy?”

He stuttered, as though he hadn’t even considered the fact that it could have been either gender, and then he scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know. I just assumed?”

“Well I don’t know what to do. I’ve thought about just doing what they want.”

“Which is?” He ventured the question with a drawn-out softness, like he had already guessed it, but he wanted me to admit it.

“Whoever is taking these pictures, it would seem that they want me to stay away from Noah and Cabe. But the boys won’t let me.”

“It’s not their decision.” Tariq’s tone grew a sharp edge, and I sighed, turning to walk into my own room. He followed.

“They know,” I said, pulling my pyjamas from my cupboard after checking that the curtains over my window were closed tightly. “About the electricity.”

“You
told
them? Are you crazy, Seph?” He had moved to lean against the wall beside my desk—which consisted of a plank of plywood balanced across four blue milk crates—but he stood up straight again now, throwing his hands out beside him in a gesture of frustrated disbelief.

“They already knew.” I played with the bundle of clothing in my lap, moving to sit on the edge of my bed. “Or at least they expected. They’re like me.” I looked up and watched as the realisation settled into his expression, and then he visibly deflated, sinking back against the wall, his arms falling lax beside him.

“Well…” His throat worked, and he seemed to be fighting for what to say. “Well… that explains a lot.”

I scoffed lightly, and an unwilling smile broke out across his mouth. “No offense, Seph, I know you must be excited to have other people out there like you, but maybe that’s not a good thing, you know?”

“I know. I’m not excited. I’m worried.”

He nodded, weariness settling over him like a cloud. It aged his young face and seemed to make his limbs heavier. He slouched over. “Do they have a plan for this photographer?”

“I think so.”

“Well it’s more than what we have,” he admitted. “I need to sleep. Do you want me to leave the door unlocked?”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Alright. G’night, Seph.”

“Night.”

I watched him leave and then made my way to the bathroom. I paused, my hands lingering on the hem of my shirt, staring at the shower. I looked to the window, noting that someone had already drawn the blinds, but I still didn’t feel secure. I decided to forgo the shower, and instead I changed into my pyjamas beneath a towel before I went to bed.

The next morning I woke up naked.

I was lying on top of the covers, my clothes folded neatly on the end of the bed. I scrambled up and screamed, clutching at myself. My fingers came away sticky and red, and for a terrifying moment, I thought that it was blood, but it was too bright, like paint.

Fresh paint
.

I ran to the slab of mirror propped up against the inside of my wardrobe, my eyes widening on the smiley face that had been painted onto my stomach. My rush to the mirror must have been predicted, for a message had been painted along the bottom in neatly sloping red letters.