Charcoal Tears (23 page)

“What just happened?” Quillan finally spoke, sounding shocked.

I realised that my hands had unknowingly moved to the back of his neck, and I allowed my arms to grow slack and fall away as the silence in the room grew thick. Silas lowered me to the floor gently. I glanced up at his face, but the smile had faded, and I didn’t want to stick around to bear the shock of the inevitable cold shoulder that I knew would follow.

Cabe cleared his throat. “Tabby is bringing your brother around, Seph, and I don’t want to frighten him with all of Silas’s super-spy, fake ID shit.”

I nodded and spun on my heel, rushing for the door.

“Have you ever seen Silas
hug
somebody?” Cabe asked as we sat down in their lounge room to wait for Tariq and Tabby.

“I was beginning to think he was allergic to human sentiment,” Noah answered casually, sweeping me with a peculiar look.

I was glad when the door opened, because I wasn’t sure which direction the conversation was about to head in. Tariq entered first and I ran to him, hugging his middle. He was trembling, and I hated that he might be feeling afraid.

“That was for you, wasn’t it?” He was talking about the explosion.

Tabby entered after him, her eyes finding me straight away, waiting to hear the answer.

“I think so,” I said, not willing to say more than necessary.

Tariq hugged me again while Tabby greeted her sons. She was carrying a suitcase. Cabe drew Tariq away to the kitchen and I knew he was explaining the new arrangement. He pulled out a credit card and slapped it into Tariq’s hand. My brother tried to give it back and I smiled from the other side of the room. It took only a minute for Cabe to win, as I knew it would. He handed over a set of keys and I checked to make sure Noah was occupied with Tabby before I slipped away from them into the piano room and flicked the lock.

I pulled out the messenger’s phone and typed out a message.

You want me to stop the bond? Too late. It’s there. You can’t stop it, and I can’t take it back. Whatever you want from me, you won’t get it. Not anymore. Please leave me alone.

The reply came quickly.

You haven’t formed the bond, little Seraph. I would know.

I counted to ten under my breath
and then Noah shouted out from the next room, “Seraph!”

They started banging on the door, and I quickly replied to the text message.

It’s done.

The reply was almost instant.

That may be true, but strings can be severed. Bonds can be broken. Would you like to know how painful it is?

Quillan was there now too, foul language and all.

The phone vibrated in my hand, and I glanced down at the second reply.

We will see
.

I shoved the phone into my pocket and opened the door just as Silas stormed into the apartment, his posture vibrating, like he was ready to get into a fight. Quillan pulled up his fist and raised a single finger. I stared at the offending digit and puffed out a breath, but Silas moved swiftly, his torso blocking the others out. He hooked his finger into the neckline of my shirt and dragged me forward, twisting his body so that I didn’t collide with him, propelling me into the centre of the living room. I swatted at his hand and he released me, but he advanced until his chest was brushing mine.

“Don’t. Do. That. Again.” He was seething, the words stirring my hair as he bent over me, hiding what he was saying from Tabby and Tariq, probably.

I gave him a little push, and he captured my still-taped hands, spinning me until my wrists were stuck together over my chest and my back was crushed against him.

“Hey…” Tariq stepped forward, confused, his hand outstretched.

“It’s fine,” I grumbled. “It’s his job.”

Cabe laughed, and I saw the tension visibly deflate out of Quillan, whom I hadn’t noticed had also taken a step forward. Had they been worried that Silas would hurt me?

“Let me see?” Noah appeared in front of me and slipped his hand into my pocket. Silas still had a grip on my arms, so I couldn’t do anything to stop him. Noah flipped the phone open and read the messages, and then his mouth tightened into a grimace. “I suppose we could fake it…” he hedged.

Fake it? I thought we were already bonded
.

“Silas?” Tariq looked uncomfortable. “Can you let my sister go now?”

Silas released me, moving away from me so rapidly that the hairs at the base of my neck stirred. He snatched the phone straight out of Noah’s grasp, grabbed Quillan by the arm and marched out of the apartment, slamming the door heavily behind him. I rubbed at my wrists. I wasn’t sure how much I could say in front of Tabby and Tariq, so I stayed quiet. Tabby stared at the door, and looked back to her sons. She seemed perplexed.

“What’s going on?” she finally asked.

“The messenger guy gave Seraph a phone,” Cabe answered her. “She just texted him to get him to back off. Whenever he replies, it gets forwarded to all of our phones.”

“Hmm.” She stared at the door for a while longer, and then walked into the kitchen and started making lunch. I watched her back as she moved around, an alarming feeling trying to break into the forefront of my mind. Something about her felt off, but I shoved the feeling away.

There was
nothing
normal about any of this, Cabe and Noah’s mother was the least of my problems.

Cabe pulled me into Noah’s bedroom and dropped a suitcase onto the bed. “Pack some stuff, okay?”

He waited for me to nod, and then he ruffled my hair and left me alone. I packed everything that I had with me and lugged the suitcase into Cabe’s room, where Noah seemed to be packing for the both of them. Cabe was sitting on his bed, intent on his phone. Noah motioned me to close the door, and I did. I planted my suitcase next to his on the bed and then crawled up to the headboard, sitting myself next to Cabe. He dropped an arm over my shoulders and drew me in. I turned slightly, so that I was leaning back on him, watching Noah finish packing.

“Why did you say that we could fake it?” I asked quietly.

“Hmm?” Cabe answered me instead of Noah—who didn’t seem to have heard me.

“I thought we were already bonded,” I said a little louder.

Cabe dropped his phone and Noah paused, looking up with a shirt dangling from his hands. “It’s complicated,” he said.

“So we aren’t bonded?” I asked, trying not to be lulled by Cabe’s fingers drawing comforting circles over the material covering my shoulders.

“Sure we are,” Noah replied.

“Then what did you mean?”

His expression hardened. “Do you trust us?”

I nodded, but I wasn’t entirely sure.

He smiled and folded the shirt, dropping it into one of the suitcases. “I understand that it’s a lot to ask, Seph… to blindly trust people in a situation like this. But it’s for your own good. We can’t answer that question just yet—soon, but not just yet.”

“Why not?”

“It’s…” He paused and shook his head. “I can’t tell you any more than I already have until you’ve been introduced to the people in charge, and we can’t introduce you to those people right now or it might mess everything up. You, me, Noah, Silas, Miro. We’d all be ruined. Everything is hanging on by a thread, and what we’re attempting to do… most people would find it impossible. What
you
need to do… most people would be torn apart.”

I pulled away from Cabe, moving off the bed until I was standing, my fists clenched at my sides. “What do I need to do?”

They seemed to be silently consulting each other over my head, trying to decide what to tell me, or how to distract me so that I would stop asking questions.

“Tell me what you feel,” Noah eventually said, capturing my hand and drawing me to his side.

At first, I didn’t understand what he meant, but his thumb brushed over my knuckles and his hand slipped around my jaw, gently turning my face to his so that he could read my expression. The scratchy feeling that assaulted me whenever one of them touched me had gradually become muted, as I spent more time with them—but now it was back with a vengeance. It shivered up my arm from where Noah held my hand and jarred in my shoulder, making me feel stiff and tense. It was decidedly more uncomfortable than it used to be, and that fact alone felt strange. The endless blue of Noah’s gaze seemed to widen, drawing me in and hypnotising me so that I almost missed the way his attention momentarily slid from my face to examine how my body had stiffened from his touch.

“Cabe,” he whispered, not taking his eyes from me.

Heat slid across my back, and fingers grasped my free hand, slipping between mine. I wanted to wrench my hands free and run from the room. I wanted to run until I couldn’t feel the scratching anymore, until I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

“What do you feel?” Cabe asked, his words stirring against my ear.

I was having trouble breathing all of a sudden, my legs were weak and the room was beginning to blur. Noah and Cabe seemed to be closing in, and I wavered on my feet, flashing darkness whipping before my eyes.

“Seph!” Noah shouted, his hands on my shoulders, shaking me.

I stumbled back from them and my eyes flew wide, my hands thrown up before me to ward them off. Tiny wings of light were fluttering uncertainly around the room, zapping at the air in agitation and sidling up to me with unheard whimpers, caressing the skin of my arms and legs. My sight became blurred with the sudden appearance of tears, and everything merged before me into a kaleidoscope of light and colour: bright flickers between flashes of golden brown and turquoise blue.

“Why are you fighting it so much?” Cabe sounded upset, distraught even.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice was raw with the strain of despair and the threat of the inevitable, the unknown. It was a threat that I didn’t understand, yet one that I felt keenly.

“Cabe?” Tabby called from the living room. “Noah? What’s wrong with the lights?”

We all glanced up at the light in the ceiling. It was flickering.

“Nothing!” Cabe called out, as my mouth dropped open.

They both started to come toward me again, but I jumped back, throwing my hands up again. The hurt that rushed across their faces was unmistakable, and it seared right through me, leaving a painful trail of fire down the back of my throat. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, as the valcrick finally winked out and the ceiling light returned to normal. “I just… I don’t understand.”

I stumbled to the door, leaving them both there. I was embarrassed, and shaking badly. I wanted to go back to them, but I was terrified of what was happening. I closed the door behind me and found Tabby in the living room. I quickly turned so that she couldn’t read anything on my face, and escaped into the kitchen. I found Tariq in the dining room and wandered through the archway, taking my seat to the right of Quillan’s empty chair.

“Seph,” Tariq said.

“Little brother.” I reached out and he captured my hand. He looked down, surprised. “What happened to your hands?” He must not have noticed the tape on my hands before.

“I burned my hands trying to pull a car door off someone. The metal was hot.”

“What?”

“I accidently blew up a van.”

“
What
?”

I lifted my hands, twisted my fingers, and the sparks came easily. Maybe it was the fact that my stomach was still in knots from Noah and Cabe, or maybe I was just getting better at the little trick. Tariq looked at my hand.

“You mean… you…”

“Yeah. The messenger guy… he sent a van of guys to kidnap Cabe and Noah. They were about to kill them, so I blew up their van.”

“I’m glad they’re getting you out of this place, but I think I would have been happier if they hadn’t turned up in the first place.” Tariq sounded spiteful.

I thought about Silas and Quillan, pondering why the messenger hadn’t thrown a hissy fit at my connection to them. Possibly, he hadn’t known about it. Silas never spoke to me, and Quillan never touched me. They kept their distance for a year, but managed to stay close. Unsuspicious. Also, the messenger had asked me to stay away from my
pair
, not my
pairs
. Maybe he wasn’t aware that I had two of them.

“I know why you say that,” I sighed and squeezed his hand, “but things have changed for me.” I couldn’t tell him that my pairs—as strange, compelling and overbearing as they were—had brought me to life from a living death I hadn’t even been aware of… because I didn’t want to chance anyone overhearing that.

He knew anyway, I could see it in his eyes. He knew that I had changed, and I could tell that it was tearing apart his opinion of the whole mess.

“I’m better,” I whispered, “even if… things… aren’t better?”

I willed him to understand and slowly, he nodded. “Okay. But I want you to call and check up with me, alright? Make sure I’m not taking that guy’s car for joy rides and stuff.” He grinned.

“Which guy?”

“The scary one.”

“Ah, Silas.”

“What about me?” Silas asked, blowing into the dining room with all the darkness of an impending storm, Quillan behind him. I realised then that he never really
walked
. He prowled, or stalked, or crept up on people.

“Nothing.” I spoke lightly and moved to the dining room.

Silas sat beside me, mixing up the seating arrangement I was used to. He folded his arms and leaned back, accosting us with a level glare, though I suspected he hadn’t meant to cause discomfort. It was a simple side effect of his needing to look down from his considerable height, and the blackness of his eyes. Tariq shifted about nonetheless, more than a little uncomfortable.

Tabby had trailed them in. “They aren’t coming out,” she said. “Noah and Cabe, they’re locked in that room.”

Quillan looked at me. “Do you want to go and get them?”

I planted my hands on the table and started trembling all over again. I shook my head a little too hard. “Nope. No.”

Quillan gave me an odd look and went to fetch them. Only a few seconds later they all walked back in, setting the table for dinner. They talked easily with each other like nothing had happened, but Silas had his wild eyes fixed on me still, the weight of it bearing through me. When it got too much, I slapped his chest with the back of my hand.