Charcoal Tears (22 page)

“What the hell?” I breathed out. There was nobody there.

Had I been painting with my eyes closed?

I looked back to the canvas. The painting was finished, perfect. The image made my heart ache, in a good way. I stared at it for a long time, and then covered it and left the studio with a chill creeping into the marrow of my bones. I kept touching my arms as we sat down to dinner that night, trying to rub away the feeling of the rain.

I didn’t broach the subject until I was lying on the carpet many hours later, working on the homework the boys had collected for me from my teachers. I was staring at the equations on my page, my mind floating away, and the boys were both in similar poses of half-hearted, studious respite.

I asked them, “What is my second ability?”

I felt both of them shift.

“What?” Noah asked groggily, indicating that he had been daydreaming, or more likely dosing off.

“My second ability. If valcrick is my first… what is my second?”

“I have no idea,” Cabe answered, sitting up and crossing his legs. “I’ve been watching. I haven’t seen it.”

“What if it has something to do with my art?”

“What do you mean?” Noah sat up now too.

“I’ll show you tomorrow,” I decided.

After Noah and Cabe went to bed, I crept down the hallway and tried the other apartment, finding it unlocked. It was dark and quiet inside, and I kept my steps light as I opened the door to the art studio and slipped inside.

“You’re lucky I’m not Silas,” Quillan spoke up languidly, causing me to jump.

I spun around, finding him on a couch pushed up against the window, a sketchbook in his hands. He looked tired, but amused. There was a dim reading lamp set onto the window sill behind him.

“Sorry.” I grimaced.

“It’s fine.” He chuckled. “Come and sit with me.”

“Why am I lucky you’re not Silas?” I questioned, folding myself onto the end of the couch and accepting the blanket that he passed me, pulling it over my legs.

“Two reasons,” Quillan began, setting his sketchbook aside and stretching his arms out as a yawn swelled in his chest. “One, he doesn’t like people sneaking up on him. He has an ‘act first, ask questions later’ policy. Two, because…” he hesitated, and seemed to consider me before releasing his last words. “You seem to rub him the wrong way. I’m surprised you’ve known each other for a year now. Very surprised.”

I looked to my lap, examining my fingers. Guilt swept into me, but it was one of those alien emotions that I felt didn’t entirely belong to me. I grappled with it, trying to push it away.

“Is he like that with everyone?”

“Worse,” Quillan sighed. I nodded, and he reached out to touch my shoulder. “Seph?” I looked up, feeling that he wanted my full attention. “I want you to know that no matter what Silas does or says, no matter how Noah or Cabe feel… I’ll always be there for you. No matter what this bond
makes
us feel,” he suddenly sounded bitter, “I will care for you. The way I always have. Do you understand?”

“I think so.”
Not at all
.

13

Borderline

We took the Jeep to school, and I sat in a puddle of nerves the entire time. Somehow, the messenger knew all of my movements, and was always one tiny step ahead of me. He’d planned to punish me, and I had blown up his van and killed one of his men and then I’d gone right back to spending time with the boys—though I didn’t really understand the technicalities of the bond, I knew that the messenger wanted me to stay away from Noah and Cabe.

Silas had tampered with the cell phone the messenger had left for me, and it was in my pocket now. If he sent any messages, they’d immediately forward to the other four guys. We pulled into the parking lot and Noah said goodbye to us once we reached homeroom. I started toward my seat, but then realised that someone was sitting in it. The girl had brown hair, twinkling blue eyes and she wore a top cropped off at the waist with high-waisted shorts. She was very pretty.

“Cabe!” She smiled wide when we walked into the room, and Cabe smiled back. The uneasy feeling riding the base of my spine increased with the pressure of acid now rolling in my stomach.

Ugh. Not this again
.

“Oh.” She pretended to only just notice me. “Didn’t realise you were coming back today, Seraph.” She popped off my chair, lightly touched Cabe’s arm, and moved to another chair.

He didn’t watch her go, but I did, and I noticed how her smile changed when his back was turned. This one was smart enough to realise that Cabe wouldn’t respond to flirting. She was pretending to be friendly. She had probably been asking after my health all week.
Lovely
. I sat down and wrestled for blessed nonchalance until the cell phone vibrated. I brought it out and flicked it open under the desk.

I underestimated you. But that only makes me want you more.

A minute later Cabe’s phone was out of his pocket, and his expression was severe. Another message buzzed in my hand.

Let’s change the game
.

And then something exploded.

The floor shook, the desks rattled, and the alarm started ringing. Mr. Thomas herded us into the hallway, and we ran into Noah. He was holding his cell phone, and he grabbed my arm, marching me the opposite way to the other students. In the ensuing chaos, Mr. Thomas didn’t notice us leave. The Jeep was in the parking lot, but it was wrecked. The doors had been ripped open, the car seats pulled out. The steering wheel was wedged into the windshield.

Noah pushed a few buttons on his phone. “We’re in the parking lot.” That was all he said, and Quillan emerged from the building a few moments later.

He clicked a button and across the lot his BMW beeped. Noah steered me toward it and we all got in.

“What did he blow up?” My voice came out a breathless cry.

“There was a bomb in the gym, but nobody got hurt. The building is caved,” Quillan answered as we passed a fire truck bearing down on the school. 

“Maybe I should go home,” I said quietly.

The car sped up, and Noah and Cabe both reached out and grabbed one of my hands each. “No,” they said, at the same time, in the same tone. I glanced at both of them, a little uneasily, and gently extracted my hands.

We pulled into the apartment building at the same time as Silas’s Jaguar. They both parked out the front and we all ascended to the top floor without speaking. When we spilled into the tech-centre-living-room, Silas started pacing.

“It’s time for the backup plan,” his accent lilted the words until they sounded dangerous, like a threat.

“What backup plan?” Quillan was his usual cautious self, though it made more sense when dealing with Silas, who was unpredictable in the extreme.

“This is a Zevghéri problem,” Silas declared, “so let’s move into Zevghéri territory. It’s no longer just her at risk—or us. Now he’s threatening innocent people. Soon he’ll be threatening Tariq, or her father. I say we disappear into the mountains and switch schools.”

Disappear into the mountains
?

The others mumbled their agreement and Silas instructed me to stand against the wall. He set a camera onto a stand and took several pictures of me, and then pushed everyone but Quillan and I out of the apartment. I hovered around the edges of the room as he plugged the camera into one of the computer towers beneath his desk and revealed a portable workstation, which he pulled out. I glimpsed a mess of passports, a telescope, and numerous other bits and pieces.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked.

“Changing your identity,” Silas muttered, as my picture loaded onto one of his monitors. “We’re not dealing with a regular stalker here, angel. He’s Zevghéri. His games are escalating, but his focus has never shifted from you. There’s no talk of others being stalked. No other schools have had any bomb threats. It makes sense to take you out of Seattle, to where the highest concentration of Zevghéri are—”

“Highest concentration?”

Quillan answered for him. “The largest Zev community in the world is only a couple of hours from here, near Maple Falls.”

“Why are we changing my identity?” I directed this to Quillan, as Silas seemed to have abandoned our conversation, looking as though he wasn’t even listening anymore.

“Just a precaution, I assume,” Quillan said, glancing at his brother as if he wasn’t actually sure
why
Silas was doing what he was doing. “I doubt it’ll throw off your stalker for long, but it’ll certainly make it a little more difficult for the Zevghéri masses to decipher who you are. You’ll be a blank slate for a while. It’ll buy us some time.”

“What do you need time for?”

“Enough,” Silas growled, interrupting us. He pointed at the door, and Quillan rolled his eyes, walking to the door and opening it for me. I guessed Silas was only banishing me.

I shot a look at the back of his head and then stomped out of the apartment, ignoring the look of sympathy on Quillan’s face as I passed.

Cabe was on his phone when I entered the other apartment. “Hey, Tab. You heard already? I need you to come around. We’re going to the mountain house for a little bit.” He paused, glancing at me, and he was hesitant when he spoke again. “Yes… she’s coming. Ah… Tabby, now isn’t a good time. It’s complicated.” He sighed, pulling the phone away from his face to glare at it. “Okay fine, sure. But do me a favour, and stop by the school. I need you to pick up her brother as well. I’ll text you the details and tell him to meet you. Thanks. Bye.”

He ended the call and I looked up as Noah and him huddled together. “She’s coming?” Noah whispered.

“She suspects. Of course she’s coming.” Cabe flicked his eyes to me. “Brief her.”

Cabe turned to his phone and Noah moved to me, kneeling before me as I sat on the couch, his hands on my knees. “Are you okay, Seph?”

I nodded.

“Good.” He squeezed my knees. “We’re going to go away for a bit—” I suddenly felt like he was sitting me down to tell me that my parents were getting a divorce, and I tried to hide my smile, since it wouldn’t be an appropriate reaction to what he was saying. “We have a house up in the mountains near Maple Falls. There’s a small private school in one of the towns nearby. We’ll be enrolling there for…” he hesitated, “however long it takes. I’m giving Tariq the keys to this place while we’re gone. The messenger isn’t targeting him at all, but we can support him better if he’s staying here. He’ll be safe here.”

Like a puppet, I nodded again.

He seemed to hesitate. “Our mother is coming too… she doesn’t know about the…” he glanced behind him and Cabe looked up.

“…bond,” Noah finished. “It’d be better if we kept it quiet.”

“Okay,” I said. My mind was starting to walk away. “Does it rain there?”

Cabe stopped texting, looking confused. “It rains everywhere.” He spoke slowly, like he worried for my mental state.

“Is it cold?”

“Yes.”

“It snows?”

“Yes.” He looked decidedly befuddled now.

I stood and walked back to the other apartment. I knew that they would both follow, but I didn’t check, and their footsteps were quiet. I pushed open the door, walked to the art studio, and then moved around to the other side of the canvas I had been painting on the day before.

“Is that it?” I asked, pulling away the cover.

Four bodies gathered behind me—Silas and Quillan must have followed us in. Nobody said anything. I turned, but they were transfixed to the painting, eyes wide, breathing halted. I waved my hand to get their attention, and they all started speaking at once.

“When did you—”

“I can’t believe it’s really—”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve—”

I identified Quillan’s swearing in the jumble of voices, and then watched him walk up to the canvas, running his fingers over the details. His grin stretched, became all-encompassing, and he turned to the others. “The forecasting is ours. Yours is the valcrick.”

Silas smiled, and I took an involuntary step toward him, because the rare emotion was so magnetising. “Nobody has had a psychic ability in centuries.” He sounded… proud.

He stalked the several steps it took to reach me and drew me into his arms, spinning me around. I squeaked, holding onto his broad back, and he drew me in closer. The others were talking again, but I was lost in the feel of Silas, with the memory of his brilliant smile burned into my mind. I’d paint a psychic picture every single day if it made him smile like that. He stopped spinning me, but I locked my arms, drawing myself in. I felt faint, but it was a different kind of weakness to the kind that seized me when the others touched me. It was…
nicer
.

“I’ve got to finish things,” he said, after my grip refused to slacken. “Can I keep the monkey?”

The others didn’t answer, and the change in Silas was instant; his body drew tight, his chest expanding against mine. The arms strapped across my back flexed, bundling me in closer—the movement was decidedly protective, but it didn’t make sense.