A Portrait of Pain

by Jane Washington

  I opened the message, reading the words with a frown.

  I miss you, baby. Maybe I can come over tonight and give you a lap dance?

  “Bitch,” I whispered into the night, my step quickening.

  Amber definitely had something to do with the footage of Seraph dancing. There was no other reason for her to have written that text. Sure, I’d had sex with her in one of the closets at school, but that didn’t mean we saw enough of each other to have real history together, or that she was ever in the habit of offering lap dances. It had been a casual thing before I moved back to Seattle. She had been a decent fling, and I even considered her somewhat of an ex-girlfriend until we brought Seraph to Maple Falls and she started acting crazy. When I lost my memory of the bond, we didn’t start dating again, even though Amber made it look like we did. She had basically begged me to take her out a few times, and then the crazy had reared again; she had started making threats against Seraph, saying that she knew things about my family that even I didn’t know. I stuck to her like glue after that, trying to learn as much as I could.

  She knew what I was doing, and yet, she still chose to fool herself into thinking that we were in a relationship. I let it go on, until Seraph kissed us and formed the bond … and then it had to stop.

  She hasn’t stopped texting me since.

  My phone vibrated again, and I pulled it out of my pocket, swiping over the screen to answer the call. “What?”

  “Baby.” Amber. “You don’t reply to my texts anymore.”

  “Where are you right now? We should talk.”

  She laughed, and there was anger in the sound. “Nice try, Noah.”

  “Suit yourself.” I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see me, and waited while she breathed through her frustration.

  “I can come over,” she crooned, managing to mask the anger.

  “No can do.” I knew that my tone was flippant, but I couldn’t force any interest, even if it meant that we were able to trap Amber and get that one step closer to Danny. “My girlfriend will probably notice.”

  She didn’t seem to mind my tone, but that was hardly surprising. I had never shown her much more than casual interest. I had never shown anyone much more than casual interest … until Seraph. Maybe I had been a little bit of a dick before her. I didn’t want to admit that my respect for the women I slept with was lacking a little. I tried to focus on the fact that it wouldn’t be like that anymore. I wasn’t going to sleep with anyone other than my Atmá, even if that meant I had to be alone for the rest of my life. I guess that would make up for how I had treated my dates in the past.

  “I can be quiet,” Amber was telling me. “Or we could meet at a hotel?”

  That could work—meeting on common ground meant that Amber was getting desperate. Just desperate enough to give us an opening.

  I stopped walking, already having reached the parking gallery out the front of the main house.

  “I’ll see if she’s asleep and call you back,” I told her, hanging up before she had a chance to agree.

  I ran down the worn stone hallway, passing through the interior courtyards and up to the first level, where the elevator would take me to the top floor. I was itching to get the hell out of this mansion, but there was still so much work to be done on the cottages, so I needed to suck it up a little while longer. Predictably, I found Silas in his office. What I hadn’t been expecting to see was Cabe. They were facing each other, seated in office chairs, with one of Silas’s screens displaying an online game of blackjack.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared, waiting for them to speak. Silas and Cabe never hung out. They were family; they loved each other and stuck together out of necessity, but they didn’t bond on common interests or spend quality time together. Something told me that this had been going on for a little while, though, because they both seemed utterly relaxed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Silas had been the initiator, probably out of guilt for almost having killed Cabe.

  “Silas is teaching me how to cheat the online gambling algorithms,” Cabe informed me with a smirk.

  “Because you’re so hard up for cash,” I deadpanned.

  “I don’t want the cash. I’m all about the power. I need to see them squirm so that I can sleep at night.”

  “So you’re basically just pretending to be Silas for your own sick amusement.”

  “Basically.” Cabe laughed.

  Silas stood, knocking his fist against the side of Cabe’s head. “You can’t make algorithms squirm. They don’t have feelings. You need something?” He aimed that question at me. “You have a look on your face like you need something.”

  “I want to take down Amber tonight.”

  “Interesting.” Silas grinned, and there was nothing friendly about it. He had a gleam in his eye. He was salivating at the thought of being let loose on someone that didn’t matter to Seraph. “How did this happen?”

  “She’s insane, that’s how it happened. She’s been after me for months, but I’ve been ignoring her. I answered her call this time because she hinted at the security tape of Seph in her text. She wants to meet up.”

  “She’s smarter than that,” Cabe pointed out, looking confused. “She has to know that we’ll ambush her.”

  “I just need to convince her that I’m pissed at Seph. Pissed enough to meet with her.”

  Cabe blinked. “And … you’re going to do that how?”

  “I’m going to use you,” I replied, pulling my phone out again and calling Amber back.

  “Made up your mind yet?” She sounded considerably colder.

  “Why do you want to meet, Amber?” I made sure that my tone was bored, because I knew that it would scare her into thinking that I might change my mind. “What’s your game?”

  She was feeling me out, trying to decide if the strip club footage had made me angry enough to turn against Seraph, and she was about to hear exactly what she wanted.

  “Thought you might want some action, since you girlfriend is giving it all away to your brother.”

  “You know she’s our Atmá. What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know. What did you expect?”

  I made a scoffing sound, but the bitterness of it carried through the phone, and I could almost hear her holding her breath in anticipation. I let the static take over, filling the space with unspoken words. Which unspoken words didn’t matter to me. She could dream them up and then hang herself with them, for all I cared.

  “So?” She finally broke. “Was she asleep?”

  “Yeah,” I spat. “With my brother. So where do you want to meet?”

  “I’ll text you an address.” She hung up and I slipped my phone back into my pocket, turning to raise my palms at the other two.

  “You guys coming?”

  Silas’s screen had changed, showing a log of the call that I had just made. They must have been listening in, using Silas’s software. Neither of them needed to be asked twice; they were both up and out of their seats, halfway to the door before Miro walked in.

  “What is it?” He looked wrecked, his hair standing on end and dark circles under his eyes.

  He was working himself to the bone. He flicked his eyes from me to the other two, and I noticed that his phone was in his hand. Silas must have texted him.

  “We have a plan to ambush Amber,” Cabe announced. “Can you take over guard duty tonight?”

  “Yeah.” Miro slumped down into a chair. “I’ll just sleep in her room.”

  All three of us paused, halfway to spilling out of the door. Cabe recovered first, pushing us the rest of the way out and calling a thanks over his shoulder. We really needed to work on not reacting to each other like that. Or actually, more specifically, not reacting to Miro like that. He was just such a private person and he internalised things even more than I did, so we couldn’t help but be surprised when he finally gave us a glimpse into his mind. We had done well not to overreact in the morning, when he kissed Seraph in
front of us, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t shocked.

  “Should we be leaving them alone?” Cabe asked, once we were a safe distance down the corridor. “He might get her pregnant and then he’ll have to marry her, and then we might have to lock him in a basement or something because he’ll be the main boyfriend.”

  “He’s dead on his feet,” Silas pointed out. He was on his phone, texting someone, barely paying attention to the conversation. “Nobody’s getting preg—what did you say?”

  Cabe chuckled, taking the lead. “Revenge,” he called over his shoulder. “You kissed her when you knew we were watching.”

  “I thought you’d appreciate the lesson,” Silas said evenly. “You could use all the help you can get.”

  “What’s up with you?” Cabe ignored Silas, turning to look at me. “You’re even quieter than usual.”

  “Nothing,” I muttered, but Cabe only raised his brows, clearly disbelieving, and I sighed, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Might have kissed her too.”

  Silas halted, his back tensing, and Cabe stopped walking a second later. He wasn’t even watching me anymore; he was watching Silas. We both were. He was so still, he barely even seemed to be breathing, and then his phone vibrated. He glanced down at the screen.

  “Jack is sending backup,” he announced. He still sounded completely neutral. “We’ll meet them outside the main gate. Cabe, go change into something black, they’ll see you coming from a mile away. We’ll take Miro’s car; it’s the quietest. Noah, you should get a head start on us. She’ll want to know that you left on your own, and Danny probably has people watching the gates. Drive slowly.”

  We technically weren’t allowed to make a move on Amber without Jack’s permission, but that was why I had gone to Silas. Nobody ever said no to him, and it seemed that Jack was no exception.

  Cabe split without hesitation and Silas turned around, his face closed off. He stepped toward me, and I braced myself for a fight. I was stronger than Cabe; always had been. I was the only one who was ever able to match Silas in a fight. But none of those fights had been serious. If it came down to a serious fight, I was sure that he would win. He had intention on his side.

  “I’m working on it,” he said quietly, his hand coming down on my shoulder. He was trying to bruise me, but I could see that he meant what he was saying, so I let it go. “I’m working on not breaking your face right now.”

  He squeezed my shoulder even harder, and then disappeared.

  I laughed, sure that the sound would carry up the stairs after him. In Silas-speak, he had basically just hugged me and told me that he supported me. I didn’t know whether to be hopeful, or doubly as fearful, because it meant that he was bottling things up even tighter than we all had suspected.

  I was stuck in a delusion. The world became suspended as the Klovoda raced to track down Danny, and every person who might have been in danger was moved to Le Chateau. We were supposed to pull Eva out of the institution, but Jayden had been sent to a small township a few hours from Seattle, where Dominic had another property, chasing intelligence that Danny might be using it as a storage space. He wanted me to wait until he was back before we made contact with her, and I wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe he was afraid of Eva’s reaction, or maybe he was afraid that there would be a trap set up, waiting for us.

  Either way, all the waiting was making me stir crazy. It was becoming too easy to pretend that nothing at all was happening. That this odd, suspended life was real. That Danny was on the outside and we were on the inside, untouchable. I had been spending more time with Tariq, Poison, and Clarin, while we waited for the Dean to allow us all back into the college in our new roles. It was too easy to fall back on our friendship, to goad each other into living as though our lives weren’t at stake.

  “DIRECT HIT!” Clarin shouted, ducking below the landing to hide in the stairs leading down to my cottage bedroom.

  I glanced down, seeing a splash of blue paint marking my shirt.

  “I got your back,” Poison declared, scooping her hand into the tin of yellow paint and running after Clarin, flinging the gloop down the stairs.

  I heard a groan, and knew that she had found her mark, so I let out a shout of victory before ducking behind the kitchen counter again. My tin of white paint was between my knees, and the fumes were getting to my head a little bit.

  “Little brother,” I sang, a laugh in my voice. “Where are you hiding?”

  “Here!” Tariq shouted, from directly above me.

  I looked up to find him leaning over the counter, and managed to close my eyes just before the paint splattered onto my face. I knew that it would be purple, because that was the colour that Tariq had picked.

  “Poison!” I squealed, wiping muck from my eyelids. “Avenge me!”

  I heard a feminine battle cry, and then Tariq was sliding back from the counter, laughing. I scooped my hand into the white paint, creeping out from behind the counter just as Poison jumped on Tariq, mushing yellow paint into his chest. Clarin was clearing the top of the stairs, and I ducked back behind the counter, waiting for him to draw near before I leapt out and collided with him. He got a face full of white paint while I got a shirt full of blue paint, because he had been carrying his bucket, and it had tipped onto me when I tackled him. We both glanced down, and then Clarin collapsed, laughing too hard to keep himself upright. I scooped up some of the paint and spread it over the back of his shirt, forming messy handprints.

  “Sorry!” He rolled over, catching my hands. “It was an accident!”

  “So was this!” I declared, pulling my hands free and slapping his cheeks with my paint-covered fingers.

  I jumped up from the ground and rushed over to Poison, who was now suffering as Tariq sat on her legs, smothering her bare feet in purple paint.

  “Truce!” I yanked my brother off, all of us laughing too hard to get any words out properly. “We call a truce!”

  “To hell with truce!” Poison pulled up the back of my shirt and smacked her sticky palm into the center of my spine.

  “Hey …” I turned, knocking her hand away while Clarin and Tariq cheered. “You’re supposed to be on my team.”

  “You’ve got a big enough team already,” she joked, winking.

  I bent down to her paint tin, scooping up some yellow paint and attempting to throw it after her her as she tried to run away.

  “Truce!” she called over her shoulder, smirking.

  I shook off the rest of the paint, and we all paused to catch our breath. Tariq had been the one to start it, flicking paint at me from one of the tins as we tried to figure out which colour to paint the single kitchen wall. There were a few more walls to paint that weren’t covered in polished wooden boards—mostly in the bigger house that Cabe and Noah would be living in, so we had bought enough paint to have some variety. Now the new floor was covered in splotches of colour, and some of the walls were dotted with it. I walked over to the stairs, staring down at the trail of yellow that reached almost to the lower level.

  “Is it hard to clean paint off things?” I asked sarcastically.

  “You should just keep it this way,” Clarin said, and I turned to catch his grin. “We can draw on that wall to cover up the fact that it’s accidental damage.”

  He was pointing to the wall beside the door, at the back of the kitchen area. It was the only wall we were supposed to paint. I glanced at it, wincing. “Okay, good idea. Let’s pretend we did this deliberately.”

  We moved the paint tins back over to the wall and I considered it for a little while, before claiming the lower half. I kneeled, and Clarin stood over me, working on the top half. Poison and Tariq weren’t allowed to touch it, because they didn’t have any artistic skill whatsoever. At some point, Poison moved beside me, fiddling with the tin and distracting me with idle chatter. When I finally glanced over at her, I saw that she had doodled a batman sign into the corner of the wall.

  I considered telling her off, but I kind of liked
it, so I let her be. When Tariq realised what had happened, he claimed my other side and started doodling as well. We stayed until the sun began to set, and I knew that the guys would come looking for me, so I shooed everyone out early and tried to clean up the evidence of us having wasted half the day in a paint fight. They all left together, climbing into Poison’s car and heading up the hill to the mansion. They were all staying there now, and I was secretly happy that Tariq would have better company than the other people occupying the house. Not that I had anything against the Klovoda … but they weren’t Poison and Clarin.

  I shut the door after they took off, moving back to the kitchen and staring at the half-finished wall. Clarin had been drawing a sunset, and I had been drawing a valley beneath, trying to compliment his awesome scene. Little batman signs were spread all over the place—one of the trees that I had drawn into the valley was actually entirely made up of little yellow batman signs—and there was a tiny section in the far left corner of the valley, where a stick figure stood in front of a train, a few lines of script written sloppily beneath. I crouched down, frowning at the little scene. The stick figure had something hanging out of his mouth, and what looked like a stick of dynamite in his hand. The figure was facing the train, almost as though it was about to get run over. I hovered my finger over the still-damp words, a smile slowly twisting my features.

  Piggy on the railway,

  Picking up stones;

  Along came an engine

  And broke poor Piggy’s bones.

  ‘Oh!’ said Piggy,

  ‘That’s not fair.’