“Oh god,” Clarin groaned. “Seph is wearing her ‘Blame me for all the troubles of the world’ expression again. She’s about to die a martyr. Stop her, Poison.”
“I tried dragging her away already. Just throw her over your shoulder like a heterosexual and let’s haul-ass out of here, nothing I say will make a difference right now.”
“Don’t you dare,” I warned Clarin, holding up a finger in his direction, since I could see out of the corner of my eye that he had taken a step toward me.
He grumbled something in response, but all of my attention was now centered on the rapidly approaching girl, my brain running through self-defence scenarios—as one’s mind was wont to do when faced with an angry cheerleader.
“Amber, I’m sor—”
My head whipped back with a crack before the sentence was even out of my mouth, and I was so shocked, I didn’t even respond. I just let her hit me. The others must have been shocked as well, because nobody moved so much as an inch as she landed two more punches, and then everyone seemed to snap out of their stupor. Clarin grabbed me just as I started to raise my own arms to protect my face—since Amber didn’t seem to be interested in hitting anything else. He tossed me over his shoulder and Poison darted forward, her arms springing out the way a scary clown jumps out of a joke wind-up box. She struck as Clarin hoisted me up, so I missed the actual blow, but by the time I had managed to twist around, Amber was sprawled on the ground. I could tell that Poison would go further, so I struggled out of Clarin’s arms, grabbing my other friend and jerking her back.
“Enough!” I managed, tugging on her once more.
Poison allowed me to drag her back, and we both looked down at Amber on the ground. I gently pushed Poison behind me and reached out a hand to Amber, intending to help her up.
“Amber… I’m really sorry about your—”
“Don’t!” she yelled, scrambling back to her feet and shoving a finger in my chest. “This is all your fault, bitch! He was with you that night! He told me he was going to get you, and he never came back! The human police found his body in a ditch halfway to Seattle, so what’d you do to him, huh? What the hell did you do to my dad?”
Weston had dumped Kingsling’s body into a ditch? That was news to me. But more importantly… what could I possibly say?
“I had no idea…” I attempted to avoid any lies, but I was dancing on a shady line.
“Oh I’m sure you didn’t,” Amber sneered. “Just like you had no idea about Aiden and his pair. Everyone knows you were locked in a room alone with him right before he died!” Amber was screaming now, her eyes going wide and her body vibrating with so much emotion that I hastened a step backward, bumping into Clarin, who still hovered behind me.
She continued, “And what about that man you killed in Seattle with your Atmá power? My dad showed me the video! You don’t even deserve to have an Atmá power: you just use it to kill our own people!” Her wide eyes took on a feverish gleam as I cringed, desperately wanting to rush forward and slap a hand over her mouth. “You blew up a van and almost cut him in half with a car door! And two more men died in your house, along with your own father—and it just so happened to be during the one trip you took back to visit your dear daddy, didn’t it, Seraph? BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!” She tossed out her arms and turned to address the crowd that seemed to have tripled in size, no longer happy to simply scream things at my unresponsive face. “Because you killed seven more people, just three months ago, and I have photos to prove it!”
“I’m not—I—”
“YOU’RE A MURDERER AND A LIAR! DON’T EVEN TRY TO DENY IT!”
“One more word,” Poison seethed quietly, stepping in front of me, “and I’ll show you what a murder looks like.”
“No,” I croaked, still unwilling to fight with Amber in any way. Not when she was grieving the loss of her father.
I reached out blindly for Poison and then grabbed onto Clarin with my other hand before ducking my head down and walking quickly away. The crowd parted with surprising swiftness, and I realised a moment too late that they weren’t simply making room for us… they were twitching away from me, fear and disgust bright in their eyes. I ducked my head again, but it seemed Amber wasn’t done with me yet. She caught the back of my jacket, pulling all three of us up short.
“You tell me what really happened with my father, Seraph Black, or I swear to God… I’ll release the photos.”
Photos.
If every device with photographic capabilities was gathered up and burnt, and the ashes buried in a safe to be sent to be bottom of the Pacific… I would still be paranoid of that word.
Photos.
“You’re making things up,” I said, my throat thick, my tone cold with apprehension.
“Try me,” she taunted, much quieter now. “Every photo they managed to take of you in that car was saved on cloud storage. If you want to know where to find me, just ask Noah. He spends half his nights at my place anyway.”
That hit me like a truck to the face, and I took a staggering step away from her. She didn’t seem to realise the effect of her words as she turned her back to dismiss me, but Poison and Clarin were tense and quiet as I hurried away from the crowd.
“What are you doing?” Clarin muttered as we passed through into the building.
I glanced behind me, but he was looking at Poison, who was on her phone.
“I’m waiting to see if anyone recorded that. If they did, we’re in trouble, and… ah shit.”
“Already?” Clarin groaned.
“Yeah. Approximately two minutes ago. We need to act quickly; I know the girl. You in?”
“I’m in,” Clarin declared. They turned in synchronisation and began striding back out of the building we’d just entered.
“Ah…” I hesitated, watching their retreating backs.
I hoped they wouldn’t break any bones in their attempt to keep that recording from circulating the Internet, but there really wasn’t anything I could do to stop them. Maybe I didn’t want to stop them either. I shouldn’t have allowed Amber to say so much, but it was hard to be tactical with a grieving teenager screaming right in your face.
I made my way to the information booth that was handing out timetables to the freshmen, and collected mine, along with Poison’s and Clarin’s. I checked the locations of their first classes, texted them the buildings and room numbers, and then headed off for my own. The campus was confusing and I silently reprimanded myself for opting out of the campus tour with Poison and Clarin the day before, but I had at least grabbed a map from the information booth, so I only ended up being ten minutes late.
Or… did I get the wrong lecture hall?
I was in the ‘Kingsling Building’—an irony that was not lost on me. Most of the lecture halls and classrooms had been bustling with activity, but this one was cast in shadows, and there wasn’t a person in sight. I spotted movement down by the podium and squinted, a strained laugh falling out of my mouth when I recognised Quillan.
“Now I understand why you ‘took the day off’ and asked me to drive Tariq to school.” I let the door fall closed behind me as I made my way down the steps between rows of seats, unwinding my scarf and folding it into my bag. “You resigned from the high school, didn’t you?”
“You really thought I wouldn’t find out that you enrolled in a visual arts subject?” He spoke carefully, his tone measured as he got up from the stool that he had been leaning against and moved to meet me at the base of the stairs.
I paused two steps from the bottom, because it almost put me on eye-level with him. “No… I suppose not. I didn’t expect you to switch jobs, though. Hasn’t Principle Webber reported this as inappropriate yet?”
“I persuaded him to keep quiet, for now.” Quillan’s eyes were heavy on my face, and there was a phone clutched in his hand, the screen still lit up.
“They texted you already?” I asked, a frown pulling insistently at my mouth.
“I don’t know who they
are,” he slipped a finger into the strap of my bag, lifting it from my shoulder and laying it on an empty seat, “but Cabe did call me. Apparently you got into a fight. There’s already a few videos of it online.”
“A few?” Poison and Clarin were going to have a busy day.
As though reading my mind, Quillan shook his head. “It’s out there now; no taking it back. This isn’t good, Seph.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked, feeling defensive. “Her dad just died. I mean… I won’t be laying flowers on his grave anytime soon, but that sucks. I didn’t want to fight with her.”
“I know.” His fingers wound around my wrist, squeezing gently, and the crumpled map fell from my hand—drawing my attention to the fact that I had been slowly balling it up into my fist.
He picked up the map, tucked it into my bag and took me by the shoulders, steering me toward the back of the room. I didn’t ask where we were going because I didn’t really care. Quillan could do what he wanted—we all knew it to be true. Thankfully, he only ever used his power for good.
I was pretty sure, anyway.
There was a small studio attached to the back-end of the room and I jumped a little upon walking through the doorway, because paper had crinkled beneath my feet. Quillan flicked on a light and the brightness of it reflecting from the white all around me caused another flinch. I was jumpy—as I had been for months—but all of that melted away when I realised what I was standing inside of.
“Whoa,” I gasped, moving into the center and turning in a circle.
Paper had been stuck to everything, lining up so seamlessly that each of the four walls seemed to be four large, fresh sheets of white. The ceiling and floor were also covered in paper, and I assumed that the windows had been boarded up and similarly covered, as the only sources of light were from the bare lightbulbs that dangled down on the ends of wires. At my feet lay an offering of materials—anything that I might have wished to get my hands on; but my eyes were immediately drawn to the paints. I knelt, laying a hand on a can the size of my head, an oil-based in a dark turquoise colour. With my other hand I began to skim over the plethora of brushes, pausing at one in particular. It looked too small for the paper-room, but it called to something inside of me that wanted to bleed free.
“It’s time, don’t you think?” Quillan asked me, before backing out of the room.
He was leaving me alone. Alone to face my demons, and suddenly I couldn’t take it anymore. I jerked away from the paintbrush, withdrawing both of my hands and shoving them deep into the pockets of my jacket, for good measure. Something small and hard brushed against my knuckle and I pulled out Silas’s phone, letting it fall to the paper floor between my knees.
I had searched it over and over and hadn’t found a single thing that might have been meant for me, or anything even partway useful. All of the pictures had been deleted, the text messages were cryptic and unexciting, and any documents that might have been stored in the phone had been wiped.
I couldn’t decide if I were angry at Quillan for shutting me in there or not. My fingers itched to paint, but my brain shrank back in fear. My valcrick had abandoned me… what if the forecasting was gone, too?
Or what if it hadn’t gone anywhere, and it showed me something horrible?
What if it showed me him?
I stood, abandoning the phone and walking to the door. I couldn’t do this. I tried the handle, but it was locked.
“Miro!” I pounded on it, but he didn’t answer. “Quillan!”
After several minutes of shouting and no reply, I stalked back to the middle of the room and sat down beside the phone. My hand flashed out instinctively for a paintbrush, which I proceeded to rap against my knee. I dug into my jeans pocket for my phone but came up empty, which meant that my phone was still inside my bag, which was back in the lecture hall. With a growl, I snatched up Silas’s phone and thumbed through the contents for the umpteenth time, moving from app to app and examining the contents of each. I hit the music button, and paused at the single song displayed there, the small hairs raising along my arms.
Why did he only have one song? I hovered my thumb over it, my eyes taking in the artist and title: Lo Fang – ‘You’re the One That I Want’.
I wanted so badly to think that it meant something, but I couldn’t allow myself any hope. I didn’t deserve it.
Still, I pressed the button to play the song. It was so unlike anything I thought Silas would listen to, and that gave me enough pause to actually hear the lyrics. This didn’t seem like a message in the literal sense. ‘You’re the one that I want’ wasn’t a statement that was likely to come from Silas in this lifetime. Perhaps, ‘You’re the one that I want to strangle,’ or ‘You’re the one that ruined my life,’ but certainly not the words the little phone was currently echoing into the paper room. It was more than just the words, too. I was pretty sure that the song was a cover of an up-beat, eighties, pop song. The lyrics were enough to spark something familiar, though the haunting male vocalist soon drove away any memory of the original song. It was all too bizarre. There was no way that Silas liked that song enough for it to be the only song on his phone.
I replayed it several times before one of the lines finally grabbed my attention.
If you’re feeling some affection that’s too hard to convey,
Meditate in my direction, Baby feel your weight…
I was always feeling hard-to-convey-affection: the bond had started to rule my life the minute Cabe jumped in front of Noah’s car to save me from being hit, and it was only getting worse. I didn’t understand what meditate in my direction was supposed to mean, especially since Silas was currently locked up in an unknown location, under the mercy of Weston, and I didn’t really feel that I had much weight…
“Dammit,” I grumbled, starting the song again from the beginning. “More riddles. Always riddles.”
Something in me seemed to snap, then, and I kicked the phone halfway across the room, the haunting melody sending a chill down my spine as I stood and surveyed one of the walls. There was a way to get closer to Silas, even if it showed me a Silas that I didn’t want to see, even if it opened me up to a world of consequences that I might not be able to handle. I kicked the tin of turquoise paint closer to the wall, absently working the lid off as I stared at the paper.
You’re the one that I want, the song taunted me, as I started to stir the paint, fetching a black and a white tin to blend different shades. The one that I want, the one that I need…
The paint dripped off me like a liquid coat and I inhaled the toxic fumes, sucking the undiluted scent into my lungs. My pupils dilated as I sank into the vision of a pain so absolute, it went beyond pain. It should have rendered me unconscious, it should have affected my ability, it felt like it should have killed me. As it was, the pain distracted me so badly that I was unable to focus on any other details. I painted turquoise wounds that wept turquoise blood onto the paper floor, and when I was finished, I painted more. I painted the walls, the floor, the back of the door and the boarded-up windows. I covered the room in wounds and fumes, and then I curled up in the middle of the mess, weeping my heart into my paint-covered hands.
The phone still sang to me, wrapping my throat in pleas born from the words it had planted in my brain, and when the noise of a door opening cut through the song, I barely even noticed. Arms wrapped around my shuddering body and I flinched back from the feel of clothing being pressed against my wounds… until I remembered that I didn’t really have any wounds, and then I collapsed against the familliar chest, the scent of Quillan replacing the scent of wet paint. He whispered something against my hair, his hands turning my face up to his.
“Seph, focus. You’re fine, I’m right here.”
His thumbs swiped over my closed eyelids, mixing my tears with the paint that I could feel sticking to my cheeks. I forced my eyes open and twisted my hands so violently into his shirt that I could hear the sound of material tearing.
&nb
sp; “What on earth…” a breathless Cabe spoke from somewhere behind me.
Quillan’s attention switched to something over my head for a moment, his eyes narrowed in warning. “We’re not done here. Cover it all up. Fresh paper. Now.”
As soon as he was finished giving orders, his eyes fell back to me, and he drew me up, hooking an arm beneath my legs and bundling me against his chest. He began to walk out of the room and I turned away from the two people that stood just inside the doorway, their expressions alarmed.
I didn’t know why Quillan had brought Noah and Cabe to witness this, but I had no choice but to trust him. I had no choice, because there was nothing left inside me but drowning, clawing, screaming pain.
“Is he still… does he…” Quillan’s confused words buffered warmly against my temple. I knew what he was trying to ask. Was Silas hurt too badly? Was he still sane? Whole?
The answer was that he hadn’t been sane, or whole, for a long time.
I turned to see Quillan’s face, to witness the sorrow that was etched into his expression. It softened my heart toward him, and I realised with a cringe that I had allowed the bond to flow open, sharing everything that I was feeling with him. I reached for him, my hand shaping to the side of his face, feeling the rough texture of the stubble that he never quite seemed to be able to rid himself of. Something had changed with me and him, and I had been too busy to properly examine it. Maybe it was because Cabe and Noah had been wrenched from their familiar roles as my pair, or maybe it was because Silas wasn’t there… but Quillan was occupying more of my time, more of my head, and in some strange manner… more of me.
“He’s holding on,” I confirmed, my voice shaky.
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