Iridescent (Ember 2)

by Carol Oates

  “Ananchel?” His top lip curled back in confusion, and Candra guessed that for all his life experience, she was going to have to spell it out for him. Her heart seemed to be beating inside her stomach, sloshing everything around like a stormy sea.

  She took a deep breath, looking down and picking at a rough edge on a broken nail. She kept her voice low, knowing she had to tell Draven. In hindsight, it had been an odd decision to run to the place where Ananchel lived too. It wasn’t as if Sebastian wouldn’t chase her there if he wanted to see her, but he didn’t. What did that say…that he didn’t want to see her? Of course he doesn’t, she told herself. Every moment around her recently had been torture to him. Her grief had been overwhelming, and she took every scrap of it out on him. Why had she run to Draven? Candra didn’t want to think about that yet, other than the certainty that Draven cared for her. She’d needed that when Sebastian rejected her.

  “Sebastian slept with Ananchel.”

  Draven’s lips parted slightly, revealing the edge of his pearly white teeth. He said nothing. He didn’t so much as take a breath.

  “Did you hear what I said? Sebastian slept with Ananchel, and then he broke up with me.” The words were a blade lancing straight through her. Tearing into some part of her that she was sure had been damaged irreparably. It hadn’t hurt the way this did when Philip had cheated. It had never truly bothered her at all. As soon as she’d found out, she’d walked away and never looked back. It wasn’t like a chisel and hammer slowly chipping away at her spirit and self-esteem, making her into the type of girl she’d always hated. All those years, she’d laughed at girls who needed a guy to measure their self-worth.

  “I heard you. I just don’t understand. Why would he do that?” His straight black eyebrows drew down, and his dark eyes narrowed. His jaw tightened, although his tone was so flat that Candra couldn’t tell if he was furious or simply didn’t believe what she said.

  “Maybe Ananchel provides services I don’t, or maybe Sebastian likes trolling for skanks. Does it really matter why?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Candra shuffled away from Draven to the opposite side of the bed and pulled the covers back carefully so as not to expose herself. “No, I’m not okay. I’m confused, and I’m hurt, and I’m angry.” She was right about the T-shirt covering her upper thighs when she stood, and she reached for her yoga pants draped across a nearby Queen Anne chair. “This T-shirt isn’t mine.”

  It wasn’t a question or an observation. She wasn’t sure why she mentioned it.

  Draven kept his back to her and his head down. The fingers of both his hands bunched into the bedspread by his side. “It’s mine.”

  “Thank you.” Candra blushed and decided she didn’t want to elaborate on how she’d found her way into his clothes as well as his home. “The worst part is I’m not angry at him anymore. I don’t know if I’m even angry at her.” She pulled on the pants and slipped her feet into her shoes. Her voice rose with each word, and her heart pounded faster until her face heated and flushed scarlet. “I’m angry at myself. I’m so angry, I could spit nails. I let him get to me. I let him get inside my heart and my head.”

  “He told you this?” Draven’s tone remained even with an icy edge.

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” Candra mumbled into the sweater she was pulling over her head.

  “Of course you should,” Draven disagreed vehemently. “I thought I made myself clear on this. We are all in this together now, no matter what happens, and you have as much right to shelter here as anyone.”

  Candra paused, watching Draven from behind. He turned his head, slightly in profile over his shoulder, although he didn’t look at her. “I want you to come to me whenever you need to.”

  “Shelter. You make it sound like I was hiding.”

  “Weren’t you?”

  “Thank you,” Candra said again, this time with an unsteady quake in her voice.

  The unanswered question hung in the air between them. The one he’d asked at the ball, and she had never answered. He’d let her go but had asked her to stay. There had been something between them from the beginning. Most of it, Candra had put down to Draven’s angel influence, but something lingered after. From Draven’s point of view, the attraction between them was always there, and he’d simply nudged it at the correct time. Despite everything that had happened, they had formed a friendship.

  There was no denying Draven understood how the minds of people around him worked. He understood both her and Sebastian enough to manipulate them into falling in love. She found it impossible to hate him. Throughout their strange courtship, Draven had unwittingly exposed himself, his fears and weaknesses. He didn’t see himself as others perceived him. Part of Draven was insecure and constantly doubting himself. He didn’t enjoy deceiving her. Looking back, she wondered if it had hurt Draven to open himself up, knowing if his plans succeeded, he would end up cast aside in favor of his longtime nemesis. Had it hurt him more than she’d appreciated? A guilty shudder wracked her body. She hadn’t considered Draven might construe her sudden appearance the wrong way.

  She fixed her sweater quickly and pulled on her jacket. “I have to get to class. I’m so late already.” She grabbed her bag and walked around the bed to face Draven.

  Awkwardness descended on the room, making each step she took clunky and labored. Draven wore a guarded expression. His chest rose and fell in slow, steady breaths and gave no clues about his thoughts.

  “Look,” Candra began in earnest, “this has nothing at all to do with what is going on with Lilith or the Watchers. It has everything to do with Sebastian and me not being able to get our crap together. The one thing I’m positive about is Sebastian doesn’t want anyone else to die. He’s left that part of himself behind. You don’t have to worry.”

  Still, Draven said nothing; his eyes moved over her face, seeming to reach into her soul and burn with awareness. Candra flushed when Draven stood. His presence dominated the entire room and made him seem so much taller that he actually was. It occurred to her that this was the first time they had been alone since they’d kissed. Well, apart from a few minutes in a hallway. Candra wasn’t sure she could count that time since there had been hundreds of Watchers on the other side of the doors and guards roaming the halls.

  “I have to go,” she said, a little wobbly on her feet all of a sudden.

  “Come back tonight.”

  “I don’t know if I should.” She didn’t want to mislead Draven. Just because Sebastian was out of the picture didn’t mean she was moving on, and she didn’t want to treat Draven like a runner-up. Everything could be different soon.

  Draven reached out without warning and grabbed her wrist, holding her there with him. His tongue peeked out and stroked his bottom lip. Candra’s heart thudded harder in anticipation of whatever he was about to say, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he brought her hand up to his face. While Candra looked on and an inappropriate rush of exhilaration made her chest heave, he ran his nose back and forth across her wrist. Draven had done this the very first night they’d met, before she’d known who and what he was. The night the charming and slightly creepy stranger had swept her off her feet. It looked as if he was inhaling her scent and felt somehow deeply intimate. What she’d felt then and what she experienced now didn’t compare. The rush of heat making her blood boil came from knowing him for more than his startling navy eyes and chiseled features. He’d freely admitted that he’d never stopped using his influence on her before the ball, but she wondered if he’d ever needed to use it in the first place.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “ENQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW, have you lost your friggin’ mind?”

  “Shush,” Mrs. Byrne, the ancient resident librarian at Saint Francis, reprimanded Lofi.

  “Oh, shush yourself,” Lofi grumbled in her general direction, pulling out the chair in front of Candra.

  It scraped loudly across the wooden floor, earning another disdainful glance
over Mrs. Byrne’s half-moon glasses as she pushed a cart by the table where Candra had been hiding out from classes. Like the rest of the school, the library was all dark aged wood with stack after stack of books deemed suitable for students. The slightly acidic smell of old paper, leather, and dust permeated the air, and it intensified every time a book was disturbed. Mrs. Byrne wasn’t big on dusting anymore. Arthritis had gotten the better of her, and it had been several years since the woman with a silver gray knot at the back of her head stood straight. Still, she liked to run a tight ship, which meant no late returns and no loud talking.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Candra whispered firmly across the long, narrow study table. She wasn’t ready to face anyone and still wore Draven’s T-shirt below her sweater instead of going home to change.

  Fortunately, most of the students were in class. The last thing she needed was to be the object of any more gossip. Lofi’s cheeks flamed, and her eyes widened incredulously. She leaned her knuckles on the table instead of sitting.

  “Okay, someone needs to tell me what is going on.”

  Candra pursed her lips and looked down to her book, not seeing the words. She’d been turning pages for a few hours, but couldn’t so much as recall the title of the hardback volume.

  “Candra.” Lofi stamped her foot.

  Candra slammed the book and cast the heavy volume aside, opening up the next from the pile in front of her. All she’d assessed about this one was that it had a green cover. What did Lofi want anyway? She already knew the problem. If she wanted more details, Sebastian could provide them…if he managed to sober up. Wasn’t it enough that she was ready to sacrifice her existence to send them home? What else did Lofi want…to be friends? What would be the point?

  “Leave me alone. I can’t do this now.” More than a hint of pleading unwittingly crept into her tone. A person could only take so much before they broke, and right now, Candra felt dangerously close to splintering into a billion pieces. Maybe she could be like the particles swirling through the air under the brass table lamp casting a yellow glow across the pages.

  “Tell me, and I’ll go,” Lofi attempted to bargain with her.

  Aggravated by her attitude, Candra picked up her plastic ballpoint pen and flicked the ends repeatedly against the pages. The rhythmic popping resounded through the library. She presumed Mrs. Byrne would tell her off as soon as she emerged from the returning books. For now, it provided adequate distraction, especially when accompanied by her tapping foot. The words before her blurred, as if submerged under water. Volcanic-level blood pressure threatened to pop the vein in her temple like an overblown balloon. Was Lofi so insensitive as to think she would brush this off? She’d thought they were friends, but then, maybe Watchers weren’t capable of real friendships. She wondered if it was like Sebastian with antiquated furniture: they weren’t capable of embracing anything new or as transient as a human life.

  Candra sniffled and shook off the tears she wanted to shed. No waterworks. Unfortunately, it caused the nausea to build. Her mouth watered. She knew what she was doing, trying to talk herself into believing he’d never loved her. It wasn’t true. As much as Candra hated it, Sebastian had loved her once, and she’d loved him.

  “I am about to go off,” Lofi warned in a harsh low voice. “You do not want to see me when I go off.”

  The door to the library creaked open. Candra peeked up, hoping whoever it was would take the next seat to her so she wouldn’t have to talk. The girl who had the locker next to Candra’s earlier in the year, before Lofi had commandeered it, strolled casually over to the table. Lofi huffed at the disturbance but said nothing. The girl was a mousey little thing, although paler now than Candra remembered. Her eyes appeared sunken with dark shadows smudging them underneath, like a thumbprint. It shamed Candra to admit she couldn’t remember the girl’s name, especially when she handed Candra a folded-up piece of notepaper. Candra was pretty sure they had never been on note-passing terms.

  “What’s this?” She waved the page, noticing the stiff quality of the paper.

  The girl said nothing, nothing at all. She smiled, revealing a set of partially stained teeth, and swiveled on her heels.

  “That’s sort of rude,” Lofi commented and curiously watched the girl retreat.

  Candra unfolded the sheet of heavy white paper. Someone had penned two scripted words of elegant swirls across the page:

  Tick Tock

  “Candra,” Lofi gasped. In the same instant, a loud bang caught the attention of both of them.

  Candra spun in her seat to see Mrs. Byrne gaping at her from beside the nearest bookshelf. Her withered hands pressed to her open mouth, and a large encyclopedia lay discarded at her feet. The woman began to tremble—at least, Candra thought she did. She couldn’t be sure, what with the room swimming before her eyes and vomit burning a path from her gut. When she looked at the note again, she knew the reason for the woman’s condition. Her hand glowed brighter than ever in the dimly lit library. Candra didn’t need a mirror to see; her entire body gave off the same radiance. The power was back, coursing through her bloodstream, shooting pulses of electricity through her muscles.

  She closed her eyes and swallowed, clenching the warning from Lilith in her fist, battling to restrain the surging energy trying to burst out of her.

  “No,” she howled.

  Lofi already had the old librarian by the elbow, escorting her to a seat nearby, and whispering in her ear. Candra focused on her lips moving but heard nothing except ringing inside her head. Lofi fixed Mrs. Byrne with decisive eye contact, and the old woman nodded.

  Another wave of nausea rushed forth, and Candra wasn’t sure she could hold the vomit at bay this time. Panicked, she looked down to see the light had faded. Without a word to Lofi, she rushed out the door, since she wasn’t about to add vomiting in the library to her list of recent humiliations.

  The bell pealed through the corridor as she made her escape, keeping her clammy palm over her mouth and acting like a dam holding back a flood. A few students poured out of nearby lecture rooms, but the library was in a quieter section of the building. Candra barely made it to the bathrooms and burst through the stall door before her breakfast made a reappearance.

  A disgusted mumble preceded one of the other stall doors banging. Candra guessed some unlucky student was making a quick getaway from the vile stench. Her stomach heaved until there was nothing left. Candra flushed and then leaned back against one of the partition wall and slowly slid down until she sat in a crumpled heap on the tiled, vomit-speckled floor.

  Twice, the outer door opened and closed. She imagined the students repulsed by the disgusting odor but couldn’t find the energy to feel sorry about it, not with her throat burning, her head throbbing, and the note…the final straw and a clear message from Lilith that time was inching away…clutched in her fist.

  She couldn’t show anyone. It was cryptic enough that they probably wouldn’t understand, but what if they did? Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d almost admitted the truth to Sebastian. She was less sure now if that would have been an act of honesty or desperation. Candra’s hands shook as she tore the page into strips and then each strip into a small square before disposing them in the most presently convenient way.

  The outer door opened again, and this time, footsteps tentatively crept nearer.

  “Candra?”

  She buried her face in her hands. “I can’t do this now, Lofi.”

  “You are so doing this now.”

  The door pushed in enough for Lofi to poke her head in. Just as quickly, she gagged and retreated. After about a minute, she tried for a second time and squeezed into the small cubicle. “What in the Arch’s name is going on here? Why do I get the feeling Sebastian didn’t tell you he wants to fall? And what was that about, the note and the girl?”

  Candra looked up at her blankly. Fall? Why would Lofi believe he wanted to fall? Lofi groaned and pulled Candra to her feet.

  “You�
��re a mess. Let’s get you cleaned up a bit,” she said kindly.

  Candra nodded and sniffled, swiping her cheeks with her palms. She shivered, suddenly cold, drained and, she suspected, dehydrated too. Everywhere ached, and curling up into a ball on the floor seemed like just as good an idea as any. The only consolation was Lofi…any company was better than none when they faced an uncertain future.

  Lofi led her out to the washbasins and wet wads of paper towels with lukewarm water. Candra leaned back against one of the basins as Lofi slowly went to work on cleaning her up. Concern shadowed every line of Lofi’s face, from her set jaw to the serious single-mindedness in her eyes.

  “He lied to you too,” Candra murmured, feeling a fool for not seeing it before. Lofi would never be so callous.

  Lofi’s lips formed a straight line, and her hand dropped by her side, waiting. Candra presumed she must have locked the door, since no one else disturbed them, although she heard people move past the door.

  “He gave up on me,” she admitted quietly.

  “What?” Lofi frowned.

  “There’s more…and I need to tell someone, but I’m not ready yet.”

  “Okay.” Lofi tilted her head a little and smiled weakly, seeming to understand. “I’ll take you home, and we can talk later.”

  Candra caught Lofi’s wrist as the towel pushed damp hair away from her face. “No, not home. Can you take me to Draven?”

  Candra kept her head down in the elevator. It was the first time she’d ever had company besides Ananchel on the journey to Draven’s private floor. Seven Watchers crowed in with her, all beautiful, all tall with a strength and grace that both sizzled through the confined space and comforted her.

  One by one, they exited. She was alone by the time the door pinged and sliced open with a smooth swish of metal gliding. Nathaniel stood on the other side, waiting to greet her, and she released a breath. The guy was huge and about as intimidating as Watchers came. His black suit was gone, replaced by black jeans, a fitted black shirt, and some serious steel-toe boots, the soles of which added unnecessary inches to his height.