Charcoal Tears

by Jane Washington

  Noah dropped the shirt and Cabe straightened. The silence stretched too long.

  “Well?” Quillan had apparently turned around. He appeared beside me now.

  Cabe surged forward, grabbed my face and fused his lips to mine. The electricity raced through my system stronger than ever before, accompanied by a heady sense of blurred indecision. For a moment, I could have sworn that I blacked out, and he pulled back quickly enough to trick me into thinking the brief kiss hadn’t happened at all. I could see faint lights darting through the air, like the wings of lightning bugs being tossed around in the stronger currents of a breeze. Cabe tore through the room in several long strides and slammed the door behind his exit. Quillan’s eyes were wide, wonder and fear wrestling for prominence over his expression. The wonder was there as his eyes traced the dying sparks in the air, and fear was there when they landed on me.

  Noah had his jaw locked, and his fists were clenched. His eyes were glued to mine, his pupils dilated. “Miro,” he said, very slowly, confusing me as he still stared at me while he spoke to Quillan. “Let me see.”

  Quillan thrust his arm out and Noah’s eyes left me to glance at something on Quillan’s arm for only a second before snapping back. The storm was rolling in around me again and something about it was pulling me in stronger than before. I stumbled forward and the brilliant blue of his gaze deepened, pressing in.

  “Well?” Quillan repeated.

  Noah didn’t answer; he seemed to have forgotten about him.

  “Don’t follow me,” he said.

  It took me a moment to comprehend, and then he was gone, too.

  “What?” I turned, finding Quillan.

  He looked pained. “You’re going to have to show me.” He bit off the sentence on a curse, running his hands through his hair. “They won’t tell me.”

  “You swear a lot for a teacher.”

  He folded his arms, his voice deepening to a warning growl. “Seraph.”

  Without hesitation, I pulled up the hem of my shirt. He glanced at my marks. “Two?”

  He went to his knees, his hand rising as if to touch me. He hovered there for a moment, neither coming closer nor drawing away, and I could see the turbulent emotions gathering in his eyes. He didn’t say anything for a long time, and I realised that I was shaking, my teeth chattering, the numbness from Cabe’s sudden kiss only now beginning to recede. Quillan touched one of the marks with the pad of this thumb, barely applying any pressure before he stood and his eyes settled heavily on mine. The intensity was missing, and I found myself strangely grateful. Quillan never touched me like Noah and Cabe did; he never forced his presence on me.

  “You’re a miracle,” he muttered.

  The door opened and Quillan jerked back several steps, like he had been caught doing something bad. For a moment, I had felt close to him—but with the look he was shooting me now, I couldn’t help feeling that he found me threatening in some way.

  7

  Rules of Engagement

  Cabe stood in the doorway, glaring at Quillan as the other man drew past. “We need to have a meeting,” he said to me. “Can you wait for us?” His voice had softened, and his warm toffee eyes pleaded with me to understand.

  All I managed was a nod.

  I wasted too much time standing there clutching at the too-big sweatpants and fighting the receding itch of sensation that seemed to be diluting itself in my bloodstream. Cabe hadn’t specified where I should wait. I hiked the pants higher and crept after them, tiptoeing down the hallway to Silas and Quillan’s apartment. I pressed my ear to the door and heard muffled voices within.

  “…need ground rules,” Quillan was saying. “It’ll spiral out of control otherwise.”

  “This whole thing is a mess. How are two marks possible?” Silas wasn’t happy. I knew that his wild eyes would be burning, and I was pretty glad that I was safe on the other side of a closed door.

  “Miro’s right,” Noah cut in. “We need those ground rules, or this will tear us all apart—not to mention her. She’s barely prepared for one—”

  “This isn’t right!” Silas’s anger was mounting, and I took a shocked step away from the door. My breath was racing and my palms were clammy; I waved my hands in the air, trying to dry the sweat, and stepped back up to the door.

  “…to the rules,” Cabe said. “I probably overstepped already.”

  “Dangerously, you idiot.” Noah sounded almost as angry as Silas now.

  “It was barely a second!”

  “Fine,” Quillan’s voice boomed, smothering their arguing. “That’s where we draw the line then. Nobody kisses her, or even touches her more than what is necessary: nothing romantic, and nothing to encourage the bond to form. Got it?”

  “What if she’s the one who acts?” Silas’s voice was derisive, like he was making fun of Quillan.

  The room grew quiet. I turned away, not wanting to hear anymore. The only part that I really understood was the part where they all agreed not to start anything remotely romantic with me. It sliced right through my chest and left me cowering inside, and I didn’t even know why. I wasn’t in love with all four of them, or even one of them. I certainly didn’t like the uncomfortable and unnatural feelings that seized me at their nearness, or the weird blackout caused by Cabe’s kiss.

  I immediately wished that I were back in the bar, talking to the one stranger that I felt I could trust… and the crack inside my chest morphed into a chasm.

  I closed the door to Noah and Cabe’s apartment with a soft click and cleaned up the mess I had made in Cabe’s bedroom. I returned the food to the kitchen and grabbed a blanket from the living room, retreating back to the piano room with a pencil that I had stolen from Cabe’s desk.

  I snagged one of Noah’s notebooks and snuggled into the couch, fitting the blanket around myself and beginning to take my anger out on the page. Or was that pain ripping through my body? I sketched until my eyes itched, and then I curled up and went to sleep. It must have been close to midnight by the time Cabe and Noah woke me up to drive me home. The moon was high in the sky, casting a milky film over the road that scrolled beneath us and lending me a calmness that seemed to directly contradict the day I had just had.

  “Maybe I should just do what the photographer wants—”

  “Not an option,” Noah interrupted me, his knuckles turning white around the steering wheel.

  “It’s not just a prank, Noah. I’m not stupid.”

  “It’s a silly game,” he insisted. “Nobody even went inside your house. The creep was watching from windows in most of the photos, zooming in to make it look like they were really inside.”

  Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

  Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

  “Is this someone you know?” I hesitated asking the question, getting the feeling that I was about to step into something much bigger than myself, but not willing to sit and wait in silence.

  “We don’t know,” Cabe answered me, his face turned toward the window and his voice strangely subdued. “Please Seph… no more questions tonight.”

  My fingers curled into fists on my lap and I blinked down at them, warring with anger and fear. Eventually, it was wariness that won out, and I didn’t speak until Noah pulled up outside my house. I said a quiet goodnight and entered my house, listening for any alien sounds. The curtains were pulled back, causing slithers of ghostly moonlight to transform our rudimentary furniture into blocky silhouettes. I wanted to turn on the lights so that I could be assured that the shadows weren’t moving, that it was simply the brief fluttering of the curtains, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to exist in the darkness, where it would be harder to see me. I crept up to Tariq’s bedroom and tried the door handle, but it was locked. I rapped on it lightly and waited, but there was no answer.

  “Tariq?” I called out softly, knocking again. I tried not to cater to the acidic feeling rising in the back of my throat.

  He is fine.
/>
  He is sleeping.

  The door creaked open and my brother’s sleep-mussed hair appeared in the crack, his bleary green eyes trying to focus. “Seph?” he asked, and then he seemed to come awake all of a sudden. “Seph!” He pulled me into a hug that crushed my face against his bony chest, and then he held me out again, examining me for damage. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.” I patted his hands, encouraging him to release me. “Just wanted to check in on you before I went to sleep. Did you have any trouble with Gerald tonight?”

  “No, he had already left by the time I got home. Cabe told me everything. What are you going to do about this guy?”

  “What makes you think it’s a guy?”

  He stuttered, as though he hadn’t even considered the fact that it could have been either gender, and then he scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know. I just assumed?”

  “Well I don’t know what to do. I’ve thought about just doing what they want.”

  “Which is?” He ventured the question with a drawn-out softness, like he had already guessed it, but he wanted me to admit it.

  “Whoever is taking these pictures, it would seem that they want me to stay away from Noah and Cabe. But the boys won’t let me.”

  “It’s not their decision.” Tariq’s tone grew a sharp edge, and I sighed, turning to walk into my own room. He followed.

  “They know,” I said, pulling my pyjamas from my cupboard after checking that the curtains over my window were closed tightly. “About the electricity.”

  “You told them? Are you crazy, Seph?” He had moved to lean against the wall beside my desk—which consisted of a plank of plywood balanced across four blue milk crates—but he stood up straight again now, throwing his hands out beside him in a gesture of frustrated disbelief.

  “They already knew.” I played with the bundle of clothing in my lap, moving to sit on the edge of my bed. “Or at least they expected. They’re like me.” I looked up and watched as the realisation settled into his expression, and then he visibly deflated, sinking back against the wall, his arms falling lax beside him.

  “Well…” His throat worked, and he seemed to be fighting for what to say. “Well… that explains a lot.”

  I scoffed lightly, and an unwilling smile broke out across his mouth. “No offense, Seph, I know you must be excited to have other people out there like you, but maybe that’s not a good thing, you know?”

  “I know. I’m not excited. I’m worried.”

  He nodded, weariness settling over him like a cloud. It aged his young face and seemed to make his limbs heavier. He slouched over. “Do they have a plan for this photographer?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well it’s more than what we have,” he admitted. “I need to sleep. Do you want me to leave the door unlocked?”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “Alright. G’night, Seph.”

  “Night.”

  I watched him leave and then made my way to the bathroom. I paused, my hands lingering on the hem of my shirt, staring at the shower. I looked to the window, noting that someone had already drawn the blinds, but I still didn’t feel secure. I decided to forgo the shower, and instead I changed into my pyjamas beneath a towel before I went to bed.

  The next morning I woke up naked.

  I was lying on top of the covers, my clothes folded neatly on the end of the bed. I scrambled up and screamed, clutching at myself. My fingers came away sticky and red, and for a terrifying moment, I thought that it was blood, but it was too bright, like paint.

  Fresh paint.

  I ran to the slab of mirror propped up against the inside of my wardrobe, my eyes widening on the smiley face that had been painted onto my stomach. My rush to the mirror must have been predicted, for a message had been painted along the bottom in neatly sloping red letters.

  Smile for the camera.

  My fingers were shaking too badly to pull clothes on, so I grabbed the sheet off my bed and wrapped it around myself, taking it with me to the shower. I couldn’t wash the paint off without exposing myself, so instead I tied the sheet like a toga and moved cautiously back to my room. The curtains were closed as tightly as I had left them, the window latched. There was nobody in the room. I searched the rest of the house, but Gerald and Tariq were both absent. I wrote a quick note for Tariq and grabbed my keys. The old woman in the house across the street flicked back her curtain as I walked past, and then did a double-take at the bed sheet I wore. She narrowed her eyes and muttered something that I couldn’t hear, but I didn’t care. Some teenage boys whizzed past me on pushbikes and yelled something, but I didn’t register it properly. I was running on pure fear.

  I got in my car and drove to the only people who could help me now. The police. Of course, it took that long for me to realise that I had no proof. Every single photograph was in the possession of one of the boys, and now I was sitting in the police station car park wearing a bed sheet and getting strange looks from everyone that walked past. They would think I was either drunk or insane, and one look at my father’s record would form their theory as to how I had gone to sleep with clothes on and woken up naked and finger-painted. I turned the engine over and pulled out of the car park, driving to the boys’ riverfront apartment instead. The doorman and the lift attendant didn’t even blink at my bed sheet, which I found impressive. I rode the lift to the top floor and knocked on Noah and Cabe’s door.

  It swung open to reveal Cabe’s face. He cast his eyes over me rapidly, pausing on my red-stained fingers, and then he stood aside. “Sit down,” he said gravely, indicating the couch. “I’ll get the others.”

  8

  Shopping with the Devil

  Cabe returned with Quillan and Noah, and I found myself waiting for Silas to walk through the door. Why I placed all of my trust in the scariest of them—the only one of them that didn’t seem to want me around—was beyond me. Perhaps I was trying to consolidate everything that I had blurted to him over the years with a fabricated sense of meaning, to trick myself into thinking that it was okay to say all those things, to rely on him in the way that I did.

  He’s not coming.

  I explained as best I could, my foot tapping restlessly on the floor the entire time. They kept their reactions carefully under control, which I found myself grateful for. It was hard enough to know how to react to this myself, without having to compute their feelings as well.

  “You’re staying here for a little while,” Quillan decided out loud. “Until we can find this guy.”

  “Why do people keep assuming it’s a guy?” I asked.

  Quillan shook his head at me. “Just a hunch,” he uttered absently, causing a chill to race down my spine.

  “I want Tariq to stay with me.”

  “It’s best that you keep him separate.” Noah spoke, low and gentle—a tone I hadn’t quiet grown used to hearing from him. “Your father might be a danger, but this messenger is malicious, and so far the only thing he cares about is you. He doesn’t care what your brother does one way or another, so it’s best to keep Tariq as far away from this as possible. We, however…” he glanced at Cabe and then at Quillan before continuing, “We can look after ourselves.”

  “Alright,” I relented. “But I want the photos. All of them.”

  “We destroyed them.” Quillan spoke quickly as he strode for the door, ending the conversation. He turned back to me after a pause, his hand on the door handle. “All of them.”

  I winced as the door closed and I found myself face-to-face with Cabe.

  “Put it out of your mind, sweetheart.” He clasped my cheeks lightly, tilting my head up. “You’re safe with us. Our security system isn’t hack-able; it’s like a Swiss vault. Knowing Silas, there’s probably some kind of sick initiation trick to get past the vault trolls, like sawing of your right arm in exchange for a code—”

  “Cabe,” Noah sighed.

  Cabe flashed me a grin, drawing me up. “Come on, we’ll get you some
clean clothes and you’ll feel much better. Or at least good enough to go shopping.”

  “You want me to go shopping?” I asked in disbelief.

  “At best I’ll have a pair of workout pants that might fit you. You can’t wear those to our party tonight.”

  “You want me to go to a party tonight?”

  “Seph, keep up.” Cabe heaved a sigh, dragging me the rest of the way to his room. I wondered if he were putting on an act to try and trivialise what had happened, but even if he was, I almost didn’t mind. Would it be so bad to let them take over? To give them power over my safety?

  True to his word, Cabe found a pair of workout shorts with an elastic waistband and a sweatshirt long enough to almost cover them completely. I didn’t mind wearing the clothes, but he wrinkled his nose at me when I walked out of his bedroom.

  “We’ve got a lot to do,” he informed me, shouldering past to enter his room. I trailed after him.

  He disappeared into the closet for a second and then came back with my chameleon shoes. He gave me a little push, and I fell back onto the bed. I reached out when I realised he was going to put my shoes on for me, and he smacked my hands away.

  “I don’t know anything about girl clothes,” he admitted, pulling me to my feet once he was done. “So this should be interesting.”

  “I’m sure you know enough. You probably know how to take them off.” I spoke offhandedly, almost matter-of-factly, but it caused him to smack into the wall before he collected himself himself.

  “Did you just flirt with me?”

  I laughed. “No, I meant it as a compliment, I guess. I have full confidence in your abilities.”

  He shook his head in bemusement as we entered the lift. “Too bad.”