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.
“What just happened?” Quillan finally spoke, sounding shocked.
I realised that my hands had unknowingly moved to the back of his neck, and I allowed my arms to grow slack and fall away as the silence in the room grew thick. Silas lowered me to the floor gently. I glanced up at his face, but the smile had faded, and I didn’t want to stick around to bear the shock of the inevitable cold shoulder that I knew would follow.
Cabe cleared his throat. “Tabby is bringing your brother around, Seph, and I don’t want to frighten him with all of Silas’s super-spy, fake ID shit.”
I nodded and spun on my heel, rushing for the door.
“Have you ever seen Silas hug somebody?” Cabe asked as we sat down in their lounge room to wait for Tariq and Tabby.
“I was beginning to think he was allergic to human sentiment,” Noah answered casually, sweeping me with a peculiar look.
I was glad when the door opened, because I wasn’t sure which direction the conversation was about to head in. Tariq entered first and I ran to him, hugging his middle. He was trembling, and I hated that he might be feeling afraid.
Tabby entered after him, her eyes finding me straight away, waiting to hear the answer.
“I think so,” I said, not willing to say more than necessary.
Tariq hugged me again while Tabby greeted her sons. She was carrying a suitcase. Cabe drew Tariq away to the kitchen and I knew he was explaining the new arrangement. He pulled out a credit card and slapped it into Tariq’s hand. My brother tried to give it back and I smiled from the other side of the room. It took only a minute for Cabe to win, as I knew it would. He handed over a set of keys and I checked to make sure Noah was occupied with Tabby before I slipped away from them into the piano room and flicked the lock.
I pulled out the messenger’s phone and typed out a message.
You want me to stop the bond? Too late. It’s there. You can’t stop it, and I can’t take it back. Whatever you want from me, you won’t get it. Not anymore. Please leave me alone.
The reply came quickly.
You haven’t formed the bond, little Seraph. I would know.
I counted to ten under my breath and then Noah shouted out from the next room, “Seraph!”
They started banging on the door, and I quickly replied to the text message.
It’s done.
The reply was almost instant.
That may be true, but strings can be severed. Bonds can be broken. Would you like to know how painful it is?
Quillan was there now too, foul language and all.
The phone vibrated in my hand, and I glanced down at the second reply.
We will see.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and opened the door just as Silas stormed into the apartment, his posture vibrating, like he was ready to get into a fight. Quillan pulled up his fist and raised a single finger. I stared at the offending digit and puffed out a breath, but Silas moved swiftly, his torso blocking the others out. He hooked his finger into the neckline of my shirt and dragged me forward, twisting his body so that I didn’t collide with him, propelling me into the centre of the living room. I swatted at his hand and he released me, but he advanced until his chest was brushing mine.
“Don’t. Do. That. Again.” He was seething, the words stirring my hair as he bent over me, hiding what he was saying from Tabby and Tariq, probably.
I gave him a little push, and he captured my still-taped hands, spinning me until my wrists were stuck together over my chest and my back was crushed against him.
“Hey…” Tariq stepped forward, confused, his hand outstretched.
“It’s fine,” I grumbled. “It’s his job.”
Cabe laughed, and I saw the tension visibly deflate out of Quillan, whom I hadn’t noticed had also taken a step forward. Had they been worried that Silas would hurt me?
“Let me see?” Noah appeared in front of me and slipped his hand into my pocket. Silas still had a grip on my arms, so I couldn’t do anything to stop him. Noah flipped the phone open and read the messages, and then his mouth tightened into a grimace. “I suppose we could fake it…” he hedged.
Fake it? I thought we were already bonded.
“Silas?” Tariq looked uncomfortable. “Can you let my sister go now?”
Silas released me, moving away from me so rapidly that the hairs at the base of my neck stirred. He snatched the phone straight out of Noah’s grasp, grabbed Quillan by the arm and marched out of the apartment, slamming the door heavily behind him. I rubbed at my wrists. I wasn’t sure how much I could say in front of Tabby and Tariq, so I stayed quiet. Tabby stared at the door, and looked back to her sons. She seemed perplexed.
“What’s going on?” she finally asked.
“The messenger guy gave Seraph a phone,” Cabe answered her. “She just texted him to get him to back off. Whenever he replies, it gets forwarded to all of our phones.”
“Hmm.” She stared at the door for a while longer, and then walked into the kitchen and started making lunch. I watched her back as she moved around, an alarming feeling trying to break into the forefront of my mind. Something about her felt off, but I shoved the feeling away.
There was nothing normal about any of this, Cabe and Noah’s mother was the least of my problems.
Cabe pulled me into Noah’s bedroom and dropped a suitcase onto the bed. “Pack some stuff, okay?”
He waited for me to nod, and then he ruffled my hair and left me alone. I packed everything that I had with me and lugged the suitcase into Cabe’s room, where Noah seemed to be packing for the both of them. Cabe was sitting on his bed, intent on his phone. Noah motioned me to close the door, and I did. I planted my suitcase next to his on the bed and then crawled up to the headboard, sitting myself next to Cabe. He dropped an arm over my shoulders and drew me in. I turned slightly, so that I was leaning back on him, watching Noah finish packing.
“Why did you say that we could fake it?” I asked quietly.
“Hmm?” Cabe answered me instead of Noah—who didn’t seem to have heard me.
“I thought we were already bonded,” I said a little louder.
Cabe dropped his phone and Noah paused, looking up with a shirt dangling from his hands. “It’s complicated,” he said.
“So we aren’t bonded?” I asked, trying not to be lulled by Cabe’s fingers drawing comforting circles over the material covering my shoulders.
“Sure we are,” Noah replied.
“Then what did you mean?”
His expression hardened. “Do you trust us?”
I nodded, but I wasn’t entirely sure.
He smiled and folded the shirt, dropping it into one of the suitcases. “I understand that it’s a lot to ask, Seph… to blindly trust people in a situation like this. But it’s for your own good. We can’t answer that question just yet—soon, but not just yet.”
“Why not?”
“It’s…” He paused and shook his head. “I can’t tell you any more than I already have until you’ve been introduced to the people in charge, and we can’t introduce you to those people right now or it might mess everything up. You, me, Noah, Silas, Miro. We’d all be ruined. Everything is hanging on by a thread, and what we’re attempting to do… most people would find it impossible. What you need to do… most people would be torn apart.”
I pulled away from Cabe, moving off the bed until I was standing, my fists clenched at my sides. “What do I need to do?”
They seemed to be silently consulting each other over my head, trying to decide what to tell me, or how to distract me so that I would stop asking questions.
“Tell me what you feel,” Noah eventually said, capturing my hand and drawing me to his side.
At first, I didn’t understand what he meant, but his thumb brushed over my knuckles and his hand slipped around my jaw, gently turning my face to his so that he could read my expression. The scratchy feeling that assaulted me whenever one of them touched me had gradually become muted, as I spent more time with them—but now it was back with a vengeance. It shivered up my arm from where Noah held my hand and jarred in my shoulder, making me feel stiff and tense. It was decidedly more uncomfortable than it used to be, and that fact alone felt strange. The endless blue of Noah’s gaze seemed to widen, drawing me in and hypnotising me so that I almost missed the way his attention momentarily slid from my face to examine how my body had stiffened from his touch.
“Cabe,” he whispered, not taking his eyes from me.
Heat slid across my back, and fingers grasped my free hand, slipping between mine. I wanted to wrench my hands free and run from the room. I wanted to run until I couldn’t feel the scratching anymore, until I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
“What do you feel?” Cabe asked, his words stirring against my ear.
I was having trouble breathing all of a sudden, my legs were weak and the room was beginning to blur. Noah and Cabe seemed to be closing in, and I wavered on my feet, flashing darkness whipping before my eyes.
“Seph!” Noah
shouted, his hands on my shoulders, shaking me.
I stumbled back from them and my eyes flew wide, my hands thrown up before me to ward them off. Tiny wings of light were fluttering uncertainly around the room, zapping at the air in agitation and sidling up to me with unheard whimpers, caressing the skin of my arms and legs. My sight became blurred with the sudden appearance of tears, and everything merged before me into a kaleidoscope of light and colour: bright flickers between flashes of golden brown and turquoise blue.
“Why are you fighting it so much?” Cabe sounded upset, distraught even.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice was raw with the strain of despair and the threat of the inevitable, the unknown. It was a threat that I didn’t understand, yet one that I felt keenly.
“Cabe?” Tabby called from the living room. “Noah? What’s wrong with the lights?”
We all glanced up at the light in the ceiling. It was flickering.
“Nothing!” Cabe called out, as my mouth dropped open.
They both started to come toward me again, but I jumped back, throwing my hands up again. The hurt that rushed across their faces was unmistakable, and it seared right through me, leaving a painful trail of fire down the back of my throat. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, as the valcrick finally winked out and the ceiling light returned to normal. “I just… I don’t understand.”
I stumbled to the door, leaving them both there. I was embarrassed, and shaking badly. I wanted to go back to them, but I was terrified of what was happening. I closed the door behind me and found Tabby in the living room. I quickly turned so that she couldn’t read anything on my face, and escaped into the kitchen. I found Tariq in the dining room and wandered through the archway, taking my seat to the right of Quillan’s empty chair.
“Seph,” Tariq said.
“Little brother.” I reached out and he captured my hand. He looked down, surprised. “What happened to your hands?” He must not have noticed the tape on my hands before.
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