Charcoal Tears (21 page)

Grounded

I had killed someone.

Silas was hovering over me, pulling the burnt material of the sweater away from my hands, and it hurt, but that wasn’t why I couldn’t stop crying. The man had a huge chunk of metal sticking out of his chest, and I was the one who had put it there. I stumbled away from Silas and heaved, but nothing came out. I crumbled, and he caught me. He carried me to the Jeep and buckled me into the passenger seat. He disappeared and a moment later, he was helping Noah and Cabe into the back. We drove out and passed the police cars on the bridge. There was an ambulance following them.

Too late
.

I woke up in a hospital, and there were two men sitting on either side of me. I looked to my left, trying to bring Noah and Cabe’s faces into focus. Happy sunshine blasted through me as Cabe’s face stopped wavering, and then I looked to Noah, and the world stopped spinning as a whole. He brought it all back, straightened it, and forced it to behave. He dived inside me and caught all of the pieces, holding them together while Cabe’s gentle gold light wrapped around me.

I reached out and Cabe caught my arm, and then my head fell to the left. Silas’s untamed fire unsettled me for a moment, but then it surged through my cold limbs and bubbled contentedly in my blood. Quillan looked the worst-off, and on some level, I knew it was because there was something different about our relationship. It was suddenly obvious how much Cabe and Noah cared for me, and Quillan and I both knew that what we felt was…
less
.

I lifted my other arm and Silas caught my wrist.

They were my pairs
.

I blacked out again.

I woke up in a bed that smelled like dewy spring and sweet toffee. My eyes were heavy and my limbs were even heavier. I groaned as I tried to sit up and only managed to fall back down again. I tried for a second time and managed to straighten and stand. The room spun before me and I put a hand up to my face. Bandages brushed my forehead and I brought my hands back down, seeing that they were taped up to the wrists. Even my fingers were covered. I looked further down and saw another bandage wrapped around my leg, right below my left knee. My arms were covered in healing cuts. I was dressed in one of Cabe’s shirts and a pair of gym shorts. I hobbled to the door, needing to pause as pain shot up my leg. I pulled it open and found the apartment empty.

Taking what peace I could before the inevitable lectures started, I made it to the bathroom and ran a bath. I pulled off Cabe’s shirt, my hands feeling clunky and useless. Unhooking my bra turned out to be impossible, so I slid it down—a painful process in itself—and stepped out of it. I pulled off my underwear and stood in the bath, enduring the process of trying to wash away the memories of what had happened and what I had done.

I dressed in the same clothes—sans bra, and hobbled down the hallway to knock on the door of the other apartment with my elbow.

Cabe opened it and frowned, bending and swooping an arm beneath my legs, the other holding up my back as he lifted me. “What are you doing walking around, crazy girl?”

He kicked the door shut and walked down into the tech-centre-living-room. The other three were crowded around a single monitor, and they looked like they were in pain. Cabe brought me around behind the desk, and I saw the image paused on the screen. It was me crouched behind the trees beside the bridge, phone pressed to my ear. They had pulled security footage. That explained the pained expressions.

Cabe pulled out a chair next to Silas and sat down, cradling me gently. Noah’s hand dropped onto my head, smoothing out my damp hair, separating the knots and combing it over my back. Silas looked over at me, his eyes pausing on the front of the shirt I wore for a second before flicking back up to my face. I’d have to figure out how to put a bra on soon.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

Quillan let out a snort. “Next time you disobey me, Seph… but just this once…” He leaned in between Silas and Cabe, grasping my upper arm. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Ready for the show?” Silas asked, ending the moment as Noah finished combing out my hair and let his hands fall to my shoulders.

I turned my face slightly. One of Noah’s hands lifted from my shoulder and cupped my jaw from behind. I pressed into the touch, tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. “Yes,” I managed, feeling Noah’s roiling emotions behind the touch. He was afraid.

Silas tapped a button and the scene started to play out. There was no sound, and it was taken from the side, with a clear view of both the van and me talking on the phone. It was cut off just before the concrete archway. The girl barely even looked like me. Her skin was pale beneath the tan, her mismatched eyes wide and horrified. The phone slipped from her grip and she stumbled forward, throwing out her arms. The vision shook, and I realised that it was the camera shuddering. Light sluiced through the sky, thick and blinding, and the van exploded. The girl on screen was thrown back, and some of the men in black were tossed too. They gathered themselves, some limping, one of them unconscious, and vanished from the screen. The girl was still lying on the ground. She turned, crawled and found the dropped phone. She pushed to her feet, swaying. Blood ran down her arms and legs. She spoke into the phone and then put it away, stumbling toward the van. She tried to get close, pulled back, and then circled it. Then there was nothing.

Silas pressed a few more buttons and drew up another image. This one showed Cabe and Noah tied to a rusted ring welded into the concrete archway. They looked only half-aware, like they had been drugged. This time the girl on screen was invisible, and I was glad… until two of the masked men pulled guns. I tensed up all over again. Noah’s hand shifted against my face, reminding me. Cabe squeezed my knee, and I looked at him, letting the warmth of his eyes draw me in as the van exploded on screen for the second time. By the time I looked back, the girl was there again. She was staring at one of the car doors, and the body pinned beneath it.

She gripped the door and tried to lift it, ignoring the flames that were still licking at parts of the metal. I could feel Cabe’s breath hiss against my ear. The girl on screen struggled until the door was lifted off, and then I jumped up, feeling the need to vomit rise again. I swayed, tipped, and Silas caught me—just like he had the last time. He reached back and smashed a few of the keys, making the recording disappear. He steadied me and handed me off to Cabe, who lifted me again, taking me into the kitchen.

“Silas pulled the footage so that the cops wouldn’t find it,” he whispered to me as he set me onto the kitchen bench.

He poured me a glass of water and I tried to hold it between my hands. It hurt, and Cabe took it back, his hand going to the back of my neck as he tipped it toward my lips. I got distracted when Noah walked into the kitchen, and the water spilled from the side of my mouth, dropping onto my shirt. Cabe grabbed a tea towel and dabbed at my face, and then moved to dry my shirt as well, before pausing. The usual sparkle in his eyes morphed into something else, and the sudden strain in the air drew Noah’s attention. I caught the colour rising in his cheeks.

Noah left the kitchen and came back with a sweatshirt, which he eased over my head. They seemed to relax once it was in place, and I rolled my eyes to cover my embarrassment.

“I’m sure you’ve both seen boobs before.”

Cabe cleared his throat, and the colour in Noah’s cheeks deepened. I heard one of them cough, and Cabe tipped the rest of the water down my throat, probably to stop me from saying anything else. They started cooking, leaving me to sit there, and soon the smells of pasta had my stomach clenching. I glanced back out the windows, realising it was evening.

“What day is it?” I asked.

“Wednesday,” Quillan answered, striding into the kitchen. “You were released from hospital yesterday morning and slept for about eighteen hours.”

“Whoa.”

He smiled. “You needed it. Now you’re rested enough to face the inquisition.”

I didn’t answer, and once dinner was ready, Silas came into the kitchen. Cabe helped me to a seat at the dinner table, to the right of Quillan, who sat at the head. Noah was across from me, Cabe beside me, and Silas across from him. It took me a while to eat the spaghetti because I was clumsy handling the fork, but I was satisfied once I was done. Everyone else was already finished and Cabe gathered up the plates as Quillan pulled something from his pocket and placed it onto the table. A phone. The phone that had been strapped under my desk at school.

“How long have you had this?” he asked.

“I found it under the table when you told me to go to the boys. I went into the classroom first.”

He held up his finger. “One case of disobedience that I
will
punish you for.”

My mouth dropped open. “What?”

“You heard me,” he replied easily. He pulled something else out of his pocket. A picture of me at work, wearing the small leather skirt and holding a tray of shots. He held up another finger. “Two. You kept that pretty quiet.”

I bit down on my lip.

“She doesn’t usually wear that crap.” Silas spoke so apathetically that it took me a moment to discern the fact that he was finally coming clean. “They had a management change and the asshole new boss made her borrow some girl’s clothes. She changed again halfway through the night.”

Every head at the table turned, painfully slowly, to fix him with varying looks of incredulity and disbelief.

“What do you mean she doesn’t
usually
wear that crap?” Quillan asked.

A casual smile hooked Silas’s mouth and he dropped back to recline in his seat. His dark eyes flicked to mine, and then back to Quillan. “I’ve been going to the club for a year now.”

A laugh bubbled out of Cabe, Noah jumped to his feet, and Quillan’s eyes widened. “
That’s
where you’re always disappearing to?
Seriously?
Why didn’t you just tell us?”

The smile disappeared. “You would have flown off the handle. Noah and Cabe would have gotten arrested. That’s
my
thing.”

They all turned their eyes to the picture on the table, and Noah fell back into his seat. His eyes were stormy when he looked at me, half a glare. “You’re not going back to work.”

“Easy, Noah,” Silas growled.

They all looked at him again, and then back to Quillan, waiting for more. Quillan’s expression was uncomfortable. “For the next ten days you’re on house-arrest,” he said. “Cabe and Noah can collect your school work, you can check up on Tariq… but that’s it.”

“You’re grounding me?” I was floored.

He narrowed his eyes at me, his tone rooting me to the chair. “Yes.”

“But…” I started, and he lifted a brow. “But…” I tried again, and his lips twitched, like he was thinking of smiling.

“Don’t try arguing,” Cabe quipped. “Miro makes the rules. That’s his job.”

“What’s
your
job?” I turned on Cabe, pinning him with a look that I might have learned from Quillan.

“I’m the peacemaker!” He held his hands up in mock surrender.

“You?” I glared at Silas, like he was the one who got me grounded.

“He’s the muscle,” Noah answered for him.

“And
you
?” I pinned Noah last.

“I cook.”

I bit down on my laugh, but it came out anyway. “And what’s my job?”

“We’ve yet to decide,” Cabe answered immediately.

Quillan and Silas left the dining room then, and I found that, despite having just woken up, I was already tired again. Noah handed me a small bottle of painkillers, relaying the instructions that I had been too doped-up at the hospital to hear, and I took two of the tablets before going back to bed. I was surprised that my ten days of exile flew by, but then again, I’d never been grounded before. I learned a handful of new songs on the piano, and then Noah recorded himself playing some of his favourite songs, and I tried learning off those. For some reason, I couldn’t do it unless I could actually physically see which keys to press. I also spent most afternoons with Tariq, hanging out in Noah and Cabe’s apartment. It was always hard to see him leave, knowing that he was returning to Gerald without me there to protect him.

Mid-way through the week, Quillan showed me into the only room in their apartment that I hadn’t yet explored. It was where the piano room was in the other apartment, but this one was set up like an art studio. Quillan’s art studio.

I avoided it mostly, sticking with my sketching. There was something invasive about spending time in another person’s art studio, and I thought that maybe it would make things too awkward with Quillan. We had grown close, but something told me it wasn’t the kind
of close that we were supposed to be growing. I had the connection with all four of them; Noah and Cabe touched me, or pulled me into their arms whenever they felt like it, and they grew agitated when I was away from them for too long. Silas simply stared at me. He floated around with his dangerous eyes, typing away behind his screens and disappearing for short stretches of time, but always returning to haunt me. Sometimes he disappeared overnight and came back with mild injuries. The others said that he was on assignments. Noah disappeared with him one of the nights, and I tossed and turned until morning, dreading seeing him the way I had seen him the last time he had come back from a Zevghéri assignment.

I only had a thin layer of tape over my palms and a small strip of bandage on my leg by the next Sunday; the rest of the cuts on my arms had healed enough that they didn’t need to be covered. It was with the looming threat of school on Monday that I finally picked up the courage to properly venture into Quillan’s studio on Sunday. I set up a blank canvas and painted a watercolour sunset, weeping with washed tears. The sunset became framed by a dusty window, and the tears became splatters of rain. The sunset was rising beyond a hill. I tasted coffee in the back of my throat as I painted, and felt the rain seeping into my skin as if I had been standing in it. When I felt the touch of a hand on my shoulder, I snapped my eyes open and spun around.