Ember (29 page)

When Candra came back out, Sebastian was sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands folded in his lap. He stood up immediately, and his eyebrows drew down as he took in her appearance. He clucked his tongue, waving his hand up and down his body.

“I should probably stop by the house to change before we go.”

“You don’t need to,” Candra said as she put her phone and keys into a shoulder bag. She kept her back to him, aware of the coolness of her tone, and she knew he’d pick up on it.

“I want to,” Sebastian assured her. “You made an effort. I should too.”

Candra bit the inside of her cheek, guessing from his tone that Sebastian’s eyes would be burning holes in her back as he tried to understand the abrupt change in her behavior. She closed her eyes tightly and breathed out heavily through her nose. “No, I mean you don’t need to come with me. I can go by myself. I’m sure Brie will drop by after work. I can catch a ride home with her.”

Candra turned, keeping her expression guarded and her eyes trained on the sharp outline of his collarbone through his T-shirt. She didn’t want him to know why she was doing this. Of anyone, Sebastian was the one person she didn’t want to see her defeated, because that was how she felt. What good did it do her to have a best friend and loving her dearly, only to have her snatched away when Candra needed her the most? What good did it do her to have a mother in Brie when she would never be allowed a relationship with her? And what good did it do to love Sebastian, when she was going lose him too? Love didn’t feel like a blessing anymore; it felt like a curse…a punishment. Candra truly believed she was doing him a kindness. Telling him how she felt would only be condemning him to the same fate as her: a lifetime of knowing it had all been for nothing. At least for her, it would be over relatively quickly. For him, it would be much different.

Like a heartbeat, time quickened when least expected. It skipped beats, and in the blink of an eye, another day was passed, but sometimes it slowed to the lethargic, strained tick tock of a waiting heart. For a heart left behind to sit on the sidelines and watch life pass by hour by hour, moment by moment, time could be a long road stretching into the horizon with seemingly no destination. For a perpetual heart like Sebastian’s, there was no measure of time, and his pain would be endless. Candra would spare him that, if she could.

Candra was a dark path for Sebastian. She could so easily choose having the blood of thousands or hundreds of thousands, both human and Watcher, on her hands over being without him. She guessed that Sebastian thought she’d said the things she’d said out of shock, which was only partly true. He believed she was fundamentally good; he’d given that as the reason he didn’t kill her. Sebastian had misjudged her, and it was better for him that he didn’t know it.

“Look at me, damn it. You think by now that I don’t know you’re avoiding me when you do that?” he spat angrily. He could see right through her.

Candra moved her gaze to Sebastian’s eyes, holding the bag in front of her body protectively and remaining expressionless. His jaw was clenched tightly, and the sound of him gulping cut through the sudden quiet in the room. He stared at her beseechingly, his brown eyes wild and mystified.

She wondered if he expected her to relent as soon as she looked at him, but it wasn’t that simple. She wasn’t good in the way he believed her to be. She attracted tragedy the way the old Nephilim attracted it. It wasn’t like Candra had started to believe she was evil, but the desire inside her to stay with Sebastian, regardless of cost, was so strong. It left her wondering whether malevolence was more dominant within her than he wanted to believe.

“I’m not avoiding anything,” Candra snapped.

“So, lying as well—that’s so much better.” Sebastian’s lips pulled up on one side more than the other. It wasn’t a smile. He was being cocky, his frustration with her coming out the only way he knew how.

“I’m not lying. Brie will be there. Call her and check, since you obviously don’t trust me.” Candra grabbed her phone from her bag and threw it at him. He caught it with ease. Her heart had started to race, adrenaline firing through her body, making her breathe fast.

“I don’t want to make a phone call,” he snapped, color pinking up in his cheeks. “I want to know why you are shutting me out. Did I do something or say something wrong? I know I’m not good with the emotional stuff, but I thought we were friends.”

“Friends?” Candra parroted.

“Yeah.”

“We’re not friends,” she barked, snatching the phone from his hand. Her brain was stabbing an accusing finger at her.
Liar, liar, pants on fire
. “Ivy and I were friends. She was the one there for me for all those years I was kept hidden from you!” Candra pushed her finger into his chest forcefully and was mildly surprised when he staggered.

Sebastian was bigger than Candra and one hundred percent sinewy muscle. It wasn’t physical weakness that made him stumble. She had hit on a raw nerve.

“All you’ve done is bring me misery and heartache. I was happy before, without you or your stalkerish, clingy ways—”

“Clingy?” His eyebrows shot up practically into his hairline.

“Yes. Clingy, insecure, stubborn, bad-tempered, and so egotistical that it’s beyond your realm of understanding that anyone would ever want to leave you, that anyone could be happy without you in their life. Guess what? I was!” Candra ranted and then had to suck in a much needed breath.

Sebastian paled, and Candra felt bile rising. The worst part for her was that most of it was true. She knew these parts of him, but she knew they were only parts, tiny parts of the complex being in front of her, glowering and clenching and unclenching his fist. The small vein on his temple throbbed where he had raked away the pale golden strands of hair that normally fell across it.

“Don’t you think I feel like the lowest form of life for bringing this to your door? Don’t you think that I constantly regret the day I ever laid eyes on you?” he said coldly with a deadly calm.

Hurt coursed through her; how could she not believe he meant it? She wanted to hurt him and, with equal measure, didn’t. It was all so confusing, but it seemed her brain had disconnected from her mouth. “Not as much as I regret it, and I look forward to the day you are out of my life for good.”

Sebastian drew back like she’d hit him…again. Candra reminded herself it was for his own good. It was better this way. The longer he stayed around her, the more likely it was she would give into her feelings for him or he would see she wasn’t a saving angel. She was just a scared little girl. She took the opportunity of his silence to storm past him. He didn’t move at all, not even when her shoulder brushed his arm.

Candra paused at the door, slammed by another wave of remorse, thinking this situation was yet a further example of how cruel she was capable of being.

“I need some breathing space,” she whispered just loud enough for him to hear before she left…alone.

Ivy’s home wasn’t far. Her apartment building was walking distance, but Candra didn’t feel like walking. She felt as if she hadn’t slept in weeks, and her pumps weren’t exactly walker friendly, so she hailed a cab not far from home, ignoring the winged creatures watching her.

The building itself was old and worn. There were dark stains on the bare concrete and large paneled windows. Most of the huge windows were original on the outside; people tended to do that in Acheron. If a building was refurbished, only the inside was repainted. It was intended to preserve the appearance of the old city. Instead, together with the modern buildings, it left the city mismatched, like an outfit thrown together. That was an accurate description of its residents too: a melting pot of beings flung together by design or circumstance.

Candra passed by a few men smoking outside the entrance and knew they had come from Ivy’s home. They were all turned out in their best mourning wear: black suits accompanied by crisp white shirts, a uniform for the bereaved. One of the older men she recognized as Ivy’s grandfather nodded an acknowledgement in a move that made Candra start because of its similarity to the Watcher greeting. He caught her reaction and smiled sadly, maybe thinking it was grief that made her jumpy. She smiled in return, acknowledging him, but didn’t approach. Instead, she made her way inside the building and took a jarring elevator ride to the seventh floor.

The apartment door was open, and the sound of muted, chattering voices floated through the air. Candra walked through the corridor to the main room, past family and friends drinking tea from china cups and tumblers of golden brown liquid. She found Ivy’s mom, Sheila, in the living room, sitting on her overstuffed couch and being comforted by another woman dressed in black. Candra presumed the woman was one of her sisters, since they shared the same mahogany hair and large, stricken doe eyes. Ivy came from a massive extended family, but Candra hadn’t realized how massive until that precise moment in a roomful of people, so many with shared features.

As soon as Sheila spotted Candra, a fresh wave of tears rolled over her ruddy cheeks, and she stood, reaching across the small coffee table scattered with teacups, creamers, and sugar bowls.

“Oh, Candra, thank you so much for coming. It’s been so terrible, so terrible,” she cried as Candra released her. Sheila appeared to zone out a little for a brief instant before regaining herself. “Sit, please sit.” She shooed away the occupant of the armchair closest to her, a young guy who seemed to have already imbibed his fair share of whiskey, judging by his glazed eyes and slightly unsteady gait.

Candra sat down, smoothing her dress over her thighs, and lightly clasped her hands in her lap before one of them was snatched away. Sheila held Candra’s hand between both of hers, rubbing it briskly like she was trying to warm it up and smiling again, a little maniacally.

“Have some tea, Candra,” she offered, waving to the china strewn table.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Candra replied softly.

She strongly suspected Sheila had been medicated. Her eyes were wide, and her pupils dilated ever so slightly.

“You’ll have some, just one cup,” Sheila insisted with a slight Dublin twang, which was bizarre since she had never left Acheron to Candra’s knowledge, and she had never noticed it before.

Definitely medicated
.

“I’ll refresh the kettle, Sheila,” the woman beside her said, patting Sheila’s leg before scooping up two tea pots from the table.

“I’m so sorry,” Candra told her, feeling her throat tighten. “Where is Frank?”

Sheila stopped her assault on Candra’s hand and simply held it between hers in a way that Candra had to continue sitting forward within her reach. Sheila sighed deeply.

“It was all getting a bit much for him around here, so I sent him to the liquor store with one of his boys to restock. They probably stopped off somewhere. I can’t blame him, you know.” She paused when a little sob seemed to catch her off guard, and she leaned forward to whisper. “Between you and me, the doctor gave me a little something to help me through today.”

Candra was right. She nodded and forced a small smile. Sheila smiled too and lifted her hand to tap the side of her nose winking, indicating it was to be their secret, although Candra was pretty sure anyone within fifty feet could tell.

“Have the police been able to tell you anything? Do they know what happened?” Candra asked hesitantly.

Sheila’s eyes fell downcast to their joined hands. “They have the boy in custody. He is just a kid. Sixteen, can you believe that? Where does a sixteen-year-old get a gun? God help him.”

“God help
him?”
Candra repeated, shocked by Sheila’s sadness apparently extending to the boy who took Ivy’s life.

“Yes, the boy was hungry, Candra, and the police told us he swears the gun went off by accident. He never meant to hurt anyone.”

“If he never meant to hurt anyone, the gun wouldn’t have been loaded,” Candra complained. “If he never meant to hurt anyone, he wouldn’t have had a gun in the first place.”

“No, no,” Sheila hushed her, “you can’t think that way. I don’t know why this has happened. I don’t understand why my beautiful baby is gone when I’m left here to struggle on without her. But I trust that God had a reason for calling Ivy home.”

“How can you say that? Ivy didn’t believe in destiny or fate. She believed we make our own choices.”

“I have to believe there’s a reason. How else can we make sense of this? I have to believe God has a plan.”