Watercolour Smile

  “Besides,” Silas spoke up for the first time, and we all turned to look at him. “The people who killed your father weren’t alone. Both of their phones were bugged and I traced the feed back to Northwest Spokane. I could only narrow the area down to a half-mile radius, but I found a cabin by the river. It was abandoned in a rush, by the looks of it. There were still torn edges of maps and photographs that had been stuck all over the walls, and the floorboards had been ripped up. There were bloody bandages in the trash, and an obscene amount of dried blood staining the floor. They had been listening-in the whole time that we were in the house. They know that Gerald has a daughter. I’ve been monitoring the cabin and Gerald’s house all week, and nobody has returned. I even checked the records of the nearby hospitals, but didn’t recognise any names. It’s making me nervous. I don’t know why they went dark, and I don’t know how they knew that I would find their hideout. We’re missing something here.”

  He wandered off even as he still spoke, and I watched, surprised as he got into his car without a backward glance.

  Quillan cleared his throat, looking rapidly from Silas’s car, to us. “Alright then. That settles it,” he said, already jogging after the car. “We’ll see you all back at the house!”

  Quillan barely made it to the Jaguar before Silas pulled out of the lot, and I pressed my lips together tightly, hoping to hide my concerned frown. It should have warmed me that Quillan seemed to be toting some kind of brotherly instinct, but instead, it warned me.

  I sighed, scuffing my shoes against the dirt. It seemed there was still much to learn about Silas. About all of them.

  Noah led the way to the BMW, pulling me into the backseat beside him and leaving the front for Cabe and Tariq. I touched my shirt to make sure the blood had dried and then I leaned into Noah. He lifted his arm and pulled me into his side. The itching feeling was back, but subdued enough that it didn’t really bother me, so I tucked my hands into my lap and let my eyelids flutter closed. I drew in several deep breaths, finally allowing the tension to drain out of my limbs.

  “How did Weston find us?” I asked.

  “He’s aware of our movements at all times,” Noah answered. “When we left him, it wasn’t that he didn’t know where we were, he just wasn’t allowed to approach us. We threatened him with—”

  “Things,” Cabe interrupted. “We threatened him with things.”

  “Right,” Noah continued. “But those things clearly weren’t enough. He broke his promise today.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we followed you. I’m sure he’s been hearing rumours this whole time, but we didn’t really prove our relationship with you to be so suspicious until now. He would have known about the messenger’s pranks, since half the school knew about them, so he might have assumed—correctly—that we took you away to keep you safe. But following you back here? That’s different. That’s stalking.” He smirked.

  I bit my tongue so that I wouldn’t laugh.

  “You were amazing today,” Cabe said suddenly, “you know that? How did you calm him down so quickly?”

  I met Cabe’s eyes in the rear-view mirror and then diverted my attention to the door handle. “Truth or dare,” I murmured.

  “Is that a question?” Noah’s mouth hooked into a smile. “Or you actually played truth or dare?”

  “Well, that’s what we did the other time,” I managed as Cabe glanced in the rear-view mirror again. “It’s how I calmed him down last weekend so I assumed it would work again.”

  “Crazy.” Noah laughed. “I can’t believe that worked.”

  “Well it was also the valcrick, I guess. I mean, it was much harder to do last weekend without the valcrick.”

  “I saw his face…” Noah mused. “Miro’s too… what exactly was the valcrick doing?”

  “Want to see?” I jumped back in the seat, excited.

  His brows inched up. “Okay…”

  I grabbed his hands and closed my eyes, but a hand pulled at my shoulder.

  “Hey!” Cabe was reaching around the seat with his eyes still fixed on the road. “None of that sparkly shit in the car, it’s too distracting.”

  I leaned forward to rest my chin on his shoulder. “Lucifer…”

  “Don’t give me that look,” he said firmly, glancing to the side and then re-focussing on the road.

  “Lucifer.” I reached around the seat and set my hands on his shoulders, making my expression as miserable and pathetic as possible.

  He glanced in the rear-view mirror and groaned. “Little ghost… don’t do that—” I released a tiny zap of valcrick into his shoulders and he jumped in his seat— “Arrrghh!” The car leaned a little to the left and he quickly righted it, laughing. “Noah, control her before she gets us all killed.”

  Noah grabbed my wrists and pulled me back, tucking me into his side again. “You can show me when we get there,” he promised, a glint in his eye. “And then I’ll let you have your revenge on Cabe.”

  Cabe drove to Gerard’s house and we all got out as Tariq disappeared inside to pack his stuff. I didn’t particularly want to set foot inside the house again, not after what had happened with Silas. Not after seeing my father dead in his bed, watching the television like he had just dozed off by accident. Not after having to remove all of the broken furniture and dust down the unused dining chairs, or having to box up the frames so blurred out by dust and grime that the faces in the photographs were trapped in the same dirty, shadowed existence as their living models. Especially not after having to remove his smoky, bloodstained mattress. Instead, I moved to the garage and retrieved the hidden key, unlocking the door and pulling it up. Everything was exactly how I remembered, which was a strange feeling since I hadn’t seen it in so long. I walked among the paints and jars, the lines of brushes and the racks of butcher’s paper and canvas. Quillan himself had donated most of the art supplies; he had fostered my talent right from his first day teaching at my old school, giving me everything and anything that I ever needed, mostly before I even asked for it.

  Noah and Cabe poked around just as I did, pulling out half-finished paintings and retreating outside to see them better in the sunlight that was gradually chasing away the rain. I cleared off a space on the workbench and jumped up onto it, crooking my finger at Noah. His smile twisted instantly and he dropped the roll of canvas he had been looking at, coming to stand before me. Cabe also abandoned what he had been doing and moved beside me, resting his hip against the bench and folding his arms. I held out my hands and Noah touched his palms to mine, his fingers curling gently over my wrists. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, focussing on the familiar smell of acrylics, turpentine, and the damp garage.

  Throughout the years, the garage had been my sanctuary. I used to sneak out at night or get up several hours earlier in the morning just to be in here. I’d keep some of Tariq’s old sweatshirts in a box in the corner and would wear them over my clothes, leaving only my sneakers to play victim to the inevitable paint splatters. The musty smell and the feel of the rough wooden bench beneath my thighs were all familiar and comforting, but it wasn’t enough, because there was still an undercurrent of fear in my memory of the garage. Fear associated with Gerald. I pushed out the smell and recalled something else instead; the day I decided to paint again after almost giving up. The day Noah almost hit me with his car. I thought about my first glimpse of them, and the hand on my desk, preventing me from running away from Cabe. I thought about them cornering me, again and again, and I started to smile. I remembered thinking that they were opposite on the inside to how they were on the outside; with Cabe’s darkly handsome exterior and his sunshine interior; and Noah’s angelic looks to contrast his more pensive personality. I knew now—that wasn’t entirely true; Noah had a soft heart, and Cabe was more than a little devilish.

  The more I thought about them, the warmer I felt on the inside, until I was almost squirming in the pleasant haze of my other sanctuary…

  My friends.

/>   I clung to the joy of Cabe’s smile and the brilliance of Noah’s eyes, and I pushed it all into my valcrick, releasing the electricity. This time I opened my eyes to watch. The same web of light was there; but it was crawling now, like it lived. It slowly covered Noah’s hands, and then reached up his arms and clung to his shoulders, dipping over his chest and then tapering off, like it had simply wanted to drape over him. Noah’s eyes were brighter than usual, and had flown wide as he watched the net. He made a sound like a breathless laugh, flexing his arms. The net flexed with him.

  “It’s… so happy,” he whispered, tilting his neck back and closing his eyes.

  I wasn’t watching the valcrick anymore; I was watching him. His golden hair fell back from his forehead and his eyelashes fanned against his cheeks, the valcrick covering him like a cloak of finely-woven, golden light. He really was an angel.

  “Wow…” he squeezed my hands and then pulled away, just a little bit.

  We both watched as the net strained. It seemed to want to hold him there, and when he moved his arms even further, it snapped. The web began to disintegrate and the light died, falling in grainy pieces of brief radiance to the paint-splattered ground.

  “Fascinating.” Noah shook his head. “You can’t do it without being in contact.”

  “My turn.” Cabe nudged his brother and Noah easily fell to the side. “Do your worst, pretty devil.”

  “I thought I was a ghost.” I grinned.

  “You’re both. Too evil, and too quiet for your own good.”

  I laughed and held out my hands for him. He knocked my hands away and pushed the skirt of my dress up slightly, settling his palms against my skin, just above my knees.

  “Let’s see if you can channel it without your hands,” he said.

  I swallowed, closing my eyes and trying to focus. The itching feeling was beginning to poke holes in my concentration, and it was too difficult to reach for the simple joy of a memory with my body at war; my instinct to be uncomfortable—or to pull away—at complete odds with the bond’s encouragement that this was normal. Essential. I blanched before I could stop myself, and my unease surged, chasing away the remnants of easy bliss. In a last ditch effort, I grappled with a different memory—a memory of Silas’s freak-out melting away before me. Of the familiar wildfire in his gaze flaring to life, drawing me close, until his hands were on me… until his mouth was tracing over the line of my collarbone.

  An intense feeling flooded into me, drowning out the panic, the itching, the internal war of my heart and my bond, until all that remained was an intense thrum… and then I drew on the electricity.

  It was a different way of channelling the valcrick to when I attacked people. This was more like casting out a line—something that was still tethered to me—whereas the valcrick I used to hurt someone was an expulsion of what was inside me. It was a reaction, a backlash, an answer to whatever threat I could sense. This valcrick was simply a way of extending myself, of reaching out and draping my power over people.

  Cabe grunted. “Ugh, Seph… not what I was expecting.”

  I refocussed my thoughts, worried that I had somehow gotten off-track. Cabe’s fingers had tightened on my legs, sliding me forward along the bench. I blinked at him, and he jolted me suddenly all the way to the edge, parting my legs. The material of my skirt caught, since there was a tighter underskirt beneath the flare of my funeral dress, and he pushed harder. I felt a bite of pain and heard a rip, and then he was stepping between my legs, his hands travelling further up my thighs. His head fell onto my shoulder and I realised that his breathing was deep and uneven. I clamped a fist down on my reaction, not daring to feel the panic that threatened, or the scratching that demanded to be acknowledged. The valcrick was still holding onto him, and I couldn’t chance hurting him… or hurting him even more, if that was what had happened. I widened my eyes at Noah, who shrugged, his attention straying to my ripped skirt and then quickly snapping back to my eyes, confused. Cabe’s fingers were almost bruising.

  “Lucifer?”

  He groaned something incoherent, so I tried again.

  “Cabe?”

  He lifted his head and I froze, because his warm, toffee-glazed eyes had darkened to a smoky bronze.

  “Stop me,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to ask what he had meant, but he dipped forward and caught my lips. I gasped as the valcrick grew immediately static, rebelling against the sudden shock of the contact. Pain wracked up my spine and darkness threatened to consume my sanctuary. My hands curled against the edges of the wooden bench, ready to push off, or brace myself against passing out. The contact lasted barely a second before Cabe was wrenched away. I stared at the two of them, my lips tingling and my stomach aching with a painful yearning that was more alien to me than usual.

  “Would you two stop doing that?” I managed.

  Cabe’s eyes were unfocused, and Noah had pulled him back so roughly that he had been slammed against the opposite counter lining the garage. He rubbed his side as an empty jar toppled from the counter, smashing against the ground. He was shaking his head.

  “What the hell, man?” Noah grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

  “Give me a minute,” Cabe grumbled, turning away from us both and placing his hands against the counter, like he needed it to hold himself up. “She… um… you felt happiness right?”

  “So?” Noah looked ready to explode, and I wasn’t sure if it was jealousy, or he was incensed on behalf of me. Somehow, I doubted that it was the latter.

  Cabe laughed, but the sound ended on a embarrassed curse. “Yeah, well, I think she gave me the wrong kind of happiness.”

  I made to draw in a horrified gasp, but it got caught, and I ended up choking on it. I tumbled from the bench, briefly managing to catch myself before I fell over. “Oh my god,” I recovered, doubling over as I coughed, tears blinking in my eyes. My face was bright red, and I could feel the burn all the way to my ears. “I’m so sorry!” I croaked.

  Noah laughed and slapped a hand down hard against the bench Cabe was leaning on. “Seraph!”

  I buried my face in my hands, my groan muffled. “I can’t believe this,” I muttered into my palms.

  “What was that?” Noah moved in front of me and pulled my hands away from my face, still laughing.

  I just shook my head, too embarrassed to speak, and pulled my hands back to hide my face again.

  “Well,” Cabe turned around again, his usual humour glinting behind the other emotion that marked his face. “Now we know how you distracted Silas.”

  “Cabe!” I wailed.

  Settling Tariq into Hollow Ground College turned out to be surprisingly easy. He rose through the popularity ranks absurdly fast, and only sat at our table in the centre of the cafeteria for one day before moving off to sit with the rest of the football team.

  I watched the process uneasily, only now finding his extreme adaptability to be suspicious. He was absurdly good at hiding what was really going on in his head. I had always thought him to be simple. Instead, he was…secretive. I wasn’t distrustful of him so much as I was of that vault of a brain he boasted. It made me want to grab him by his shoulders and shake him until the contents of his head tumbled out and I could begin to piece things together. But I couldn’t do that, because I was a coward. I didn’t want to pressure him after everything that he had already been through, and I was guilty for leaving him behind, thinking that he would be safer separated from me. It was a very egoistical outlook, assuming that the messenger only had his sights set on me, and hadn’t even glanced at my family.

  My guilt-ridden revelations aside, I was glad that Tariq was the way he was, even if only for the fact that his initiation into Hollow Ground hadn’t been as rocky as my own. I didn’t have a particular interest in involving myself with any of the school clubs or teams, but I did occasionally trail Tariq to the sports center after classes finished. That’s what I was doing a few weeks after we got back, when my phone buzzed wi
th a message from an unknown number.

  How’s it going?

  I blinked at the screen and then typed out a reply, keeping my head down as I pushed through the weights room and on through the door that led to the gymnasium.

  Who is this? I waited nervously for the reply, some part of my mind ringing a warning. I hadn’t gone on any more dates since the dolls had been left at the house, and the messenger had once again fallen into eerie silence.

  Mike. Poison’s friend.

  I wasn’t sure what Mike wanted. The only people I ever texted were the guys, Tariq, or Poison. Occasionally I’d text Clarin, but not often. Eventually, I shoved the phone into my book bag and forgot about the message, storing my bag in the one locker that always seemed to be empty… probably because the lock was broken.

  “Going to join us today, Stephanie?”

  I startled, slamming the locker door closed. It trembled, threatening to dislodge from its frame before slowly crawling open again. I turned to face the school’s gymnastics coach.

  “Ah,” I replied.

  Her smile was somewhat impish, and she wore it well as she turned on her heel and sauntered out of the room.

  I trailed her with my head down, slipping into the gymnasium and hurrying up the ladder right beside the entrance door. I landed in an open gallery that looked down over the area below. It was cast in shadow and dust, with bulky misshapen silhouettes lurking around the edges. Upon closer inspection, it was easy to make out the discarded furniture stacked high to the ceiling, but I liked to think of them as silent, hulking monsters; outcasts of society, imprisoned to always look down from their tower room, but cursed to never join the ranks of those below. I was a little bit like that, but I felt—at least—that I had chosen my position. I could have obeyed the messenger. I could have run from Noah and Cabe, and later, Silas and Quillan. I could have gathered my meagre possessions, packed them into my mother’s old car and taken Tariq far away from it all.