Watercolour Smile (14 page)

He hung up and I stared at the phone, chuckling. “Miro doesn’t usually joke.”

“He does when he’s under a lot of stress. He’s weird like that.”

I watched Silas walk back to his Jaguar and I pulled out ahead of him. We drove together like that all the way back to their apartment building, and rode the elevator up to the top floor in silence. He unlocked the door and I walked inside, my feet stalling when I saw Tariq. He had been facing the glass wall at the other end of the kitchen, but he turned as we walked in. The setting sun glared behind him, turning him into an almost-silhouette, but I could still make out his face.

It was exactly as I had painted it.

“Tariq!” I cried out, running over to him. “What happened?”

He slumped onto a stool at the breakfast bar, picking up an icepack that had been resting there.

“I went for a run after I spoke to you on the phone, and they ambushed me.”

“Who ambushed you? Are you… do you need to go to the hospital?”

He scoffed, the sound self-depreciating. “It looks a lot worse than it is,” he admitted. “Two guys with bandannas covering their faces. They got a few good punches in, then some random guy jumped in and told me to run. Said he’d already called the police, but I think he was lying. The bandanna-guys were scared of him though. This is all my own fault. Someone has been contacting me for months now, trying to… well, recruit me—at least that’s what they said. It all started around the same time that your stalker appeared, so I was scared that it was the same person, trying to use me to get to you.”

“
What
? What are you talking about?”

“I got a text one day, saying that I had caught their attention. They said that I had information that they were interested in, and asked if I would consider meeting them. I didn’t reply, and the next day there was ten thousand dollars in my bank account. I got another text message that night, saying that it was only a portion of what they would give me, if I met with them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Are you
insane
?”

“Maybe. I couldn’t decide what to do, at first. Ten thousand dollars? You would have been able to quit your job, we could have afforded an apartment of our own, we could have left Gerald for good. But what if it was the same person who was stalking you? And what if you found out? You would have hunted them down instead of running away, and then you probably would have died, or worse… whatever is worse than dying.”

“I
left
you, Tariq!” I balled my hands into fists, fighting with a fury that tried to drown out my usual sense of control. It wasn’t a normal fury, and so I fumbled; it was wrung with guilt, and all the stronger because of it. “I left you,” I cried. “I left you so that you wouldn’t be dragged into all of this! You should have told me… I never would have… I…”

Silas moved to my side and Tariq jumped, apparently only just noticing him. His eyes caught on Silas’s hand as it landed on my shoulder, and then flickered back to my face. His gaze narrowed, examining the dark smudges that I was sure marred the skin beneath my eyes, and the cut that was still healing on my neck.

“They were there, weren’t they?” he asked slowly.

“Yes.” I slumped a little and Silas stepped behind me so that I could lean back into him. It seemed strange, for Silas to be recognising the need for comfort in another human being, let alone being willing to
supply
said comfort, but I didn’t have the energy to properly dwell on the irregularity. “They killed Gerald,” I told Tariq.

For a moment, it seemed that he hadn’t understood me. He blinked at me, slowly, and then turned to stare out of the window.

“I used to dream about him dying.” His voice was low, breaking off at the last word. “I…” He fell forward, raking his hands through his hair. “Shit. Seph.”

I took a week off school and stayed in Seattle with Tariq. Silas stayed behind with me, but he locked himself into his apartment most of the time. I saw him taking apart the phones that he had stolen from the two men that had attacked us at Gerald’s house, and I didn’t question him. I simply stored the information away to examine later. I couldn’t handle it right then.

Tariq and I cleared out the old house and sold most of our father’s possessions. We bought a new second-hand couch that didn’t smell like booze, and had someone pick up Gerald’s bloodstained, half-burned bed. We had no idea why someone would buy it, but we didn’t ask any questions. We were just glad to see it go. Tariq stayed with me in Noah and Cabe’s apartment, and I spent most of the day in Quillan’s art studio while he was at school. When Tariq came home I would follow him to football practise and sit on the sidelines, simply content to be near him and watch over him.

On Saturday, only four people gathered in a small graveyard to bury what was left of Gerald: Silas, Tariq, an unfamiliar woman, and myself. The woman wore a leopard-print, spandex skirt, paired with a skin-tight black tank and a netted black fascinator. When she saw us, she burst into tears. None of us seemed to listen as the priest drivelled on miserably. His tone seemed to match the meagre splattering of rain that dampened the mound of fresh dirt, barely even misting us, but casting enough gloom to darken everything. The woman was too busy crying, and the rest of us seemed to be retreating to somewhere else. Tariq had a far-away look in his sorrow-speckled green eyes, like he couldn’t decide why he was upset. A few minutes into the priest’s monologue, a car pulled up and three men got out. They were tall, with broad shoulders hugged by clean-cut, dark-toned suits. I couldn’t see their faces from this distance, as an umbrella shielded one of them, and the other two were facing the wrong way, but I quickly dismissed them. No man who dressed that well could possibly be there for our father.

It wasn’t until they drew close that I looked up again. Three simultaneous sensations slammed into me, causing me to stumble back. The controlled fire of Quillan’s black eyes licked over the cold, rain-dampened skin of my arms and face, and the aura of authority that always seemed to shift where he walked blanketed around me; I started to shudder as my eyes flicked to Noah, caught in the electric storm contained within his gaze, before moving to Cabe. Looking at each of them in turn was disorienting, overwhelming. Quillan grounded you, Noah picked you up and tossed you into the wind, and Cabe caught you, sparking a light in your heart that made everything suddenly meaningful.

Silas glided away from me to stand beside Tariq, probably understanding that the others would want to be close to me after our week apart. Noah and Cabe stepped up on either side of me, their hands reaching to mine. I hiccupped as our fingers twisted together, trying to fight of the unpleasant scratching sensation. Quillan’s hand landed on the back of my neck, and the woman who had been crying before suddenly stopped. Her eyes grew wide, her gaze dragging from person to person and finally landing on me, confused.

Right.

We weren’t normal. This wasn’t normal. These four… and me.

I returned my attention to the priest, who hadn’t paused in his long-winded recitation of where the dead go when they die. It was probably a comforting thing to speak about, at other funerals… but not Gerald’s. Gerald was a wounded animal, a broken artefact, a tainted memory. We were all relieved that the suffering had ended, because his very existence had festered like something malignant and damning. We were sad that we were relieved, but we weren’t sad enough to be comforted by the thought of a soul like Gerald’s living on in any kind of eternal existence. It was better to think of him as a person that once lived, and was now gone.

Freed.

Soon to be forgotten.

Hopefully
.

I endured the rest of the funeral blanketed by the presence of my pairs. Of course they were here. It seemed silly that I hadn’t expected it. This is what we were—a unit of protection; a sanctuary. They wouldn’t let me face this on my own, even if it drew unwanted attention from Weston.

There was no wake after the funeral, so we all simply stood there and contemplated the freshly-filled ground. The woman eventually left. She apparently hadn’t driven there, for she simply walked off down the street. Another car pulled up after an hour or so, and Noah and Cabe immediately released me, stepping away. I glanced toward the car, my brow crinkling in confusion as a gentleman stepped out, straightened his tie, and began to move toward us. There was something familiar about his appearance, but I pushed the sensation away. The closer he got, the further away Noah, Cabe and even Quillan seemed to inch, and then I realised that I had seen him before. 

A younger version of him.

In a
memory
.

Maybe I needed to see a Zevghéri psychiatrist.

He had a scattering of salt-and-pepper stubble and his hair was dark and close-cropped, with the slightest hint of a wave. His eyes—ocean blue—moved with purpose around our little gathering, carrying a gravitational force that slammed me into place and socked me in the gut all at the same time. The resemblances didn’t end there, either; he was tall and broad about the shoulders, his facial structure reminiscent of the broader strength that Silas and Quillan shared, the slope of his strong brow and the Adonis-like tilt to his eyes reminding me of Cabe. His mouth was pressed into a hard line. He stopped when he reached us.

“Miro, Noah, Cabe.” He greeted each of them with a deep voice, heavy, like Quillan’s. He didn’t even look at Silas.

“What are you doing here?” Quillan seemed to answer for everyone.

“Miss Black.” Weston turned to me, ignoring Quillan’s question. “Walk with me.”

He extended a hand, palm up, and I opened my mouth to say no, but that was not what came out. “Okay,” I said, stepping forward.

I halted, confusion washing over me, and Weston’s mouth lifted into an incremental smirk. This was not like when Quillan asked me to do something and I acted without thinking… he had somehow just
forced
me to move. I squared my shoulders, walking over to him and placing my hand lightly in his. Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at the small group of people that had followed him from the car. One of them was staring at me with mismatched blue and green eyes, his arms folded tightly and his mouth twisted in an amused grin.

He also looked suspiciously familiar, but no memory assaulted me at the sight of him, so I assumed that it was just my overactive imagination.

He seemed to be the one using an ability on me, since he was the only one entertained by this show. I levelled a glare at him, which only seemed to spark a patronising humour in his eye. I took him in from head-to-toe, noting that he would have been similar in age to Quillan and Silas, and he that was dressed as formally as Weston and the others. I couldn’t tell anything more about him from his appearance, so I dismissed him with a turn of my head and allowed Weston to draw me away.

I remembered what the guys had said about Weston’s power, and how he could pry into your head with a simple touch. I had grown quite adept at shielding my mind since forming the bond with Silas and Quillan, so I pulled my familiar barricade into place now, carefully blanketing my secrets from him. Weston’s hand suddenly tightened around mine and his head whipped to the side, his eyes narrowing.

I forced a smile. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Lord Weston?”

The expression cleared from his face immediately and he laughed, looking over his shoulder at the others. “I see why they keep you around now. How did you know?”

I’ve seen you in my head.

I extracted my hand from his, clasping my own hands behind my back as we walked down the hill toward the car park. “Noah’s eyes, Miro’s hair, Cabe’s features.” I shrugged, leaving Silas out of it. “The way you’re dressed, the small contingent of suits that followed you, and your little soldier with the ability to make me do what you asked.”

“Yes.” His smile widened, his teeth flashing in a grin that made me think he was about to lunge for my throat like an animal. “Kingsling was right about you, alright. You’re quite special, aren’t you? And your power?”

I raised my hand, wiggling my fingers. I didn’t bother to channel a particular emotion, and I held back a smile as Weston’s brows twitched. Hostile valcrick whispered through the air; I could feel it slithering over my skin, raising the hairs along my arms. I waved my fingers again and it disappeared. I didn’t dare to encourage it for long, because I simply didn’t know how to control it that well, unless I was wanting to hurt someone.

“Valcrick,” he said. “Interesting. And where is your mark?”

I stopped walking, my confidence spluttering out. That’s all it would take: a single look at my marks, and the game would be up. Every elaborate farce that my pairs had constructed would tumble into dust, and the past months would be reduced to nothing more than a joke.

I suddenly felt that we were no better than children, playing a game meant for adults.