Cian

I really wasn't supposed to be here. It was the same as it had been after he'd died the first time—his room was tacitly off-limits. It felt wrong, like I was disturbing a peace of some sort—like there had been any peace at all in our house for three days now.

I'd thought Mom had gotten better, especially when we had arrived home from Los Angeles and she'd been there, waiting for us. But after she found Vinny, wept over his frigid body even as he watched, she sunk away again. I had this awful inkling that she wasn't coming back this time, either. Why would she? She'd lost her husband, her son. Maybe she still had me, but I had never been enough.

My hand was on the knob to Vinny's bedroom. I hadn't touched it since he'd drowned himself. Since I'd let him go—honestly, entirely. I wasn't sure why I wanted to go in, or what I was going to do there. Lately there hadn't been any reason behind any of my actions. I was too numb to think.

It had been deep, dark, sorrow; then seething, blind rage directed at nothing in particular. And now? Now I was just empty.

Somehow that was a thousand times worse.

The door's hinges squeaked; I stepped in with a long inhale. I was used to Vinny's scent: saltwater, ink on a page, the worn rubber of a soccer ball. Here, now, however, there was none of that. The room and I were the same: frighteningly vacant.

His soccer trophies were still-life paintings of former glory, his bed still slightly wrinkled, his closet doors neatly swung shut. I didn't let my eyes wander towards the bathroom. It would be like digging a knife into my own chest. It was so colorful, all of it: fresh blue walls, the golden sunlight trickling in. All I saw, all I felt, was gray.

I wanted it gone.

Everything.

I dug out all the boxes from his closet, the same ones Mom had packed his stuff in the morning after his funeral. I understood why she did it. Seeing this space, and all of his belongings that filled it, was like breathing him in. The only difference was that now, it was toxic.

I had just torn a box open and reached for a trophy when a low buzz sounded throughout the room. Stunned, I paused, searching for the noise's source. My eyes found Vinny's cell phone, left there upon his desk. Who would call him? Who didn't know already, that he wasn't even in this world anymore?

I found myself moving towards it anyway. The number was unknown.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Cian?" said a confused voice, one I immediately recognized as my father's. I scowled as he asked, "Why are you answering Vincent's phone?"

"I don't know," I muttered. I didn't have the energy to sugarcoat it. "Maybe because he's dead."

There was a long pause. My father replied softly, "Oh."

"Who gave you this number, anyway?" I demanded. I turned and began to pace to the other side of the room, my free hand a fist at my side. He didn't care. He didn't. So why did he bother? "Why are you calling if you—"

"It was left on a napkin in my apartment," he answered. "It appeared out of nowhere; I don't know who wrote it. But I...called...because I wanted to talk."

I scrutinized the half-open door to the bedroom. Lucie was downstairs, where she claimed to be making tea. I would have to ask her about this. She knew how I felt about my dad. It just didn't make sense.

"Cian? Are you still there?"

"Unfortunately."

"Cian—"

"What is it you want to talk about?" I allowed, sinking down to a seat upon Vinny's rug. "What is there to talk about? Besides the fact that you betrayed us and now you've left Mom a wreck. She loved you. She gave you everything—and you turned your back on her. You were—you were supposed to take care of her."

"I tried my best. But my life felt out of my control—"

"Like all of ours didn't? Still doesn't?" I snapped. My grip on the phone was white-knuckled; I didn't know why I just didn't hang up. There was something there, simmering underneath my skin. I knew I was going to boil over soon. "That's not an excuse to go off and screw another woman, Dad."

"I understand your anger, Cian," my father replied. He sounded less frustrated; in fact, his tone was frighteningly cool. "I do. But I would like you to explain to me why you traced me all the way to Los Angeles. Why you tried to kill me."

I gritted my teeth, recognizing the condescension in his tone. He'd spoken to me the same way when I was little, beckoning me forward with a stern glare and demanding I tell him what I'd done. The something simmering brimmed. He had no right to treat me like his son when he'd given up on being my dad.

There were tears in my eyes. I hated every second of this. "You won't believe me," I sputtered, "or maybe you won't want to, because it proves what you thought: that the Hornes are just a freak show now. But it wasn't me. I—wasn't myself. I didn't want to hurt you."

I was sniffling loud enough that he could hear it. I detected it, the way he stopped, softened his voice a little so that it was a low hum in my ears. "Cian..."

"I never want to hurt anyone," I managed, swiping underneath my eyes, biting down on my lip so it wouldn't quiver. "But that's always what happens anyway."

"If this is about Vincent," said my father, "I'll come home for a bit. Just to—"

"Don't," I hissed. "Just leave us alone, like you said you would."

I didn't give him time to fight back. I ended the phone call, then I glared down at the blank screen, and slammed it to the ground. I heard the glass splinter.

I rose to my feet, facing the half-open blinds around Vinny's window. I could hear him now, I thought, telling me to calm down and assuring me that we'd be fine. He'd put a hand on my shoulder, tell me, we're fine. We're fine without him.

It had been ages since I'd been fine.

By now I was used to the sticky feeling of tears freshly dried, their acrid taste in my mouth. I couldn't stand being in this room a second longer. It felt like the very air was strangling me, oxygen like a bird trapped in the cage that was my chest.

And I heard it before I felt it, that rush of air past my ear, the reverberating thud of an arrow splitting wood. Stunned, my gaze lifted, finding the silver arrow that stuck like a tree branch from the wall.

"That's for breaking my phone."

Everything within me jerked to a halt. It couldn't be. He'd died and I had sent him away. There was no way for him to be here.

But it was his voice. I'd know the timbre of it anywhere.

So I turned, falling to my knees with a gasp. Vinny was standing just inside the doorway, a chrome bow and arrow clutched underneath his arm. I was so busy looking at him, at the realness of his face and his placid expression, that I almost didn't notice the wings that arched from his shoulders like carved marble.

They were spotlessly white, each feather like a snowflake caught mid-fall, and he ruffled them as I stared. "Surprise," he said.

"I thought I told you not to shoot things yet, Blondie," came a voice that was vaguely familiar. Vinny stepped aside to reveal Zev and Lucie, Zev with half a scowl on his face, Lucie with a full smile. "You're not properly trained," Zev elaborated.

It was too much to process at once. I was still there in the center of the rug, kneeling, bumbling and sputtering around like a fool. I watched as Vinny held his bow and arrow up; it melted away into the feathers like sugar dissolving in water. His wings folded back into his shoulder blades, and he knelt before me, lifting my chin up. He tapped it with a smirk, watching my eyes go even wider. "Yeah, I'm real," he told me. "In case you were wondering."

"How—I don't—"

"I was going to move on like you told me to," my little brother responded, sitting back, criss-crossing his legs, "but the Order gave me an offer. Now that you're human, you know, you could use a guardian angel. Since you're always getting yourself in trouble."

"You mean—you're an angel? A guardian angel?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Zev roll his eyes, raking his dark hair back from his face. "You'd think the wings and the hallowed weapon would have answered that for you."

"He's just stunned," Lucie cut in, perching herself back against the doorjamb. There was just the slightest of sniffles caught between her words. "We all are."

Zev rolled his eyes, dusting his hands off on the front of his blue jeans. I hadn't noticed it before, but there was the slightest of mud caught on the ends of his hair, a smudge of dirt across his cheek. "Yeah, well you all aren't the ones who had to dig the rascal up."

My gaze zipped to Zev for a moment, over Vinny's shoulder. "You brought him back?"

Zev shrugged, glancing at Vinny for a moment. "Like he said, it was the Order. They've just assigned me to him; I have to teach him everything now—including how to shoot that arrow right."

Behind him, Lucie snorted. "For not being 'properly trained,' I'd say he's pretty alright at it."

Zev didn't bother to consider it. "Nah. He didn't even nick his ear."

At that, Vinny rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to speak. I cut him off, however; all of my impulse control was out the window. I tugged him in close, let myself rest against his neck, listening to the beating pulse. Losing him once had been bad enough. It was of the utmost relief that I didn't have to lose him twice.

Vinny went pliant in my arms, shrinking back and reaching to ruffle my hair. "If I'm going to be your guardian," he said, "you have to promise me not to get yourself in too much trouble. I'll take care of you—always—but you have to take care of yourself, too, Cian."

I nodded fervently. "Promise."

A gleam of admiration swept across Vinny's blue-gold eyes. He lowered his head, giving me a smile that was just that: just for me, only for me. The color was back in his face, and though he was still slight, he seemed firmer, more secure in his skin. I had him here, and he was alright, and I had Lucie here, and she was alright. Everything that had been wrong was finally right again.

The three of us could only be the three of us, not two, not one.

Then Lucie was there, laughing and falling to the floor between us, throwing her arms around us. My heart ballooned at the minute crinkles at her eyes, that one tiny dimple that punctured her left cheek. And in a moment, I was laughing too, and so was Vinny, and we were a giggly mess on the floor of Vinny's bedroom—grasping the joy we'd spent so long searching for.

And I loved it. I loved my brother, I loved Lucie, I loved the now and the not yet. For once, the past was nothing.

Lucie turned her head a bit, so that her nose bumped mine. I let the dark of her eyes swallow me whole. "Now we have it, don't we?" she whispered.

I could already taste her. "Have what?"

"Everything," she exhaled, briskly meeting my lips with hers. "Just everything."