“Hey?” I tried pushing Noah the same way he pushed Quillan, but he wouldn’t budge. He simply stared down at me, his teeth clenched hard enough that I was surprised he could make any sound at all, but he could, because there was a rumbling sound of fury vibrating from his throat. “Noah!” I raised my voice, letting my impatience leak through.
We definitely weren’t at a point where I was free to chastise him for anything; in fact, we hadn’t made much progress at all since the boat-house incident. If Kingsling wasn’t dead, I was sure that Noah would have dragged me back to my basement prison by now. Instead, he had been trying to come to terms with the fact that Silas had willingly sacrificed himself for me—while Quillan had willingly sacrificed his twin for me, and Cabe had saved me from the very imprisonment that he had helped to force me into. I could tell that all of those things frightened Noah, because he didn’t understand the reason behind it all, and none of us had a good explanation to give him. Apparently, we didn’t even have good explanations to give each other.
“Do you love her?” Noah ignored me completely, spitting the words out like an accusation. “Is that why Cabe rescued her? Why Silas saved her? Because of you?”
“Actually,” Cabe interjected, watching me while Quillan and Noah stared each other down. “I don’t think it makes sense for Silas to willingly enter into an eternity of torture for Miro’s girlfriend. Deep breaths, dude.”
Noah jerked back, apparently surprised at himself. He glanced at me, his brows furrowing, and I edged away from all of them now that there was no immediate threat of a fight. Something was definitely going wrong. The bond was spiralling out of control. It had pushed me and Quillan together and turned Noah and Quillan against each other. It was twisting who we were and playing games with our emotions.
Great. Just what we needed.
I ran back to the car, shutting myself inside as though the distance would force everyone back to normal. I found Silas’s phone on the floor and picked it up, clutching it to my chest.
“Where are you?” I breathed the words on a plea, turning to stare out the window.
The phone beeped then, as though answering my question. I glanced down at it, clicking on the message that flashed on the screen.
Silas thought you might find something on here useful.
-Jayden
Tariq’s chattering was distracting me from my brooding and I was sure that he was doing it deliberately. I reached over and turned up the radio on Quillan’s Porsche, hoping to drown him out.
He smirked, raising his voice, and Clarin decided to join in the fun, planting his chin on my shoulder and turning his face to the side so that his breath tickled my neck when he spoke.
“Why are you ignoring your fake brother, Seph?”
“Stop calling him that,” I snapped.
“Yeah, Clarice,” Tariq chimed in. “I’m more of a real brother than most real brothers out there.”
“Quit calling me Clarice, fake brother.”
“Children, children!” Poison shouted over the noise. “Can’t you see that Seraph is trying to pretend we’re not here so that she can brood about how much her life sucks right now? Show a little respect.”
“Poison…” I warned.
“Yeah, cupcake? You need assistance?”
I sighed, and then turned the radio up even louder. Tariq reached over and smacked my hand before switching the radio off.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” he reprimanded me. “It won’t help the situation. We can have another brainstorming party this afternoon if you want.”
I shook my head, though I felt bad for rejecting his efforts. The four of us often got together—sometimes with the addition of Quillan—to try and find a solution to my two current dilemmas: saving Silas, and winning back Cabe and Noah without somehow making them distrust me even more. So far, though, we couldn’t land on a definitive course of action for either.
“I’m sorry,” I eventually said, forcing a little bit of false cheer into my voice. “I’m fine. I’ll stop moping.”
“Good.” Tariq patted me atop the head and then turned to the backseat to say goodbye to Poison and Clarin as I pulled up to the high school.
Poison climbed into the passenger seat after Tariq left, and we settled in for the long drive to college, which turned out to be just long enough to drive Poison partially insane.
“I’m done. Ugh. I can’t believe you’re going to put yourself through that drive every morning,” she whined, jumping out of the car as I parked. “I’m never staying the night with you again. Even if it’s for another pity par—er, brainstorming party.”
She grabbed her bag from the backseat, which slid out of the car with Clarin attached to the other end of it. He unhooked his arm from one of the straps, grabbed his own bag, and the three of us made our way toward the main building. There seemed to be a commotion around the entrance. We had to push our way through the people to see what had caused it. I recognised the back of Noah’s head, and the side of Cabe’s profile—and was unsurprised to find that they were at the center of all the attention. Noah seemed to be leaning into a girl with sleek black hair cut into a low bob that curled around her chin.