Quillan attempted to clear his throat. I couldn’t read the expression on his face anymore. He seemed to struggle with words for a moment, and then he shook his head briefly. Noah and Cabe remained silent, and I was too afraid to look at them.
“I guess not,” I muttered, shifting around uncomfortably. “How about I ask questions and Noah can grunt if it’s a yes, and you guys can just stay silent if it’s a no?”
Cabe made an unwilling sound of amusement. Quillan dropped his face into his hands, shaking his head once again.
“So,” I began, directing my question at my lap, “are you guys angry at me? For not telling you?”
“No.” Noah grunted out the word.
“We’re not angry at you.” Quillan seemed to find his words again. “It’s just hard to find out that your Atmá was being sexually abused right under your nose, and you didn’t even notice it, let alone do anything to stop it.”
“You just called me your Atmá,” I said, whipping my head up in surprise.
Quillan blinked. “You are.”
It was the first time Quillan had ever acknowledged it without looking decidedly pained at the fact. Though I supposed there were other things for him to feel pained about now.
“I don’t really like talking about it,” I breathed out, trying to relax my shoulders, as though it would work to ease the tense, stone-muscled statues on either side of me. “It was another life. Things are different now.”
Noah touched the side of my face, and I turned to face him. His brilliant blue eyes tugged at me, his fingers soft as his heart clawed at mine painfully. They were all hurting, but they kept their emotions carefully wiped from their faces.
“Are you sure you don’t need to talk about it?” he asked gruffly.
He sounded stiff and angry, but I knew that it wasn’t directed at me. It was directed at Gerald. I nodded, and he tilted my face up, his lips catching the corner of my mouth in a barely-there kiss. It was a painfully sweet gesture from the caveman himself, and even Quillan looked shocked when Noah pulled back and folded his arms, turning to face the window. Cabe dropped his arm over my shoulders, drawing me into his side and tucking his face into my hair. He seemed to really like smelling my hair now that I had started to use his shampoo. Quillan continued to watch us. There was something odd in his expression, and a certain heaviness in his chest, but I couldn’t read the emotion exactly. It was something sad, something pensive.
Jayden returned to the car, ripping Quillan’s eyes from us and pushing the melancholy air inside the car onto the precipice of awkwardness. I busied myself by texting Poison.
I need a fake ID. Meet us at yours.
Only a minute later, the phone vibrated with her reply.
Consider it faked. Consider us on our way. Consider that we’ll be late, because we still have to find an ID for you and get to the car.
Cabe mumbled to the others that she would be there after reading her response over my shoulder.
When we arrived, Jayden opted to wait in the car and the housekeeper let the rest of us inside. I directed everyone to Poison’s bedroom, where she and Clarin found us an hour later. We had begun to raid Poison’s wardrobe and Noah and Cabe were arguing over a tiny denim skirt while Quillan stood off to the side with me, both of us wallowing in discomfort.
“Crossing over to the dark side, boys?” Poison asked with a smirk in her voice. “Clarice will be so proud.”
“I rule the dark side, and I say they aren’t allowed in,” Clarin countered, breezing into the room and plucking the skirt from Noah’s fingers. “Besides, this won’t fit you.”
“It’s not for me.” Noah snatched the skirt back and whipped it against the side of Clarin’s head.
“Let’s try not to destroy my things.” Poison quickly caught the waistband of the skirt, escaping with it before Clarin could retaliate. She walked right over to me. “Why do you need my clothes, cupcake?”
“I need to look sexy.”
Poison’s eyebrows shot up and Quillan shifted around beside me, making me think that he was seconds away from escaping the room.
“Any particular reason?” Poison prompted, after she had recovered from her shock. “Shouldn’t we be looking for Silas before the four of you mysteriously drop dead because he managed to get himself killed?”
“We’ll never be able to hunt him down. Not even Jayden can find him right now. We need to draw him out instead.”
“With sexy clothes?”
“No… the sexy clothes are to get me into a club. Well… actually, wait, let me re-phrase. The sexy clothes are to wear to the club, and the fake ID is to get me into the club. Do you have it?”
“I don’t know what universe you live in, cupcake, but not even I can get a fake ID that quickly. I stole Quinn’s ID though, she kinda looks like you.”
I caught the little plastic card that was tossed at my chest, examining the dark-haired girl in the picture. I knew that the skepticism showed on my face.
“Nobody ever looks like their ID photo,” Poison assured me.