by Carol Oates
“How can he be your brother? If you aren’t one of them, how can he be your brother?” she fired out. Blood rushed to her face as more perspiration slid down her skin under the soft jacket. It seemed to make the scent coming off of it stronger. Spice, blood, leather. Sebastian. She hated that she wanted to inhale it so badly.
Brie looked stricken, deep frown lines creased her forehead, and Candra wanted to reach over and comfort her; she wanted to smooth out those lines. But she also wanted to grab Brie by the shoulders and vigorously shake the answers out of her.
“Brie fell for your father,” Sebastian forced out bitterly through gritted teeth.
“What?” Candra exclaimed. “What has my mother falling for my father got to…?” Before she could finish the sentence, the words caught in her throat. How could she have been such an idiot that she couldn’t put two and two together? That was what they had been arguing about over the last days: Brie falling for Payne. She was infuriated because they said it over and over, like falling for her father was such a bad thing. Suddenly she understood that it was a bad thing. It was a very bad thing. Brie didn’t just fall for her father—she had fallen for him as in falling from grace, as in giving up heaven, as in turning her back on everything she was.
“Oh…” It was the only word Candra could muster, and it seemed entirely inadequate as a reaction and so little for the woman who had given up so much to be a mother to her over the last twelve years.
She leapt from the seat and flung herself at Brie, wrapping her arms tightly around her shoulders. Candra had no idea why Brie did what she did for her father or for her, but she did it, and Candra was pretty sure it wasn’t something that could be taken back. She closed her eyes and hugged tighter. Brie’s body felt frail in her embrace. She could feel Brie’s shoulder blades under her skin, and when she lowered her fingers slightly, she felt the jagged bone she had never noticed before under the fabric of her light blouse. It was rough, as if something had been brutally snapped away. Candra’s closed eyes stung with tears threatening to escape. She couldn’t imagine what kind of love could possibly be strong enough that someone would give up their very existence for it.
When Candra pulled back, there were tears streaking down Brie’s cheeks. Candra knelt in front of her, rubbing away the tears which continued to fall from Brie’s face and totally ignoring the others in the room. Brie wrapped her fingers around Candra’s wrists as she continued to scrub at her reddened cheeks.
“I thought you would hate me for lying to you all this time,” she sobbed.
“I could never hate you,” Candra assured her, feeling her own tears spill over. “Never ever, no matter what.”
Brie gave her a small smile and settled Candra’s hands on her knees, swiping her remaining tears away with the back of her own hands before gently clasping Candra’s again. Candra stayed on the floor where she sat to be near to Brie. She still didn’t understand why she wasn’t completely freaking out. Brie was an angel: the Angel Ambriel, angel of protection as Candra remembered…how fitting. Her father, Payne…she wanted to know if he was really her father. Was he an angel?
“How did this happen? Why are you here?” Candra whispered only to Brie.
At exactly that moment Sebastian decided to speak up, banging his fist off the wall by his hip and stepping further away from the wall. “Enough!” he spat at Gabe. “She can’t be expected to take everything in right now.”
“I’m perfectly happy to keep going,” Candra said defiantly with narrowed eyes.
His chest was heaving, and his shoulders were straight and tight with tension. Candra noticed Lofi’s eyes scan the back of his shirt, but she couldn’t see what Lofi was looking at. Her expression remained neutral and impassive. It was too hard to gauge her.
“She really is much calmer than I expected,” Gabe agreed, and Candra thought she detected an undercurrent of pride in his tone. “She can handle the truth…she deserves the truth.”
“No!” Sebastian growled, making everyone look at him with wide, surprised eyes, especially Candra. His beautiful face was contorted with rage, and a thin vein bulged from his neck, betraying his rampant heartbeat. “She’s not one of them. She can’t be,” he panted.
“What is wrong with you?” Lofi asked, looking at him with confusion, like she had never seen him before. “It was you who found her. It was you who convinced the rest of us to come back here.”
Candra felt he may as well have slapped her in the face or punched her in the stomach for the effect his words had on her. Her head was spinning so fast. The room was so hot with the heavy jacket she still wore to keep the rest of them from seeing the blood and knowing Sebastian had revealed himself to her. Now, she felt as if all the air had abruptly been sucked from the room, leaving her gasping. She thought they had begun to form some sort of camaraderie, that maybe they were nursing the tentative shoots of a friendship. Then he had to go and trample her back down. Her bottom lip trembled at the unexpected betrayal; she wished she had never let herself begin to trust him. Candra sucked her lip in and pressed her mouth firmly closed. She refused to let him see he had any power to hurt her.
“Sebastian,” Gabe warned.
“Gabe,” Sebastian retorted. His expression was terrifying.
“Go to your room please, Candra,” Brie asked sternly.
“What?” Candra looked up to her disbelievingly and pulled her hands away to sit back on her heels. “You’re taking his side?” She waved her hand in Sebastian’s direction like she was swatting at a pesky insect.
Brie’s eyes met hers fiercely—the tired woman was gone. The stress seemed to have evaporated. Candra’s breath caught in her throat on the way out, making her cough. This was the strong and determined woman who had fussed over her and raised her from a snot-nosed kid.
“I am on the same side I have been on since the day you were born. The side I will always be on, no matter what. I’m on your side.”
Candra flinched away from her. She knew Brie was being honest and was right to be mad at her, but still the confusion zinged through every cell in Candra’s body. “I’m sorry, Brie…I…”
“Go to your room,” she ordered.
Candra dropped her eyes to the floor. Stupid, stupid, stupid, reverberated around her head. How could she ever suspect Brie would choose sides against her? Her face burned with the red-hot blood pulsing under her skin.
She didn’t lift her head as she left the room, not even when she walked passed Sebastian and heard him murmur, “It’s for your own good.”
Candra paused on the bottom step of the stair, hoping to hear something, anything that would give her a little more insight into whatever was going on. Through the narrow gap in the door, she could see Sebastian standing with hunched shoulders, staring down to the floor like he could find the answers to the universe there. His arms were locked rigidly by his side, and his hands yet again were balled into fists. Gabe appeared beside him; she couldn’t see him clearly. She could just about make out his hand as it came to rest on Sebastian’s shoulder.
“You know in the end it will come down to her choice,” he told Sebastian soundly.
Lofi appeared at the door and met Candra’s eyes for a brief moment before she lowered her eyes again and closed the door on Candra’s only hope of any real answers for now.
Sebastian had no idea why he’d stopped Gabe from telling Candra everything; it was what she wanted and needed. He’d panicked. He was overcome with an uncertainty that threatened to strangle him. What if she walked away? What if after everything, Ambriel lost her? Sebastian was well aware Gabe had been looking at him with accusation in his eyes for months. He knew Gabe thought that by protecting Candra that Sebastian had been attempting to absolve himself of past sins. Gabe’s more recent accusations were even more ridiculous. Besides, Sebastian justified to himself, he could live with his choices. Well, he could before, until the day he first saw Candra.
He knew what she was almost immediately; he knew she was one of
them. Yet, innocence shone from her like a beacon calling to him. She was a siren, and for all intents and purposes, he’d become lost at sea the moment he laid eyes on her. He couldn’t lift a finger against her. He couldn’t hurt her.
The argument that ensued when Candra left the room was mainly about what was best for her. Gabe said she should know everything and be allowed to make her choice. Lofi agreed. Lofi was the one who had been there to pick up the pieces after Ambriel had left. She had become Sebastian’s best friend, had been glued to him for so long that she knew him better than he knew himself. Even she was dubious about his motives.
Sebastian knew that Ambriel would have kept Candra’s true nature from her forever if she could. That choice had already cost her dearly. Not all Watchers, as they referred to themselves, were paired. It would have been like having a twin rather than having a mate, and it wasn’t usually difficult to find that other Watcher. But when a Watcher fell, the way Ambriel had, they were separated from everything they were. All the mental ties set in place for protection were severed; they became lost.
For some insane reason, Sebastian had believed these rules wouldn’t apply to Ambriel and him. He thought that when he found her again, there would be some connection to her, but there wasn’t.
Ambriel was now caught between two worlds, neither human nor Watcher. It was one of the reasons they didn’t all fall: the fear of never belonging, and of the nothingness that would await them after. Ambriel would never truly belong anywhere again, and when she died, like the rest of them, she would still be nothing but dust. Sebastian’s heart broke for her, and he blamed himself completely.
He was torn between wanting Candra to know everything and wanting her to have that normal life Ambriel tried to give her and that they all craved. After all, it was coveting human life that got them all into this mess in the first place.
Candra’s spirits lifted considerably after taking a hot shower and falling back onto her bed in some comfy sweats. Like the downstairs, her room wasn’t elaborate. Being on the top floor meant that during the day it managed to catch quite a bit of light, and the lack of clutter made it airy. At night, if she looked really hard, she could see stars peeking over the skyline of the city. Sometimes she climbed out the sash window onto the small balcony—it was there for design rather than purpose—and onto the roof when the night was clear and the air was crisp, to watch the patch of sky above their home. She shuddered now at the idea that while she was watching the sky, someone or something was probably watching her.
Candra’s room was sparse by the standards of most teenagers. It consisted of a desk for homework, on which sat her laptop, and a massive bed—her one concession to luxury, along with her five-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. There were four doors in total: one was the entrance, one was to the bathroom, and the other two were twin doors into a dressing room and closet. The pictures on the walls were bold, modern prints that Candra had picked up the summer before in a small artist studio uptown. She laughed indignantly now, remembering how she had been drawn to them because she thought she saw birds in the shapes, great big birds diving and swooping through the air. She realized now it was probably something inside her all along drawing her to her own kind. So much of what Candra was had been hidden from her, and she wondered if, on some level, she had been searching for those missing pieces all along. She knew, despite Gabe’s denial, that she was connected to them, even if not an angel, and she wished she’d paid more attention in school. Candra saw long Internet searches in her immediate future.
A very low murmur of voices still emanated from the room downstairs, but she couldn’t make out the words even when she strained to hear. So instead she lay on her bed with the earphones of her iPhone banging a heavy drum beat of a song she couldn’t remember the name of.
She was almost relaxed to the point of drifting off to sleep when the music cut off, interrupted by ringing. Candra pulled the ear piece out to check the screen—Ivy.
“Hey.” Candra rubbed her eyes. She didn’t realize how close to sleep and oblivion she actually had been.
“So are you up for a party?” Ivy asked brightly.
Candra propped herself up on her elbow. “Party? What party?”
She listened as Ivy shuffled the phone to her other ear, normally a sign she was frustrated by something. “The one I told you about this morning when you were zoned out.”
Candra frowned because it seemed when her attention was on Sebastian, nothing else got past. “That really doesn’t narrow it down for me.”
“Just before Lofi showed up,” she prompted.
“Oh, right,” Candra muttered.
“‘Oh, right’ as in you remember, ‘oh, right’ as in you’re coming, or ‘oh, right’ as in yes, you were zoned out watching your new hottie stalker and didn’t hear a word I said?”
Candra giggled at the number of options she was being offered. “Number three…you could have reminded me.”
Ivy chuckled too. “Aww, progress. You admit he’s a hottie now?”
“Twisting my responses much, Miss Cross Examiner?” Candra laughed, rolling her eyes.
Ivy paused as if she was considering how to frame her next words. Candra could hear music playing in the background—a CD she’d given to Ivy; they shared the same taste in most things.
“Look,” Ivy started seriously, as if she was about to deliver some really bad news. “Don’t get me wrong, I like Lofi. She’s…she’s unusual. But, the way she skulks after you…it’s kind of creepy.”
Candra laughed out loud. It seemed that maybe Ivy wasn’t as won over as she first thought.
“Seriously, I liked her, I really did. I was just wondering if we can expect her to go all single white female anytime soon? I mean, I’d like to hide my puppy, and just so you know I’m not partial to boiled bunny.”
Candra laughed again, louder this time, and she could hear Ivy chuckling on the other end of the line. Eventually the laughter wore off, leaving a stilted silence until Ivy spoke again in a low reserved tone.
“I know there’s something going on with you, Candra, and I know you’ll tell me what it is when you’re ready. I just want you to know that you can trust me.”
“That’s really sweet,” Candra said dryly in a lame attempt to hide the fact that those few words almost brought her to her knees and twisted her gut into knots. Ivy was actually the one and only person she could trust right now. She was also the one and only person Candra couldn’t talk to. She couldn’t risk dragging Ivy into her mess. “So where’s the party?” Candra asked, biting back tears.
“Philip McCloud’s place. Are you in?”
“Yeah, why not,” Candra responded with every ounce of enthusiasm she could muster, thinking it would do her some good to forget everything for a few hours. The only fly in her perfect ointment would be how to get out of the house for a few hours. It would mean using the window and wearing jeans. It was a small price to pay. She could even live with seeing Philip. “I’ll get a cab and see you there in about an hour, okay?”
“I know I didn’t invite Lofi, but you could if you wanted to,” Ivy suggested hesitantly enough for Candra to know she was just being polite, but that the question was leading somewhere.
“I don’t think I’ll be doing that somehow.”
“Or Sebastian?”
And…that’s where it was leading to. Candra sighed, pushing herself off her bed to go to her closet. “I won’t be inviting either of them. Ivy…” She stopped. She didn’t know what to say to Ivy about Lofi and Sebastian or how she should explain their abrupt and overwhelming presence in her life. “They’re…well, they’re different. I don’t think they are the partying type.”
“Different how?” Ivy asked curiously, and Candra imagined her narrowed eyes would be appraising her if they were speaking in person.
Candra was silent for the longest time. She didn’t know how to explain, and she certainly couldn’t bring herself to tell Ivy any semblance of the truth.
It was all too ludicrous.
“Just different.”
Ivy hummed dubiously at her evasiveness. Candra wasn’t surprised.
“You are very cryptic lately.”
With that, Ivy cut off suddenly, and Candra rolled her eyes dramatically. Ivy never said goodbye, something she’d picked up from too many television shows and movies where the characters always ended calls in that way.
Chapter Five
Exactly fifty-eight minutes later, Candra pulled up in a cab outside an enormous brownstone. Sneaking out was every bit as difficult as she anticipated. The hushed conversation downstairs continued, although she heard the front door open and close twice in the last hour, first with a low bang and a few minutes later with quieter swish. She used the small fire escape at the back of the house to get out; it wasn’t the first time she’d done so. There were several parties last summer that Candra knew Brie wouldn’t approve of, but Candra had made sure she didn’t miss. them
She followed a guy and girl up the steps to the door; they had the distinct appearance of a couple who had seen more than one party that night already. The guy’s legs weren’t exactly steady, and his hand was firmly placed on the butt of the girl, who wasn’t wearing much in the way of clothing.
The party was loud and crowded. Philip’s parents often went away on foreign trips, leaving him very much to his own devices with only house staff for company. As a result, most of the people here had been in attendance at more than one of Philip’s parties.
Every square inch of space was occupied by bodies: there were teenagers making out with abandon against the walls, on the stairs, and in every corner. A makeshift dance floor had been set up in the huge, marble-floored foyer. Candra peered into the dining room where a girl was dancing on the long, oval mahogany table surrounded by a rapt audience that was whooping and cheering her on.
Candra didn’t see Ivy in there. There was no sign of her, and Candra wasn’t sure she’d be able to find her when she didn’t know where to start looking. She fished her phone out of the small purse she was carrying and was just about to put it to her ear when fingers trailed across the back of her neck. She stiffened and turned sharply with her heart pounding in her chest.
