A Portrait of Pain

by Jane Washington

  “Stop thinking so hard,” Cabe muttered, settling back down to the mattress and looping an arm around me, allowing some distance to remain between our bodies. They probably knew that I was feeling a little overloaded.

  “I can’t. You guys are going back to college without me tomorrow,” I whispered, half-closing my eyelids and trying to regulate my breathing into something that might have sounded relaxed.

  “You’re still coming with us,” Cabe countered, his voice kind of muffled. I was still twisted more towards Noah, so I couldn’t see his face in the darkness. “You and Silas are going to be body-guarding.”

  “Pretending,” I corrected.

  “What?” He laughed softly. “You aren’t going to jump in if Poison and Clarin need help?”

  “Of course she is,” Noah muttered.

  “Yeah,” I added. “Of course I am.”

  “Then you’re hardly pretending. Go to sleep, Seph. Stop worrying. Stop thinking. Nobody is getting their hands on you tonight. Not even if you want them to have their hands on you.”

  I pulled my arm back, elbowing him. They did know what happened in the closet!

  He laughed, catching my arm and twisting his fingers through mine, and I realised that they weren’t upset. Not even a little bit.

  I blinked my eyes at Noah, a question emanating out of me that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to ask. He seemed to sense it anyway, because he leaned toward me, his lips barely brushing over mine in the softest, sweetest kiss that I had experienced. And it had come from Noah. Noah. The caveman.

  “Night, pretty girl,” he murmured, rolling back to his pillow.

  Somehow, with that one gesture, he had calmed every emotion that was running riot inside me. The worry over what would happen at the college, the ever-present fear for the future, and even the lingering frustration from Silas’s punishment in the closet.

  He had taken it all away, leaving only a bubbling warmth inside my chest.

  I closed my eyes, relaxing into the bed, relaxing into the feel of one of my pairs boxing me in, their body heat seeping into my limbs. When sleep claimed me, it was filled with a warring sense of comfort, and the usual sense of foreboding. Flashes of my recent forecasting flickered before my closed eyelids, interspersed with thoughts and images of my pairs. I barely woke when the bodies around me shifted in the middle of the night, and it was only in the morning, with the sunlight streaming through from the balcony that I noticed Miro and Silas sleeping in the place of Noah and Cabe, who had moved to the mattresses on the floor. They were both so deeply asleep that I suspected they hadn’t actually made it to bed until the early morning. For a second, I froze, wondering if Silas had told Miro everything. Miro couldn’t have been angry at me, otherwise he wouldn’t have slept next to me. I looked from one of them to the other and then slipped out of the bed, hurrying through my morning routine as quietly as I could, before escaping upstairs to the kitchen.

  I pulled open the fridge, surveying the stuff that had magically appeared in there over the last twenty-four hours. I was sure Miro had done up a list of supplies needed and had someone bring them down from the main house. It made me feel guilty, because he already had so much to do without mothering the rest of us as well. There was leftover dinner still stacked inside, as well as a few other things.

  I scrubbed at my eyes, abandoning my search of the fridge to make coffee instead. There was a brand-new coffee machine sitting on the counter, with a little cup full of coffee pods right beside it. I figured out how to use it pretty quickly, and then I started searching the other cupboards after there was a cup of coffee firmly in my grip. By the time I found the pancake mix, my stomach was already grumbling, so I settled into a single-minded focus while I cooked, barely even noticing as the sky grew brighter and the world slowly crawled back to life, filling with the barest hint of birdsong, and the rustling of animals darting around the cottage outside.

  When I flipped the last pancake onto the serving plate and turned around, all four of the guys were standing there. Staring at me. I set the plate down a little too heavily, the clanking of it hitting the counter the only other sound in the room. Miro had a confused look in his eye, like he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that I was standing there, having cooked them all breakfast.

  It wasn’t that strange, was it?

  Yeah, I decided, taking in Noah’s blank stare and Cabe’s amusement. Even Silas was almost smirking. This was weird. We never had time to do normal things. To be normal people. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t a single normal element in our relationship.

  “Morning, little devil.” Cabe was the first to recover, naturally. He grabbed the plate of pancakes and took it over to the coffee table, nudging Noah on his way past. “Grab some plates.”

  Noah held his hand out to me, still wordless, and I quickly passed him the plates I had set aside on the counter. Silas grabbed Noah’s shoulder as he spun around, halting him, and then stacking the other items waiting on the counter on top of the plate stack. Syrup, butter, cinnamon, cutlery. When there was nothing left to carry, Noah shrugged off Silas’s hold and walked over to the coffee table.

  “Good morning?” I had meant it to be a statement, but it had come out as more of a question, aimed at Silas and Miro. My weak attempt to shake off the awkwardness. “What’s with the staring?” I added, my voice a little stronger.

  “They’re all trying to figure out how it feels to wake up to our girlfriend in the kitchen, making pancakes like it’s a thing that happens every day. And I’m just enjoying watching them squirm.” Silas spoke nonchalantly as he moved to join the others at the coffee table, causing my mouth to drop open and Cabe’s knife to clatter against the glass.

  Everyone turned their stares from me, to him. He pretended not to notice, bending over Cabe to swipe his already-prepared plate of pancakes, before plucking the knife and fork right out of Noah’s hand, and walking over to one of the couches. He started eating, basically ignoring us, and I was positive that this morning couldn’t get any weirder.

  “You should change,” Miro muttered. “Those aren’t agent clothes.”

  I turned to him, following his eye to the hem of my dress. It was hanging a few inches above my knee, and I was wearing tights beneath. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “What’s wrong with this?” I asked, picking up the hem and holding it out a little bit.

  Miro seemed to shake off his shock then, his expression relaxing. He crooked his finger at me and moved back to the stairs. I followed him, glad to leave behind the tension upstairs as we moved back into the bedroom. He pushed into my wardrobe and started hunting through my piles of clothes, casting a quick glance at the tennis bag on the floor, but otherwise ignoring it.

  “Come here,” he muttered, pulling something black off the shelf and holding it out to me.

  I didn’t take it. I was standing right outside the closet, refusing to go in any further. It was dangerous in there. There was something about confined, dark spaces. They made me do bad things.

  “Seph …” he coaxed, his dark eyes growing amused. He knew what my problem was. I was starting to despise how well these guys knew me.

  “Can’t we do this out here?” I pleaded, taking another step back.

  “I need to be in here to get the clothes,” he reasoned, now biting back a smile.

  “Well then you pick them, and then you can throw them to me. Out here.”

  He dropped the black thing, reached me in three strides, and snatched me up, carrying me back to the closet. He set me down in the doorway and pointed to the black thing on the ground.

  “Pick that up; you need long sleeves and jeans or fatigues, all in dark colours. Standard-issue clothing for agents on any kind of combat or defence duty.”

  I picked up the black thing reflexively, shaking it out to reveal a long-sleeved shirt that I didn’t even know I owned, with a high neckline. I frowned, staring at it, but didn’t have time to question it before Miro was tossin
g me a pair of jeans. He followed those with dark socks and black boots, dropping them by the door as he stopped in front of me.

  “Where’d all this come from?” I asked, jutting my chin at the stuff in my arms.

  “Silas snuck them in there last night.”

  Should have guessed.

  “Anything else?” he asked, his left brow twitching upwards in question.

  I shook my head, but he still didn’t move. We stared at each other, and I noticed that he actually looked somewhat relaxed for the first time in months. I was reaching for him before I could stop myself, my brow furrowing as I traced the skin beneath his eye. It was clear, back to his normal, tanned skin colour. I had grown so used to seeing him with big, dark smudges beneath his eyes. He caught my wrist, pulling my hand away from his face, and I straightened, trying to step back, to give him some space.

  “You really can’t be trusted in here can you?” he asked quietly, his voice travelling through me in a way that stopped my backward retreat instantly.

  I shook my head again, and he released my wrist, edging closer. I was so nervous that I started backing away again. I swallowed as the back of my shoulder brushed against the clothing that was hanging behind me. Miro reached up, gripping the clothes with both hands and shoving them to either side of the hanging space, and then my back was against the wall, his body hovering over mine.

  “Don’t look so scared,” he whispered, the words brushing against my skin, raising goosebumps in their wake. “I’m not going to touch you, Seph.”

  “I’m not scared.” I realised that I was staring at his chest, too scared to meet his eyes, and I quickly raised my face.

  He was only inches away, and he was looming over me the same way the others did right before they kissed me. Except …

  “Why?” I asked, his statement finally penetrating my brain.

  “When you’re ready, you’ll let me know,” he stated simply, his chest expanding with a deep breath before he pulled suddenly away from me, disappearing back into the bedroom.

  I quickly shut the door after him, and then locked it, just in case one of the others decided to barge in and take advantage of how much closets apparently weakened my resistance to them. I switched outfits, pulled on the new boots, and then spun to face the mirror, a massive smile cracking across my face. Silas had given me clothes that were basically the female version of the clothes he usually wore. The jeans and shirt were both skin-tight, and a heavy black. I looked like I could actually be a bodyguard.

  I decided to finish packing my bag, but realised as I was stuffing things inside it, that I wasn’t really packing an emergency bag at all. I was packing a sleepover bag. Shaking my head, I emptied it and kicked the tennis bag aside, pulling out a backpack instead. Nobody would question me wearing it. I filled it with only the essentials: a change of clothes, a few changes of underwear, a sketch pad and pencil, my toothbrush, a comb, and my chameleon sneakers.

  “Well this is cosy,” Poison announced, letting herself into the cottage as I reached the top of the stairs.

  “Don’t mind if I do!” Clarin was right behind her, and then he was at the coffee table, helping himself to pancakes.

  Cabe reached out, slapping his hand, a scowl on his face. “These are ours. Don’t touch.”

  Clarin blinked, and then glanced over at me. “Did you make these?”

  I shrugged, settling myself on the arm of Silas’s couch. “Maybe.”

  Clarin rolled his eyes, trying to grab a pancake again, drawing another slap from Cabe, and then a more sizeable thump on the side of the head from Noah.

  “Poison,” Clarin whined. “I’m hungry. Fetch me food.”

  “Fetch your own damn food,” Poison returned.

  “They won’t let me, because the mouse made it for them. They’re getting all territorial again and you’re a girl so they won’t mind.”

  “That’s a fair assumption,” Silas murmured, only loud enough for me to hear, as Poison reached for the same pancake that Clarin had tried to snatch. “For anyone but those two,” Silas finished, as Cabe slapped Poison’s hand away.

  I choked on a laugh, which had both of my friends standing and facing me.

  “Cupcake!” Poison snapped the word out so that it sounded like a command.

  I sighed, pushing up from the arm of the couch. I was halfway to the pancakes before Clarin stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, an expression of barely restrained laughter falling over his face. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  I glanced down. “Oh. Yeah. I’m just trying to be like Silas. He’s my idol.”

  “Oh really?” Clarin gave me a look. A look like he knew exactly what kept happening to me in closets. “What’s he teaching you, huh?”

  “Nuh-uh.” Poison reached around me, smacking Clarin in the stomach. “The mouse will forever remain pure. Don’t you imply things with her like that.”

  “Where’d you guys sleep last night anyway?” Clarin asked, the sudden look of innocence on his face making him seem far more suspicious than if he had just opted to look normal.

  None of us answered him. In the kitchen, Miro slammed one of the cupboards a little too heavily. He didn’t like other people discussing our … whatever it was that we had. Whatever it was that we were doing.

  “Oh hey, look,” I grabbed a pancake and slapped it into Clarin’s hand. “Food.”

  “You need to work on your subtlety,” he told me, re-seating himself and pulling a plate before him to transfer the pancake to. “You also need to work on your food-manners. That’s not how you give a guy a pancake. Maybe Silas can teach you—”

  A hand reached around me, grabbing the back of Clarin’s shirt and hauling him to his feet. “Breakfast is over,” Silas announced, walking Clarin back to the front door. “I’m in charge of your safety today, and I say you need to leave. For your own safety.”

  Poison rolled her eyes, following them to the door. Cabe and Noah jumped up.

  “Looks like it’s time to leave,” Cabe said, glancing from the mess on the coffee table to Miro, who was cleaning the kitchen.

  Miro caught the look, his eyes narrowing. “Just this once. I’m not going to clean up after you every single damn morning.”

  “Thanks, dad!” Cabe grinned, making his way to the door. Noah was following, but Miro still looked pissed, so I hurried into the kitchen.

  “Bye,” I managed, quickly throwing my arms around his neck in a hug, before I could change my mind.

  He must have released the mug he was holding, because it shattered against the ground. I started to pull away, but his hands settled around my waist, picking me up and carrying me over the mess, even though I was wearing boots.

  “Ignore that,” he said, pulling my arms back around his neck.

  I laughed, hugging him tightly and then drawing back—successfully, this time. “You already know about the information leaks,” I stated, rocking back on my heels and looking him in the eye. “You know that Danny has started handing the human press information about me.”

  “And you already know what the outcome is going to be,” he countered, affirming my suspicion that Silas had told him everything while I had been sleeping.

  There was a serious look on his face, but he didn’t seem to be reprimanding me. His hands were still around my waist, his fingers holding onto me so gently that I thought he didn’t even realise that he was doing it. I guessed it meant that he wasn’t mad at me, which actually made sense to me, because I wasn’t mad at him, either. We had both been trying to spare the other person, right up until the moment when it became necessary to spill our secrets. It wasn’t the best way to deal with issues, but these weren’t normal issues, and our lives weren’t the only lives to consider.

  “Do you have any idea when it’s going to start?” I asked him.

  “Soon.” He shook his head, his hands falling away from me. “We’re all ready, now. I know we’ve promised you this before … but Danny isn’t going to win against us this ti
me.”

  I nodded, agreeing with him. “Not this time.”

  I said goodbye to Miro, hurrying outside, only to find that our group had moved down the hill to Silas’s cottage. Silas made it outside as soon as I reached them, and we split up into two separate cars, with Noah and Cabe taking Noah’s car and the rest of us in Poison’s. I was about to slip into the back seat, my foot already stepping inside, when a tingle of foreboding crept up my spine. I froze, my whole body locking down. Nothing happened, but I knew my ability well enough by now. It was trying to warn me. After a moment, the foreboding translated into pain, slashing a lightning bolt of agony through me. It passed so quickly I didn’t even have time to cry out, and I felt a trickle of moisture beneath my nostril. Confused and shaking, I wiped my hand beneath my nose and pulled it away, seeing blood. I rubbed it against my black jeans as the feeling faded away, leaving me clearheaded and calm, which I translated to mean that the threat wasn’t imminent, though it was looming.

  I chose to focus on the fact that my ability was attempting to warn me over the evidence that something was going wrong.

  The forecasting was starting to … hurt me.

  “I need to go up to the main house for a second,” I announced, sitting down and pulling the door closed.

  “No problem.” Poison started the engine, fiddling with the radio dials.

  Silas slipped something into my lap. “Give this to him.”

  I glanced down at the unfamiliar phone, my eyebrows shooting up. “How did you know I was going to see Tariq?”

  Silas only returned my astonished look with an astonished look of his own. Right. Of course he had known. He was Silas. He knew everything.

  Except what had just happened to me.

  I picked up the phone, turning it on and flicking through the contacts. It had my number saved in there, along with Silas’s, Miro’s, Cabe’s and Noah’s—but that was all. Silas passed me another phone, and I peered over his lap, to the bag that he was pulling everything from.

  “This one mine?” I asked, already slipping it into my pocket.