Pulse

Chapter 16

Lucie

Watching Cian drive was oddly enjoyable, and I don't mean that in a creepy way. There was just something about being in the passenger seat, glancing sideways at him in the darkness of his SUV, observing the calm way his hands operated the steering wheel. He steered the car as if he'd been doing so his whole life, his eyes never flitting from the road, the profile of his face silhouetted against the blurring street and traffic lights. The radio wasn't on, the only noises the rumbling of the tires against the road and the intermittent turn signal clicks. It was quiet. Too quiet.

I heaved a sigh heavy enough that Cian noticed, and in my peripheral vision, I saw him glimpse once in my direction as I slunk down in the seat. My ankle was near one of the heat vents; warm air slowly caressed it. "You didn't mention to me that you're rich, you know."

A scoff from the driver's seat. "I'm not rich."

"Right," I murmured, looking away. The Escalade was clean-smelling, as if it was still new, though I knew it wasn't. Only rich people had old cars that smelled like new cars. "Your kitchen isn't straight out of a magazine, neither is the entire rest of your house, which, might I remind you, is right on the bay and has a dock. We're totally not driving around in a Cadillac SUV right now. 'Course not."

Cian's scoff evolved into a laugh, a curt, clipped sound that I realized I hadn't heard before. Something tickled in the back of my throat. "So we're a little bit rich," he admitted, craning forward to see where he was going, his hair falling into his eyes. The streets were dim, emptier than usual, and there was something enticing about it all, as if we were the only ones awake in a sleeping and oblivious city. "Did Vinny give you a tour, or something?"

I shook my head. "Too risky. I didn't want to run into your parents. That would have been painfully awkward." I glanced in the rearview mirror, and, to my surprise, found Vinny lying still in the back seat, his eyes closed. "Is Vinny sleeping? I think he's sleeping. I didn't know ghosts slept."

"This one does," Cian said. "Makes him feel 'alive,' he says, because that makes a load of sense. It's not good for him, though; more than once he's been napping on the couch and someone's sat on top of him," he added with a chuckle, one that died off as quick as it came. When he spoke next, which was after a pause, his voice had grown dour. "My parents...I don't know, Lucie. It's hard."

I frowned in his direction, sitting up. The turn signal clicked again, engine roaring as Cian crushed the gas pedal underneath his foot. The digital clock between us read 3:16. "They can't see him, can they?"

Cian's eyes went to the rearview, then back to the road ahead of him. "No," he answered after a beat. "He's invisible to them. Sometimes it's painful to watch, because he wants to interact with them so badly, but he can't. They look right through him, unless I'm there to tell them he's saying something. I think it's slowly killing him, even if he won't admit it.

"It's his pride, I think," Cian observed. He sighed into the air, ducking his head. "Vinny's strong, so he doesn't let anyone ask him if he's okay. Nothing I can do about that. I've tried."

I started to counter his statement, but stopped myself. Instead, I leaned my head against the tinted windows, my eyebrows furrowing. My heart thumped rhythmically in my chest as I thought: What is it about the Hornes? There were scars deeper than the ones that slashed the surface of Cian's skin, deeper than the loss of the youngest son's life. I glimpsed them when Cian spoke about Vinny, about his parents' ignorance. There was something ugly beneath this family's appeal, something they didn't want anyone to know.

The car stopped moving. Oil dripped as the car settled, clinking somewhere below us. The engine sputtered and then died; the heat shut off abruptly, washing us all in silence.