Pulse

Chapter 21

Cian

I thought I was hallucinating. No. I knew I was hallucinating. I frowned at the ground, remembering the stars in her eyes that night, her voice as she'd said Happy birthday, Cian.

Then the boat hit, and her screams were like knives in my eardrums.

The ocean was a malignant being, growling and reaching for me in the dark of night. I had let Vinny get in its grasp, and I would never forgive myself for that.

What was she doing here?

I drew the curtain of my bedroom window shut with haste. Vinny backed up and sat down on the floor. He scrubbed one hand through his pale hair and stared at the carpet beneath him. I watched him pensively. He said, "Eden. Eden. I didn't think she wanted anything to do with us."

I wandered over to my Norwegian poster and busied myself reattaching it to the wall. My fingers needed something to do, something to fiddle with. There was a nervous energy humming inside of me like a pattern of sound waves. How long did we have? Was it only a few seconds before the doorbell rang, and I saw her again? What was I supposed to say? "Me either," I agreed, successfully taping one corner up.

Vinny was still scrutinizing the floor underneath him. "She thinks I'm dead."

I frowned at the screaming Norwegian guy with the gel spikes in his hair and replied, "Vinny, you are dead."

"I meant dead and gone," he shot back. There was something undeniably defensive in his tone. "I'm not gone. I'm far from gone. I just wonder if she knows."

Silence roved around us as it occurred to me what he meant by this. Then, I managed: "You think she's Split? Like me? Vinny..."

"I can hope, can't I?" his voice was small. He sounded terribly young. "I missed her. You can't blame me for hoping she...she can actually talk to me."

The doorbell rang. I heard Mom's footsteps heading towards the foyer.

Setting my shoulders, I finished fiddling with the poster and turned slowly, regarding my little brother from underneath a raised eyebrow. In the darkness caused by the drawn curtains, he shone like a lit candle, an ethereal spirit in the center of my bedroom, hoping for something more. I sighed, but would not let myself pity him. There was nothing Vincent Horne hated more than pity, and I knew that for a fact. "Don't do anything stupid," I told him, my voice a bit harsher than I'd intended.

He didn't seem to care; in fact, he looked as if he'd been expecting as much from me. "Define stupid."

"Don't break anything. Keep the power on. And, for goodness sake, no Morse code or ketchup, alright?"

"Refrigerator magnets?" Vinny gave me his puppy dog eyes again.

Downstairs, voices had begun to sound. I heard Mom's surprised "Oh!"

I pointed at him. "Heck to the no. Don't even think about it. No touchy-touchy with your ghost hands, got it?"

His puppy dog expression drooped, just as Mom called: "Cian? There's a visitor here for you." I heard the uneasiness in her voice; she hesitated, even, as if she wanted to call Vinny's name as well.

The look on Vinny's face tightened. I gave him a sympathetic glance. I wanted to ruffle his hair, playfully punch him in the shoulder, give some sort of reassuring contact, but I couldn't. I never could again. It killed me, no matter how much I convinced myself it didn't. There was always going to be some sort of disconnect between us now; he was in one world, and I was in another, and both were just barely overlapping.