Breathe

Chapter 6

Cian

I hadn't talked to Lucie since we found the bodies—body—last night. In all seriousness, I guess twelve hours wasn't that long a time, but considering the unspoken words in our conversation yesterday, I felt uneasy. I mean, how could I not? Two months of regularity, and suddenly something this unusual? It didn't make sense. It was too sudden, too out of place, too...staged. Almost as if it had been done to catch someone's attention.

I didn't want to think about it.

I was at my alone place, curled on top of the roof outside my bedroom window, watching the clouds settle low across San Francisco's skyscrapers. It was a foggy morning, the sun a pale blur against faded blue. I sighed and dropped my head, scrubbing my thumb over my phone screen. Lucie smiled back at me—her contact photo was a selfie we'd taken together a few weeks back, when I'd taken her out on somewhat of a city scavenger hunt. It had been just us, wading through the streets, marveling at the bright architecture and varying cultures. That had been before I'd even started thinking about my wings, before the bodies, before now.

You should call her.

What was I going to say?

I exhaled again and mopped my hair back from my face. I needed a haircut. It was getting too long.

There was a knock behind me; I looked over my shoulder to see Vinny behind the window, his knuckles pressed against it. He narrowed his eyes at me, and I just shrugged and motioned him over. So much for being alone.

He shoved the window up and shimmied himself through. "Careful," I warned him, watching every move of his precariously. One slip and he could be gone again.

"What are you doing up here?" Vinny asked, placing one foot on the shingles.

I rolled my eyes. "It's my alone place."

"Yeah, but why are you in your alone place? You look awfully sullen."

As Vinny scooted to a halt beside me, I slid my phone into my pocket before he could see it, tapping my fingers across my lap. "I'm just thinking."

"About?"

"Things."

Now it was Vinny's turn to roll his eyes. I shot him a sideways glance, watched the wind play with his hair—something I was not used to. Back when he'd been a ghost, wind had no effect on him. It didn't tug at his shirt or blow his hair in his eyes; Vinny was an object constantly still. Yet, now that he was part of this world again, everything had changed. "Wow," Vince muttered. "Very specific. This isn't about...Lucie, is it?"

I snapped to attention. "What do you mean about Luc—"

"I heard you guys yelling yesterday. Is everything okay?"

I stared at him, at the slight furrow between his pale eyebrows, the pensive concern buried deep in his gold-flecked eyes. He frowned at me, and all I could think was how innocent he was, how innocent he'd always been, how unfair it had been for him to be taken from me two years ago. I had a second chance now, to protect him, to keep that innocence alive. There was no wasting it.

I hadn't told Vinny about my wings yet. I would have to tell him sooner rather than later, I thought, lest he get as upset as Lucie did.

He was my brother. I was supposed to share everything with him.

As the wind blew by in another hefty, seafaring breeze, I reached out a hand and clapped it on my little brother's knee. "Say, Vince—when's the last time you ate a hamburger?"