VEUX

Five

The sun beamed heavily down Saoirse's bare, dark back, but she had droplets of water cascading down her skin to create a barrier. She wore her favourite bathing suit, a turquoise one piece with navy lining across the chest to emphasis what she was still too young to have.

Her sister, Caoimhe, she had already grown up and taken a liking to the bikinis that Saoirse swore she would never wear. They covered so little, Saoirse couldn't imagine them being anything but uncomfortable.

"Ready? One, two, three!" Tiernan rose from the water with Saoirse above his shoulders, shrieking full of laughter.

Caoimhe and Saoirse's second eldest brother, Eoin, mimicked their positions as Caoimhe attempted to balance herself with her hands over his eyes. The lot of the siblings all looked alike, resembled each other as siblings should, not that there was much to work with. Both of their parents had umber skin, matching eyes, and black hair that barely grew. Caoimhe cut hers into a bob she was so frustrated with it, but Saoirse had always grown hers. Straight to her shoulders, and one day she longed to be like those girls in the magazines...

"This isn't fair!" Eoin shouted. "Saoirse makes for a smaller centre of gravity!"

"Shut up and fight me!" Tiernan guffawed in laughter.

"Go!" Saoirse urged him from above, giggling the second her hands interlocked with Caoimhe's. She was quite a few years older than Saoirse, but she never felt estranged from her. Saoirse couldn't imagine life without her. Most days, Saoirse would cancel hanging out with friends just to see her sister when she was home from college. Growing up in a house full of three brothers, Caoimhe made for a great escape.

Though older, she wasn't stronger, and that made for Tiernan and Eoin to add in their own spits of fire. Tiernan's arms were locked over Saoirse's knees, but Eoin had taken to unlatching his to push at him. Saoirse saw her chance, and took it as she pulled Caoimhe as far as she could from Eoin's shoulders. She splashed face first into the water, taking Eoin down with her leaving Tiernan and Saoirse in victory.

Tiernan spins around with Saoirse securely latched in, shouting and hollering. "That's how it's done boys! Undefeated champion, Saoirse! And ya boy Tiernan!"

"Incoming!"

Tiernan was spinning Saoirse too fast in the water to see their third brother, Killian, dive into the water, arms tackling Saoirse off from Tiernan's shoulders. Her gleeful screaming from the perfect summer's day were cut off as she fell back into the water, her eyes open as she gazed up into the sun's retractions. Everybody was around her, swimming, dancing, laughing. The noise was being drowned from her ears as she sunk further and further down to the bottom of the pool from Killian's force, and just like that, she felt herself choking on the water as she laughed it in; letting the summers day joy fill her lungs until she felt like she would burst.

That was the summer before Tiernan was stolen.

~

November 21

Lifting her groggy head, Saoirse took a quick survey of her surroundings. The living space had turned dark, only a small amount of light came from the television screen, paused at the end of the credits.

Not another soul was awake in the house, other than Eye for he sat across from Saoirse on the couch. His arms were spread out and his posture looked relaxed, but his rich orbs were trained on her and solely her.

"Why?" Saoirse choked out, half whispering; the other half sobbing. "Why did he turn me? Why did he take my life away from me?"

He pulled in his arms, Saoirse's tone of voice invading on his relaxed posture. "Those are questions I can not answer."

Her eyes were brimming, spilling even, and all she had was the sleeves of her days old sweater to wipe them away. She didn't like crying in front of Eye, being so vulnerable in front of somebody she'd barely known for a day, but her memories pushing into her dreams was too much. She hadn't remembered her family in a long time, and her dawning reality was only more crushing.

"What the fuck is wrong with him?" Saoirse started to raise her voice. "Who does he think he is?"

Eye leaned closer to her now, near standing on the edge of the couch. "Saoirse, I think it's time you went to your room now."

In her mumbling mess, trying her best to cope with her thoughts and emotions, Saoirse pulled herself up from the couch in the direction of the stairs. She whimpered and shivered the whole way there, Eye never missing a step behind her. When she reached her room, she turned to him, with puffy eyes and a running nose, but tried reeling in her breaths so she could speak.

"Are you going to stay here?" Saoirse hiccuped like a large ball of air was expanding inside of her.

Eye shook his head, curls falling into his eyes. "A night guard will be stationed outside of your door."

Saoirse looked up at him even more, confusion clouding in her eyes. "Why isn't there one already here? It's well into the morning."

"They will only be alerted once you go to sleep."

"I was asleep on the couch," Saoirse point out.

"It is my duty as your day guard to stay with you until you are asleep in your territory."

More pack law.

"Oh," Saoirse stated. "Goodnight, Eye."

His head dipped formally. "Goodnight, Saoirse."

An inch kept her from closing her door.

"Eye?"

He halted, not five steps down the door. He walked back to her. "Yes, Saoirse."

"The man in the picture, the one who... turned me," Saoirse held his gaze, looking for an honest answer. "Is he a bad man?"

Saoirse felt the silence between them stretch beyond an infinite limit.

The word slipped slowly from his mouth like an accident, "Yes."