being nearly dead

The other one

He arrived as if dropped off by the wind. A silence settled in the house as Ava half-ran toward the stairs. She stopped at the top and gripped the wooden handrail as Nix came up behind her. The man removed his scarf and hung it on the rack by the door, then he took off his coat and added it. Ava remembered how warm it was outside, a scarf and coat was wildly unnecessary. He must have come from somewhere else.

The boy, Felix, from the living room had also heard the door and walked into the foyer. He wore grey sweatpants that were falling down his hips with a thin white shirt. He scratched the back of his neck as he looked at the man.

"Phoenix," the man said before he turned to look at Nix. He smiled.

Felix looked up to the stairs and his tiredness vanished as he almost jolted backwards. "Where did you come from?"

Luna came walking in behind him and smacked him upside the head. "You'd know if you weren't sleeping all day."

"Hey, I was up all night doing-"

Luna cut him off and she raised her flat hand. "I don't want to know what- or who you were doing."

Ava's eyes were fixed on the man. He looked similar to Nix, very much so. The same wavy, black hair, handsome as well. Especially so in the grey vest, white dress shirt and simple grey trousers. His shoes were polished leather. Instead of dark eyes like Nix, he had shining blue ones. Glassy and searching.

"We haven't met," he told her, ignoring Luna and Felix entirely. As if he just saw her, not even Nix's growing contemptuous face. 

"No... we haven't," she said as she began walking down the stairs. He didn't look dangerous. Maybe in the lady-killer kind of way.

"I have a justified feeling that Nix hasn't said a word about me?" he met her at the base of the stairs. "I'm the other one," he told her and took her hand gently. "Silas," he kept eye contact as he pressed his lips to the back of her hand. "It's a pleasure," he said as he stood straight again.

"Ava..." was all she could think to say. She hadn't noticed when he rested their hands, still held together, on the end of the banister.

"I see you wish to seek asylum here, you're very welcome to stay," his eyes darted to Nix, still at the top of the stairs. "You're quite welcome as well, brother."

Only then did Ava remember where she was. She removed her hand from his and instead kept her arms across her stomach. She looked back at Nix, his eyes were firmly glued to the other brother. "That's ever so kind of you..." he said although it clearly wasn't genuine.

"This is as much your home as is it mine," Silas told them and, without warning, turned to Felix. "Get dressed, its five in the afternoon." Felix rolled his eyes. "And when I get into that room there better not be a mess," he went left of the stairs, through the dining room to another that Ava couldn't see. Felix mocked him behind his back. "Don't." They heard.

Felix shrugged as Luna pushed him back into the living room. Silas sounded more like a father to them than a brother, at least at the moment. Ava felt eyes on the back of her head and turned to see they belonged to Nix. Luna was gone. They were alone.

"He doesn't seem so bad."

"Neither does a wolf when he wears wool."

"Are you saying he's a wolf?"

Nix walked down to stand beside her on the last step. "I'm saying, be careful, he's not all that he appears to be."

"Is he older or younger than you?" she asked out of the blue.