Pulse

Chapter 36

Lucie

"So, chess, huh?" I asked Vinny, who was mostly silent in my passenger seat, with the exception of a "Make a right turn there" or "You need to keep straight at this light." When he wasn't navigating, he was staring idly out the window, legs folded in his seat. I had almost scolded him for not wearing a seatbelt, but had reconsidered shortly after, as it wouldn't exactly hold him anywhere. Vinny was tricky, defying the laws of both physics and basic logic, and despite knowing him for a month now, I still wasn't used to it.

"Chess?" asked Vinny. Then: "Left."

I jerked the car left. Someone honked at me. "Cian. He played chess. I saw it in the trophy case."

"Oh," Vinny replied. It took him a moment before he said: "Chess."

"Did you play chess?" I inquired, then hesitated, wondering if referring to Vinny in the past tense hurt him somehow. I considered blurting "do you play chess," but Vinny had already chuckled and moved on before I could.

"Me? Chess? Never. I'm...I was, I guess, I horrible at it. It was Cian's game. Chess is a game for people who like to strategize, who have logical and detailed approaches to everything," Vinny said, and his brow furrowed. He frowned at the glove compartment, drumming his fingers across it. Even just a small gesture like that, however, required major concentration on his end. "They're easy to pick out of crowds, chess players. They have a deadly smile and an observant mind."

I smirked. "Sounds like Cian."

Vinny stopped drumming. "He doesn't play anymore. He used to challenge Eden, but after..."

He didn't finish, and nor did he need to. The pain in his eyes, the downturn to his lips, was more than enough for me. He frowned, giving me another last minute instruction. Clearing my throat, I said, "So you...uh, were the athlete?"

Vinny nodded, once. "I was on the soccer team. Played baseball for a while, too, but in the end, soccer was what caught my eye," he said, then scoffed ruefully. "I actually thought I was going to the pros."

"Vinny..."

"Please don't sound like that," the smallest Horne said with an exhale, craning back in the seat and shutting his eyes. His neck, stretched elegantly towards the sky, was exposed to the sunlight filing through the window. There, in that position, casual but striking, he looked more like Cian than I'd ever thought. Even the tone of his voice sounded like his brother's: something discreet and subliminal beneath it all. "Like Cian said: I'm dead. I have to get over it. So don't be sad for me. Please."

My fingers curled tighter around the steering wheel. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pity you."

"No, you didn't," he replied. "It's fine, Lucie—oh. This is it."

"This?" I questioned, taking a sharp turn onto a gravel parking lot, the tiny pebbles and stones popping up against the tires. Parking the car and removing my seatbelt, I craned forward, trying to see where Vinny had taken me. It was an expanse of gray-green grass waving in the wind, and among the meadow were dots of slate stones and decaying flowers, mausoleums and family crypts rising like mountains in the distance.

Crows called from the foliage.

My eyes darted to Vinny. "When people say take me somewhere, they don't mean to a cemetery, Vinny."

He was already hopping out of the car, and I recognized that I couldn't argue with him, so I followed him with a grunt, slamming the fading Subaru's door shut. The sun beat down on us, warming my bare legs and shoulders. I tied my hair up into a ponytail to get it off my neck, crossing my arms. The cemetery stood before us, silent and eerie.