Angel's Mark

Five

I got back later than I'd wanted to. Zev disappeared immediately upstairs, and I watched him go, rubbing the sweat away from my brow.

The house was still and silent, the only light a faint golden hue coming from down the hall. I shut the door slowly, stifling the click of the door meeting the jamb.

My eyes lingered on Dad's office for a moment, the twilight-lit desk and office chair like museum artifacts, left untouched most of the time. A pang of disappointment reverberated within my chest. I hated it. I hated it, but part of me still wanted him here.

I drifted towards the living room sleepily, my fingers trailing across the wall. My fingers grappled the knob to kitchen, but I stopped, my whole body jolting. "Cian," I said. "You can't do that. You scared the bejeezus out of me."

He was on the couch, a quiet, shadowy figure silhouetted by the moonlight arcing in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the lamp lit softly beside him. As I approached the couch, he lifted a finger, his voice a low whisper. "Shh," he hushed, and my eyes fell towards his lap, upon which Lucie was nestled, eyes shut and face still. Cian's fingers twirled in her curls, a faint smile at his mouth. "She's asleep."

I frowned. "Shouldn't you take her home?"

He shook his head. "She said she wanted to stay."

"Oh," I murmured, then turned to head back for the kitchen. My tongue felt like someone had poured salt over it; if I didn't get something to drink soon, I was surely going to keel over. "I'll, uh, leave you two, then—"

Cian's hand grappled my wrist. "Don't. I need to talk to you."

My tongue grew drier. I dragged it across my lips and murmured, "Okay."

Carefully, Cian extricated himself from Lucie's grasp, easing her hand from his wrist and wriggling out from underneath her. I watched him nestle a pillow under her head, then he pecked her on the forehead and motioned for me to follow him.

We went outside, where the air was on the precarious border between chilly and cold, where the wind ruffled both the calm bay and the strand's of my brother's honey blond hair. In the winter it always seemed to grow darker, closer to brown than it had ever been. Mine was pale year round. I disliked it more than I'd ever say.

Cian's eyes lingered on the dock for a moment, but he seemed to think better of it. He plopped down in the dewy grass without a second thought, drawing his knees to his chest. "Sit," he told me.

I sat.

I plucked at the strands of grass at my feet, the earth gritting underneath my nails. "I know what you're going to say."

Cian's voice was guttural. "Do you?"

"Yeah, I do," I said, and there was a growing firmness in my tone that I could have chosen to get rid of. But I didn't want to. I was too tired to. "So don't bother saying it. I know what this is, Cian, it's just—you're jealous, that's it. I'm an angel and you wish you still were, so—"

"I'm jealous?" Cian repeated, and his laugh, the laugh that normally brought a smile to my face with its effortlessness, boiled the blood in my veins. I had the sudden insatiable desire to punch him in the face. "Oh, come on, Vinny, don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not!" I fought. A handful of grass was unearthed, and I bit my lip, tossing it a few feet in front of me. The blades fell noiselessly down the hill, sloping towards the dim water that marked the end of our backyard. I wanted to leave, needed to leave. If I could float away from it all...

"I'm not," I said again, softer. "You act like you're all concerned. You tell me to be careful and that I can't just run off on my own—but you don't see it. It's not...normal anymore, if it ever was. This is my job, to be an angel, to train, to make sure I can protect you whenever you need it. And if you're trying to stop me, then it's just jealousy."

"Why would I be jealous, Vince? There's nothing I don't have. For once in my life, it's actually like I've got everything figured out," Cian said, turning to look at me. There was a hint of a smile on his face, the scarred side of his bowed mouth just barely tipped up. Everything was tinted a sleepy blue: his skin, his eyes, the sky and the trees behind him. "I'm human, which means I have everything else that goes along with it. I make mistakes. I get older. I can—I can live my life without worrying when the next person's going to die. I have Lucie, and she's healthy, and she's not leaving me anytime soon. And, for God's sake, Vinny, you're here, really here, and I just—I just feel like everything's okay for once, you know?"

He dropped his gaze, his eyelashes like silver brushstrokes in the cool moonlight. "Yeah. Everything's okay. And I wouldn't trade it for anything in the whole world."

I waited for a moment, but it was too silent. All too silent.

"Then why—"

"I don't know, maybe because you're my little brother and I just don't want to lose you again," he muttered with a harsh shake of his head. "Looking at you's like looking at my whole life. You understand that?"

"Cian?"

He spit into the grass. "What?"

"Stop talking, please."

"Why?" said Cian with another bitter chuckle. "Does it annoy you that people care for you? Is that what this whole thing's about?"

"I don't know what it's about. I just don't want to be mad at you. That's all I do know."

Cian huffed and got to his feet, looking down at me with a raised eyebrow. He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, the wind just barely lifting the hem of his sweater, which, like everything else in his closet, was positively the color of pitch. "Then don't be mad," he said simply. "I'm not mad. There's no reason to be mad."

"Then why did you say you wanted to talk to me?"

"Honestly," he said with a frown, tapping his foot, "I just wanted to ask if you're okay."

"Am I okay?"

Cian shrugged, his gaze shifting out towards the bay. "Yeah, I mean, that's it. You just seem frustrated all the time. You can tell me. Whatever it is."

It was sort of a dumb question, considering how vague the word okay was. Was I okay? How would I even know? I felt fine. I thought I was fine. I mean, there the constant worry that something was about to happen, that faint pulse in my back of my head that said Cian was in danger, Cian was in danger. But that had always been there, even before I'd been his guardian angel.

I collapsed backwards, letting the grass cushion my head. The night sky above us was about as blank as all the thoughts in my head. "I'm fine, CJ," I assured him. "You worry too much."

"I think what you mean is that you worry me too much, Vinny."

I scoffed. "Sure."

And for a while neither of us said anything, and it was like it had been before any of this, before it all, when I was fourteen and Cian was sixteen and we were just two teenagers in a world much too big for us. Too many stars to count. Too many memories to make. Too many thoughts to think.

There was a soft rustle as Cian settled in the grass beside me again. He leaned over to look at me, his elbow rested upon his knee, dimly lit eyes just barely peeking over his arm. "You'd tell me though, right?" he asked. "If there was something."

I hesitated long enough for him to notice. I saw the flicker in his expression and wished I hadn't.

"Yeah," I told him. "Of course I would."