Angel's Mark

Thirty-two

At this point, it was common knowledge that Zev Castellanos's bedroom, which had been a spare lounge before he'd been ordered to mentor me, was pretty much sacred. One did not cross its boundaries unless it was a dire emergency, and no emergency was dire to Zev. In fact, the room and he were a lot alike that way. Unapproachable. Distant. Foreign.

Regardless, there were some words to be had with him whether I liked it or not. Ever since he'd figured out what was going on between Alan and me, he'd been surly, a pot of water way past its boiling point. I'd tried letting him cool off, and judging by the threat he'd made last night, it hadn't worked.

I knocked briefly against the wood with a single knuckle, and my response was a jarring thwack, like he'd chucked something at the door.

"Go away," he called from the other side.

"It's Vinny."

"Oh, even worse. Go away."

I waited to see if, for whatever reason, he'd decide to be mature and open up the door anyway. When he didn't, I knocked again. "Zev, this is serious. I'm not going away."

A pause. "Let me guess. It's about that fool you've practically got attached to your hip."

My hand slipped from the wood, furled into a fist, unfurled again. It took all my energy to keep my voice steady. "Alan's not a fool."

For another moment, I stood alone in the hallway, the sunlight more gray than yellow, barren twigs scraping against windows.

Zev swung the door open, regarding me underneath eyebrows as thick and dark as coal, hair stuck like spindles of ink against his neck. "If you're asking me to take back what I said," he told me, folding his arms across his chest, "then you're wasting your time, Blondie."

I swallowed, trying to ignore the fact that his bedroom looked like a tornado had blown through it. Though Zev blocked a lot of my view into the space, I could still see the clothes tossed on the floor, or hanging from lamps, or being used as bookends. Unmade beds and gnarled curtains and slightly askew rugs. Chaotic as the man who lived in it.

I worried at a strand of my hair, watching it rather than Zev. Lucie had told me once that my hair felt like silk. It felt like hair to me. "I'm not asking you to take it back—just explain to me where it came from. What is it you have against him? And why are you—why are you making this so hard for me?"

"Hard for you?" he repeated with a sneer.

"You almost exposed me to Cian last night; don't act like you're unaware of that. If I was ready to tell him, I would have by now, and you know that, Zev."

He met my eyes, then sighed raggedly and stepped out into the hall, pulling his bedroom door shut behind us. Downstairs, the warble of a television show could just barely be heard; probably Nura watching one of her afternoon sitcoms. I was struck with the sudden want to be down there, with her, where the air was clear and where I could watch television and not have so much to worry about. It didn't matter what I wanted, though. It rarely ever did.

"You wanna know what I think?"

Quite frankly, I did not.

"I think you're being an idiot, Vinny," Zev said, leaning back against the opposite wall, a smirk at his mouth. The blood underneath my skin began to warm. Like he knew everything. Like he knew anything at all. "What do you think he's gonna do, huh? You pull out the 'I'm gay' speech and all of a sudden he disowns you? Burns you at the stake? I mean, goodness gracious, Blondie. Cian? Cian James Horne? Are we thinking of the same person?"