Cian

I hadn't talked to Lucie since we found the bodies—body—last night. In all seriousness, I guess twelve hours wasn't that long a time, but considering the unspoken words in our conversation yesterday, I felt uneasy. I mean, how could I not? Two months of regularity, and suddenly something this unusual? It didn't make sense. It was too sudden, too out of place, too...staged. Almost as if it had been done to catch someone's attention.

I didn't want to think about it.

I was at my alone place, curled on top of the roof outside my bedroom window, watching the clouds settle low across San Francisco's skyscrapers. It was a foggy morning, the sun a pale blur against faded blue. I sighed and dropped my head, scrubbing my thumb over my phone screen. Lucie smiled back at me—her contact photo was a selfie we'd taken together a few weeks back, when I'd taken her out on somewhat of a city scavenger hunt. It had been just us, wading through the streets, marveling at the bright architecture and varying cultures. That had been before I'd even started thinking about my wings, before the bodies, before now.

You should call her.

What was I going to say?

I exhaled again and mopped my hair back from my face. I needed a haircut. It was getting too long.

There was a knock behind me; I looked over my shoulder to see Vinny behind the window, his knuckles pressed against it. He narrowed his eyes at me, and I just shrugged and motioned him over. So much for being alone.

He shoved the window up and shimmied himself through. "Careful," I warned him, watching every move of his precariously. One slip and he could be gone again.

"What are you doing up here?" Vinny asked, placing one foot on the shingles.

I rolled my eyes. "It's my alone place."

"Yeah, but why are you in your alone place? You look awfully sullen."

As Vinny scooted to a halt beside me, I slid my phone into my pocket before he could see it, tapping my fingers across my lap. "I'm just thinking."

"About?"

"Things."

Now it was Vinny's turn to roll his eyes. I shot him a sideways glance, watched the wind play with his hair—something I was not used to. Back when he'd been a ghost, wind had no effect on him. It didn't tug at his shirt or blow his hair in his eyes; Vinny was an object constantly still. Yet, now that he was part of this world again, everything had changed. "Wow," Vince muttered. "Very specific. This isn't about...Lucie, is it?"

I snapped to attention. "What do you mean about Luc—"

"I heard you guys yelling yesterday. Is everything okay?"

I stared at him, at the slight furrow between his pale eyebrows, the pensive concern buried deep in his gold-flecked eyes. He frowned at me, and all I could think was how innocent he was, how innocent he'd always been, how unfair it had been for him to be taken from me two years ago. I had a second chance now, to protect him, to keep that innocence alive. There was no wasting it.

I hadn't told Vinny about my wings yet. I would have to tell him sooner rather than later, I thought, lest he get as upset as Lucie did.

He was my brother. I was supposed to share everything with him.

As the wind blew by in another hefty, seafaring breeze, I reached out a hand and clapped it on my little brother's knee. "Say, Vince—when's the last time you ate a hamburger?"

He hadn't had one since before he'd died, and you could tell. By the way he was scarfing the whole down, you'd probably guess he hadn't had one ever. There was sauce on his shirt and sesame seeds on his cheeks, and his eyes were wide and hungry. I just shook my head, laughing. "You seem to be enjoying that."

Vinny didn't answer, just gave a strange-sounding moan of pleasure and continued to shove the meal down his throat. I'd taken him to a hole-in-the-wall burger place downtown, close to Caprice's territory. I hadn't been here in a while, but not much had changed since the last I'd visited—same distressed wood hung on the burnt orange walls as some sort of décor, same diner-like chairs and booths, same heavy smell of booze in the air. Voices strung together as people chatted and buzzed around us.

The last time I'd came to this place had been maybe a year ago. I hadn't exactly been in the best of moods. I'd just run across a jerky guardian angel, who, once he'd figured out I was "the" Cian Horne, had proceeded to taunt me and make jokes of me simply because I had the capacity to die. I had stopped into this place just as an escape route, and drowned my sorrows in Arnold Palmers and a cheeseburger or two.

That had been back when I'd still been trying to convince everyone that, Hey, I'm an angel too.

I gave up on that pretty quickly.

I reached for a fry and dipped it in ketchup. "So," I started, and Vinny looked up at me over his burger, "you wanna know about Lucie and me, right?"

He nodded, setting the gargantuan sandwich down and wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Yeah," he responded when he had freed his mouth of enough food. "I mean, I'd hate for you guys to be fighting...I like it when all of us get along."

I grinned at him. "Muffin and I aren't fighting. We fought. There's a difference."

"I know," Vinny told me. He sat back in his seat, folding his hands over his lap. "I thought you were acting weird, you know—when you called us and started freaking out. And then—"

"Yeah, yeah. And then I talked to Lucie, and it was okay, until...until I told her something," I said, and reached for another fry, exhaling. I scrutinized the potato product, its golden brown color, the individual fried flecks of batter that you could pick out if you squinted enough. Why couldn't I just say it? If I was...if I was just this uneasy about saying it, then was getting my wings back truly a good idea? If I couldn't even manage to talk about it?

    Vinny seemed to read the unrest in my expression. I heard the hesitance in his voice. "Hey, C.J..."

I jolted a little, as before, only Mom had called me that. It took a second of mulling over to realize that Vinny now spent an awful lot of time with our mother, now that she could see him, so I guess the new name made sense. I looked up at him through the strands of my hair, then sighed and raked it up out of my eyes. "I went to see Caprice yesterday," I told him, and saw his eyes widen a little with surprise. I'd surprised myself. It was no secret that the sentiment between the two of us was not all happy-go-lucky. "I asked her if she knew anything about getting my wings back."

Silence, as cold and dead as the same one Lucie had given me. It was as if I was reliving the moment.

Vinny eyes flitted away. I leaned my cheek into my hand. "Vince, if you—"

"Why didn't you tell us before?' he asked, and though I expected him to be angry at me, his voice was strangely scraped hollow. His gaze was out the window at the side of our table, trained on the cars rolling by on the street, the fog as it cleared a path for noon's sunlight. Everything was solemn, quiet, and I hated every passing second of it. "We were worried about you, Lucie and I. You started acting all distant, and we thought, I don't know, lingering hormones, or something"—at this, I made a face, which my brother ignored—"but no, it was this. God—why didn't you say something?"

"I am saying something."

"That's not an answer. I asked why didn't you."

"How am I supposed to talk about something you guys don't even understand—I don't even understand?" I inquired, frustrated. The fries and Vinny's hamburger were getting cold, but neither member of the party cared. "I...I don't even know how to say something. I'm just confused. I don't know what I am. I don't know what I'm supposed to be. I don't know what I want. And maybe I just thought...if I had my wings back, if things were like they were before, then everything would be okay again."

"Before what, Cian? Before when?" Vinny's eyes slid back to mine; they were candid and cold, and I shivered a little. "Before Lucie?"

My skin prickled, and I gritted my teeth. "That's not what I said. Vinny, that's not what I said."

"I don't care what you said. What did you mean?"

I clicked my teeth, burying my face in my hands and closing my eyes. My heart was arrhythmic in my chest; I couldn't tell if it was too fast or too slow. I'm just confused. "I don't even know why you ask. You know there's no life for me if Lucie's not in it. What I meant by before is...is before I felt like this. Before, when I had my job, when I didn't feel useless."

Vinny didn't say anything for a moment. When he did speak, the ice had drained from his voice. "You're far from useless. I tell you that all the time, but I guess you'll only listen to yourself in the end, won't you?"

"I'm sorry. Nothing's final yet; I mean, I don't even know, but I'm sorry," I told him, lifting my head from my hands. My brother gave me a meek smile, his expression gentle and caring.

"Don't apologize. I'm not mad at you. Just don't do anything stupid, okay?"

I nodded, and was about to give a verbal response when a loud crash sounded throughout the restaurant. Both Vinny and I jolted in response, eyes zipping to the source: a guy had just dropped a whole tray of burgers, the porcelain plates in shards on the floor.

What was worse?

He was staring right at us.

"Vinny..." I began, and trailed off when I saw the sickly pallor that had flooded my brother's skin. He was gaping, terrified, at the server, and the server was gaping at him, and both of them looked as if they'd contracted some sort of horrible disease.

"Vincent?" said the server, stopped dead in his tracks. "Vincent...Horne?"

"Vinny!" I warned. This was our cue to leave. Now.

But Vinny was too mesmerized. "F-Felix..."

"But," the server stammered, "you drowned. You drowned, two years ago!"

I slammed a hand down on Vinny's wrist; his plate rattled against the table. Wandering eyes followed us, the restaurant slipping into silence. "Vinny," I hissed.

He looked at me, or at least that was what I thought. His gaze, however, was hollow, as if he was looking through me. I shivered in discomfort. "Vince," I said again. "Hey. Hey. Snap out of it. We've gotta run—we've gotta—"

The server, Felix, stumbled over to our table. His expression was full of surprise and wonder, even relief. I wanted to throw up; if Lucie were here, she'd know what to do, she'd know what to do... "You were our best striker; insanely good," choked out Felix, as if Vinny needed to be reminded of the life he'd had before. Bay Area's soccer star. Unstoppable. And then, gone. "And you were...one of my best friends—"

"Were?" Vinny murmured. "I..." He shook his head, wincing and shutting his eyes as if something had hurt him. It was my cue, as if a million other things hadn't already cued me, that we needed to vanish.

I tightened my grip on my brother's wrist. "Listen, Felix," I muttered, and when I stared at him for a moment, I realized with a start that I did recognize him. He'd come to Vinny's birthday parties, gone out for pizza with us before; I used to see him laughing with Vinny in the school halls. No. No, no. This was why outside was dangerous. "It's...complicated. Family stuff. Just forget you saw us here. Sorry—"

"Look, you don't have to tell me why," Felix said, his eyes still trained on my brother. I squirmed, yet Vinny was as still as a doll, his round eyes burning holes into space. What was wrong with him? Why wasn't he doing anything? "I know that people have reasons, you know, for why they fake their death and stuff. But just...I'd like to talk to you, Vinny. Maybe not even about that...um, here."

My eyes narrowed as Felix took one of our napkins, pulling a pen from his pocket and beginning to scribble something down on it. I watched him with a cocked head, wondering why he was wasting his time. As if I was going to let Vinny reconnect with him? No—it would only cause trouble. "That's my address," Felix said, tossing the napkin at Vinny, who gripped it in his fingers, still not looking at him. "I mean, if you'd like to swing by tomorrow night, the old team will be there. Of course, it's only if you want to. They'd be happy to see you."

I waited for Vinny to reply. To say no, thank you like the rational and polite person he was. But he was still, frozen his posture rigid, which meant all further action would have to be completed by me. I stammered, "Uh-huh, yeah. Thanks, buddy. We'll be going now."

Then I yanked Vinny's arm, left a twenty on the table, and fled that place as fast as my legs would carry me. I felt Felix's eyes burning in the back of my head, but ignored him, flying out the door and not looking back until both of us were safely shut inside the Cadillac.

There, Vinny loosened like a deflated balloon. He leaned over the dashboard, hands pressed up into his hair, eyelids shut over his eyes. I watched his back heave as his breath settled, worried for a moment that this was another one of his episodes. "Vinny?" I asked. "What happened in there? You froze up!"

His reply was an exhale. "I don't know. I don't know anything. I just...I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I don't know what happened, Cian, I don't know," he murmured, and when his voice cracked, unshed tears welled in his eyes. "Something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with me."

"Hey, stop that," I snapped at him, reaching over and clapping a hand on his shoulder. The napkin Felix had given him drifted to the floor, but neither Vinny nor I moved to pick it up. The engine was off, so the car was quiet—it was just us, inside, the rest of the world outside the glass of the windows. Only heat seeped through, sticking my shirt to my chest, my hair to my neck. "Nothing's wrong with you, Vinny. You're alive now. There's nothing wrong about that."

"God, you're such a liar," Vinny hissed, turning his face away. A tear slid down his cheek, dripping onto the dashboard. "I was dead. My body was in a coffin for two years, and suddenly I'm back. That doesn't happen, Cian. We're being stupid, all of us, if we believe this doesn't come with some sort of catch."

I swallowed, trying to fight the acceleration of my pulse. "Vinny..."

"It's only a matter of time," Vinny said bitterly. "It's only a matter of time before I...I crumble. And then what?"

"You're being melodramatic."

"I am not! You saw me! I froze! I couldn't move. And sometimes I get so shaky I can't even pick up a pencil. I trip over nothing. Everything...all of these things, Cian, didn't happen when I was normal."

I struck the steering wheel with my fist, feeling the dull pain of it radiating through my muscles. I wanted to tell him it was okay, that it was just his body adjusting, but he had a point. He had a point that there had to be a catch somewhere, that the lessening of his fundamental skills meant something bigger than what we thought. I was just so tired. I was so tired of having everything I wanted, and then having it jerked away again, a fleeting pleasure that only lasted a season. Sweet as sin.

Vinny picked up his head. Tears had left tracks on his young face, his blue eyes still damp. Moving strands of his flaxen hair from his face, he said softly, "Look me in the eye, Cian, and tell me you're not scared."

I couldn't.

Because then I'd be lying to him.

I sighed, looking away. "I'll call Lucie," I muttered, then pointed at the napkin at my brother's feet, "and we can talk about this Felix thing. And for now, Vinny, just do me a favor."

I cast him a sideways glance, the scarred side of my lips sneaking up a little. "Do me a favor, and hold on."