Cian

"You know, I don't think she likes us much."

    Vinny gave me a sour look, rolling his eyes. "No dip," he said. "She obviously hates us."

    We were trekking down one of San Francisco's steep sidewalks, the daylight bright above us, the condensation from the boba tea in my hand turning my palm moist. Admittedly I was a bit warm. Why on earth I'd chosen to wear a hoodie today, I didn't know, but I was busy holding something, so I couldn't remove it at the moment. Guess I'd just have to sweat. "I wouldn't say she hates us," I corrected him, "she's just guarded."

    People had started to give me strange looks; though I was used to it by now, you know, having a dead brother and all, I still dug around in my pocket for my bluetooth and placed it in my ear. We turned right at the corner, just as Vinny said, "No, she hates us."

    I raised an eyebrow at him. "Vinny, how would you feel if you were her? Your brother just got in an accident, a kid you knew committed suicide, and now you can see ghosts all of a sudden. Who wouldn't be freaked out by that? We'll get her eventually."

    "Cian."

    Vinny's voice had changed. It had gone from his usual, whining small sibling tone to something more grave; for this reason I stopped walking, leaning back against the brick exterior of a building. Vinny hovered in front of me—it wasn't quite standing, I don't think—the sunlight almost making him shimmery. I stuck my milk tea straw in between my teeth so I didn't have to talk first.

    Vinny dropped his gaze. "Why do you care so much, anyway? It's not like you owe this girl anything, anything at all, so why are you even trying to help? Maybe we should just leave her alone."

    "Oh, shut up, Vince."

    "What?"

    "I said shut up. She's a threat. It's more than about her brother. It's about why she can see you."

    Vinny scoffed, crossing his arms. His eyes were narrow when he looked at me. "Let me get this straight," he began. "You don't really care about finding her brother, do you? You just want to get her to trust you. This is all some sort of sick investigation?"

    I averted my eyes, gnawing at my straw. "It's for her benefit."

    "That's pathetic, Cian. Taking advantage of her grief like that," Vinny remarked. He sighed, in a way that allowed to me to validate that he truly was disappointed in me. It hurt a bit more than I cared to admit; all I had wanted since Vinny's death was to make it up to him, and somehow I kept seeming to screw it up, every single time. How many more mistakes before I couldn't mess up anymore, before it was just over?

    I guess it was useless anyway. There was no way to make up for something like death. Once they were gone, they were gone. There was no backspace, no eraser, no reset button, not for something like this.

    "You really are a bastard," finished Vinny, and I just glowered, centering myself away from the wall and starting back down the street. I could feel Vinny following me, even if I wasn't looking at him. His presence was eerie in that way.

    I stopped in a dim alley to cast away my empty cup, then exhaled audibly, my back still to my brother. If he'd breathed any longer, I was positive I'd feel it on the back of my neck, but there was nothing, nothing but the darkness, the sun's flame doused like a candle, nothing but Vinny's words in my head: That's pathetic, Cian.

    "God—" I stopped, then pushed on, the hissing of imaginary fire in my mouth only angering me further. "Goddammit!"

    Vinny's voice had grown small. "C-Cian...?"

    I whirled on him suddenly, and he staggered back, his corporeality flickering for a moment, as if he were merely the beam of a flashlight. It frustrated me. He was there but he wasn't. He was with me but he was somewhere else. He was alive but he was dead. The only thing he was and really was was right.

    "I'm trying, Vinny," I said, and I was stunned at how soft my voice had become. "I'm trying. I'm trying to be the person you want me to be, the person I should be, but it's hard, okay? I'm supposed to be an angel, the purest of the pure, but it's not that easy. Just...trust me, okay? I know. I screwed up, and I keep screwing up, but I'm trying. Jesus Christ"—further frustrated, I kicked at the garbage can with my foot— "I'm trying so hard it hurts, Vince!"

    Vinny stared at me. "You think helping this girl is going to make it better, or something?"

    "I don't know. I don't know."

    "Cian."

    "What, Vinny!" I yelped. I was out of it. I didn't know what I was saying, what I was doing. I was a spout of words that tangled together and I was a bunch of feelings that were an incomprehensible mass in my throat. I realized that's what I had been since the accident. Just a mess. A mess trying to pull itself together, maybe achieving it for a second or two, but then unraveling all over again.

    My toe was throbbing now. I sank down against the dumpster and buried my face in my hands. I'd never felt so alone. Vinny was there, but I was alone, truthfully. I was alone in my endeavors to be the brother I was supposed to; I was alone in this ongoing battle I knew I could never win.

    I was cold, too, which meant Vinny was a lot closer than he had been. I looked up, and his face was inches from mine, the depths of his blue eyes peering at me out of his pale face. He frowned at me, and I saw his hand reach towards me, towards my fingers, but both of just sighed when it fell through my skin like he was just a hologram. It wasn't like we'd been expecting anything else. 

    "Tell me this," Vinny said, sitting back. "Are you trying to help Lucie for her or for yourself?"

    I thought about it for a moment. That's what all this had been about, right? Vinny accusing me of self-absorption, of only thinking of myself. What I couldn't seem to figure out was whether it was an accusation, or an observation.

    "Do you care about her, about making sure she's okay?"

    I stared at him levelly. "I just met her."

    "But you can tell she's conflicted," Vinny argued. "I mean, like you said. She may be a danger to herself, even to others. Does that matter to you, or is this about making yourself look better?"

    I didn't answer. I wasn't sure what to say.

    "You're my brother, Cian," Vinny told me, his voice as soft and transparent as he himself. I could feel his eyes on me, but I looked hastily away. "It's not going to matter what you do; I'm still going to love you. So if this is about me—"

    "It's always about you, Vinny. I mean, you're the one who got the short end of the stick, stuck here on earth with no option to move on, and why? Because I'm an idiot. I keep trying to fix it. Let me fix it, Vince. Let me fix it," I urged him, my voice trembling. Gritting my teeth, I wiped hair out of my face and fought tears. I hadn't known I'd felt like this until I'd opened my mouth.

    Vinny's voice had grown in both firmness and volume. "You can't fix it, as if it's your responsibility to anyway. I made the decision to stay here, so stop beating yourself up about it. Please calm down, Cian. It's okay, it's okay. Hear me? Just listen. If I can't touch you, just listen. It's okay."

    I got to my feet, abruptly silencing Vinny. "Fine. I'm helping Lucie for Lucie, not for me. I mean it. I'll do whatever to get us on her side," I said. I brushed my pants off, sniffling and heading for the alley's exit. "You're right, Vinny, she needs us, needs help somehow, and we're going to give it to her—"

    I cut off with a cough, clawing at my chest as I bent over, aware Vinny was watching me. My heart had stopped for a moment, long enough that I felt it. By now, it was a familiar pain, a sharp jab that knocked the wind from my lungs for a moment. Just because it was familiar, however, did not mean it didn't catch me totally off guard.

    Vinny asked urgently, "You okay there?"

    I straightened up, my heart falling back into its beat. My shoulder blades were burning; my head ached. I looked towards the streets with a new urgency. "I'm fine," I said, "but someone just died."

I'd half-expected the police to be there, but when I reached the house, it was empty. Vinny and I stood outside the townhouse; it was made of dark brick, a gothic spire at its top, the door a blood red. It looked a little like something out of a horror movie. Vines climbed up the siding, and it slanted on the uneven ground it was built on.

    I glanced at Vinny. "Maybe you should wait outside."
     He pouted and folded his arms. "I am fifteen years old. You can't tell me how to live my life."

    "You're a ghost, Vinny."

    The look on his face almost made me feel bad for saying it. I just sighed and reluctantly agreed to let him come with me, so we climbed the stoop together, and I reached to knock on the door—

    Only to have it opened by Vinny, who had vanished from my side without my noticing. He pulled tricks like that sometimes; they were not funny, especially not when they made you spill a hot drink on yourself.

    Not, of course, that something like that had ever happened.

    "Save the tricks for later, okay?" I told Vinny, as he stepped aside to let me in. "I'm on the job right now."
     "Hey. That trick was not easy. You know how difficult it is to grasp things? I have no idea how poltergeists do it. The levitating lamps and stuff? It's hard."

    "Shut up."

    "Okay."

    The foyer was cramped, and it was made even more so by the coat rack that had been tossed to the ground. I stepped over it cautiously, peering up at the chandelier above my head, the dim, beige walls. Something felt off about this. Something had happened here that wasn't supposed to. My shoulder blades tingled, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

    I continued to the kitchen, Vinny behind me, and that was where we found the body, lying there on the white tile, unmoving. Vinny gasped, and when I looked at him, he was faded, almost not there at all. "Vinny, this is precisely why I told you to stay outside."

    "I'm practically a man, Cian," said Vinny, his hands fists. He seemed to further solidify, which, I realized, was not a phrase commonly used when speaking of a person, but thus was the story of my everyday life.

    I put my hand to my face, not even bothering to reply to that. I bent towards the body instead, since the spirit didn't seem to be anywhere. It was possible another death angel had already gotten to him; either way, the feeling of something off grew. My curiosity switch had been flipped. Now I had to know what was wrong, exactly what was wrong.

    The dead man was likely a rich one; he was in an obviously expensive suit, his tie thrown around his neck, and he had one of those rich guy haircuts with the gelled swoosh on the top. His face was twisted with fear, frozen that way. I wondered what had been the last thing he'd seen. His skin wasn't all that cold. He hadn't been dead for long.

    The body wasn't even the strangest part.

    Beside the dead man was the only blood at the entire scene, and it was used to scrawl a meticulously neat message, one that both confused and enticed me: Tis starving that makes it fat.

    I backed up. This was more than off. It was wrong. This man had been murdered, but why? How? And why was there that small of an amount of blood at the scene?

    Vinny had a hand over his mouth. "Cian, the hell did we just find?"

    I looked towards him, wide-eyed. "I have no idea."