Cian

Vinny and I were alone in Lucie's kitchen.

Lucie was upstairs, messing with her hair or her clothes or whatever girls did, which left us two brothers sitting around her island and staring at each other. Being with Vinny had never been awkward before, but now it was, because he kept looking at me and then looking away and looking back up again. He sat on top of the island, legs folded underneath him. The authoritative older brother part of me wanted to scold him, but it's not like he was affecting the counter at all. As always: there but not there.

I rested my elbows upon the granite. "You look disturbed."

"I am disturbed," he answered promptly.

"Why are you disturbed?"

"Maybe because I've never seen you mash your mouth on someone else's. And, like, you were laying on top of each other," Vinny said with a grimace, wrinkling his nose. He shook his shoulders as if removing an invisible insect. "It was gross and weird. I've never seen two people so close."

"I don't think I was mashing," I argued, folding my arms. Vinny's eyebrows rose. "Mashing is a bit of a violent word."

"I don't care what you were doing. The main idea is that I did not want to see it."

"You should, like, knock!"

"There was no door! And regardless, knocking takes effort!"

"You could have announced your presence somehow!"

"I wouldn't have to if you two weren't vigorously mouth-mashing!"

I growled, "Vinny—"

"I cannot leave you two alone for five minutes without you both getting in some sort of fight," Lucie remarked as she strode across her tile flooring, arms folded. She'd taken her backwards hat off, and her dark curls spilled down to her shoulders, some hanging in the ebony of her eyes. She'd smoothed the wrinkles in her shirt, yet was still adjusting the fit of her denim shorts as she flicked her eyes from Vinny to me and back again. "I don't know whether to be annoyed or to be laughing at the fact Vinny has created the word mouth-mashing."

He harrumphed, blowing an ethereal strand of hair from his face. "I'm sure it was a word already."

"Sure," Lucie said, seating herself on the barstool beside me. She licked her fingers, one clean sweep of her tongue, and then reached in my direction. I shot her a bemused look as she ran her hand through my hair, replacing hairs I hadn't known I'd messed up. Done with her work, she sat back and looked towards Vinny, who, for a dead person, looked very green. "Stop looking at us like that and tell us what you randomly poofed yourself here to tell us."

"It's not poofing. It's not like I go 'abra cadabra' and magically appear places."

"Really?" I questioned, as Lucie and I shared a look of exaggerated curiosity, "because that's kind of what it looks like."

"I don't even know why I talk to you people!" Vince huffed.

"Maybe because we're the only two people who can respond," Lucie answered, and at the acidic look my little brother gave her, just sighed. "Fine. Sorry. In all seriousness, what happened with Eden?"

Despite the fact Vinny's lungs had stopped needing oxygen a long time ago, he nevertheless heaved a long sigh anyway, casting his eyes at the ground. Pale blond hair hung over his forehead, a curtain of spun thread. Narrow fingers tapped across the granite, stopped, tapped again. "I found her at a coffee shop. Nothing fancy—just a coffee shop. Everything was going fine until I knocked something over and she saw me."

My lip tightened. I'd known it since the beginning. "She didn't deny it this time, did she?"

Vinny shook his head. His voice was quiet. "She called me over, made me sit with her. There went my spy mission...but there is this. She's agreed to meet with us. All of us."

"All of us? Where? Did you tell her who we were looking for?" asked Lucie, and I grinned to myself. She always asked the right questions before anyone else thought of them.

"No," Vinny replied, "but I get the feeling she's known for a while. She gave me this address."

Lucie and I watched as Vinny produced a wrinkled piece of paper from the pocket of his immortal swim trunks, spreading it out on the granite. His fingers moved briskly and harshly, as they always did when he touched something. For him, making contact with the world wasn't easy and he had to be brief about it, for his influence only lasted for a few seconds.

The paper read: 651 Redmane Dr.

I stared at the paper, shook my head, stared again. "That's her old house. Why would she want us to meet there?"

"Beats me," Vinny responded, leaning his cheek into his hand. His eyes shifted from the scribbled address scrutinize me instead, an unanswered question hidden in his irises. "Are we going?"

"We don't have a choice," Lucie announced. She was glaring at the paper, eyes burning like hot coals. It wasn't an unfamiliar look. It was the look that said she'd do anything to find her brother, the look that said she was too close and yet too far to stop. It was fiery and adamant and as stubborn as a stone. "Like we said before, she's our only connection to Dempsey. And if they both rub shoulders with fallen angels, as you say, then...then we're the closest we've ever been."

I swallowed. There was something narrow and tight in my chest; I couldn't explain it. "But..."

Her gaze snapped up, long eyelashes fluttering. I was stricken to see the unshed tears in her eyes. "But what, Cian?"

I shoved my hands down in my pockets and averted my eyes. "Nothing. Okay. We're going. What time does she want us there?"

Vinny shrugged and hopped off the counter, balancing against it instead. He cast a worried glance towards Lucie, who had dropped her gaze back to the paper, idly fiddling with it in her fingers. He sighed. "Oddly enough, she just told me whenever we're ready."

Lucie got up and walked outside.

I glanced towards my brother. "I guess she's ready."

Vinny watched the door, his hands in his pockets. "I worry about her sometimes."

I would have answered, said something to clear the concern on his face, but at that moment, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a miracle I'd remembered to take it with me at all; yes, I now owned a cell phone, but carrying it around was still not a habit of mine. Surprised I was receiving a call at all, I removed it and squinted at the screen. Seeing who it was, I clicked my teeth, ordering Vinny to go outside with Lucie. He looked at me quizzically, and only after additional shooing did he disappear.

I pressed the device to my ear. "What do you want, Caprice?"

I heard her narrowed eyes in the tone of her voice. "Why is it that every time I talk to you, you act like you'd rather be doing something else?"

"I dunno," I responded, hiding my face behind my palm, "maybe because I'd rather be doing something else."

"I'm only checking on you, little one," Caprice said, cool voice like a blade in my ears. It was confusing, almost, how she always sounded the same, reserved and honeyed and easy. What did Caprice sound like when she didn't have everything figured out? The world may not ever know. "I mean—it's been, what, not even a week since you lost your wings? You must be mourning."

"I'm fine."

"Liar."

"Caprice, I would appreciate it if you'd stop acting like we're friends. We're not friends," I said. I had begun to pace in front of the island; for me, there was no such thing as standing still. "You gave up that chance when you consented to letting a demon kill me."

She sighed in superfluous exasperation. "You were getting on my nerves."

"That's not an excuse to kill people! Especially those of your own kind!"

"Don't lecture me, my little mortal boy," she said, then: "Oh. You're extremely mortal now, aren't you? The wings were what slowed your aging, but now they're gone..."

I snapped, "Can this conversation be over now? I have places to be."

Caprice hesitated, and for a long while, no noise fed from the other line. When she spoke next, her voice sounded even colder, sending shivers down my spine. I stopped pacing, the floor firm beneath my feet. "Listen to you. I can hear it in your voice. You don't even know what you are anymore. Tell me, Cian. When you look in the mirror, do you recognize yourself?"

I rubbed my shoulder blades, watched the shadows of Vinny and Lucie moving beyond her front door. I have places to be. "Caprice," I said, ignoring her question, though it sunk like a rock in my gut, "can I ask a favor of you?"

"I thought you said we weren't friends. Favors are a friendly thing."

"Yes, but we can be friendly and not friends," I argued. I put one foot in front of the other, slowly settling back into speed. I walked this way, pivoted, ambled in the other direction. There was nothing but the automatic step, step, step, turn; step, step, step, turn. "Just tell me this," I said.

"What do you know about fallen angels?"